Adoption, fostering and a bit complex!

[zeebrugge]

I was adopted as a baby in 1971 and lived with my adopted parents until March 1987 when they were both drowned in the Zeebrugge Ferry disaster. I was put in short term foster care and then long term foster care until I timed out on my 18th birthday.

I was allowed to visit my former home, on the day after the funeral, to collect my belongings but never stayed there again. When my aunt and uncle came back from Denver in 1989 they lived there for a while.

Now I can sort of understand why I wasn't in the will, being adopted rather than a birth child. But as somebody told me over Christmas, and why I am writing, surely I was left something. Did I really matter so little.

Bedubabe the house was never sold the aunt and uncle now live in it........but photos, they wouldn't even let her take photos - they are worthless in terms of estate value.

We can't be 100% certain about the house but the OP tells us that the aunt and uncle have lived there several times over the years, most recently a couple of years ago. However, we don't know that the house has never been sold. It is possible the aunt and uncle bought it from the estate.

I would have expected compensation to go direct to the OP rather than forming part of the estate so that it could not be subject to Inheritance Tax nor could it be used to pay off debts. Similarly life insurances are generally written in trust so that they don't form part of the deceased's estate for the same reasons.

CarGirl - OP never said she wasn't allowed to take photos just that she was told everything she tried to take wasn't hers. I got the impression she didn't try to take more than two she was given - of course she would have been in a considerable state of shock.

It's the apparent extreme cruelty that makes me think this might not be as bad as people are making out - if you were planning a mass fraud you would have fobbed OP off with something minor, surely! I'd be suspicious aunt and uncle got the house in exchange for looking after OP though which they clearly didn't do properly.

prh - if compensation was supposed to go to the OP direct (and I can't see who else should have benefited!) then agreed my first point doesn't apply. There could easily have been no life insurance though.

It may all be as bad as everyone thinks, I just wanted to urge some caution as there could be a reasonable explanation.

I hope that the OP will post today or at a minimum read the material that others here have provided.

Bedubabe - The OP wrote "I don't see why I was not allowed to take some wedding photos of my dead parents. They must have belonged to somebody so why not me. I suppose when I took the emergency money out of the bathroom cabinet I was being a thief? Well I did anyway. That was all the money I had." I think the few personal items she has were obtained despite the attention of Aunt and SW.

I do agree about your suggestion that the Aunt and Uncle probably got the house in exchange for looking after the OP - then quickly dumped her?

I think we all hope that there is a reasonable explanation.

Legalegal - maybe my reading of her post before that is wrong. I just got the impression she gave up asking. OP can can confirm when/if she comes back.

The OP certainly seems to have been mistreated while in long term foster care. It is possible that everything else is explained by a mixture of factors such as the parents being heavily in debt, the aunt and uncle being unwilling to look after the OP and so on. It could be that the compensation and life insurances (if any) went unclaimed as everyone thought it was someone else's responsibility. Or it could be that they were incorrectly applied to meet the debts of the estate.

Hopefully the OP will tell us what she finds when she sees her parents' wills tomorrow. That will move us a bit further forward. But we really need to know whether probate has been granted and, if it has, the value of the estate for probate and whether the deposited wills (if any) match those held by the family solicitor.

The solicitor just phoned me to confirm the appointment. When he heard that my trip would be 2 buses and a longish walk he said he would drive over to see me. He is coming at 11 and I am feeling a bit scared and weepy. I will try to post later.

I read all the things you have posted and thank you for trying to help me.

I am back in the office with the first client due at 1015hrs so must be brief.

OP if at all possible have somebody else with you to help take notes and remember what is said. If the solicitor says something you do not understand ask him to explain.

I am sure that everybody here wishes you well.

I had misunderstood what was to happen. I was picked from my home in a car (a young lad), driven to the solicitors office and taken back at the end.

I have tried to use his exact words solicitor used.

