Tweet
Hello, I really hope someone can help to steer me in the right direction on this difficult and emotive subject.
My mother died in May 2017 leaving quite an estate worth a few million £.
My brother is the executor of the estate as well as a beneficiary. My sister and I are also beneficiaries. The 3 beneficiaries are entitled to one third equal share each of the estate and the Will is clear and simple.
When my mother died my brother was caring for her and lived with my mother full time in her home with his wife. It was his only residence, My mother’s home was a property worth approx £1M and was a major estate asset. The other main asset was a commercial property which generated rent on a monthly basis.
Probate was granted within a year of my mum’s death and my brother paid the tax bill in full from my mum’s cash savings funds. He refused to pay rent on the home he was living in and used estate funds to maintain the house where he was living, to buy furniture, gardening equipment etc. He also insisted we had to sell the commercial property first so he had enough money to be able to move. When my mum died, I was advised this situation would only be short term of around 6 months, so I agreed.
However, after a year and a half he was still refusing to sell either property and he hadn’t even created a full list of chattels or put a notice in the Gazette for potential creditors.
My brother also told beneficiaries at one point that we had to destroy all the copies of any estate bank statements we had been given to date because another bank account in his name had been hacked and this set off a huge alarm bell to me. Needless to say I didn’t destroy anything,
I pushed him and started to question the time it was taking and he very quickly got nasty and unfortunately my Sister for reasons unknown sided with him.
I hired a solicitor in 2019 who has been critical in forcing my brother to carry out his duties including to move out of my mother’s former home and sell both it and the commercial property. I now have received most of my share of the residual proceeds. But my brother, despite having already used a solicitor to advise him on probate and tax etc. after my mother’s death hired a new solicitor to represent him.
He used estate funds for the fees and built up a cost to the estate totalling £50k …mostly because every time my solicitor asked that he carry out his duties we would receive a number of long retaliative ranting solicitors letters from his side before he eventually acted. Eg. It took 5 letters to get him to agree to move out of the house, we gave him an alternative to pay rent and 8 months notice but he declined. The solicitor he used in my opinion certainly viewed him as a cash cow and charged substantially more than the solicitor I have been using - more than double the cost.
During the last couple of years, my solicitor and I also found approx 40 discrepancies of varying amounts in the interim accounts my brother provided to beneficiaries. These discrepancies were differences in the inventory of transactions provided by the estate solicitor used in 2017/18 and the transactions list for the same time period provided by the new defense solicitor in 2019.
We advised a number of transactions were missing from the new paperwork inc a sum of £700 the original earlier inventory showed had been paid in error to my brother’s son and then paid back a couple of days later. The bank statements I received later after pushing showed it actually in fact hadn’t been paid back. Via his solicitor the excuse that came back was unreal - he said two later transactions for insurance or some such were overpayment mistakes and had been mislabelled. These apparent overpayments however didn’t total the £700 taken and so he then paid the £400 odd difference and acted like I should be grateful.
My brother then started to accuse me of bullying my sister. I hadn’t been in contact with her at all but somehow me hiring a solicitor to correspond with him was vicariously bullying her, Covid hit and because the main assets were being sold now I decided to keep an eye on everything but not address the accounts again and the other discrepancies until the final accounts were provided. Also I needed to minimise my legal costs. So my solicitor didn't’t reply to any more correspondence as it was unnecessary. I kept my solicitor to oversee things but my brother stopped using his.
Now the estate has been settled, my brother is refusing to provide final accounts. He says I first have to provide him with info of all the transaction discrepancies I’ve found in interim accounts because he says they don’t exist. He has also in the past provided bank statements without a running balance so I don’t have a full picture there either, but he denies this too. He says black is white and has started to send long 20 page emails personally insulting my solicitor telling him he’s rubbish etc and should step down, - my brother is writing direct to my solicitor now without a solicitor’s help. Luckily my solicitor doesn’t charge for reading these,
So, what should I do?
My solicitor has advised we should not send info of the other discrepancies at this stage as we’’ll just get more lies and I will be even more out of pocket with the long winded back and forthing, He wants us to ignore these emails, which he says a judge would be less than impressed with and if we don’t receive final accounts by end of July we should petition the court to get them. We’ve warned my brother we will petition the court for final accounts but his response is we don’t have a leg to stand on and my brother just keeps sending my solicitor long emails…
I trust my solicitor but my brother’s actions in the face of tangible evidence make me wonder too, hence reaching out here,
My mother died in May 2017 leaving quite an estate worth a few million £.
