Solicitor held my money for 20 years should I get interest on top of the capital amount

Grumpy_chap

I would not phone.
Email provides a proper record of exactly who said what and when.

delilahdelilah

Yes emails get a paper trail.  But surprised they are not more in touch with explanation…. Nothing in writing to explain why they are returning my money - and how it’s happened.   I wonder why they are not committing own to paper as such …. It doesn’t feel right…. Almost that even though they have returned the money … they don’t want to admit the error and the length of time it’s taken to find it and return it

Grumpy_chap

Probably because there is a junior admin dealing with it and it is now out of their depth.

artyboy

0.13% interest, assuming compounding over 20 years. How very... generous...

Nope, I wouldn't be settling for that, especially given it's their screw up to start with.

Sea_Shell

delilahdelilah said:

Yes emails get a paper trail.  But surprised they are not more in touch with explanation…. Nothing in writing to explain why they are returning my money - and how it’s happened.   I wonder why they are not committing own to paper as such …. It doesn’t feel right…. Almost that even though they have returned the money … they don’t want to admit the error and the length of time it’s taken to find it and return it

I can't quite get my head around the fact that this wasn't picked up by any sort of audit, well before now.    Have they not said why or how it's come to light, and why now?   What's changed?    What did their initial correspondence say?

They wouldn't have just "found it down the back of the sofa"...so it must have been flagged up on a report of some such.     They probably don't even have to keep files from 20 years ago.

At least by returning the capital amount, they have admitted that this money was owed, so they have in effect admitted an error, by default.

silvercar

Sea_Shell said:

delilahdelilah said:

Yes emails get a paper trail.  But surprised they are not more in touch with explanation…. Nothing in writing to explain why they are returning my money - and how it’s happened.   I wonder why they are not committing own to paper as such …. It doesn’t feel right…. Almost that even though they have returned the money … they don’t want to admit the error and the length of time it’s taken to find it and return it

I can't quite get my head around the fact that this wasn't picked up by any sort of audit, well before now.    Have they not said why or how it's come to light, and why now?   What's changed?    What did their initial correspondence say?

They wouldn't have just "found it down the back of the sofa"...so it must have been flagged up on a report of some such.     They probably don't even have to keep files from 20 years ago.

At least by returning the capital amount, they have admitted that this money was owed, so they have in effect admitted an error, by default.

Also puzzled by this. Talking to the accountants in my family, they were surprised that if it was going to be picked up it would have been done at audit time, so within a year or so of the event. But if there was a good reason for it to be retained at that time, it might not have been picked up. Then in subsequent years there may have been no change reported on legacy amounts; it being a small amount it was hidden by larger funds. The possible explanation suggested was that there was a change in bank account of client money and this account was allowed to languish. Only now has someone decided that this account should be closed and someone charged with identifying all the funds in it. Alternatively, a change in the software used and this too caused an examination of the account balance. 

You are dealing with some honest people here. It could very easily have been “lost” in the system, the amount being relatively small, and it never come to light. 

silvercar

I don’t see any harm in sending them your spreadsheet of expected interest.

Grumpy_chap

silvercar said:

I don’t see any harm in sending them your spreadsheet of expected interest.

I would not do this at this stage.
Make the Solicitors do all the leg work.
There is a good estimation of compound interest up thread, but a proper submission needs to be a bit more accurate using exact rate / change dates and the compounding then gets a bit more involved.

delilahdelilah

Thankyou all for your comments …. It’s a mystery and am still intrigued to see what arrives in the explanation…. I will let you know as I’m updated and again thankyou so much for the thoughtful responses 

[Deleted User]

How will they know what interest to pay?

How much are we talking about