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Solicitors acting deceitful?
My brother and I used a solicitor to assist in our late mother's estate. The estate dealings dragged on for several years. It got to the point where the only thing seemingly holding matters up, was the sale of some 'Cash Converter Ltd' (Pawnshop) shares.
My brother and I, who had both been made Administrators at the suggestion of the solicitor. Came to make a covenant that we emailed back and forth, agreeing that I would keep the Cash Converter Ltd shares, and my brother would receive a pre-agreed monetary sum from my side of the estate. We both emailed this identical covenant/agreement to the solicitor.
The solicitor soon after we sent our agreement, we assume read it, and deposited a division of our late mother's estate monies into our prospective bank accounts, however, the Solicitor claimed that they were going to hold onto a sum of money on account for matters that were not quite yet quite resolved.
That matters seemingly being that the 'Cash Converter Ltd', share certificates had been sent to a broker in Australia by the solicitor to be sold. Three years later, and the shares have still not been addressed by the Australian broker engaged by the solicitor.
The solicitor sometime later apologized for not reading the Covenant drawn up by my brother and I and that we had both taken the time to email to her separately, whilst carbon copying one another, to verify, we had both sent the same unchanged documented agreement.
My brother and I had also both asked for a copy of our case file. The solicitor told us that the case file was very voluminous and that they would need to be paid for printing it out.
I informed the solicitor that I would be happy to have the file in digital format, preferably in Adobe .pdf format. This was not something that was offered by the solicitor. However, this is how my brother and I eventually received our copy's after I complained to the leading partner. It's the way other law firms have supplied me with documents and files in the past.
However, it now seems after some significant research, that the file that was supplied by the solicitors is incomplete, and missing copy of some of the more sketchy email communications that the solicitor had made, with a privately contracted (by me) surveyor, the solicitor's communications supposedly on behalf of the estate.
The surveyors report was a private evaluation, that I had privately paid for out of my own pocket, and wanted to make outside of the formal estate surveyors assessment (I just wanted a private second opinion, which I felt was necessary, due to the situation that the formal report had been made under) however it turned out that the information the solicitor connived out of MY private surveyors, eventually actually served against me. As the figures from my report were used instead of the formal report paid for by the estate.
Copy of the email communications from the solicitor to my private surveyor, claiming that they had my expressed permission to see the report (They did not have my permission to request this information) have been omitted from the case file. The case file has also been PADDED out with a considerable quantity of completely unrelated material that has absolutely nothing to do with our estate case. But is seemingly related to other persons private legal matters.
I did get a strong feeling when we asked for the case file, the solicitor was doing everything they could possibly legally do to dissuade us from receiving a copy of that file.
Can anyone tell me what the legalities are here?
My brother and I, who had both been made Administrators at the suggestion of the solicitor. Came to make a covenant that we emailed back and forth, agreeing that I would keep the Cash Converter Ltd shares, and my brother would receive a pre-agreed monetary sum from my side of the estate. We both emailed this identical covenant/agreement to the solicitor.
The solicitor soon after we sent our agreement, we assume read it, and deposited a division of our late mother's estate monies into our prospective bank accounts, however, the Solicitor claimed that they were going to hold onto a sum of money on account for matters that were not quite yet quite resolved.
That matters seemingly being that the 'Cash Converter Ltd', share certificates had been sent to a broker in Australia by the solicitor to be sold. Three years later, and the shares have still not been addressed by the Australian broker engaged by the solicitor.
The solicitor sometime later apologized for not reading the Covenant drawn up by my brother and I and that we had both taken the time to email to her separately, whilst carbon copying one another, to verify, we had both sent the same unchanged documented agreement.
My brother and I had also both asked for a copy of our case file. The solicitor told us that the case file was very voluminous and that they would need to be paid for printing it out.
I informed the solicitor that I would be happy to have the file in digital format, preferably in Adobe .pdf format. This was not something that was offered by the solicitor. However, this is how my brother and I eventually received our copy's after I complained to the leading partner. It's the way other law firms have supplied me with documents and files in the past.
However, it now seems after some significant research, that the file that was supplied by the solicitors is incomplete, and missing copy of some of the more sketchy email communications that the solicitor had made, with a privately contracted (by me) surveyor, the solicitor's communications supposedly on behalf of the estate.
The surveyors report was a private evaluation, that I had privately paid for out of my own pocket, and wanted to make outside of the formal estate surveyors assessment (I just wanted a private second opinion, which I felt was necessary, due to the situation that the formal report had been made under) however it turned out that the information the solicitor connived out of MY private surveyors, eventually actually served against me. As the figures from my report were used instead of the formal report paid for by the estate.
Copy of the email communications from the solicitor to my private surveyor, claiming that they had my expressed permission to see the report (They did not have my permission to request this information) have been omitted from the case file. The case file has also been PADDED out with a considerable quantity of completely unrelated material that has absolutely nothing to do with our estate case. But is seemingly related to other persons private legal matters.
I did get a strong feeling when we asked for the case file, the solicitor was doing everything they could possibly legally do to dissuade us from receiving a copy of that file.
Can anyone tell me what the legalities are here?
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