My brother is the executor of the estate as well as a beneficiary. My sister and I are also beneficiaries. The 3 beneficiaries are entitled to one third equal share each of the estate and the Will is clear and simple.
When my mother died my brother was caring for her and lived with my mother full time in her home with his wife. It was his only residence, My mother’s home was a property worth approx £1M and was a major estate asset. The other main asset was a commercial property which generated rent on a monthly basis.
Probate was granted within a year of my mum’s death and my brother paid the tax bill in full from my mum’s cash savings funds. He refused to pay rent on the home he was living in and used estate funds to maintain the house where he was living, to buy furniture, gardening equipment etc. He also insisted we had to sell the commercial property first so he had enough money to be able to move. When my mum died, I was advised this situation would only be short term of around 6 months, so I agreed.
However, after a year and a half he was still refusing to sell either property and he hadn’t even created a full list of chattels or put a notice in the Gazette for potential creditors.
My brother also told beneficiaries at one point that we had to destroy all the copies of any estate bank statements we had been given to date because another bank account in his name had been hacked and this set off a huge alarm bell to me. Needless to say I didn’t destroy anything,
I pushed him and started to question the time it was taking and he very quickly got nasty and unfortunately my Sister for reasons unknown sided with him.
I hired a solicitor in 2019 who has been critical in forcing my brother to carry out his duties including to move out of my mother’s former home and sell both it and the commercial property. I now have received most of my share of the residual proceeds. But my brother, despite having already used a solicitor to advise him on probate and tax etc. after my mother’s death hired a new solicitor to represent him.
He used estate funds for the fees and built up a cost to the estate totalling £50k …mostly because every time my solicitor asked that he carry out his duties we would receive a number of long retaliative ranting solicitors letters from his side before he eventually acted. Eg. It took 5 letters to get him to agree to move out of the house, we gave him an alternative to pay rent and 8 months notice but he declined. The solicitor he used in my opinion certainly viewed him as a cash cow and charged substantially more than the solicitor I have been using - more than double the cost.
During the last couple of years, my solicitor and I also found approx 40 discrepancies of varying amounts in the interim accounts my brother provided to beneficiaries. These discrepancies were differences in the inventory of transactions provided by the estate solicitor used in 2017/18 and the transactions list for the same time period provided by the new defense solicitor in 2019.
We advised a number of transactions were missing from the new paperwork inc a sum of £700 the original earlier inventory showed had been paid in error to my brother’s son and then paid back a couple of days later. The bank statements I received later after pushing showed it actually in fact hadn’t been paid back. Via his solicitor the excuse that came back was unreal - he said two later transactions for insurance or some such were overpayment mistakes and had been mislabelled. These apparent overpayments however didn’t total the £700 taken and so he then paid the £400 odd difference and acted like I should be grateful.
My brother then started to accuse me of bullying my sister. I hadn’t been in contact with her at all but somehow me hiring a solicitor to correspond with him was vicariously bullying her, Covid hit and because the main assets were being sold now I decided to keep an eye on everything but not address the accounts again and the other discrepancies until the final accounts were provided. Also I needed to minimise my legal costs. So my solicitor didn't’t reply to any more correspondence as it was unnecessary. I kept my solicitor to oversee things but my brother stopped using his.
Now the estate has been settled, my brother is refusing to provide final accounts. He says I first have to provide him with info of all the transaction discrepancies I’ve found in interim accounts because he says they don’t exist. He has also in the past provided bank statements without a running balance so I don’t have a full picture there either, but he denies this too. He says black is white and has started to send long 20 page emails personally insulting my solicitor telling him he’s rubbish etc and should step down, - my brother is writing direct to my solicitor now without a solicitor’s help. Luckily my solicitor doesn’t charge for reading these,
So, what should I do?
My solicitor has advised we should not send info of the other discrepancies at this stage as we’’ll just get more lies and I will be even more out of pocket with the long winded back and forthing, He wants us to ignore these emails, which he says a judge would be less than impressed with and if we don’t receive final accounts by end of July we should petition the court to get them. We’ve warned my brother we will petition the court for final accounts but his response is we don’t have a leg to stand on and my brother just keeps sending my solicitor long emails…
I trust my solicitor but my brother’s actions in the face of tangible evidence make me wonder too, hence reaching out here,
Comment