Executor of will has gone awol along with inheritance funds

[guestofclanmackenzie]

Posting on behalf of my sons girlfriend

Her grandmother died last year and her Auntie was named in the will as executor.

Long story but grandmothers assets including funds from house sale were distributed according to her wishes which was divided up between her children and grandchildren. A solicitor was involved in the case. She is 19 years old and the sum in question is £46k.
My sons girlfriends portion of money for some reason was bank transferred to the Auntie by the solicitors instead of her directly as at the time my sons girlfriends bank was having problems accepting the large amount deposited in there due to it having restrictions with it always having been a child's bank account. It was agreed that once she had opened up a regular bank account, the funds would then be transferred to her by her Auntie.

Problem is a week later, having opened up a regular bank account, the Auntie has now gone awol. She is refusing calls, texts, emails from grand daughter chasing her up asking for the money.

Her father passed away last week and she is estranged from her mother so she is emotionally a mess and doesn't know how to deal with this and has turned to us for support. She is living with us until my son and her get sorted with their own place. She has no money as she has just relocated to our area and very recently started a new job, so DH and I, and my son are supporting her financially.

She has contacted the solicitor but cannot get the person who handled the affairs to speak to her. On the one time she managed to get past the receptionist, she was told that they are no longer involved as the funds have been distributed and the case has been closed.

I have no idea what to advise her. Any ideas? I suggested citizens advice but any other ideas?

Are the rest of the family aware? You should be seeking legal advice and not the solicitor that dealt with the will!

She needs to go through the courts. I don't think the police deal with wrongly distributed wills.

I would give aunt a deadline for full payment, failing which she goes to see a solicitor who writes to aunt, telling her to pay the money or get taken to court. It's unlikely it will come to that as if she is halfway sensible, she will just pay it over. However, the longer you leave it, the more likely it is that the aunt will have spent it.

Autumnchill

To be honest it's a very complicated family unit. Mother has MN issues and abused her for many years. Dad passed away last week.

Rest of her siblings aren't really in contact with her anymore. The only person she trusted was this Aunt. Sadly she was mistaken.

It's even more shitty that the aunt has paid everyone else, has had her own share, yet thinks it's perfectly acceptable to steal from her niece.
If she intended to pay niece, she would've done it already. I think she will leave the country.

The aunt should be able to send a faster payment, not BACS.

BACS takes 3-5 working days, faster payment should be pretty much immediate but can take up to 2 hrs and CHAPS is same day.

Different banks have different limits for Faster Payments however all UK banks should have a limit of greater than 10K,

Saying she is sending a BACS payment sounds odd too....

Can't help on the other points but it's definitely right that the solicitor send fund to the executor (s) to distribute. They can't be seen to be acting a as a bank and paying to people who aren't clients so you wouldn't have any luck going down that avenue.

Bacs go through immediately. I paid 10 grand for a car last week and there is no delay

If she hits the deadline unpaid, go through with solicitor letter and ask him/her to state that aunt will be charged for solicitor costs also

She definitely needs to see a solicitor.
How long ago did the GM die?
Legally, the aunt has 6 months to issue all the funds, so they may not be able to do anything yet, but a solicitor's letter to say that if there is no reason for the delay, they would expect it to be settled immediately should help.

When my OH's GM died, she had made her very elderly, Alzheimer-suffering sister the executor, with the provision that she would receive it all and dish it out accordingly.
Her son, who now has duty of care, took over.
Roughly £600k went into her account, to be divided between 6 relatives. He tried to share it out, online as bank transfers.
Got blocked by the bank and had a phone call from their fraud unit accusing his mother of money laundering.....
OH's family then had to send letters from their solicitors proving they were entitled to it and so on.
It took weeks to sort out.

So she may have a good reason, but it won't hurt to put the pressure on a bit.