Overpayment received from a Will

[fifties girl]

Hi. After an Aunt of mine who died a while ago, I knew she had left most of her estate to various charities, and that her Solicitor who drew up her Will she also appointed to be the Executor of the Will. Just over a year after her death, I received a letter from the Solicitor to say that my Aunt had left me £5,000 from her estate and after the Solicitor verified who I was, sent a cheque for this amount. I wanted to spend this money wisely and used it to update a shower room and also a short break holiday. Five months have now passed since the payment, and last wee I received a letter from the Solicitors saying that they had made an error and I should have only received £2,000 and I have to return the £3,000. The reason for the mistake on their part was that my Aunt had made a Will but there was a Codicil added, the solicitor gave her secretary instructions and amounts to be made by those given in the codicil. Apparently the secretary was new and she altered the amounts due to those that had been written in the original Will and not the codicil as the solicitor had instructed, and that the error had only just come to light. My problem is, I accepted the money in good faith as being correct, and have spent it. I am 62 years old, I am in receipt of no benefits and I do not work, I only receive a small pension of £105 per month. I rely on being kept by my husband. I understand from the solicitors letter that I have to pay the money back, but I simply do not have the money to do. I emailed the solicitor on Friday to this effect and they suggested I spoke to family members for them to give me the money to pay them. If I can't pay the solicitor I can't repay my family either, so I don't want to be debt to my family. I also feel the money problem is between the solicitor and myself and I don't want third parties involved. Can anyone tell me what options are available for me to make the payment.

[jaguarsuk]

Depending on what was in that email you may be able to just tell them that the error was theirs, you spent the money in good faith after they advised you of the amount and having no reason to believe the money wasn't yours to spend. If they filed any claim against you, the defence would be change of position and citing Lipkin Gorman v Karpnale Ltd 1991.

Best to copy and paste the whole email (removing personal details) and their response here.