Does anyone know about trusts and can advise on complete mess?

[sixfoldwaitingtime]

In January it will be ten years since my grandmother died - and we're still waiting for a trust set up for her to be wound up.

Yes it was complicated, yes there were inheritance tax issues. But I now think that the lawyer involved has, quite genuinely, lost the plot. He doesn't know what is left and what has been distributed, and I don't think it will ever be sorted out. There are loads of other fuck ups too - like incurring thousands of pounds of fees which could have been waived.

What do we do? Have the trustees now got nothing to do with it now that my gran has died? Or can we shout at them? Or do we just go to the Solicitors Ombudsman and haul him over the coals?

I'd probably give up, were it not for the fact that I still, in theory, get an income from this and so it cocks up my tax every year and means my accountant charges me more.

Aaaaargh. I really would appreciate any help and advice anyone has.

1 - who set up the trust and when?
2 - who are the beneficiaries?
3- who are the trustees?
4 - what are the conditions?
5 - the Ombudsman only deals with maladministration issues. The Ombudsmans' office is not a mechanism for hauling anybody over the coals.
6 - trusts are not generally "wound up" - they just kind of "go on" - that is the nature of a trust.
7 - solicitors don't generally "lose it". If the solicitor concerned is not a trustee, then s/he may not have the information that you require.
You do sound rather angry, but just shouting at trustees is unlikely to get a good result.
I am sure that if you post answers to questions 1-4 then a legal eagle on here will be able to help.

I'm afraid it's not quite right to say that trusts aren't wound up, it's quite common to have a trust which continues for the lifetime of a particular person and ends (and the assets are distributed) on their death. It sounds like that's what's happened here, although 10 years seemws like a very long time unless it's a really really complicated set-up.

The exact circs in which the winding-up happens will depend on what the trust deed says but usually once the trust determines (ends) the trustees have a duty to distribute the assets to the beneficiaries. So they should certainly still be involved, if that's what your trust deed says. If they do have a duty to distribute and they aren't then a letter to them reminding them of their duties and urging them to sort it out asap might help - on the other hand if they are lay trustees (as opposed to professional/corporate trustees) they may well be leaving everything to the solicitor, in which case all they will do is chase him and if he's really not managing this you may find that makes little difference.

You don't say whether the solicitor is himself a trustee; if he is then the trust deed should give the beneficiaries power to remove him as a trustee (if he really is that bad) but bear in mind you will need a trustee in place to sort this out, so if there is another trustee you can ask to take over then great but if not you may find it hard to find anyone else to take on the appointment (unless you're prepared to pay them a fair whack!).

If the solicitor is just a solicitor then you should be able to sack him and instruct someone else (again if you feel he's so bad he needs to be replaced). Bear in mind though that there would be some additional cost associated with this, if it really is that complicated then the new lawyer will need to get up to speed with it all and will charge you for that. You may think it's worth it though to get this sorted.

In terms of "Ombudsman", the regulator for solicitors is the Solicitor's Regulation Authority. You can make a complaint to them but first you will need to complain to the solicitor's firm in accordance with their procedure (they should have outlined this in the client care letter they issued to whoever instructed them - which may have been the trustees - at the outset) and give them a chance to deal with the complaint. Only if they fail to deal with the complaint satifactorily can you then go to the SRA. And to be honest it takes them ages to investigate and adjudicate so whilst you definitely should complain if you are unhappy with your experience I wouldn't rely on this to provide the solicitor with a swift kick up the a*se if that's what you feel this needs.

Thankyou both - PlasticBandit, I wasn't ignoring you, just trying to work out how to reply while not making the circumstances very recognisable.

LSEE. Yes, the solicitor is a trustee. The trust was difficult - it involved the distribution of stocks etc to eight beneficiaries, while other people had had interests, so there were some complex inheritance tax issues.

But the 7 years of inheritance tax has been and gone, and we think that in the meantime he has lost track of who has had what and doesn't know what to do with the residue. He sends us spreadsheets, but they don't make sense. Plus we are accruing lots of stockbrokers fees for a trust that shouldn't exist any more and probably is holding only a few nominal stocks.

We are aiming for a meeting in the New Year, and are thinking of asking him to bring in a trusts specialist (at their expense) to clear this up for once and for all. Is this reasonable? And should we ask for someone else from the company to be at the meeting? (he is a partner, but his speciality is ecclesiastical law...)

We will also nudge the other trustee; I don't think he knows it still exists.

Thanks for your help

a rather worn out by this
sixfold

Oh and I think the solicitors were instructed in about 1922, so I may not be able to lay my hands on the client care letter....

When you say "at their expense", do you mean at the expense of the solicitor's firm, or at the expense of the trustees (which really means out of the trust property)?

If you mean the firm's expense, I'm not sure they will agree to that (or it is reasonable for you to ask for it) unless you can prove/they accept that they are entirely at fault for what has happened - they may feel that this matter has been highly complex and they have done a reasonable job. You might be on firmer ground if you actually make a complaint to them beforehand (see below) and suggest this as a way of resolving the complaint.

If you mean at the trustees' expense there will need to be enough left in the remainder of the trust to pay for it I guess.

Whether you ask for someone else to be at the meeting is up to you really but I'm not sure where it will get you unless you know someone else at the firm and they can facilitate at the meeting. Otherwise you may find they are just a random person sitting there not really doing anything. You'd have to at least explain beforehand why you wanted the second person there. And remember that there would be a charge for a second person being present - unless you invoke the complaints procedure in which case there is usually a "complaints partner" who would be involved and obviously there would be no charge for that. So then you're into whether you want to make a formal complaint or not. I think what you really need to do is decide whether you want the meeting to be one at which you explain to the solicitor that you're not happy with how things have been done and ask him how he plans to resolve it (and if he doesn't offer a satisfactory solution then you make a formal complaint and push for the firm to pay to sort it out), or whether you make the complaint beforehand and use the meeting to try and resolve it. I'd probably go for the former - and I think the other trustee should be at the meeting either way as they should take some responsibility for sorting this out.

Re: the client care letter, not having one isn't a problem, just ask the firm for a copy of their complaints procedure (I appreciate this may involve letting on to the partner concerned that you want to complain about him - if you don't want to do this you could go direct to the compliance director (they may not have one though if they're a smaller firm) or the managing partner.)

Thanks, that's very helpful indeed and has clarified a lot of things for me.

I think you're absolutely right, and we need to have one, last chance meeting, before we start invoking complaints proceedures etc.

I do think though, that the firm, not the trust, should pay for sorting it out. For example, they have had (thanks to an investment manager who wants shot of it) two chances to have all the investment fees (c.24k) waived if the trust was wound up by certain dates. Twice they've failed to meet those dates and so the fees are still being charged against the trust residue.

You can see why I am starting to fume... But I will fume quietly at our first meeting, then start to go through the proceedures.

Should the investment manager be present for all/part of the meeting?

Failing that, ask why the dates were missed and show evidence of costs incurred as a result.

Thanks for that too. And yes, the plan is for the investment manager to be present (they're hopping mad about the fees and so on).