DP's Trust Fund ripped off by Uncle

[lisa111]

Hi I will try to get straight to the point, the situation:

Dp mum killed when he was 8yrs old in 1990.
He got 12K when he turned 18 in 2000.

He lost contact with eldest sister for the last 10yrs. We bumped into her in a shop last year and now we see her all the time. She is a great SIL and a fab Auntie.

She told us that my DP should of got over 30K, she was the trustee and says the uncle forged her signature making him the trustee, over the Trust Fund and has been dipping into it.

She swears that their uncle ripped DP off, saying his middle sister and uncle both were involved, she will go to the Police or Court to prove it.

How do we check this out?
Could uncle access fund before DP turned 18?
Is it too late to find the truth out?
If Uncle did steal money saying it was for DP's welfare can DP get it back.

just after DP got his money the uncle caused a big row and never spoke to DP again.

My poor DP lost his mum at 8, his parents were divorcd and then his dad was sent to jail when he was 15 and never got back in touch with him, his eldest sister could not deal with things and left him, he lived with his other sister until we met and then caught her stealing money off him.

1 LAST THING IF YOUR THINKING SHE IS MAKING THIS UP, TRUST ME ITS A BIG NO-NO.

She loves my son and dp, she would not put that at risk at all. There a very good reasons she did nothing at the time the uncle was made Trustee.

She did not have to tell us any of this, we don't see any of DP'S family and this was before she started seeing us. So its not to try and split the family up as there was none to start with?

We want the truth but don't want confront his uncle until we have proof.

did the uncle bring him up? or financially contribute to his upbringing?

I would try to get the facts straight first

Hi,

no to both. his parents were divorced until his mother's death he lived with her and her dp.

Then they lived with his dad until aged 15.

That is my point exactly we do need to get the facts straight.

But how do we go about it?

is dad still alive? coulod yopu ask him?

If you only knew why he was put in jail it would explain a lot. He spent all his time getting drunk in pub, he told DP his mum was dead on the bus up to the hospital, she was killed on the back of her DP's mororbike.

sorry i am not meaning to be insensitive he sounds awful

Gosh that did not even enter my mind, i think the same as you.

In fact his dad is going out with a woman who got put away for trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband, luckily for us they live far far away

Was th efund maintined by an Insurance company or Bnak.... can your Dp ask for history of withdrawals and investments into fund.

You need to find the solicitor that drew up the papers for this. As a beneficiary he is entitled to this information. This sounds very complex and I am not sure if this site will be able to give you the answers that you are looking for. It is possible for uncle to access the fund before the beneficiary turned 18 but you need to check the paperwork. As for getting it back, it would be hard to tell. You need to get copies of the paperwork to find out the dates of the withdrawal and the amounts. If he has been prosecuted for this your partner may be entitled to sue uncle for the missing cash. I think you need to find a solicitor that has experience in trusts and criminal law.

Dp is as thick as the floor, he cannot remember. I guess at 18 all he could think about was what to buy first

He would not of even read whatever he had to sign? his money was put in a bank so maybe we could contact them to see if they know who deposited it.

I did think have a good idea his uncle could get at the money.

I suppose sadly the saying is true "no smoke without fire"

This is dependent upon how much was placed in the account and when. If the account was opened when the fund was set up the bank should have all of the details. If not, they will only have the details after the money was paid in, if it was after some of the money was taken you will not get the answers that you need. You need to locate the solicitors that set up the fund. They will have everything. Maybe sil will know.

Have you got a copy of his mother's will? Wills are published somewhere so worth searching online to find out where - I can't remember, sorry. But if you find it you might get an idea of which firm of solicitors was involved.

Have DP got any papers on it? Does his aunt remember anything about the trust, even the town where the solicitors were based?

Trust work like this is pretty specialised, so tracking down the firm that dealt with it should be fairly easy, if you know the town, there are unlikley to be more than 1-2 specialists there.

Talk to the solicitors firm and go to the police if it looks like you aunt's story is true - I'm not saying she's making it up, but the terms of the trust might have allowed him to do some of the stuff. There should have been a couple of trustees (at least) does she know who the others were?