# Debt owed by the deceased to Solicitor/Executor.



## o'grainne (29 Mar 2010)

Hi All, I have a query re a debt owed to the solicitor of a deceased person.

My father died in 2006 and appointed his solicitor as his executor, because of legal difficulties probate was only taken out in December of 2009.

At the families first meeting with the solicitor in 2007 he outlined what was going to happen re the will and quoted his fee for this work. 
Then at another meeting last November 2009 he told us that there were outstanding monies owed to him by my late father for work done before he died and were not paid. This is separate to his payment for work as executor this was the first mention to us of this outstanding bill, 3 years since his death.
The reason behind my query is, that before his death my father had been owed money and the person owing it had died, when my father had tried to collect this debt, this solicitor had told him he had left it too late to recover the debt as it was 2 years after the person had died (probate had not yet been taken out) and that he would have had to have issued proceedings against the estate within 2 years of the death.
He quoted the Civil Liability Act of 1961, it governs causes of action (e.g. recovery of a debt) of a deceased person’s estate and the limitation period is two years. Because my father did not issue proceedings against the estate of the dead person within two years of the death no cause of action survived.

The Inland Revenue Affidavit submitted in 2009 for my father’s estate did not make any mention of these monies owed to the Solicitor/Executor.

So my question is; is this Solicitor/Executer himself too late to claim this debt under the same rules that he informed my father of?

The family are not saying that this money was not due, we were unaware of it but should the Solicitor/Executor not have gone through the proper channels and time frame to claim against my father’s estate for payment?


He has said that as executor he has had the right to be reimbursed for work done for my father which had not been paid to him at the time of his death. 

I thought the executor’s role was to administer the will only and if it is not mentioned in the will it can’t be dealt with?

Many thanks in advance.


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## PaddyBloggit (29 Mar 2010)

Inland Revenue .... it seems you are in the UK .... this is an Irish site so you'll probably not find the answer to your query here.


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## o'grainne (29 Mar 2010)

INLAND REVENUE AFFIDAVIT. CAPITAL ACQUISITIONS TAX CONSOLIDATION ACT, 2003. (to be used where the deceased died on or after 5th December, 2001) ...  See revenue.ie


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## PaddyBloggit (29 Mar 2010)

Well blow me down .... no need to get touchy with the CAPS on o'grainne .... it was a genuine 'error' on my part ... so as not to waste your time.


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## o'grainne (29 Mar 2010)

I cut and copied the heading from the Google info page and it happened to be in caps, no “touchiness” implied.


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## mf1 (29 Mar 2010)

"Then at another meeting last November 2009 he told us that there were outstanding monies owed to him by my late father for work done before he died and were not paid. This is separate to his payment for work as executor this was the first mention to us of this outstanding bill, 3 years since his death."

How much is the additional fee? 

You could look at this in a few different ways: 

1. Sod it - he is statute barred and he is being well paid for the probate so he is not going to be paid anything additional, even if he did do work, because he is statute barred. 


2. Sod it - he did the work and, even if he is statute barred, he deserves to be paid. 

3. Its important to stick to the letter of the law, on principle,  and no quarter should be given or taken by anyone. Who cares if this all makes the world an unhappy place.  

mf


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## o'grainne (29 Mar 2010)

Thanks for reply mfi, am I to take it from your reply that he is statute barred on this matter?

As I also said in my question, there were other legal difficulties to sort out re my fathers will, he is getting paid for this work also on top of the executors fee and we did feel that he was coming the "old soldier" with this additional one, which is for an extra €2,000.

So we do feel that he has been well paid.


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## Bronte (30 Mar 2010)

What work did he do for your father, the fee for this is 2K.  Have you a written quotation for all the work?  You say there is two fees, one for executor fees and the other is for what and how much?  So we are at 3 fees?

Can you give us a rough outline of what is in the estate and the work done?

When it comes to money and fees it should be clearly outlined to you what is to be paid for what.


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## Bronte (30 Mar 2010)

mf1;1022948 
3. Its important to stick to the letter of the law said:
			
		

> That's generally why people go to solicitors, for the letter of the law.


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## o'grainne (30 Mar 2010)

My father had no assets just some savings. 
But there were court proceedings issued prior to his death that had to be settled. 
So his solicitor/executor is charging for 1. dealing with the Will, 2. dealing and finalizing the court proceedings, which also involved Senior and Jnr. Counsel, and 3. the out standing debts that he says were owed to him before my father died. Yes he has given us a break down of the work done.

We were concerned that these debts were only mentioned 3 years after his death.     We have found no bill among my fathers papers from the solicitor for the costs he says he is now owed. 

I have now come across the Personal Representative's Right of Retainer, section 46(2) of the 1965 Succession Act. _This allows a Personal Representative who is himself a creditor of the estate to pay his own debts before paying other creditors of equal decree. _

But we still do not know if he has to issue proceedings against the estate within 2 years of the death in order to be paid. or can he say under this section "by the way I am owed this debt"

We cannot prove that this work was not done, but we need to know if the solicitor/executor has a time frame to in which to claim for these costs?

It seems that the small amount of money that is left after all the payments is still being swallowed up.


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