Executors Duties? Court claim issued

[spicycurry92]

Hello,

I am a confused executor,

I am an executor to a will I do not have probate as will is being contested. 

 

This is by a person that is not mentioned in the will

I am executor of but is presenting an earlier will (of sorts).

 

The person has now issued court proceedings against the estate I am an executor of.

They are asking for the amount in the estate and asking for estate accounts.

I have although I got the impression I should not have but I gave them the figure of the estate roughly.

 

Now they want detail accounts,

however I thought I was only legally allowed to give any estate account details to those in the will I represent.

 

So can anyone advise me as to where I stand giving out this information please.

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG.

 

I've moved your thread to the General Legal forum, people should be along later to advise you.

 

Best, HB

[Ethel Street]

I urge you to get professional legal advice on this to minimise the risk that you are held personally liable. I assume the Estate is of a reasonable size to justify the person issuing court proceedings.

 

When you say you can't get Probate is that because they have entered a caveat on the Estate?

Edited July 11, 2019 by Ethel Street

[AndyOrch]

Can you give details of the court claim.....issue date..particulars (redacted)

 

Andy

[Ethel Street]

I think that whether and when you have to disclose detailed accounts of the Estate is probably the least of your legal worries. I've no direct experience of this but I would have thought that at some point in the proceedings the judge would give directions about disclosure of information.

 

I would be tempted (this is not legal advice!) to point out that as you haven't got Probate you can't obtain full details of the deceased's assets and liabilities because financial institutions will only provide it when Probate is granted. So there's no point in him asking you for them.

Edited July 11, 2019 by Ethel Street

[king12345]

You only provide details of the estate to the court if requested or under judge's order.

Remember,  the person contesting the will is a third party and you have been asked to disclose data which does not relate to them.

In other words you're acting as a data controller as well as an executor.

This is the time to play the card that everyone plays everyday: data protection.

As an executor you are the gatekeeper of what's in the estate and should not disclose private affairs to third parties, even if they are directly related to the deceased.

Of course a court order would change this.

[Ethel Street]

An Executor isn't a data controller under GDPR for several reasons, but most pertinently because data protection law only applies to living people, so not to the deceased. 

[dx100uk]

post 4 please as a matter of urgency before you do anything else...

 

my neighbour had the same a few years back 

and made many silly mistakes that almost cost the estate a lot of money 

 

unless the judge orders it you should not be revealing anything to anyone.

esp as I suspect the newer will is being contested by an earlier one that you hint at??

[king12345]

14 hours ago, Ethel Street said:

An Executor isn't a data controller under GDPR for several reasons, but most pertinently because data protection law only applies to living people, so not to the deceased. 

The executor is handling data which relates to the rightful beneficiaries. 

Disclosing it to a 3rd party would infringe the gdpr.

Otherwise if you think the data it's not subjected to the law, why not publish it here on the internet?

Op, don't give them anything unless the court orders you to do so.

Ignore any request. 

[Ethel Street]

26 minutes ago, king12345 said:

 

Otherwise if you think the data it's not subjected to the law, why not publish it here on the internet?

 

 

 

That's precisely what does happen to Wills and all the beneficiary details, they are published on the internet by the Probate Registry!

 

But I also don't think OP should give any more information at this stage because of the legal proceedings the third party has started. OP should await court directions or get professional legal advice.

Edited July 12, 2019 by Ethel Street