being asked to pay out of one's own pocket

ethan

ethan

ethan

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I have a mate whose a beneficiary of a will from a deceased relative who is being asked to pay costs towards the estate out of his own pocket. He's not too keen on this because he doesn't have the amount being requested.
Would this be considered fair or standard practice. The money required is to pay a barrister the solicitor employed to issue a repossession order on a house that formed part of the estate? At no time were any of the beneficiaries informed they would be personally liable for any costs incurred.
 
I think he's stuffed then as he doesn't have the money. As far as he's concerned the solicitor should deduct it from his share of the estate.
 
ethan said:
I have a mate whose a beneficiary of a will from a deceased relative who is being asked to pay costs towards the estate out of his own pocket. He's not too keen on this because he doesn't have the amount being requested.
Would this be considered fair or standard practice. The money required is to pay a barrister the solicitor employed to issue a repossession order on a house that formed part of the estate? At no time were any of the beneficiaries informed they would be personally liable for any costs incurred.
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Sounds like a scam to me.

There is no way you should have to pay money out first before receiving what you have been left in a will.
 
VincentHanna said:
Solicitors can't just take money from estates that are dealing with to cover their bills.
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Of course they can if they are authorised to by the executor.
@OP who is the executor?

Unless there was a lack of liquidity in the estate (ie no assets that can easily be converted to cash - just the tenanted property) this should be managed by the executor using assets from the estate and then whatever is left over paid out to beneficiaries.
 
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EvilRob said:
Of course they can if they are authorised to by the executor.
@OP who is the executor?

Unless there was a lack of liquidity in the estate (ie no assets that can easily be converted to cash - just the tenanted property) this should be managed by the executor using assets from the estate and then whatever is left over paid out to beneficiaries.
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There are two beneficiaries. Both are also executors.
 
ethan said:
There are two beneficiaries. Both are also executors.
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That sounds reasonably straight forward. Is there any cash or assets they could easily sell in the estate to pay these fees?

If not, another option might be to keep the property tenanted for a few months and then use the cash from that to pay the repossession costs.
 
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EvilRob said:
That sounds reasonably straight forward. Is there any cash or assets they could easily sell in the estate to pay these fees?
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I think that is the point. Throughout the entirety of the process the solicitor maintained all costs would be met by the estate. There is still a house to be sold. However, the solicitor is now asking for some of his costs to be paid directly by the executors instead of from the sale of the house?
 
ethan said:
I think that is the point. Throughout the entirety of the process the solicitor maintained all costs would be met by the estate. There is still a house to be sold. However, the solicitor is now asking for some of his costs to be paid directly by the executors instead of from the sale of the house?
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The executors hired the solicitor, right? Therefore, they need to pay for his work. They have options to fund this from the estate - if there are no suitable assets, then in worst case maybe taking a loan against the estate as suggested by the previous poster.
You seem to think it is the solicitor's responsibility to pay himself from the estate. It isn't. It's the executors. Are there funds within the estate that the executors can use for this or not? If not, it's probably in their interests to figure out a way to fund this - either from a loan against the estate or just paying for it themselves.
 
Tbf I think the deceased hired the solicitor and according to one of the executors it was the solicitor who stated all costs would come from the estate -not me.
 
ethan said:
Tbf I think the deceased hired the solicitor and according to one of the executors it was the solicitor who stated all costs would come from the estate -not me.
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Is the solicitor an executor? If so, he has an unfortunate amount of power and I've heard of solicitors abusing that and milking it for their own gain. If he's not an executor, the executors can just fire him and hire someone else.
 
ethan said:
As far as I'm aware he's not an executor. I do know that this has been going on for over three years.
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Wow, three years. Probably not nearly enough context here then to give suggestions that might be helpful. But I have heard of cases where the solicitor is a named executor in the will and they abuse it by artificially dragging things out for years so they can bill $ridiculous.
 
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