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This couple would appear to be scammers. Its just a possibity and you need to be sure. Do not giver them anything. They could sell the flat and might not give you the money. Go to citiezns advice and get them to give you some advice. This couple ay be well knwn for fraud. I hope not.
Yes you would have to get executorship back you may need extended authority to do that
Usually solicitors are employed by executors not made executors
I think most of us feel you need legal advice but you certainly should have copies of anything you signed!
OK. Thanks. I see it was a flat.
That makes sense.
Apologies.
Get legal advice.
P.s. regarding the landlord, my dad was the leaseholder of a flat he bought in the 1980s, it was not freehold, thereby we still pay the landlord, a housing association, expensive service charges.
Hello Everyone
Thank you so much for your messages I can't tell you how much I appreciate this. My brother will not communicate with me although I have asked him to discuss it with me and so I feel very alone dealing with this.
NotSpaghetti, thank you so much for your tips and advice. I think I will have to get some legal advice because I have no idea what we signed. When we first dealt with the probate specialists, they did not give us copies of our agreement and we did not even read it before signing it.
I know this sounds strange but at the time I was more worried about my brother as he has a mad temper and threatened me in the recent past, and I just wanted someone else to take over so I did not have to endure endless problems with my brother. Plus I was grieving and not thinking straight.
These people who took over as executors didn't say they were solicitors but when we kept referring to them as solicitors they did not correct us. They have run many other types of small company that have nothing to do with legal services from an address that is not a genuine office but an address used by dozens of other 'start-up' companies. I think these people are 'chancers' but somehow my dad made his last will with them and so I assumed it was a reliable firm of solicitors. I guess he did not check either in his old age.
NotSpaghetti your experience is invaluable, thanks also to Monica for the link and thanks David for your opinions on the matter. Take good care all!
Thanks David. I want to sell the flat and am busy clearing it, cleaning it, and mending it for sale. I don't think you quite understood my points but perhaps I expressed this in a clumsy way.
David
if you appoint an estate agent yourself they will clear the flat and present it as best they can for sale.
I don't think they can do this. I'm sure they can't instruct an estate agent if they aren't executors.
Who are the beneficiaries of the estate?
If this is you and your brother I would suggest the new executors should be acting in your interests.
I don't quite understand the situation re selling the property and involvement of a landlord...
Keep the keys until the valuable/sentimental items are out. As long as you have the keys, you retain physical control over your dad's personal possessions. Do not hand them over until the flat contains nothing but the basic furniture you mentioned. I am NOT a probate expert but have also been helping my husband with probate this last six months. My husband is a co-executor with a solicitor.
if it was my father's estate I'd demand a "Terms of Business" and Fee Estimate from this pair. Even unregulated businesses must be transparent about prices. Demand a breakdown of their fixed fee or hourly rate. If they try to charge you a percentage of the estate (e.g., 2-4%), challenge it.
Check the paperwork you signed. Did you renounce probate completely, or did you appoint them under a Power of Attorney to manage the probate for you?
If you signed a Renunciation, they are permanently in charge.
Write a formal letter stating that as a residuary beneficiary, (assuming you are) you request a summary of the estate assets (and the copy of the executor's fee structure) to ensure the estate is being managed properly.
Consult a real solicitor.
You might want to pay for a one-off consultation with a regulated probate solicitor. Show them what you signed when you handed over executorship. They can advise you if there are options now.
Surely, once they took over one of their absolute first tasks after getting the Grant of Probate is to send an official copy of the certificate to every single asset holder and debtor. Once a bank or utility company receives that certificate, they legally must update their files, close down the old points of contact (like you), and direct all future mail to them as executors.
The fact that these companies are still chasing you means they haven't
contacted them at all or they haven't formally registered the probate with these institutions.
They seem disorganized so I suppose they may have written to them once but didn't follow up.
What a mess.
Good luck.
You are hanging on to emotions not wanting to sell the flat but the assets cannot be distributed until it is sold
Those you appointed executors are trying to get on with the job, you should remove the items of personal value and let them do that, if you appoint an estate agent yourself they will clear the flat and present it as best they can for sale.
If you appoint a solicitor to take over you will still have to pay them for the work they have done, maybe that has reduced solicitors work maybe not, you still have the problem of clearing the flat
Go and consult a firm of solicitors. First check that they have a solicitor who specialises in wills and probate.
You can check them out on the following website solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/
apologies there are a couple of typos but hope it makes sense in general. In a nutshell , I don't want to hand over the keys to my dad's flat unless I absolutely have to legally. I don't entirely trust the people we have appointed as executors of my dad's estate.
Hello everyone
Can anyone give me a bit of legal advice or share their experience to help me?
In my dad's will my brother and I were named as executors. I have great difficulties in dealing with my brother so I contacted the firm that my dad made his will with and asked them to take over the role of being executors. My brother was very happy to leave this task to someone else and so we signed over executorship (is that a word?) to this firm who I thought was a firm of solicitors but later turned out to be an elderly couple with some experience of drawing up wills and dealing with probate.
I am worried about the people who we appointed. There were a number of red flags but I don't know if I am being unreasonable.
The probate certificate was granted several months ago but I still get my dad's old bank, and various financial companies where my dad held money, as well as his utility companies and landlord, writing to me asking me to supply various certificates for over six months. I think this is because I had power of attorney for the past few years but was worried that our executors were not doing their job.
I recently asked the executors if they could send me a brief summary of who they have contacted and how things are going in terms of dealing with the estate.
They wrote back saying they could not tell me because it would cost me money for them to write to me to inform me of every step of the probate process. I said I just wanted a rough idea not a detailed step by step account, but they did not reply.
They also changed their official correspondence address. I got suspicious and then realised that they were not solicitors as we had thought but were 'probate specialists' . However in conversations with me and my brother they clearly allowed us to believe they were solicitors and did not explain that they were not until I confronted them with it. So there were several 'red flags' for me, I have not listed them all.
Otherwise the main gentleman we've dealt with acting as our executor seems charming in person.
However he wanted me to hand over the keys to my dad's flat two months ago when it was still full of valuables and I was still half living there to sort through my dad's many belongings.
He said he needed the keys so he could sell the flat. I felt very uneasy about this so I have made various excuses why I could hand over the keys yet.
Then he told me that I had to completely clear the flat before he could sell it and gave me a month to do this. I could not meet his deadline, plus I still do not understand why I need to hand over the keys or completely empty the flat selling it via an estate agent.
These people are still pressurising me to hand over the keys to them. I have put them off for another month while I sort through things to give away, sell or dispose of. This is my family home where I was my dad's carer, although I have my own separate home, I am used spending a lot of time in my dad's flat doing general maintenance.
The long and the short of it is that I do not feel comfortable handing over the keys to these people.
Do they legally have to sell the flat?
My brother and I just don't understand and we would rather give the keys to an estate agent to sell the flat. I would prefer the flat to still have a few basic bits of furniture, cleaning things, vacuum cleaner, and kettle in it, so I can still still visit the flat and maintain it, maybe give it a lick of paint, while we are waiting for the sale to complete. Then once the flat is sold my plan is to get it cleared completely.
Our executor wants a totally empty flat, containing only carpets, and they want the keys now, but I feel that they are not 'playing ball' because they refuse to tell us who they have contacted in terms of banks, utilities, landlord and what they have done about the estate, plus they let us believe they were solicitors until they were found out.
Do they have to sell the flat and take the keys or can we sell the flat ourselves via an estate agent and then ask the executor to divide the proceeds equally between myself and my brother?
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