1^st May 2013 [Google Blog No1]

 

Re: Partners in the firm of Oxley & Coward Solicitors being executors of a deceased person’s estate.

Hi, I am Peter Barnes (I am over 70) and one of four beneficiaries of our late mother’s estate. One is over 80, two (including me) are in their 70s and the youngest is in her late sixties. I allege that the executors of my late mother’s estate are just waiting while we’ve all passed away then they will milk dry and finally slaughter the sacred cow.

Over the coming weeks I intend to expose what has happened in the matter of my late mother’s Will and her appointing two unnamed Partners in Oxley & Coward Solicitors to be executors of her estate.

If you talk to anyone who has had experience of such matters they will tell you that the solicitor/executor milks the estate until there is either none or little left for the beneficiaries to collect. No change there then! I recollect some years ago in North Yorkshire solicitor Jeremy Cave, who was a friend of my wife’s solicitor in Retford, getting three years custodial for mishandling old peoples’ estates.

Anyway, back to Oxley & Coward and the reason for me blogging the happenings in our case.

Mother passed away on 8 December 2010 after surviving my late father who had died on 5/4/2010. Father left everything to mother apart from a few gifts of money to a charitable organisation. In his Will father had appointed two unnamed Partners in Oxley & Coward Solicitors to be executors of his estate. His estate was in joint tenancy with my mother so there wasn’t any problem with transferring the property into mother’s name.

Mother named the two Partners in O&C to act as his executors. They were solicitor Mr Barry Long, who specialised in Property matters and Mr Khalid Sadiq who specialised in Commercial Litigation. However, mother passed away some eight months later and whilst all the property was automatically transferred into her name Oxley & Coward solicitors never completed father’s probate until shortly after mother’s death. She never actually saw a penny of my father’s money.

Then the fun started!!!!!!!!!!

Both mother and father had been approached in 2008 by LIDL Supermarkets who wanted to purchase a triangular piece of land from them which adjoined a neighbour’s property. However, for reasons that I will explain in weeks to come but not go into at this point, the deal fell through and subsequently they were approached by another supermarket to purchase either the same piece of land and/or the complete estate which consisted of about 0.9 acres. Mother became very interested in the deal and she had instructed a firm of solicitors to obtain deed entitlement details but passed away before matters got underway proper.

I had been assisting my late parents for some years in managing the incoming rents which they received from letting their property, which was a small trading estate which consisted of 14 Workshop and Office Units. I’d got the management of the accounts to a mere two hours a month by getting the tenants to pay their rents etc directly into my parent’s bank account, which also made it as no person other than themselves and the bank were responsible for handling their money.

Bearing in mind that mother, like father, had appointed two unnamed Partners in Oxley & Coward Solicitors to act as the executors of her estate. Oxley & Coward Solicitors were not my choice of solicitors because I had already had a running with their Mr Anthony Ogley in 2003/04 when he was handling a lease for my parents. The tenant had telephoned me to say that she had been in a position to sign the lease for some time and alleged that my parents’ solicitor as well as her own solicitor was simply running-up the costs in the matter. Mr Ogley refused to take further instruction and so I took-over the matter. I prepared a Lease and had the matter concluded with 48 hours at no further expense to either my parents or the tenant.

As it turned out, I subsequently discovered that solicitor Mr Barry Long had been mentioned in an article published in the Rotherham Advertiser Newspaper in November 2005 regarding a 3-week court hearing. He had been the solicitor instructed by a dubious estate agent in the purchase of a property by the estate agent. The property was purchased by the estate agent from an old lady for a sum of £5,000 which had been purchased by the old lady some years previous as an investment for the sum of £42,000. The true value of the property in 2005 was actually £135,000. It was alleged that because the old lady had not wanted to sell, the estate agent had obtained the old lady’s signature on a Legal Document by sending her a box of chocolates which she had to sign for. The Article was called “The Choc-Box Sting”. I will update you further on this at a later date.

I allege that to any reasonable thinking person, Mr Long being a solicitor who specialised in property matters and acting on a transaction for the purchase of a property for the sum of £5,000 (a detached residence) in this day and age, would or should have known that the deal that was being undertaken by his client was dubious.  

However, on the 12^th of January 2012 I met with Mr Barry Long and his colleague to hand-over details of the estate management and also the paperwork relating to the proposed sale of part of the estate to the supermarket. Now both my parents were dead the supermarket wanted to purchase the whole of the estate.

Barry Long had been the executor of my father’s estate, and at the meeting he confirmed that the sale of the estate to the supermarket would make a “Clean Sale” he called it. This fact is recorded in both mine and the solicitor’s attendance notes.

Instead of Oxley & Coward progressing talks on the proposed sale of the property to the supermarket, Mr Long instructed a firm of Commercial Estate Agents (Burgess Commercial Ltd) to let the vacant units on the property as opposed to discussing the proposed sale and/or offering the property on the open market as been FOR SALE with vacant possession!

For the preceding four years or so prior to their demise my parents had refused to let any of the vacant units for two reasons; (a) they were unfit for letting due to the electrical installations and/or other complicated matters and (b) they (at the age 98 years) knew that the property would realise a better value if offered for sale with vacant possession. We (my parents and I) had actually discussed and agreed this fact.

Mr Barry Long and Mr Khalid Sadiq (solicitors at O&C) several months prior to them obtaining “Grant of Probate” to act as executors of my late mother’s estate, expended estate money in instructing the Estate Agent to advertise and let units on the estate.

They actually disposed of part of the estate by way of a 3-year lease by letting a unit on the estate and when knowing it had had a Prohibition Order place on the unit by the HSE for having unsafe entrance doors.

It was let on a 3-year lease for a peppercorn rent, and if the proposed sale were to be progressed with the supermarket who wanted the estate with vacant possession, the leased unit was squarely placed on what my legal adviser called a “Ransom Strip”.

Furthermore, it was leased to a motor trader on a 3-year lease and at half the price that had been offered by another proposed tenant and who had been rejected as been unsuitable due to him wanting the unit for the motor trade. I reiterate here, none of the units were for letting in any event.

I allege that by disposing of part of the estate by way of a 3-year Lease the two executors created a Devastavit, a wasting of the estate.

If anyone out there can answer them, my questions are:

Q; Can a solicitor legally dispose of part of a deceased’s estate by way of a 3-year Lease and tying the property up for 3-years rendering it either un-saleable with vacant possession for that period of time or only saleable at a reduced rate, and months prior to them obtaining Grant of Probate as been executors of the estate??????

Q; If so, what law was broken by these two solicitors?

Mr Barry Long retired from Oxley & Coward Solicitors in April 2012 and relinquished all ties with the firm. I now see from the Law Society Website that he had now ceased to be a solicitor. It is contended by O&C that Mr Long continues in his role as an executor of our late mother’s estate even though one of the stipulations in my late mother’s Will was that the executors had to be a Partner in the Firm of Oxley & Coward Solicitors.

Q; Can an executor continue in the role of executor when he has resigned as Partner in the firm of solicitors and also ceased from being a solicitor, and when being a Partner in the firm was a stipulation in the Will?

You would not believe what has happened in this case. I allege that the solicitors have simply milked the estate like it was a sacred cow. Over the oncoming weeks I intend exposing what has happened and what is happening in this case and when solicitors act as sole executors of an estate. I allege that by them so-doing they have brought the Legal Profession into disrepute.

Anything that I say or put on this blog I can back-up with paperwork, letters/emails and/or sound recordings made of telephone calls and meetings.

This true story continues ……………