Solicitor oversight - Didn't pay out gifts to charities in mother's will, now being chased

Bixer

My mother died a few years ago and so naturally my sister and I arranged for a solicitor to sort out everything to do with her will/probate, which included gifts to a few charities. Said solicitor never made any further mention about these, so when they paid out the remainder of our mother's estate to us about a year later we both assumed this had all been taken care of and didn't give it another thought. 

Then just over a further year later, the solicitor contacts us both again stating that one of the charities has reached out to them asking for our contact details so that they can get the gift still owed from my mother's will. My sister and I, both confused, asked the solicitor why this hadn't been arranged a long time ago and they admitted that it was an oversight on their behalf and essentially could only apologise for the mistake (as well as failing to raise it at multiple opportunities etc). This particular gift only required a few hundred pounds from each of us so we paid them half each and said we'd discuss the others. 

Another of the gifts involved a 5 digit sum so my sister and I briefly discussed how best to approach this, but we're not at all close (haven't seen each other since the funeral and our only other contact since has been regarding this), so this remained unresolved. I put pretty much all of my half towards a deposit on a house, so it's not the kind of money we still had lying around. 

Fast forward to now and the solicitor has contacted us again stating that that charity has reached out to them asking for our contact details, but due to GDPR rules they cannot do so unless we approve. 

I'm just wondering if anyone has any particular advice about how best to approach this? Of course I'd like to honour my mother's wishes, but as I mentioned this is for a much larger amount that I just don't have currently and I would say with relative certainty that my sister wouldn't either. I'm similarly worried that if she decided she'd rather ignore them and hope it goes away, I certainly can't afford to be responsible for the entire amount myself and also wouldn't want to deal with the risk of them taking further action. Is it wise to speak to the charity and explain this? Is there any action worth taking against our solicitor? I do have them admitting to the error in writing if that makes a difference. The only other thing I could think of would be some kind of payment plan, but then to not cripple myself financially this would take years, which feels unrealistic. 

caprikid1

I believe most charities can be quite agressive chasing these.

Keep_pedalling

Who were the executors? If this was you and your sibling and you just appointed the solicitors to act for you you are still ultimately responsible for paying the beneficiaries. 

Did the solicitors not provide you with a set of estate accounts? If they did this mistake should have been obvious to you. 

poseidon1

Bixer said:

My mother died a few years ago and so naturally my sister and I arranged for a solicitor to sort out everything to do with her will/probate, which included gifts to a few charities. Said solicitor never made any further mention about these, so when they paid out the remainder of our mother's estate to us about a year later we both assumed this had all been taken care of and didn't give it another thought. 

Then just over a further year later, the solicitor contacts us both again stating that one of the charities has reached out to them asking for our contact details so that they can get the gift still owed from my mother's will. My sister and I, both confused, asked the solicitor why this hadn't been arranged a long time ago and they admitted that it was an oversight on their behalf and essentially could only apologise for the mistake (as well as failing to raise it at multiple opportunities etc). This particular gift only required a few hundred pounds from each of us so we paid them half each and said we'd discuss the others. 

Another of the gifts involved a 5 digit sum so my sister and I briefly discussed how best to approach this, but we're not at all close (haven't seen each other since the funeral and our only other contact since has been regarding this), so this remained unresolved. I put pretty much all of my half towards a deposit on a house, so it's not the kind of money we still had lying around. 

Fast forward to now and the solicitor has contacted us again stating that that charity has reached out to them asking for our contact details, but due to GDPR rules they cannot do so unless we approve. 

I'm just wondering if anyone has any particular advice about how best to approach this? Of course I'd like to honour my mother's wishes, but as I mentioned this is for a much larger amount that I just don't have currently and I would say with relative certainty that my sister wouldn't either. I'm similarly worried that if she decided she'd rather ignore them and hope it goes away, I certainly can't afford to be responsible for the entire amount myself and also wouldn't want to deal with the risk of them taking further action. Is it wise to speak to the charity and explain this? Is there any action worth taking against our solicitor? I do have them admitting to the error in writing if that makes a difference. The only other thing I could think of would be some kind of payment plan, but then to not cripple myself financially this would take years, which feels unrealistic. 

If you and your sister were joint executors of your mother's will, then you are both strictly liable to settle the outstanding charitable bequests, even though you delegated estate administration to the solicitor. The executors' liabilities and obligations are uncompromising in this respect.

When the solicitor settled the estate in your joint favour they were supposed to have supplied you with final estate distribution accounts which should have required your executors' approval. This should then have put you on notice that all aspects of the estate administration had not been dealt with as regards charitable bequests.

Regrettably for you and your sister this is not an of issue  you can both ignore, your mother's will is a legal contract the executors  are bound to comply with and the charity concerned are similarly obligated to pursue.

Finally, you will have noted that I flagged this as an executor obligation and not something burdened on the beneficiaries. So if one or other of you were not executors then as a mere beneficiary it is not (intially)  your problem.

As regards the negligence of the solicitor who you paid to professionally manage this matter on your behalf, you should both consider whether you have a cause of action against them for placing you in this invidious position.

Bixer

Thank you for your replies, yes I should have mentioned it was my sister and I who were appointed joint executors, hence why the charity are asking for our details. 

