Thanks HH for giving us some more info to go on, that does clarify quite a loy.What a business. It must be very frustrating that BB won't let you see the bank statements and foolish or clever of him to mix up his Mum's account with his. I find it much easier and transparent to keep my Mum's accounts separately! So he wants to hide something. Is it fraud, or is it just that he juggled with your Mum's money, borrowing from it for his own affairs or even investing it elsewhere.
I wouldn't have thought that pension credit would be payable once you have ch funding but if the authorities have decided not to take it back, that makes one bit easier. re the large pension accumulated, once you are on chc, don't your savings cease to apply? I don't think it is means tested like LA help? Someone will correct me if I am wrong?
To play the devil's advocate, what about if you did just go along with BB's accounting notes for your Mum's money at death, what would happen then? You can roughly calculate how much she had yourself, working out the state pension, the pension credit and a small amount of interest. So if you saw his figure as correct, then you could all move on, including you keeping your relationship with your MB. I can understand he must have felt frustrated by what you did, rightly or wrongly and I think you need to think about whether continuing to prod at this is going to end your relationship with both your brothers and make no difference to the finances. If your BB was being a bit dodgy about it, he will have covered his tracks but you all presumably get a share of the amount that you roughly know to be there, so is it worth weighing up the cost of following this up?
I sense huge anger in your posts, and I can understand that, but as I have sometimes said to other posters, I believe anger is often really grief that has been missdirected into other issues. Maybe I am wrong to suggest this, but you must be using a huge amount of energy on what I suspect may be a futile attempt to prove that there has been wrongdoing by your BB and also the care home. I think maybe it is worth rethinking what really matters, having a relationship with MB, at least, getting your inheritance out of the way and being able to grieve properly for your mother? Just a thought, sorry if you feel I am speaking out of turn but I feel someone has to say that to you.
Thank you, Raggedrobin and Pickles53. You are absolutely right in all your observations, and Pickles53’s analysis of my predicament is spot on.
There had been a third way for me, which had been to have done and said nothing, and "let nature take its course". After many moons had passed, both brothers would have agitated for the distribution of their inheritance, gone to the probate Court for the revoking of my letters of administration, but, would have had to discharge the burden of proof that my unending delay was unreasonable. I believe I would have succeeded very much on the grounds invoked by Pickles53 - the absence of proper information essential to finalise the estate administration in accordance with the law. That information is very obviously available from BB but he withholds it as if he were playing a game. I will return to this below, in view of Raggedrobin's suggestion of a solution by going along with BB's informal data.
No doubt, you will appreciate that I had to act directly because I wanted and still want some certainty, and the peace of mind that comes with it, which, indeed, I made a part of my court claim against BB on behalf of MB and me.
The facts about all the funding issues - care home fees, continuing NHS care, the patient's contribution and pension top up - are difficult. Even the Alzheimer's fact sheet "Benefit Rates and Income Savings Thresholds" is ambiguous at the paragraph headed "Paying for Care". I cannot work out if the upper threshold (£24,000) applies to care home fees or NHS continuing care fees, or both.
Apparently, means-tested pension top-up is still claimable by residents in a care home or nursing home.
Yes, I agree, Raggedrobin: it is a relief that the DWP have abandoned their claim to overpaid pension credit, and Pickles53 understands why I am reluctant to "risk it all again" by awakening any interest of the NHS in the same surplus. HMRC are in the loop because one has to send in a tax return with an application for letters of administration. The estimated estate value I declared falls far below the threshold for inheritance tax.
It is a good question - whether there has been a fraud, which is the only term to describe the activities Raggedrobin suggests. That is because BB's only authority was to receive Mother's pension. If push comes to shove, BB can be held very strictly to that rule. However, matters would be rather less complicated if BB had had a power of attorney: as soon as Mother died, and that power ended, his banking activities with Mother's money would become open to enquiry. However, ostensibly, he has acted merely as a helpful family member and the bank that received Mother's pension - in his name - deems the principle of his privacy to override the principle of transparency in fiduciary relationships. That’s banks for you.
Knowing this, and since I began the court action against him for an injunction for the release of bank information, BB has begun to imply that Mother's money and his own money were indeed mixed up in that account. I believe it was prejudicial of the judge to assist BB in this, by suggesting that BB might object to my finding out how he had spent money on his wife.
As Pickles53 has observed, I cannot ignore the possibility of outstanding debts. I bear personal responsibility to pay them from my own resources, whether or not I settle the estate on the unproven word of BB. That is how I replied to the judge. I emphasised my predicament by pointing out that BB's own view was that a substantial unseen debt might yet manifest, for which he had retained more than £5000. It was not possible for me to ignore that and share that money out as BB now wants. I also pointed out that one of the cheques BB wrote to MB and me, distributing some of the surplus pension as our inheritance, was written against an entirely different bank account, suggesting either a transfer, or that BB used/uses Mother's money as if it were his own. I am therefore claiming access to any and all BB's accounts to which transfers have been made of Mother's pension.
This claim should be a slam-dunk, but the judge does not think so. He was itching to summarily dismiss the application on his stated grounds that, as far as he can see, I have no claim. However, on the face of these submissions, I believe there are over-riding good grounds for access to the original bank records, and no need to mention BB had sought to defraud MB and me of the said £5000 - a matter however, that the judge ignored.
