I have an estate where the deceased’s son is the Executor and residuary beneficiary of the estate. When his father died, in the period between him dying and his son instructing us to administer the estate he drained one of his father’s accounts of funds, presumably using his bank card.
This only came to light when I took over the file and noted a discrepancy between the declared date of death value of the account and the funds received.
In most cases this wouldn’t be an issue, however there are two legacies of £1,000 that need to be paid and after repaying the estate liabilities and our professional fees (which were very low) there is not enough money to pay the legacies, due to the son spending the money. I have discussed this with him and he simply doesn’t care.
I am not sure how to move forward from this, do I inform the legacy beneficiaries so that they can pursue the Executor themselves or am I not able to do this due to client confidentiality? I have sent him letters about it but he simply ignores them.
Any help would be gratefully received.
Gemma Van Duke
Bishopsgate Law