EXECUTOR AT LAST!!!

Well, it's now more than three months since my mother's funeral and her Estate still remains in a state of limbo, although there are, finally, glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel. It seems that, following one false start, that the Grant of Probate has been returned to our solicitors after one misreading of the paperwork lead to a re-application being required (£££), and, even though the requested copies still managed to get forgotten about by those keen young minds in that particular Office of State (they will arrive later, I'm assured - although my solicitor is "on holiday" at the moment…), the original is, finally, in my grubby little paw and, finally, I can start moving some pennies around and getting myself into a fiscal position where I can finally actually attempt to pay one or two of those bills which have been lurking in the back of my consciousness and demanding my attention.

Perhaps I place too much blame upon those Officers of State. After all of those cutbacks in various Government Departments, perhaps it's a bit too much to expect them to be fully concentrating upon every single application which comes their way instead oif merely rubber-stamping the paperwork and heading off to lunch.

That said, those of us who reluctantly call ourselves the bereaved are required by law to have these things and are expected to pay considerable fees in order to get them, so the least you should expect is that the person stamping the official stamp might actually read the bloody paperwork before they issue the grant.

After all, it really ought not to be beyond the wit of a trained legal mind to work out that one of the names they insisted upon adding to the grant had been dead for more than a quarter of a century as was stated quite clearly in the application and then not require a full re-application to be done in order to correct their own mistake.

And so the weeks fly by...

Maybe it had nothing to do with the government and its cutbacks at all. After all the paperwork is plastered with text informing me that it is by order of the High Court and I'm not sure that their funding has anything to do with...

Oh, wait...

Still, when it comes to the fiendish machinations of H.M.G., last week we got the first letter from the DWP asking for some of mum's pension back. Oh, it's all couched in pretty words of sympathy but the bottom line is always "this is public money and we'd like it back please" which is, of course, fair enough, although the fact that they were the ones who made the over-payment after being informed of her sad demise is conveniently glossed over.

I'll bet there's an "Admin Fee" for that, too...

Meanwhile I can't help but think that I've never yet met an impoverished Lawyer and that the dwindling remains of my mother's meagre Estate are slowly being stripped away in order to pay for somebody else to have a nice holiday, newer car, or exciting new extension to their house, and it's not anyone who was actually related to her.

Sometimes it seems that everyone's got their hand out, and it does rather bewilder me sometimes how much someone who is no longer alive is actually managing to spend. Each month, despite the now regular calls to the office which receive assurances that there will be a note put on the file to stop them, another snotty letter arrives from the managing agency of her flats threatening to add more Admin Fees for every letter that they're supposed to not be sending.

And so it goes, and so it goes...

Ah well, It has taken some little time, but the copies of the Grant of Probate are on their way to me now and in a little while I can start sending back the forms, and open up the Executor's Bank Account and get the various different creditors off my back and stop having to go to the Post Office after work to sign for letters which are reminding me, in case I hadn't noticed, that I hadn't yet responded to the previous letter which I signed for.

My mum, bless her, genuinely believed that everything that needed to be done would be sorted out by making one telephone call after she'd gone.

Things, it seems, are seldom that easy, but I do start to wonder precisely what happens if someone actually has no-one left behind them to deal with such matters. Who exactly would all of these demanding people be making their demands to...?