Solicitor holding beneficiaries' money

Executor2

I am an executor of someone’s will. Their estate was dealt with by the County Council legal team, nothing complicated as they were in a care home for some years.  The solicitor dealing with the probate etc. received the full amount of money from the estate – from the county - at the end of October but in spite of a duty to do so, failed to inform me. I only found out by accident as I telephoned  last week to ask what progress there had been.  The money should have been distributed to the beneficiaries in a timely way.  I assume that the money, in excess of £300,000 has been in the solicitor client account for the past three months and will have generated considerable interest.  Can I insist on being told how much interest has been generated, and does the interest belong to the benficiaries?  What should I do?

MattMattMattUK

Executor2 said:

I am an executor of someone’s will. Their estate was dealt with by the County Council legal team, nothing complicated as they were in a care home for some years.  The solicitor dealing with the probate etc. received the full amount of money from the estate – from the county - at the end of October but in spite of a duty to do so, failed to inform me. I only found out by accident as I telephoned  last week to ask what progress there had been.  The money should have been distributed to the beneficiaries in a timely way.  I assume that the money, in excess of £300,000 has been in the solicitor client account for the past three months and will have generated considerable interest.  Can I insist on being told how much interest has been generated, and does the interest belong to the benficiaries?

It will be a holding/client account and is unlikely to earn interest at all, let alone "considerable interest".

Executor2 said:

What should I do?

You should first check you have not received a notification from them and missed it, if they had no you should ask them why they had not contacted you to allow you to distribute funds. If you feel the answers at that stage are unsatisfactory then you should raise a formal complaint with the firm in question. If you are unsatisfied with their response then you can take your complaint to The Legal Ombudsman. 
https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/how-to-complain/

Hoenir

When you spoke to the solicitors what else was left to be done in order to finalise the winding up of the estate? 

Marcon

MattMattMattUK said:

Executor2 said:

I am an executor of someone’s will. Their estate was dealt with by the County Council legal team, nothing complicated as they were in a care home for some years.  The solicitor dealing with the probate etc. received the full amount of money from the estate – from the county - at the end of October but in spite of a duty to do so, failed to inform me. I only found out by accident as I telephoned  last week to ask what progress there had been.  The money should have been distributed to the beneficiaries in a timely way.  I assume that the money, in excess of £300,000 has been in the solicitor client account for the past three months and will have generated considerable interest.  Can I insist on being told how much interest has been generated, and does the interest belong to the benficiaries?

It will be a holding/client account and is unlikely to earn interest at all, let alone "considerable interest".

Rule 7.1 of the SRA Accounts Rules says that firms need to account to clients for a ‘fair’ sum of interest on any client money they hold.

Hoenir

Marcon said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Executor2 said:

I am an executor of someone’s will. Their estate was dealt with by the County Council legal team, nothing complicated as they were in a care home for some years.  The solicitor dealing with the probate etc. received the full amount of money from the estate – from the county - at the end of October but in spite of a duty to do so, failed to inform me. I only found out by accident as I telephoned  last week to ask what progress there had been.  The money should have been distributed to the beneficiaries in a timely way.  I assume that the money, in excess of £300,000 has been in the solicitor client account for the past three months and will have generated considerable interest.  Can I insist on being told how much interest has been generated, and does the interest belong to the benficiaries?

It will be a holding/client account and is unlikely to earn interest at all, let alone "considerable interest".

Rule 7.1 of the SRA Accounts Rules says that firms need to account to clients for a ‘fair’ sum of interest on any client money they hold.

Solicitors client funds are normally deposited overnight with the bank. Collectively they are sufficient for commercial overnight rates.