advice regarding will/revenue investigation.

no username

hi all, i will try to keep this as brief as possible. my mum passed away last june and my sister was executor to the will, being that none of the family had any experience with probate etc we allowed my mums solicitor to take care of everything, administrator is it? anyway to my knowledge he has all of my mothers estate in his possession now but cannot release any funds due to an ongoing investigation by the revenue, the revenue apparently want to know the source of her money in certain life insurance policys, all of my mothers money came from the sale of a property and business 20 years ago in the u.k, they already owned the house here while resident in u.k and following my fathers death she moved here and brought all her funds with her other than a single current account in u.k, she never worked nor held any business in ireland.
initially are solicitor informed us we would need a u.k solicitor for that side of things that he contacted and she had it all completed very quickly.

here is the things i dont understand, if my mothers estate in u.k was separate and we have paid the u.k solicitors fees why can he not release that money to us? and does he have any grounds to include that sum of money in his final bill if we have paid already so to speak?

why are the revenue investigating my mothers estate? and as it is all so easy to trace back to the moneys source why are they taking so long? 3 times we have explained to the solicitor the source of the money but im just waiting for another letter repeating the same retarded questions we have answered numerous times! sorry for the little rant at the end, the more i think about it the more i get annoyed.

also part of my mothers will included some money to care for her animals until nature takes its course, the costs involved are quite high and only me and my sister can afford to pay for the upkeep of them..barely!!! if by some stretch the revenue say they are owed something (im quite sure they are not my mum never got so much as a parking ticket) could they take the animals to court if i refused to pay? i would nearly go to prison to see that lol.

sorry its so long winded and probably lacks vital information but my solicitor is not what you would call helpful, thanks for any advice.

Procrastastudy

Change solicitors - can't do legal advice as per charter.

daenerysstormborn3

Go to another solicitor.

no username

cheers for the replys, is there some special thing i have to do or do i just call in to his office and tell him stick it? and would the process take long? i still worry how long the revenue crowd are going to take with all this, what for example would happen to the estate if we dump the current solicitor but dont hire another, who then holds the money that has been released to the solicitor?

thanks again for any advice.

nuac

1. If the Revenue have notified that they are investigating aspects of this estate, the solicitor cannot distributed any of the estate without clearance from Revenue

2. You are facing what the Revenue call a "back-duty case" i.e an investigation of your parents' income and assets over a number of years. You need an accountant experienced in dealing with such claims.

3. I would be careful posting details here. Some one working in Revenue may glance thru these boards ( in lunch time of course )

Procrastastudy

Some solicitors (from the perspective of being a client) have a superiority complex. Its just a case of reminding them who they work for and who's the boss.

That said there are plenty of clients that don't think they should pay for the solicitors time - which rightly annoys them.

Best to keep things very business like but call a spade a spade - if they aren't explaining things properly or keeping you informed tell them so - bear in mind these guys change by the hour however.

no username

cheers again, i think he may be 1 of those solicitors! just out of interest why would it be a problem for me if the revenue read my posts on here? i dont see what they have to investigate, my parents never worked owned nor ran a business in ireland and my mother only lived here in retirement, i would have thought all the relevant taxes would have been paid when the business was sold in u.k? apparently we do have a accountant doing a tax return or something...its the solicitors wife lol.