solicitors

First of all i am NOT going into details so please don't ask.

My late mother set up a trust find with certain conditions some of which a local firm of solicitors had a staff member as one of the trustees together with my sister and myself.
Well the solicitors inital appointee died about 20 years ago and the solicitors should have notified all the share companies registrars of this which they failed to do. Then they nominated another staff member without informing either of us, they did it off their own back.

Next the previous secretary to the solicitor failed to pass on to us all the dividend certificates or even bothered to notify us of the companies whose shares we had with them but had split up into sub companies.

She left the solicitors suddenly, I have my suspicions why, and now this new secretary has gone through back records and found half the work wasn't done. That is either sending dividends reports to us or just never got them and chased them up. This is on top of notifying the registers of the share companies of the change of trustees

Now the new solicitor that had taken over is seriously ill in hosptal and unable to act on our behalf.

So now up to date as of to day we have just received a letter saying that this firm basically don't want to deal with the trust fund, which my sister and I wanted all along, and now putting into motion all the back checking up and transferring the whole admin of the trust to us and wiping their hands of it.

This no doubt will take a few months but at least no more paying their obsorbatant fees of £288 an hour.

My sister and i will be free to administer the trust as we see fit, which is what it should have been in the first place, but this was out of our hands.

With the mess this firm of solicitors have made in regard to trust funds my stong advice is don't even think about it. We have been legally cheated out of thousands of pound by wrong advice and brokers fees let alone theirs

Re: solicitors

and???

Re: solicitors

Nothing surprises me about them, when my fil died it should have been fairly simple sell shares divide the money between 4 brothers, it took 18 months of continual letters and meetings all paid for by us, we then discovered they'd also been corresponding with the other three brothers making the cost exorbitant and again if came out of the trust.

The original solicitor had died years previous and the new ones had moved city so .... We had to go to ombudsmen to find them and make them act !

So you have my deepest sympathies I know exactly how you feel. Oh and because it took so long we had to pay tax on the sum too which was totally unnessary if they had acted promptly.

Re: solicitors

Don't set one up. if you have never been involved then don't

All this was set up by my mother and my sister and I knew nothing about it. Consequently had no say initially and now had to go through at least 35 years of problems with it. What made it worse we had no say in how it was administered or alter it.
when last year i wanted the whole thing dissolved, because of the conditions attached to the trust it would have cost many thousands of pounds and a court judgement as well.

Re: solicitors

We've got to set one up a trust so the boys can administer it if grace isn't of age should anything happen to us.

After christmas we are going to do it, we've put it off long enough. But we have to name them her guardians too so it will have to be done legally.

Re: solicitors

I am not going to get into a debate about solicitors, as I have three in my family. My son-in-law specialies in Probate, my grandson Criminal Defense and his partner specialises in representing peope with mental health issues. So, any comment I would make would be biased - but it is certainly very useful as far as this family are concerned

Re: solicitors

Julie

If I can give a bit of advice, avoid trust funds which involve anything to do with shares. You get involved with solicitors and stock brokers who take out more that a trust find pays out

My best advice is to put the money into savings bonds or similar with a fixed term interest.

If you knew the whole story behind ours you would run a mile. Ours involved our children as well and believe me.,I would not say this lightly,DON'T

Re: solicitors

None of my family are in any financial position to set up trust funds so the issue hasn't nor ever will arise.

Re: solicitors

UJ

In some ways you are lucky, trust funds are a nightmare especially when setup without your knowing. It wasn't until my late mother died I even knew i was nominated as a trustee. From what i understand , having researched it, anyone can nominated anyone else, even a complete stranger, to be a trustee and they cannot stop it.
If I set up a trust fund I could even nominate you as a trustee UJ and you are helpless to stop it.
All you can do is claim with proof costs to yourself against the trust, but not for your time

Re: solicitors

Julie1962

sent you a PM
remember solicitiors charge for their time and letters that includes share dividends sent