Untrustworthy trustee, dont know where togo from here

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Rosepetal

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12 August 2017
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HELLO FORUM,
Ill try not to give any unessasary info, but there has been so much that has happened that it really needs to be explained.
So, My Nan sadly passed away in feburary after a long battle with various illnesses, my dad had passed away 6 years ago so that only left his astranged sister to take care and organise what had to be done.Well she doesnt deal well with stress or making decisions or basically being able to function properly in a situation like that. So my sister and I organised the whole funeral, wake and everything that came with it. Which i was more then happy to do it. Anyway, in the week leading up to the funeral my aunt and my cousin started going through and sorting out all of my nans possessions. Now i want to add here that i offered for 7 days in a row to go down and help out but she refused, id also like to add that it was quite common knowledge in our family that my nan had a draw with quite alot of money in it. Anyway so the day after the funeral my aunt finally asked me and my siblings to come down and see if there was anything that we wanted. As we arrived we saw a massive skip bin full of stuff, while walking past we noticed that everygift we had made or brought, every photo of us she had had all been chucked in this skip bin and broken. All that was left in the house was 3 old towels, a toasted sandwich maker and a garden knome, and thats what she offered us. My Aunt had all ready sent all the furniture in a truck back to where she lives, she had sold the fridge, freezer, washing machine and dryer online, gifted my nans car to someone and also given away alot of other things. The day after this i got a call from my cousin telling me that my sister, brother and I had actually been named as benificiarys as my father had already passed away and my Aunt had been named as a beneficiary and the trustee/ executor of my nans will. For the next 3 days my aunt ignored all of our phonecalls, emails and text messages for 3 days after she found out that we were in the will. So we just turned up at my nans house and my Aunt was dirty, she was so angry that we were entitled to between the three of us half of my nans livleyhood. She just didnt think that was fair or that we deserved it, she was rude, nasty, and said alot of horrible things about my mum, my dad and my grandmother. Another vital peice of the story is that about 6 months before my nan passed away my nan gave my Aunt quite a substantial amount of money (my family never knew about this until after my nan passed) but we have Been told my my nans 2 sisters and best friend on seperate occassions that it was around $200 000. Now I dont know if i believe it was quite that much, but my Aunt told us that she had only been given roughly the amount it would cost for a funeral.
This sum of money was given to my Aunt in the event of my nan needing to go into a care vacility, anything she needed, her eventual funeral costs etc. While we were at the house my sister was sneaky enough to see poking out of her bag a letter with a law firms name on it and took note of it just incase. After another week had passed and we hadnt heard anything from my aunt or any of them.
So considering we had no answers, we didnt know what was going on, and we hadnt been contacted by a lawyer i called the law firm and after my identity had been proven and after me calling the firm for 4 days in a row and each time there was a different excuse and he would call me back, which he didnt. He ended up taking my call on the 5th day and then he informed me that he couldnt talk to me or give me any information because as my Aunt was the trustee of my nans estate that made him her solicitor and that would have been a conflict of interest. Now i had some basic knowledge about how things were ment to happen and i just couldnt understand why he couldnt give us information that we were entitled to, because I was and still am under the impression that. That is actually exactly what he is meant to do. So after i was told all of that we ended up getting our own legal advice which we were told that all the benificiarys should have already sat down and been read the assests that were ment to be divided etc. After explaining about her taking most things or giving away etc we were then told to write down everything that she had taken for for herself, what she had given away or sold and how much it was all worth and include the money that my nan gave her for her care because seen as my nan never got around to use it thenit would go back in as part of h er assests. So legally she now owed us the munortary value of half of my nans possesions. Well that letter wasnt received well. I got many abusive messages and it ended in her not wanting anything to do with us ever again, which was no loss to any of us seen as id only ever seen her about 4 or 5 times in 26 years.
So about another 2 weeks pass and we still hadnt gotten any information, so I rung the law firm again, 2 days later i got a call back from them telling me that my Aunt had cancelled her situation with them and was going to find someone else to handle it this was around mid to late March, and I have not heard anything from the new solicitor or her.
I would assume that around 5 months would be ample time to
Im under the impression that the trustee is in charge of making things fair, equal and legally bound to be honest?
These are my opinions on everything shady and dishonest that she she has done. Not to mention braking the law.
1. I think she was the reasoning behind the first solicitor not doing what he was ment to, or maby i have it wrong and theres not meant to be a meeting and we are not ment to be told about what assets my nan had??
2.I also believe that she only left that firm because she wouldnt have disclosed to him about the money she was given by my nan or the fact that she was giving away our inheritance and that was all going to have to be reimbursed to us by her.
3. I doubt she has even told her new solicitor that we exsist because it has been 5 months since she has been with them. Or do I have no idea about how long these things can take?
4. Also she had refused our offers to help to go through my nans stuff because she knew about the draw with money and they could then send the removals truck packed with what she wanted to keep before we would ever see it.
5. And she obviously lied to us about how much she had been given just so we didnt know the truth.
I just think that she is trying to get it all for herself and cut us out of the equation. I have tried doing a few online will enquiries to see if its in progress or something, but i really dont know where to go from here, so any help, clarifications or advice would mean alot. So hopefully you guys have some good advice for me. THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP!
 

Rod

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Each state has different laws, what State did your Nan live in?
 
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Rod

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I'm not going to be much help as I know little about estate laws in NSW but the other experienced people that frequent this forum now know what laws to consider.

Suspect you are going to need your own lawyer. Your Aunty has broken her duties as trustee but to fix the situation you need proper legal advice and that means sitting in front of a lawyer with paperwork and a copy of the will.

Take photos and start gathering as much evidence of these actions as you can. Start writing up notes in a timeline before important details are forgotten.
 
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Rosepetal

Member
12 August 2017
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Yeah we have like a 10 page ducument thats like a timeline of everything that happend, i have kept the abusive text messages and i also have a list with the monetary value of all the major things she took, sold or gave away. Like I dont even care about what I may or may not be getting, Im legitimatly only going to do something because shes been such a disgusting person. I hope she has spent most of the money so she has to go into debt to give it to us. Haha, ohh thats pretty mean, but the things she was saying about my mum, dad and her own mother. She deserves all the karma in the world.

Do you think we would need anything else then what we already have?
Take photos of what?
 

Rod

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Get a copy of the will if you don't already have it.

Photos of skip filled with items, maybe find out the rego of your nans car, pictures of where it is now, etc. Anything really that you think will help you.
 
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Rosepetal

Member
12 August 2017
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Oh, we never took any photos of the skip but I can always take a picture of the 2 towels and sandwiche press we got yeah i still have my copy of the will, well i have the rego papers anyway for the car coz nan had already said it was mine.
 

winston wolf

Well-Known Member
21 April 2014
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Yes get onto this straight away. It sounds like you aunt has not acted correctly. BTW the money gifted away can be brought back into the estate if a family provision challenge is made in NSW. Its called provisional estate.
But expect to blow $100-200K of the total estate on legals.