Hi, a sad bad story which I will put in chronological order if it helps. Hope someone can help. I live overseas at the moment and it is very difficult for the rest of my family to deal with.
My brother found a Filipino 'girlfriend'
She got pregnant
My brothers cancer from 5 years previously came back giving him little time to live.
GFriend had a baby.
My brother apparently signed the birth certificate. However
a) he was on morphine at the time and
b) there were lies on the Filipino birth certificate ie she stated she was single but was in fact married to a Filipino and secondly stated that my brother was a catholic which if fact he was not.
He also left no will.
Two things in succession lead us to believe that the baby may well not have been my brothers:
firstly:
My sister originally thought the baby was genuine and had a facebook connection to the Filipino woman and treated her with respect even though the twice she met her (while visiting Australia) she was very evasive, did not speak even though treated very well and spent the whole time on her iphone. Then when my brother died and sister contacted this woman she showed no shock, remorse, unhappiness or other emotion in her response but immediately asked for money as 'it was our responsibility'.
After my brothers death one of his friends told my dad that my brother had been scammed and that someone else had had 'relations' with this woman.
We then also thought it strange that a 57 year old man who had had lots of chemo could actually conceive.
Three months later this was more or less confirmed in our minds as by brothers 'girlfriend' had taken up a de-facto relationship with a local man who claimed via facebook that 'its my baby' re the child.
My sister on behalf of my father then changed the(interim) death certificate to 'no children' as we did not believe it to be true any more. The full death certificate had not been issued on account that the funeral director was trading while being bankrupt and did not forward details to the correct authority, this took around 3 months to resolve
The Filipino woman turned up in Australia (on a visa issued on the basis of my brothers financial support, however he was already deceased)
She stayed with a local friend who was married to one of my brothers 'friends'.
She made daily demands for his estate to which we said we will give her a substantial share of his money (as we intended anyway).
This went on remorselessly for several months and got worse after his 'friends' had told her that we had taken the proceeds of the estate ie the proceeds of his house he had sold the previous year, she had also been told that he was worth at least '$400k' when in fact his entire estate would have been worth maybe $40k.
We did not originally go for administration as it was a small estate in the eyes of the law however the bank he had a share dealing account with would not give us access without admin documents.
We then applied for administration in January this year.
Just after administration had been given my father received extremely threatening letters from her no-win
no-fee lawyer who accused us of a)not working on behalf of the 'girlfriend' and b) misappropriating $100K's of his estate.
Her lawyers also at this time presented us with the birth certificate which was our first sighting of it.
Her lawyers also sent some transcribed notes taken from iphone video and voice recordings this woman had made when she met my sister and father (pre my bothers death) ie this was what she was doing when she was supposedly ignoring us.. These recordings were used in order to prove that we had accepted her as part of the family (this speaks volumes for the character we are dealing with)
We proved to them by documentation that after selling his house he received less than $100k after mortgage cleared etc. however they were not apeased
They then sent another threatening letter to demand that we hand everything over to them immediately or be faced with their costs in going to court. My father (88 years old)out of extreme fear tried to comply. (they had sent envelopes to put documents in and TOLD us which car yard to take his car to sell (miles away) and that no, non of our massive costs to date would be allowed. However they refused to take my fathers phone calls and then my father was given 1 weeks notice that he had to be in the supreme court.
We took our details to another solicitor who tired to negotiate with her solicitors but they would not do so and wanted their day in court. We took on a barrister for a substantial sum (for us) because if we did not her solicitors would be able to claim massive and fictitious fees against us.
My father had already agreed that they can take over administration and this was passed over to them in court..
Thats the story but here is what I would like some guidance on.
Firstly this woman had become a client of her solicitor last year, long before we had applied for administration. ( I deducted this from the references in her solicitors letter and from the timings as to when she had threatened us with legal action)
However they did not apply for administration and waited for us to do so. I questioned them on this but was stonewalled.
Q, IS THIS CORRECT AND ETHICAL
Their threats to my father were so aggressive (he thought he would have to sell his retirement home and has zero other assets) that his heart went into arrhythmia and subsequently (after 3 months) had a procedure to correct it. The doctors stated at the time that it was usually severe stress that causes this in the elderly. My sister who had also been dealing with these issues has multiple sclerosis and the continuous stress induced by these solicitors pushed her into her first relapse in 8 years.
Q can we sue them for the stress and illness caused by their extremely demanding and aggressive behavior
My brother spent a huge amount of money between selling his house and his demise, we dont know what on. We did not get access to his bank statements. However her solicitors seem to believe that we are responsible for anything that cannot be accounted for even before his death. We have touched nothing since his demise and have put his belongings in storage.
Q, can they sue us for anything unaccounted for pre his death or anything they choose to believe we have misappropriated or do they have to involve the police for this (which would be my first preference as we have nothing to hide) ?
and Q, can we do anything about false accusations?
These lawyers have suggested during a phone call that this transfer of administration might not be the last we will hear of this, ie we might be sued for all her and her solicitors costs after everything has been passed over to them. We do not have this part in writing though.
Q Can they do this and will it hold up in court.?
Thank you for your patience and I would like to point out that early in the game we saw two solicitors, neither very helpful and another one after the threatening letters and just before the supreme court case and really cannot afford any more solicitors at this point of time.