My Mum and Dads wills were looked at every two years - the last time in December 1986. Three months before they drowned. He said while of course it is possible that your father instructed another firm to create a subsequent will I think this is unlikely

If one parent died Nil rate band of Inheritance Tax was to go to you. The remainder to surviving partner. As both died together you should have got everything

There was no mortgage on the house ? paid off a couple of years earlier.

Your Aunt and Uncle were to act as your guardian ?to reflect this great kindness? £10000 from estate. They were executor and trustees

He said the paperwork was carried out by a former colleague but because of the circumstances and because I knew your father I did exercise some strategic oversight over the affair. As you can see the file was annotated at the time that the total tax liability seems much smaller than I would have expected. I have been unable to trace any additional material. This surprises me because I would have expected to find material relating to the granting of probate.

He asked me to wait outside while he phoned aunt and uncle. I was given a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. He is going to see them tomorrow to get some photos of my Mum and Dad and make some gentle enquiries about other matters.. Under the circumstances his work would be pro bone?.

I really do think he is on my side.

It really sounds as if you've suffered an injustice and it needs to put right so that you can move on with your life. I do hope things are sorted out and you get a proper explanation of what happened and why.

It sounds like you need someone assertive on your side.
I hope that you can get to the bottom of this soon.

Pro bono means he will not expect to be paid a fee, OP. My heart is with you, I hope that you can get this painful business sorted out.

Very on your behalf at 'aunt' and 'uncle.'

The phrase is "pro bono" and menas he is acting for you free of charge. For what it is worth, it is from the Latin phrase "pro bono publico", which means "for the public good".

If the comment about tax refers to inheritance tax that may indicate that there were some debts but not enough to wipe out the estate completely. It may also indicate that the declared value of the estates was lower than their true value, or simply that the family solicitor overestimated the tax liability.

I am afraid I can no longer see any possible innocent explanation. Your aunt and uncle seem to have been living in a house that probably belongs to you. They seem to have fulfilled their role as your guardians by dumping you with abusive foster parents. As executors and trustees they have, at the very least, failed to distribute the estate and may have used their position to plunder the estate. At the moment I cannot think of any other explanation.

And there is still the question of compensation from P&O and any life insurances and pensions. I believe there was also a public appeal to raise money for the families of those who died, so you should have been entitled to a payout from that as well. As your guardians your aunt and uncle should have been making sure you received these payouts. Did they not bother claiming any of this or did they claim it all and spend it? To put it another way, are they guilty of negligence or fraud?

I would be thinking seriously about calling in the police. I would hope that the family solicitor is VERY careful when he talks to your aunt and uncle tomorrow. The last thing you want is them grabbing everything they can and heading back to Denver.

"means", not "menas"!

God, I hope you can get this sorted out Zeebrugge. Following on from what prh has said I wonder whether it's worth asking the solicitor to refrain from speaking to them before you've had a chance to speak to the police? Surely he should be able to find out about probate etc without speaking to them as it should be a matter of public record?

Solicitor sound slovely - where is he seeing them? In the house you lived in with your parents?

It sounds as though the solicitor is getting himself into some potentially deep water here so no wonder he is offering free advice at this stage, not to mention a chauffeur to and from the office!

It is normal practice for a professionally drafted will to preserve the solicitors role in the administration of the estate, especially if the testators were sufficiently diligent to update their wills every 2 years, so I would have expected them to have been drafted so that he was instructed in the probate. Given that the deaths would have attracted huge publicity in their local area, it seems inconceivable that he would not have expected to be involved in the probate and surely he would have been aware of the deaths. If he was not instructed, he should have expected to be contacted about the original wills by someone and it is odd that he did not attempt to find out what was going on at the time.

As the solicitor involved in drafting the wills, it seems to me that he should be aware that something has gone seriously wrong here and I am not at all sure that he should be contacting the aunt and uncle at this stage other than perhaps by way of formal correspondence. He is certainly not in a position to advise them as there is a huge conflict of interest that must be obvious to him (I would hope).

