Just received solicitor’s email

[KnottedStomach]

I just received an email from a solicitor saying thanks for our chat yesterday (we didn’t chat). It was sent to me and DH. It sounds like he was trying to get finances in order before initiating a split. He talked about protecting his death in service benefit, trying to say that he contributed to my parents house (untrue) and trying to protect that money. We lent them 40% of the amount he says he gave and they have already paid half back.

I replied to the solicitor copying in DH. I’m in bed with Coronavirus. He’s upstairs working. I’m waiting for a massive showdown and I’m scared.

I don’t think he would hurt me but he’s very intelligent, persuasive and can be verbally aggressive/insistent.

I’m really scared.

OP I'd call this professional misconduct by the solicitor.

Hardly. I would assume OP's husband said they both want Wills, but OP is too ill to attend the meeting. That's why she was copied on the email to him.

Well this is a fine mess he has gotten himself into....

I favour cock-up over conspiracy as a rule of thumb, & this cock-up has done you a favour as it has peeled back a layer or few, to expose your underlying concerns.

For now, I do buy the will writing advise session freebie...at the outset. But the topic may have strayed or not. Certainly an admin error that you were copied in. That said if this is the calibre of a family law specialist (e.g. divorce lawyer) then your DH is in for a bumpy ride as they are clearly not that good.

So, share with your lawyer friend.

Then, time to get your own advice session in place. Get well informed. That is all. If you have a limited number of family law specialists in your area, ask around for who is the best/toughest.

If this does turn out to be your OH’s opening salvo or you decide to get the ball rolling, then you need to have nabbed the best outfit for miles to represent you.

You can find out what area/s of practice the solicitor who sent the email does probably from the firm website, and certainly from the Find a Solicitor website. It should show areas of practice, ie whether she does family law or not.

First thing I'd do when you're feeling up to it is get everything drawn up legally around your dp house and the various loans and paybacks

Then I'd have a separate conversation about what will happen in a split, with the solicitor I mean.

Do you want to split up?

Meh maybe he thinks you are going to die of coronavirus and wants it all.

Did you hand over your parents the money in cash? If not then is a “paper trail” in the statement.

Who did he nominate as guardians to your children?

replied to the solicitor copying in DH

What did you reply? And why on earth did you copy DH in? I would, personally, left him out of any communication. Now he knows you have seen it.

So sorry such a shit situation. No advice except engage your own solicitor for advice.

It sounds like a wills email as probate solicitors must document everything and may be £250k was a typo for the £25k the parents owe you both which is an important debt.

I would get your parents and you both to sign a short letter this week setting out what was paid when and that currently £25k is left and that it is interest free and you expect it to be paid back by [ add date].

Also wise to make your own will if you have not done so. ON guardians you will both have to reach agreement on that.

Hes a grade A wanker pulling a stunt like this when your ill. Especially thinking he is entitled to your inheritance that youve not got yet!

This is entirely above board, your poor husband!

I don’t understand why there’s no paperwork for the loan to your parents. 100k is a lot of money and their solicitor would have to seen where it came from, that’s the Law Society rules.

I lent money to a relative to buy property and there was a lot of paperwork for me to take a charge over it etc .

Don't put it in writing you'll give him £25k until you know what this is really all about.

I have a professional background that will inform what I am going to say. There are several possibilities here, but your instincts are telling you something is not right. Also he can be somewhere on the scale of abusive by your judgment..

It may be he’s not dealing well with the current situation, there may be various possibilities as to what’s going on, but two possibilities strike me that you should not discount when considering all the possibilities.

One - the solicitor says they met you yesterday. Did somebody impersonate you in a meeting? (Though it would be odd they had your email, unless they’d been able to trace that themselves . Could he have thought he’d be able to intercept it?)

Two - The solicitor thought something was fishy and somehow found the means to copy you in. They should not accept will instructions on the say so of someone else without checking it out, for obvious reasons.

I am absolutely NOT saying this is what’s going on, only that you should consider all the possibilities in the round in order to move forward with confidence.

A horrible complication in these horrible times, my sympathies The truth will out eventually, but take your time, get all the financial info you need together and take one step at a time. You’ll get there. 💐

“Plunderaccordment wouldn’t you discuss getting your will done with your partner and the children’s guardians in event of both you and your partner dying is definitely something you both discuss and agree on together not a unilateral decision of one partner.”

Yes and no. When we got our wills done, my DH made the initial call to a law firm and they took basic information from him and some placeholder things (names of potential guardians for children). They then sent an email to both of us with an outline of the basics: Beneficiaries for pensions, investments, life insurance, estimated value of estate/debts, options for trust funds and guardians for children. Potential Executors, etc. Plus some links were there too for extra reading/research on their webpage.

It was after he’d done that initial research and we had back the email with options that we discussed matters together.

I don’t see any point in discussing wills before getting the legal advice. Because we wouldn’t have known the law or what our options were.

“the solicitor says they met you yesterday.”
No, they did not say that. OP was courtesy copied on a email that was to her DH and said “thanks for the chat”. Meaning solicitor and DH had a chat. Not a meeting. A chat.

“Did somebody impersonate you in a meeting? ”
Tinfoil hat goes on.....

As to how did the solicitor get her email...from her DH! Because he asked the solicitor to cc her because he will need to discuss the legal options for his will with her!

Whatever the truth of the case is, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of trust in this relationship.

Trust your gut OP - and get your own legal advice and all your ducks in a row.
It's one thing to 'get advice' about making a will and what information is needed - quite another to make unanimous decisions and tell outright lies re finances, as though it were a done deal and required no prior discussion with you.

Speak to your solicitor friend and get their advice.

I think you might be married to my ex-husband as this sounds exactly like him....

If it was wills, which it sounds like, your parents debt to you would be owed to the estate on your deaths and would need to be noted in the will. So the executors would have to sort it out and get it from your parents so it could be passed on to your beneficiaries.

You state the email was clearly about splitting but that’s not what it sounds like and would be bizarre if it was.

If you were only cc’d - as you weren’t part of the conversation- then the reference to the chat is the chat between your DH and the solicitor. So the whole email was like, FYI this is what your DH and I discussed.

It sounds like the solicitor is an idiot who can't type well. I don't think I'd read more into it than that but I would ask your husband why he did it behind your back.

I have a professional background that will inform what I am going to say.

Professional bullshitter, I assume?

Solicitors do not respond to concerns about financial abuse of a spouse by cc-ing the spouse into correspondence without their client's consent, That would put the spouse at risk.

The amount of crap being talked on this thread is unbelievable.

Hardly. I would assume OP's husband said they both want Wills, but OP is too ill to attend the meeting. That's why she was copied on the email to him. @Winterlife

My comment about professional misconduct was based on what the OP wrote first- that she thought her DH had discussed divorce finances and somehow the solicitor had broken client confidentiality by copying her into his reply.

At the moment, she doesn't know what he went to see a solicitor for and it's all conjecture.

Her DH must have given out her email address and if not, then the solicitor did behave badly by assuming she needed to be copied into their reply.

OP if you are staying together the relationship needs some work on communication and trust, are you doing counselling?

There has been a huge surge in wills and LPoAs at my aunt's law firm.

I agree with other posters that you should be contacting your own solicitor as soon as you can.