Question on questioning wills.

cofy

I know of some one who was named in a will along with 4 other siblings. One of the other siblings is creating an awful lot of fuss with regular solicitors letters being sent to him over ridiculous things. The other siblings are getting fed up of this, but are powerless to stop what is going on.

My question is, given that this person has not tried to get the answers by either a telephone call or registered letter, they just went straight to a solicitor, should this person alone be liable for all the costs associated with their solicitor, and be paid by the will - which will make everyone mentioned in the will liable for the actions taken?

Thanks.

coylemj

Your question is a bit vague, can you clarify for starters if the person who made the will has actually died i.e. are we into the probate stage?

Second, you said the following....

cofy wrote: »

One of the other siblings is creating an awful lot of fuss with regular solicitors letters being sent to him over ridiculous things.

I can't see that someone can create a fuss by being the recipient of letters, did you mean to say that that person is sending solicitor's letters?

Is that person (the one creating the 'fuss') the executor of the will? If he is not the executor then he would have no basis for demanding expenses from the estate unless he went to court to contest the will and won with costs.

cofy

Thank you so much for your reply. The person has died.

Sorry to be vague but the questions that the sibling is asking though a solicitor are so ridiculous that they could be recognised. The will was very simple, house, land and bank accounts were to be divided equally between the 5. The solicitors letters are being sent to the eldest sibling who was close to the deceased person.

The person creating the fuss is not the executor of the will, but is of the impression that they any solicitors fees they incur by asking these questions will be taken out of the estate before it is divided up.

Thank you again.

coylemj

cofy wrote: »

Sorry to be vague but the questions that the sibling is asking though a solicitor are so ridiculous that they could be recognised. The will was very simple, house, land and bank accounts were to be divided equally between the 5. The solicitors letters are being sent to the eldest sibling who was close to the deceased person.

The person creating the fuss is not the executor of the will, but is of the impression that they any solicitors fees they incur by asking these questions will be taken out of the estate before it is divided up.

How have they communicated this 'impression' to you - in particular is his solicitor making out that his fees will need to be paid by the executor?

They would have no basis in law to make that assumption. The executor can claim legitimate expenses but none of the beneficiaries can since they have no formal role in the distribution of the assets.

He can kick up a fuss if he don't like the provisions of the will but unless he issues formal proceedings through the courts to contest the will, the executor can ignore him.

Milk & Honey

coylemj wrote: »

How have they communicated this 'impression' to you - in particular is his solicitor making out that his fees will need to be paid by the executor?

They would have no basis in law to make that assumption. The executor can claim legitimate expenses but none of the beneficiaries can since they have no formal role in the distribution of the assets.

He can kick up a fuss if he don't like the provisions of the will but unless he issues formal proceedings through the courts to contest the will, the executor can ignore him.

The President of the High Court and the Law Society do not agree with you.

http://www.courts.ie/judgments.nsf/6681dee4565ecf2c80256e7e0052005b/aad4b657a69cad3c802576f0003772db?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,condon

Ken.

Milk & Honey wrote: »

The President of the High Court and the Law Society do not agree with you.

http://www.courts.ie/judgments.nsf/6681dee4565ecf2c80256e7e0052005b/aad4b657a69cad3c802576f0003772db?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,condon

Can you give me the layman's version of your link please milk & honey. I got a headache about 4 sentence's in:).

blueythebear

Milk & Honey wrote: »

The President of the High Court and the Law Society do not agree with you.

http://www.courts.ie/judgments.nsf/6681dee4565ecf2c80256e7e0052005b/aad4b657a69cad3c802576f0003772db?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,condon

That judgment is only relevant where the solicitor is acting as executor? THis does not seem to be the case here.

In the OP's case, I understand that the "fussy" beneficiary has engaged the services of a solicitor to complain about the method of administering the estate. It's unclear as to who is the executor, but it's clear that the "fussy" beneficiary is certainly not.

In such a circumstance, then the solicitor's fees must be paid for by the beneficiary and they do not come out of the estate, unless proceedings issue, wherein the court will determine the issue of costs which almost always comes out of the estate.

cofy

I have since found out that the executor of the will is the deceased persons solicitor not the "fussy" beneficiary's solicitor.

blueythebear

cofy wrote: »

I have since found out that the executor of the will is the deceased persons solicitor not the "fussy" beneficiary's solicitor.

That being the case, then the case referred to by Milk and Honey actually is relevant.

The solicitor acting as executor is acting for all the beneficiary's (and they are all his clients) so he should ideally address the "fussy" beneficiariy's complaints.

cofy

The solicitor acting as executor would address the "fussy" beneficiary's complaints if the "fussy" beneficiary had actually asked him, as soon as they found out that they were a beneficiary this person went and got their own solicitor.

Peregrinus

Without issuing proceedings, I don’t think that the fussy beneficiary can recover his/her own legal costs.