My brother found a Filipino 'girlfriend'
She got pregnant
My brothers cancer from 5 years previously came back giving him little time to live.
GFriend had a baby.
My brother apparently signed the birth certificate. However
a) he was on morphine at the time and
b) there were lies on the Filipino birth certificate ie she stated she was single but was in fact married to a Filipino and secondly stated that my brother was a catholic which if fact he was not.
He also left no will.
Two things in succession lead us to believe that the baby may well not have been my brothers:
firstly:
My sister originally thought the baby was genuine and had a facebook connection to the Filipino woman and treated her with respect even though the twice she met her (while visiting Australia) she was very evasive, did not speak even though treated very well and spent the whole time on her iphone. Then when my brother died and sister contacted this woman she showed no shock, remorse, unhappiness or other emotion in her response but immediately asked for money as 'it was our responsibility'.
After my brothers death one of his friends told my dad that my brother had been scammed and that someone else had had 'relations' with this woman.
We then also thought it strange that a 57 year old man who had had lots of chemo could actually conceive.
Three months later this was more or less confirmed in our minds as by brothers 'girlfriend' had taken up a de-facto relationship with a local man who claimed via facebook that 'its my baby' re the child.
My sister on behalf of my father then changed the(interim) death certificate to 'no children' as we did not believe it to be true any more. The full death certificate had not been issued on account that the funeral director was trading while being bankrupt and did not forward details to the correct authority, this took around 3 months to resolve
The Filipino woman turned up in Australia (on a visa issued on the basis of my brothers financial support, however he was already deceased)
She stayed with a local friend who was married to one of my brothers 'friends'.
She made daily demands for his estate to which we said we will give her a substantial share of his money (as we intended anyway).
This went on remorselessly for several months and got worse after his 'friends' had told her that we had taken the proceeds of the estate ie the proceeds of his house he had sold the previous year, she had also been told that he was worth at least '$400k' when in fact his entire estate would have been worth maybe $40k.
We did not originally go for administration as it was a small estate in the eyes of the law however the bank he had a share dealing account with would not give us access without admin documents.
We then applied for administration in January this year.
Just after administration had been given my father received extremely threatening letters from her no-win
no-fee lawyer who accused us of a)not working on behalf of the 'girlfriend' and b) misappropriating $100K's of his estate.
Her lawyers also at this time presented us with the birth certificate which was our first sighting of it.
Her lawyers also sent some transcribed notes taken from iphone video and voice recordings this woman had made when she met my sister and father (pre my bothers death) ie this was what she was doing when she was supposedly ignoring us.. These recordings were used in order to prove that we had accepted her as part of the family (this speaks volumes for the character we are dealing with)
We proved to them by documentation that after selling his house he received less than $100k after mortgage cleared etc. however they were not apeased
They then sent another threatening letter to demand that we hand everything over to them immediately or be faced with their costs in going to court. My father (88 years old)out of extreme fear tried to comply. (they had sent envelopes to put documents in and TOLD us which car yard to take his car to sell (miles away) and that no, non of our massive costs to date would be allowed. However they refused to take my fathers phone calls and then my father was given 1 weeks notice that he had to be in the supreme court.
We took our details to another solicitor who tired to negotiate with her solicitors but they would not do so and wanted their day in court. We took on a barrister for a substantial sum (for us) because if we did not her solicitors would be able to claim massive and fictitious fees against us.
My father had already agreed that they can take over administration and this was passed over to them in court..
Thats the story but here is what I would like some guidance on.
Firstly this woman had become a client of her solicitor last year, long before we had applied for administration. ( I deducted this from the references in her solicitors letter and from the timings as to when she had threatened us with legal action)
However they did not apply for administration and waited for us to do so. I questioned them on this but was stonewalled.
Q, IS THIS CORRECT AND ETHICAL
Their threats to my father were so aggressive (he thought he would have to sell his retirement home and has zero other assets) that his heart went into arrhythmia and subsequently (after 3 months) had a procedure to correct it. The doctors stated at the time that it was usually severe stress that causes this in the elderly. My sister who had also been dealing with these issues has multiple sclerosis and the continuous stress induced by these solicitors pushed her into her first relapse in 8 years.
Q can we sue them for the stress and illness caused by their extremely demanding and aggressive behavior
My brother spent a huge amount of money between selling his house and his demise, we dont know what on. We did not get access to his bank statements. However her solicitors seem to believe that we are responsible for anything that cannot be accounted for even before his death. We have touched nothing since his demise and have put his belongings in storage.
Q, can they sue us for anything unaccounted for pre his death or anything they choose to believe we have misappropriated or do they have to involve the police for this (which would be my first preference as we have nothing to hide) ?
and Q, can we do anything about false accusations?
These lawyers have suggested during a phone call that this transfer of administration might not be the last we will hear of this, ie we might be sued for all her and her solicitors costs after everything has been passed over to them. We do not have this part in writing though.
Q Can they do this and will it hold up in court.?
Thank you for your patience and I would like to point out that early in the game we saw two solicitors, neither very helpful and another one after the threatening letters and just before the supreme court case and really cannot afford any more solicitors at this point of time.
