Daughters death in our car nightmare

[Calden]

Nightmare continues with our insurers as we as parents are sidelined even more.

Gradually we are getting information out of our solicitor as to what to expect - which is nothing like what we were told (over the phone) when we signed their agreement.

One year after our Daughters death and the driver has now been charged with 'Death by Dangerous driving' and the case is now referred to the Crown Court. It looks like the smug young driver in a high performance vehicle who killed our daughter is off to jail.

Main claim is being brought by another solicitor from the same company (in another office) on behalf of our grandchildren. We agreed to this setup after complaining about her breach of confidence in trying to 'poach' the main claim and represent the Father who is now in control of the estate.

Our nominated solicitor has finally explained to us we as parents are unlikely to receive much in the way of compensation for our part of the claim as dependants of our daughter through her care of my wife who has been fighting cancer, but as our main concern has always been to ensure the provision of a trust fund for her two girls and to avoid a lump sum payout to the father as he is a proven spendthrift, and as we pursue things through the family law courts, custody and care of the children may change in future.

Our solicitor has drawn up a schedule of losses which is not much more than our funeral expenses but advises us that we are unlikely to recover our sons travel expenses by way of his flight from the southern hemisphere as he 'would have been coming anyway!' The fact that he dropped everything to come and help us through a dreadful month of the burial of his sister - only to lose his job on his return because of his 'mental state' after his loss seems to have no significance.

We kept our total funeral expenses to about 7K including our sons flights.
What constitutes reasonable travel expenses in these circumstances?
Should our solicitor not be fighting on our behalf to recover the expenses we incurred. These costs have been with them for nearly a year and at no time have we been told there would be a problem.

Any advice welcome.

[des8]

I know your are concerned for your granddaughter so good luck with the Family Court process.
Regarding your claim for funeral expenses any case law does seem to support your solicitor's view about what is recoverable from the estate.
It all depends on what is deemed to be reasonable, and that will vary from case to case,and in the event of a dispute that can't be settled amicably one would need to apply to the court. That is something to avoid as costs will likely outweigh any award.
I doubt your son's travel expenses will be deemed recoverable from the estate.

[Calden]

I know your are concerned for your granddaughter so good luck with the Family Court process.
Regarding your claim for funeral expenses any case law does seem to support your solicitor's view about what is recoverable from the estate.
It all depends on what is deemed to be reasonable, and that will vary from case to case,and in the event of a dispute that can't be settled amicably one would need to apply to the court. That is something to avoid as costs will likely outweigh any award.
I doubt your son's travel expenses will be deemed recoverable from the estate.

Thanks Des
So frustrating and just another blow, as we have been working to what little advice was originally given by our solicitor to keep receipts of his travel costs which have been with the solicitor for 11 months now without any suggestion that we would not recover these from the driver.
Only now is this highlighted as a likely problem as we are being asked to sign the schedule of loss before the drivers court appearance this month.
We had been told that the drivers insurance would do nothing until criminal proceedings had been concluded, guilt established and police report made available.