But presumably dealing with the fussy beneficiary’s queries and complaints is taking time and effort on the part of the executor, who is a solicitor and who is charging the estate for his time and effort.

The solution is that the executor, if he has answered reasonable queries and supplied the information that a beneficiary is entitled to, should respond to the fussy beneficiary’s next demand by telling him to stop wasting the estate’s time and resources, and to issue proceedings if he thinks he has a case, and refusing to waste more time on the matter.

Or, as we English speakers say, call his bluff.

Milk & Honey

blueythebear wrote: »

That judgment is only relevant where the solicitor is acting as executor? THis does not seem to be the case here.

In the OP's case, I understand that the "fussy" beneficiary has engaged the services of a solicitor to complain about the method of administering the estate. It's unclear as to who is the executor, but it's clear that the "fussy" beneficiary is certainly not.

In such a circumstance, then the solicitor's fees must be paid for by the beneficiary and they do not come out of the estate, unless proceedings issue, wherein the court will determine the issue of costs which almost always comes out of the estate.

In the case I cited it was held that all of the beneficiaries of the estate were clients of the solicitor. The whole thing started because the solicitor tried to save the estate money by not dealing with vexatious queries.

cofy

The queries were of such a ridiculous nature that on first glance of one of these letters, I thought they can't be real, that it had to be a joke of some sort. Definitely, time and resource wasting.

Kosseegan

All of the beneficiaries or as many as possible should demand a S68 letter from the Solicitor/Executor. The Solicitor/Executor should also be advised that individual queries should be billed to the person from which they came. The problem is that the LAw Society say every beneficiary is a client and entitled to contact the Solicitor at abny time and the Solicitor has to deal with them.

blueythebear

Milk & Honey wrote: »

In the case I cited it was held that all of the beneficiaries of the estate were clients of the solicitor. The whole thing started because the solicitor tried to save the estate money by not dealing with vexatious queries.

From the original post, the executor was not identified and it appeared that the solicitor writing letters was acting on behalf of a beneficiary. There was no indication that there was another solicitor that was acting as executor. Without a solicitor acting as executor, the case you cited was not relevant, but as it turns out, the OP has clarified that there is a solicitor who is the executor, so in actual fact, the case you linked to is very relevant, I said so in my subsequent post...

Milk & Honey

blueythebear wrote: »

From the original post, the executor was not identified and it appeared that the solicitor writing letters was acting on behalf of a beneficiary. There was no indication that there was another solicitor that was acting as executor. Without a solicitor acting as executor, the case you cited was not relevant, but as it turns out, the OP has clarified that there is a solicitor who is the executor, so in actual fact, the case you linked to is very relevant, I said so in my subsequent post...

What was held in that case was that when a solicitor is administering a will, all beneficiaries are clients. That is so whether the solicitor is the executor or not.
The case has implications for all situations where a solicitor administers an estate.

blueythebear

Milk & Honey wrote: »

What was held in that case was that when a solicitor is administering a will, all beneficiaries are clients. That is so whether the solicitor is the executor or not.
The case has implications for all situations where a solicitor administers an estate.

I have to respectfully and partially disagree with you there. I think that it's relatively clear from the case that the Law society takes the view that all beneficiaries are to be considered clients where a solicitor administers the estate, whether or not he is also acting as executor, but I don't see any definitive support for that contention from Kearns P.

He makes it pretty clear that the court was of the view that a solicitor acting as an executor was acting on behalf of the beneficiaries, i.e. beneficiaries are only clients where the solicitor is acting as executor. As he states in the judgment:

"definition of “client” in s.2 of the Act of 1994 .... extends the definition to include a beneficiary to an estate under a will, intestacy or trust. This provision, in my view, is deliberately framed to cover situations where solicitors are acting in the dual capacity of executors and solicitors..."

jblack

Interesting contention then that a beneficiary who engages a separate solicitor, other than the solicitor named as executor, has in fact two solicitors representing him in the same manner, although potentially at cross purposes.

If the letters are vexatious/groundless etc and the disgruntled beneficiary is warned off and put on notice as to costs, then the estate may recover the costs against the disgruntled beneficiary (through Court Order, rather than arbitrary decision of Solicitor acting as executor).

cofy

jblack wrote: »

Interesting contention then that a beneficiary who engages a separate solicitor, other than the solicitor named as executor, has in fact two solicitors representing him in the same manner, although potentially at cross purposes.

This is exactly the case. The solicitor acting as executor cannot be faulted for anything. There was absolutely no need to engage a separate solicitor.

[/QUOTE]If the letters are vexatious/groundless etc and the disgruntled beneficiary is warned off and put on notice as to costs, then the estate may recover the costs against the disgruntled beneficiary (through Court Order, rather than arbitrary decision of Solicitor acting as executor).[/QUOTE]

I don't know if the circumstances you describe here apply to the situation I am referring to, but this would indeed be a good outcome.