In terms of final estate accounts etc I honestly can't remember, I didn't know that was something we were supposed to be checking. A mistake on our behalf in that case if we should've, but having never been through this process before I just assumed as we were paying a solicitor that they would cover all bases for us - had these charities themselves not reached out we'd have never known that they hadn't. 

Does anyone know what would be the best thing to do going forward in that case? As I mentioned I'm more than happy to honour our mother's wishes, but this will be thousands that they're owed and I just don't know how we're going to get that after the fact. The charity we did pay mentioned they usually charge interest in these cases of delayed payment but due to the error from our solicitor they'd overlook it - if this much larger charity do seek accrued interest on top then that's a significant amount more. 

And if my sister digs her heels in and won't pay am I responsible for all of it? 

Hoenir

Bixer said:

In terms of final estate accounts etc I honestly can't remember, I didn't know that was something we were supposed to be checking. A mistake on our behalf in that case if we should've, but having never been through this process before I just assumed as we were paying a solicitor that they would cover all bases for us - had these charities themselves not reached out we'd have never known that they hadn't. 

If a 5 figure sum was involved I'm surprised that it wasn't noted that this was missing from the final Estate Accounts. Legally you are both executors of the Estate and remain liable for the final distribution. As a consequence I'm sure that the solicitors would have requested that you check the Estate Accounts prior to doing so, 

Keep_pedalling

You are jointly and severally responsible for it, which means they can chase both of you for it but if they they have only one party to chase for some reason, they can go after that one person for all of it. 

You both need to avoid this ending up in the courts as your legal costs are likely to be significant. How much are we talking about here?

poppystar

I think as a first step you should look at the estate accounts now. You need to verify what happened to ensure the solicitors did simply split the whole estate between you and your sister and didn’t actually set the charity money aside but not pay out. You do need to be clear now at every point going forward. Legally the charities are owed their gift from your mother and it is well overdue. 

Exodi

Bixer said:

Is it wise to speak to the charity and explain this?

If by explain this, you mean reiterating your current position which is effectively "oopsy daisy, we spent all your money, really sorry" I think it's probably best not to contact them.

caprikid1 said:

I believe most charities can be quite agressive chasing these.

And for good reason! While I genuinely believe this is an innocent mistake by the OP, you can only imagine how many beneficiaries who might try to wriggle out of settling charitable disbursements from what they might then see as 'their money'.

Bixer said:

As I mentioned I'm more than happy to honour our mother's wishes, but this will be thousands that they're owed and I just don't know how we're going to get that after the fact. 

You can't suggest you're happy to honour your late mothers wishes and simultaneously suggest you can't pay it. You can't do both.

I feel like I've come across as overly critical in this as I totally sympathise with the position your solicitor has landed you, but in reality you need to find a way to settle this debt. 

Is it possible to take out additional borrowing against your house (also known as a further advance?). This can usually be done back up to 90-95% equity if required, could be cleanest option. Alternatively consider a loan, etc.

Unfortunately I don't think you can just bury your head on the sand with this or expect to easily resolve this by informing the charity the money has gone. As touched upon earlier, these charities have legal teams for this very scenario (I have a friend of a friend who does this as a full time job).

saajan_12

What was the size of the estate you and sister received? If a 5 figure sum is owed to the charity, that's anywhere between 5k and 50k each - did you receive a windfall of that size that you weren't expecting?

Bixer

Hoenir said:
If a 5 figure sum was involved I'm surprised that it wasn't noted that this was missing from the final Estate Accounts. Legally you are both executors of the Estate and remain liable for the final distribution. As a consequence I'm sure that the solicitors would have requested that you check the Estate Accounts prior to doing so, 

There were 3 separate payments over a period of maybe about 18 months - 2 years. A smaller amount first, the rest of the existing funds about a year later and then anything from the house sale which took a lot longer (due to most of this happening over lockdown), so I think as it was all so protracted it was just overlooked. I've just re-read through the solicitor's apology and they've said they intended for the charity gifts to be paid from the house sale, which probably explains why they were forgotten about. 

Again just to reiterate, I accept it was an error on our behalf too for not being more diligent, I just don't think we knew we needed to. My sister and I both separately overlooked it, so I'm assuming she also expected it to all be taken care of for us. 

Keep_pedalling said:

You are jointly and severally responsible for it, which means they can chase both of you for it but if they they have only one party to chase for some reason, they can go after that one person for all of it. 

You both need to avoid this ending up in the courts as your legal costs are likely to be significant. How much are we talking about here?

Being on an internet forum I've assumed to keep things vague where possible, but it was for £10,000, so we technically owe £5000 each. Not a wildly unobtainable amount, I just mean not an amount I have ready and waiting. 

Similarly my fear as I've hinted at (and part of the reason we're not in great contact), is that my sister is more likely to want to ignore in the hope that it goes away (which I know it won't), so it's more than likely that it's just going to be me that ends up owing all of it. 

Exodi said:

You can't suggest you're happy to honour your late mothers wishes and simultaneously suggest you can't pay it. You can't do both.

I don't understand how that's difficult to comprehend? If I had the money I would pay it, but it's not the kind of money one necessarily keeps lying around so I can't right now. 'Can't' is a different word than 'won't'. 

I'm not saying 'it's not fair, no one told me so you can't have it'. I'm saying if said charity demand the full figure right here, right now then I simply don't currently have it to give, hence me asking for advice about how best to approach the situation.