Can a will beneficiary be sure will executor has not cheated him?

anynews14

Hi. Could a will executor cheat a will beneficiary? Could they not notice certain assets?
How can beneficiary know what assets deceased had if they are not listed in will? (e.g beneficiary left residual of estate)

Ken.

All wills become public after probate is finished. You can request a copy of the will from the probate office. You'll be charged a small fee.

Grolschevik

A full set of administration accounts should also be prepared by the solicitor and be available to all beneficiaries.



Edit: Sorry, I did mean residuary legatees/intestate beneficiaries.

GusherING

Grolschevik wrote: »

A full set of administration accounts should also be prepared by the solicitor and be available to all beneficiaries.

Should ordinary beneficiaries really see the full set of accounts? I can understand showing the full set of accounts to the resiudary beneficiary, but if you are only due a gift of €5000 then all you are entitled to is that amount. The accounts of the estate are only for the solicitor, the executor and the residuary beneficiary IMO.

Peregrinus

anynews14 wrote: »

Hi. Could a will executor cheat a will beneficiary? Could they not notice certain assets?
How can beneficiary know what assets deceased had if they are not listed in will? (e.g beneficiary left residual of estate)

As GusherING points out, it's only the residuary beneficiary who has any interest in knowing the extent of the deceased's estate.

The answer is that they can't absolutely know that all assets have been identified and accounted for; no-one can. Even if the testator helpfully compiled a schedule of his assets and kept it with his will (and very few testators do that) it would likely be out-of-date by the time he dies, which could be some time after the schedule is drawn up.

It's the executor's job to look into the deceased's affairs, identify his assets, get them in and administer them. To the extent that there's a risk that he may not find and account for all the assets, I think the risk is mostly not fraud (the executor finding an asset, concealing it and keeping it for himself) but rather that the executor will faiil to find an asset in the first place, which can happen through negligence or through simple misfortune (if, e.g., the deceased kept poor records). Executors are not expected to work miracles; if the deceased had assets that only he knew about, and he kept no records of them or kept them in a concealed way, then an executor is unlikely to find them, and no-one can blame him for that.

A residuary beneficiary who, after reviewing the estate accounts, suspects that an executor has not found, or has not accounted for, all assets, is free to make his own investigations, or suggest further investigations for the executor to make. But nobody will take him very seriously unless he can point to some positive reason for believing that there are unaccounted-for assets out there.

seagull

I know in the case of my grandfather's estate, the executor dragged it on far longer than necessary. Standard fees at that time were 2% of assets and 5% of income during executorship. There was a fair sized share portfolio with dividends coming in, so it was in his interests to take his own good time. Not quite long enough to be reportable, but definitely questionable practise. Not quite the same thing as cheating the beneficiaries out of assets by not declaring them.

username123

The executor of my fathers estate (his brother) dragged things out for as long as possible and paid himself for a number of questionable expenses including his flight tickets to attend his own brothers funeral. The solicitor he used also charged very very high fees and even when the money was ready for distribution he delayed it as long as possible - was he trying to get the interest on it? Who knows.

My other sibling wanted to sue the executor. I personally took the view that my fathers estate was being distributed in accordance with his wishes by the person he wanted to handle it. He knew his brother - if he wanted someone who wasnt vindictive and dishonest presumably he would have chosen such a person to execute his will. The manner in which it was handled including doing his best to take as much as he could and do us out of what he could was actually reflective of my fathers own personality and methods so no surprises really.

The only winners in such a scenario are the solicitors hired on either side.

Carawaystick

ken wrote: »

All wills become public after probate is finished. You can buy a copy of the will from the probate office.

fyp

Gretchin

I am a resiudary beneficiary and cannot get to see a full set of accounts. Are they provided by the solicitor or the executor?
The solicitor said that he can only divulge information permitted by the executor. So where does that leave us? We know that the executor has mismanaged the estate and that is why he is refusing to give us a copy of the accounts.

Peregrinus

It leaves you taking legal advice with a view to instituting proceedings against the executor. Initially to get him removed and replaced, and possibly afterwards to compel him to make good the loss to the estate arising from his mismanagement.

HavingFaith

If the sole executor (and main beneficiary) refuses to speak with or share any details of the financial records of the deceased loved one with the resiudary beneficiaries how is it possible to prove or eliminate financial elder fraud?  Are expensive / devisive legal proceedings the only option?

Peregrinus

HavingFaith wrote: »

If the sole executor (and main beneficiary) refuses to speak with or share any details of the financial records of the deceased loved one with the resiudary beneficiaries how is it possible to prove or eliminate financial elder fraud?  Are expensive / devisive legal proceedings the only option?

Pretty much, yes. The executor is the person whom the deceased chose to trust to administer and distribute his estate. If you think he is not doing that honestly or competently you can seek to have him removed and replaced with someone else. As a beneficiary you have no power to remove him, but you can apply to the court to remove him. But the courts are slow to set aside the choice made by the deceased, so getting him removed is not a shoe-in; you'll need to point to evidence of negligence, incompetence or worse.

So, court proceedings are inevitable. And court proceedings where you are accusing someone of being negligent or worse are inevitably divisive, and usually expensive.

The matter is simpler if the reason for the executor's inaction is that he doesn't want to, or is unable to, do the job. In that situation he may agree to stand down voluntarily to be replaced by someone else, usually the residuary legatees or one of them. That still requires an application to the probate office, but its non-contentious, and much simpler and more straightforward.

HavingFaith

It is not the distribution of the estate which is the issue at this stage (probate has not yet been granted).  It is the fact that the residual assets (not including home and contents), according to the executor, are a fraction of the value that they were even though the loved one had a substantial pension.  We  know that the executor had full access (at least verbal) to all the desceased person's banking facilities (login details, passwords, visa card). There are many other red flags that we missed at the time but raise their ugly heads now.  Is it better to try to act right away or should we wait until probate is granted?

Peregrinus

You should be taking legal advice, and soon. It may be easier to object to probate being granted to the executor nominated in the will than to have him removed once probate has been granted, which might suggest that early action is advisable. But this is something your solicitor will advise you on.

If what you are mainly concerned about here is the possibility that someone defrauded your relative before his or her death, contentious probate applications and disputes about the handling and distribution of the estate may not be the best way to explore this. Probate is concerned with dealing with the assets of the deceased as at the date of death; getting them in and distributing them to those entitled. It is not really aimed at enquiring into anything that happened before the death of the deceased - how they came to have the assets they had at death, or why they didn't have more. Still, if you can get someone other than the suspected culprit appointed to administer the estate, they are at least in a position to enquire into the affairs of the deceased.

So, it's solicitor time. Now. Do not waste time faffing about on the internet; pick up the phone to a solicitor's office and make an appointment.