Running against the judge’s volunteering a defence on grounds of BB’s privacy, BB has said, in a defence statement, that the account in question did not exist before his appointeeship. The implication is he opened it to receive Mother’s pension. Also, he had stayed silent when, in October 2014, I invited him, as neutrally as possible, to declare if any of his own assets had become included with Mother's, pointing out that "delay (in his responding) destroys equity".
It is also a strong argument that if a person mixes his own money with that of an elderly and infirm person, he cannot have any real prospect of long-term privacy. BB acknowledges that he opened his house to those wanting to visit Mother when her time seemed to be up. Also, that a manipulator of another’s money, who bungs in a tenner of his own so as to fend off legitimate enquiry should not receive the sympathy of the court in relation to the privacy of that account.
BB can be relied upon to be one step ahead. He has stated in his defence that he does not want me to know how he banked Mother's pension for fear I am fishing for the slightest pretext to get him into trouble. No doubt, he would say the same thing to the police if they paid him a visit.
In that case, why has BB sent me a cheque for another £600-odd with enough information for me to prove, arithmetically, he had spent nothing at all of Mother's pension on her needs? Why did he say that Mother's furniture was dilapidated, but that there was £34,000 of her money in his bank? I think it might be that BB knows he has done wrong and wishes to be found out and punished.
Before I respond to the notion that I acquiesce to BB's conduct and data as a way forward to settle the estate, I need to explain the outcome so far of my court application.
The judge has stayed my claim for various elusive reasons and issued a court order that, among other things, BB must re-write his financial balance sheet. I have rejected this balance sheet as nonsensical and therefore irrelevant, but BB has adduced it as evidence in court and said it is “substantially correct”. That is how he defends against my claim for access to the original bank statements from which he acknowledges it to be a copy.
I suggest the judge is ordering BB to tamper with this piece of evidence prior to ruling it in as relevant. I say this because the judge has given BB very precise directions about how he wants to see the balance sheet re-written. One detail orders BB to include new data not from his bank records. That gives the re-written item a radically different nature, in that it cannot then be said to be a copy of the bank records. This transformation will assist the court on BB’s behalf to dismiss my claim to need the original bank statements. The new document will be an original piece of documentary evidence written to the satisfaction of the court, despite the court having procured from BB essentially the same information as before. However, my claim to need the original bank statements is based on a longstanding rule of evidence, that where an original record is available, it is the only admissible evidence. The re-written document becomes the original, whereby the grounds of my claim will be vitiated. I suspect I will be told to accept it as both valid and relevant for estate valuation purposes. If this is not so, what service is it to the court to obtain the re-written balance sheet when - like me - the court has no evidence upon which to judge its accuracy? Naturally, I have appealed against these orders. Generally, I suspect an order to re-write any documentary evidence is highly prejudicial.
There being a number of reasons to think this judge was helping my claim down the plug-hole, I wrote to BB seeking a no fees agreement that I discontinue my claim (i.e. withdraw it from court completely). I proposed to settle everything by sharing out equally the present balance of the administration account - which largely comprises the money BB has handed over based on the unproven figures in his balance sheet. I told him that I want to put the matter behind us, especially as my claim - and the stress it is causing - will otherwise extend over Christmas to the discomfort of our families. My proposal puts to an end any claim for access to BB's bank accounts, to the part of the claim for him to pay the court fees - some £600 - and to the part of the claim for him to pay all the estate disbursements - £500 - spent since August 2014 trying to get reliable information from third parties. In the hearing, at which BB was present, I had told the judge I reserve the right to plead the allegation that BB had defrauded the sum of £5000 from MB and me, because, at face value, it would be grounds for access to his bank account if my other grounds failed. So BB knows my proposal to discontinue against him also eliminates any hearing of that allegation. By discontinuing, therefore, I intended to sink all these issues without trace.
BB has refused this offer twice. He quibbling my disbursements - though they would be no longer an issue - and wanting me to promise a full and final settlement, which, I explained to him, is unlikely to be approved by the Courts.
The offer was an alternative to appealing and, because the latter was subject to a short dead line, I could not extend it for long. The offer is therefore a dead duck in the water, and I have sent in the very large cheque for the additional proceedings.
It is in this context that BB now sends the additional cheque for the sum of £600-odd, saying he had missed it. It is as if he wants to suggest there are good grounds for continuing against him as one who has continually stated there to be no money left yet has gone on to prove that is not so. If you go right back to my post of 22 January 2015, in my third paragraph, you will see that I have outlined BB’s habit of gaining control over me (at least) by withholding or pretending to withhold something of value to me. Alas, I have to consider the possibility that his unending deceit and refusal of ordinary cooperation is a part of a larger picture of game-playing, which, however, has reached pathological proportions. The man might need a doctor, not a judge, or even a policeman.
I have therefore written to MB to alert him that I will phone him soon to discuss this matter. Up until now, he has shrugged off any need of comment, suggesting that what he says probably doesn’t count for much. It is time for him to get off the fence, as I am faced with decisions I ought not to have to make single-handed.
I took up this thread anew because I was in need of hard advice about how to convince the police that there might be a matter for them. I notice Pickles53 has thought I could go to the police and tell my story, but do they have the time, staff and inclination these days for a complex matter? I feel it would be all too easy for them to say go to your solicitor. I think a part of this problem is that I’m aware that fraud is somewhere between a crime and a civil tort.
Well, I will let you all to your sleep now, as there are some things that can’t be answered by other folks. But thank you, everybody.
It will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.