Solicitor Interim payment

Bink1942

Having been through the Probate washing machine this year, started late January after my fathers death,i received the Grant of Probate on the 13th September, all his assets have now been gathered in by the Solicitor apart from monies from the sale of the house, which is up for sale as we speak.

Spoken to tthe Solicitor, he said as i am the sole benificiary and executor, he can give me an interim payment, as he cannot release all of the monies until the property is sold.

Is this stanard and correct practice to do this?, i just thought if they have the monies, they should release the lot to me, not an interim payment.

My question is, am i in my rights to demand the full amount as it stands?

Thanks

molerat

If the property is still under the control of the estate there may be bills / liabilities that pop up before the sale so something needs to be held back until the estate is finalised.

Bink1942

molerat said:

If the property is still under the control of the estate there may be bills / liabilities that pop up before the sale so something needs to be held back until the estate is finalised.

Thanks for the reply.

The only liabilities are council Tax if any, and the British Gas bill, which i can pay myself out of the Money.

This is what the Solicitor has said to me.

doodling

Hi,

As with everything in life, you can demand anything you like - it doesn't mean that you are entitled to get it though.

The solicitor will want to make sure that they have sufficient cash to cover any costs / debts that might come up before the estate is finally settled.  The right amount of money to cover such costs and hence the reasonableness of the solicitors position will depend on the detail of the estate.  It is quite normal do do this.  Legally they aren't obliged to give you anything at all until the house is sold and their work is complete.

Any payment you receive now will obviously be an interim payment, unless you are saying that you don't want the money from the sale of the house?

Bink1942

doodling said:

Hi,

As with everything in life, you can demand anything you like - it doesn't mean that you are entitled to get it though.

The solicitor will want to make sure that they have sufficient cash to cover any costs / debts that might come up before the estate is finally settled.  The right amount of money to cover such costs and hence the reasonableness of the solicitors position will depend on the detail of the estate.  It is quite normal do do this.  Legally they aren't obliged to give you anything at all until the house is sold and their work is complete.

Any payment you receive now will obviously be an interim payment, unless you are saying that you don't want the money from the sale of the house?

Thanks for the info, i just found it odd, having not gone through the process before, thanks for clearing that up for me.

SiliconChip

Of course, the other thing that the estate will be liable for, and this is probably what concerns the solicitor the most, is their fees for the work that they've done and have still to do.

Mojisola

Bink1942 said:

Spoken to tthe Solicitor, he said as i am the sole benificiary and executor, he can give me an interim payment, as he cannot release all of the monies until the property is sold.

Is this stanard and correct practice to do this?, i just thought if they have the monies, they should release the lot to me, not an interim payment.

Sounds like a good chap.  There are far more people who complain that their solicitor won't hand over any of the money until the estate is completely settled.

Your solicitor is being fair to you while making sure that all the estate debts can be covered from the remainder.

BooJewels

I'd concur with others, the offer of an interim payment is a gesture of good will - not a right.  I suspect that statistically, solicitors making interim payments from an estate would be much less common than holding it all back until the very last stage of the execution of their duties.

I was an executor this year and made an interim payment quite early on, as the bank settled quickly and once I'd done some sums on what I thought that I'd still need for estate expenses and added a generous contingency - I didn't really want the responsibility of holding funds effectively on behalf of others - so it suited me to do it that way - plus I was very confident of the deceased's finances and arrangements - a solicitor is likely to be more professionally cautious, when they don't have that same familiarity with the testator's affairs.  

Savvy_Sue

Bink1942 said:

molerat said:

If the property is still under the control of the estate there may be bills / liabilities that pop up before the sale so something needs to be held back until the estate is finalised.

Thanks for the reply.

The only liabilities are council Tax if any, and the British Gas bill, which i can pay myself out of the Money.

This is what the Solicitor has said to me.

The thing is, even though you CAN pay these out of 'the money' (and presumably would do so), I believe that responsibility for paying these bills would remain with 'the estate'. The solicitor is responsible for 'the estate', hence his reluctance to give you all the currently available money. 

SiliconChip said:

Of course, the other thing that the estate will be liable for, and this is probably what concerns the solicitor the most, is their fees for the work that they've done and have still to do.

This too. If the house takes an age to sell, or there are surprises to be dealt with, then the solicitor may well request an interim payment for his work. Again, we're all sure the OP is a reasonable person, who would pay such an interim bill from 'the money', but there are those who would spend all 'the money' in a tearing hurry and then be desperate for the house sale to go through!