The proper course for him to take is to decide who he is acting for, and in reality if I was him I would limit my involvement to that of the solicitor who drafted the wills. I do not think that he should be seeking to advise the OP, pro bono or otherwise, although there is no reason why he cannot conduct the searches at the probate registry and the land registry that are obvious steps to take before any contact is made with the aunt and uncle. His proper course would then be to advise the OP to instruct another firm and possibly contact his own insurers if he thinks that there is a potential claim against himself in all this mess.

I agree, as ever it seems, with troylawyer.

I am far from certain, despite straining every fibre to remain objective, that the family lawyer has a clear conscience. That said it almost implict in what the OP said today that while the family solicitor did not do the work himself that it was indeed done by another member of the same practice.

The full implications of that are not clear to me as yet. If the work was done by another fully qualified member of the firm then liability, if liability exists, perhaps lies there.

BTW Would not the tax liability seem smaller than expected if the aunt and uncle had, by accident or design, misreported the value of the estate to the firm?

I am assuming that the family solicitor is now acting for the OP? Or have I misunderstood something? I think this is probably a bad idea.

I agree with both troylawyer and legaleagle that having the family solicitor acting for the OP, even on a pro bono basis, is a bad move. I also think it could be a serious mistake for him to visit aunt and uncle tomorrow. I think the OP should contact the family solicitor first thing in the morning, politely decline his offer and find someone else to represent her.

It looks to me like the family solicitor's firm was involved in administration of the estate in some way. That is the only way I can make sense of the paragraph beginning "He said the paperwork was carried out by a former colleague..." in the OP's last post. Why is there no material relating to the granting of probate? Has probate not been granted? The tax liability has been calculated and, presumably, paid so getting a grant of probate should have been the next step.

As per my previous post, I agree that misreporting the value of the estate is one possible reason for the tax liability seeming lower than expected. At the time of the parents' death the inheritance tax threshold was £71,000. Depending on how you calculate it, that is between £150,000 and £230,000 in today's terms. As both parents died together and some tax was due that means we are looking at a fairly substantial estate.

Just to add that I also agree with troylawyer that the next step should be searches at the Probate and Land Registries. You need to know if probate has been granted. If it has you need to know the value of the estate for probate and whether the wills that were filed match those held by the family solicitor. If the family solicitor hasn't already given you copies of the wills make sure you get them from him as a matter of urgency - you don't want to find that they have been lost.

The Land Registry will tell you if the house still belongs to the estate or if it has been transferred to your aunt and uncle.

Those answers will give a strong indication as to what has actually happened.

Zeebrugge I am only just on line, I actually feel physically sick on your behalf.

I am so angry on your behalf at your aunt and uncle, and would want both of them strung up by the short and curlies and hung out to dry physically and financially. I am not a lawyer, but agree with others that the family solicitor should not approach aunt and uncle yet (if at all). First should be Probate and Land Registry, then you should decide where to go from there. It sounds to me, even if this solicitor is lovely, that he is going for damage limitation and to stop you suing his practice. Unless your aunt and uncle have lied to him about the ownership of the house, but it all seems a bit odd to me, particularly as he was quite close to your Dad.

Please keep us updated. I think you've had some good advice on here.

He probably plays golf with them and perhaps wants to have a quiet word to ensure there was no funny business, old chums, let's deal with this unofficially saves a lot of unpleasantness etc. He might actually trust them!

Zeebrugge, I posted support on your other thread but send you more now. An appalling situation for you. And I still hope your Aunt and Uncle get what they deserve, but even more painfully.

The trouble is that the solicitor has already been in touch with them so they know something's up.

Can Zeebrugge ask for someone else to keep the appointment or an independent witness or something?

zeebrugge can take anyone she wants with her surely?

Yeah but she isn't the one with an appointment with her A & U, the solicitor is.