I hope so because all I feel like doing is crying.
My late mother passed way in 2021. Unbeknown to me, can I swear, my ******* brother with one other beneficiary dragged our terminally ill mother to a firm of solicitors to change her will a few weeks before she left this mortal coil. This other beneficiary actually gave the instructions for her last will and testament to the solicitors approx. a week before she was dragged to sign it high on morphine and with no hearing aids in (brother left her £1800 hearing aids out that day, surprisingly...).
I'll cut an extremely long story short now as I haven't the energy, or money, anymore.
I put in a probate caveat. The solicitors became away of this in March 2022 but didn't contact me at all other than issuing a warning off notice. There was a financial gain for them to be had which I will come to later. So the will was set up so they act as trustees/executors or more accurately the directors of another company who bought them out act.
So when I email the solicitor, they email the directors and the directors email them back and they either respond to me or not as they see fit.
Went to mediation and I negotiated a 40% cut against my brother who now has 60%. I was originally down for a lump sum of £50k which I reckon my mother probably thought the solicitor said 50% (as all previous wills). Put that aside as it's largely academic now.
Distribution according to will was supposed to be 10 months after probate so should have been Sept 2024. House sold (that's all the estate consisted mainly as other stuff was sorted previously) in July 2024.
They issued interim accounts in June 2024 which showed £32k of invoices on a £270k estate. Looked into Kenig v Thomas Snell & Passmore.
They are refusing to finalise the accounts. They are no longer communicating. My brother's solicitor has told them not to make any interim payment.
It is so ridiculous. I emailed them 2 days after receiving the interim accounts and asked to see copy of client retainer/engagement letters and estimate of fees for administering the estate. Six emails later and they are still refusing to answer the question. At one point, I received an email from a locum solicitor asking "what I meant by a client retainer and estimates given"? Really? So you can see how they can generate a meal ticket. One email stretching into six and still no answer.
They are a law unto themselves. I have no money to contest further. Mentally, I am pretty broken by it so much so that... (I'll leave that you to fill in your own ending).
THEY STILL HAVEN'T MADE AN INTERIM PAYMENT OR COMMUNICATED ANY FURTHER.
I've been advised to write a complaint and take it to the Legal Ombudsman but I've read that the LO is toothless and I genuinely think they will just add the cost of that to the estate. My dear mother would never have signed up to this s**t had she been of sound mind and capable of hearing what was being said. She wasn't even strong enough to work into the building from the car and the solicitor even noted that she had to shout when reading out the will.
The other beneficiary and my brother are both clients of these solicitors and I have a chilling feeling that this woman probably does this to a lot of families she befriends. I won't go into the whole background but it is sinister to say the least especially down to having previous copies of my mother's wills sent to her own address and not my mother's.
Honestly, you couldn't make it up!
One moral of this story is make sure you are adequately insured with "BEFORE THE EVENT INSURANCE" which covers family law and contentious probate.
Anyway, that was the short version.
The question is how do I get them to pay up?
