21^st May 2013 [Peter’s Blog No3 on same subject]

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

Hi, just to reconfirm for those who have joined me for the first time, I’m 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.

As I said in my earlier blogs, the executors of the estate were not named in particular in my late mother’s will as being the executors; it simply said that the executors had to be two Partners in Oxley & Coward Solicitors of 34/46 Moorgate Street, Rotherham. Solicitors Mr Barry Long and Mr Sadiq had to make an application to the Chancery Court for Grant of Probate before they were able to officially administer the estate. Mr Long and Mr Sadiq advertised and leased a vacant unit on the premises months before they obtained Grant of Probate on 7^th June 2011. See copy of Grant of Probate below ………….

From the onset they advertised and let units on the estate when they were fully aware of a potential buyer wanting the property with vacant possession. They even let one unit on what my legal adviser termed as a “Ransom Strip” which was slap bang in the middle of the proposed development.

I sought legal advice in early 2011 and I was advised on executors and their duties to the estate, and I quote here exactly what she said; “It is not the role of the executors to run a profitable business out of an estate. The role of the executors is to bring the estate to a conclusion and normally within 12-months otherwise an explanation is required, and to dispose of the estate at its best value”.

After my legal adviser reviewing a copy of the will she advised that; “the executors were not instructed to promote a business, to continue a business or to run a business, they are simply there to wind-up the estate. They are to dispose of the estate in the most expedience manner for the benefit of the beneficiaries. The executors are certainly not able to let any vacant properties on the estate”.

However, interestingly, the executors informed me in a letter dated 6^th June 2011 that my late mother did not actually run a business she merely received an income from rented property in the UK. See copy of Mr Long’s letter below.

I’m also copying here extracts taken from the information Mr Long provided me with and enclosed with his letter, when trying to justify advertising and letting units on the premises as opposed to putting the whole of the estate up for sale and distributing the proceeds in the most expedience manner for the benefit of beneficiaries.

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Re Crowther [1895] 2 Ch 56.

 

Assets

 

E[2.27] Unless the will otherwise provides—see A[5.215], when carrying on a business either to sell it as a going concern or under authority contained in the will, the personal representatives may only use those assets which were used in the business at the time of the deceased's death.

 

It might not have been classed as a business but the executors had failed to consider that the units they and/or their instructed agent advertised as been for letting were not in use at the time of my late mother’s death, as in E[2.27]. In fact they had laid empty for a considerable time (many years in fact) due to the dilapidated condition of the units, including an HSE Prohibition Order on one unit, and other reasons (one imposed by a Chief Fire Officer) of which I advised the executors at the time when I vigorously apposed them leasing units on the estate. Nor was there any provision made in her Will to authorise them so-doing. I allege that the executors recklessly put the estate at risk apart from being guilty of a Devastavit, a wasting of the estate.

 

Just a bit of background about the “family”

 

Unfortunately for the estate, in January 2012 one of the solicitors acting as executor of the estate received a “DEAR BARRY” email from the eldest of my three siblings (according to mother she had hated me from the day I was born) telling them that Mr Barnes (me that is) was not to have any involvement in negotiations etc. I am copying the email below here because I couldn’t really believe that anyone could be so thick. She even had my two other sisters agree with her because she thought that putting-up three against one would enable her to override my 25% interest in the estate. In my book this email gave the executors a green light to do as they pleased.

I think its time to tell you that while father was laying on his death bed in January 2010 mother received notice from the Office of Public Guardian refusing her registration of Enduring Power of Attorney over father due to an objection. The court told me it was a Mrs Gregory (the eldest daughter) who had made the application backed by my younger sister, Mrs Tinker.

 

Father had lost his legal capacity in December 2009 (after the RDGH had allowed him to fall out of bed and he suffered a brain bleed and blood clots) and these two sisters were preventing mother registering the EPA. They made out that mother was illiterate by submitting evidence to the effect that she could not read or write and that she had no business accruement. Mother was gutted and up to the time father died they had run her a bill up of around £3,500.00 with Oxley & Coward Solicitors defending her case. The total bill to contest their action was estimated at around £10,000.00.

 

Albeit Mother was partially sighted she could distinguish five, ten and twenty pound notes one from the another, and she knew exactly what pills she was supposed to be taking even though carers offered them to her for her to take. She also had good business sense otherwise father would not have got to where he was had she not.

 

Mother herself overrode one incident just 24 hours before she was to take a mental capacity test with her GP for the GP to make a report for the OPG. She realised that one of the pills offered to her by the carer from the “Nomad” was not one that she should be taking. It was a Tramadol and had been inserted into the Nomad and had she taken it she might well have failed her mental capacity test, and her defence against her two daughters would have failed. I am not making any accusations here but from what mother said she seemed to know who the culprit was. Tramadol, according to what I’ve been told by a nurse, makes the elderly look and act as if they’re suffering from dementia.

 

Whilst father had lost his legal capacity and was unable to sign legal documents he understood exactly what was going on and I sound recorded many conversations with both him and my mother so that if required I could prove just how they felt let down by these two daughters. He actually said to me; “so if I were to die Pete does that mean that your mother will be able to run the estate as she wishes”? Mother was in the process of selling their bungalow at the coast and the action taken by these two siblings stopped her selling it. However, father died on 5/4/2010 and the whole case against mother dropped through because as joint tenants the whole of father’s share of the estate passed directly onto her. She successfully sold her bungalow in July 2010 just before Capital Gains Tax was increased. Father had outwitted them and set mother fee.

 

What they had done, however, was to give the executors the opportunity to do exactly as they thought fit with the estate when mother passed away in December 2010, them knowing that the four siblings were at loggerheads.

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I personally had been involved in assisting mother and father with the estate and the analysis for the year-end accounts for years before father and mother died and I knew a great deal of the ins and outs of their financial affairs.

 

As matters regarding the estate progressed (very slowly I might add as the executors were and still are dragging their heels) had I not been diligent and recognised that the proposed development boundary line in the proposed sale was cutting right through the Warehouse unit, the Barnes Estate would have possibly met with a massive financial loss on completion. When I insisted, and put it to the executors and the agent for a second time the agents insisted that they had dealt with the matter, and yet when an amended drawing was provided there had been no amendment to the boundary line regarding it avoiding the Warehouse unit. I allege that they were intending the estate taking a massive hit on completion of the proposed sale.

  

This true story continues ……………