Discussion

Main Board| Accommodation Wanted| Accommodation Offered
Start a new discussion on this board

Let your next career move come to you.

RoF people who do actual law (I think maybe I'm after a litigator...?)

I would ever so grateful for your kind attention and advice...

A vulnerable relative (very old, advanced dementia) is owed a very significant amount of money by a company (commercial rental income).

The company was alerted some years ago by a few of his children / de facto representatives to a dispute ongoing as to the management of my relative's cash.  These children accused each other of every crime under the sun, and the upshot was that they directed the company not to pay the rent into the designated account, as each one accused the other of stealing money and abusing my relative.  Each one then gave new account details (obviously controlled by them) for payment of the rent.

The company very sensibly said, not a chance, we are not getting in the middle of your puerile sh1t (I may be paraphrasing a little).  You take your grubby little selves, go away and sort out your issues, come back to us with a joint instruction, but until then, we will withhold payment.

4 years pass, with no resolution - hence the very significant amount now owed - and I was concerned that in this financial climate, there had to be a decent risk that this company would go tits up, or at least be incapable of paying such a large amount in one go, so I asked the hyenas if they could put aside their hatred of each other long enough to at least jointly instruct the company to make the payment into a trust account or somehow ringfence the money so they knew the money was "safe", while they went back to tearing each other apart.

That was, apparently too much to ask, and it just led to a new round of viciousness between them. However, two of the (definitely dishonest) children have been furiously bending the earhole of the reps of the company, alternately pleading and threatening them if they don't pay the outstanding rents into the disputed account which, in not at all surprising news, they think they have control of.  The third child who - despite being in lots a ways, a right toxic bitch of a human being - is not, I think, dishonest, asked that they don't pay, but continue to withhold and ringfence.

Since then, the company has indicated that they are ready to pay the balance (in instalments) into this disputed account, because, they claim, of relentless pressure from one of the dodgy children.  As an aside, I suspect the family dispute has worked out quite well for the company : they have avoided 4 years of contractual rent rises on a property that was already significantly under-valued (see above, re dementia, lease was extended when I am 90% sure my relative was already suffering the effects of the disease, something which, I think, the company knew at the time - they certainly knew enough to comment later that my relative had been behaving "oddly" in a couple of meetings).  I think that dodgy children have offered the company small incentives to do as they ask if they pay into the disputed account (no backdated application of rent increases, a very relaxed payment schedule of the outstanding money, and even a small discount on the amount owed - but I can't prove that is their motivation).

So - basically, what I'm after is a way to scare the feck out of the company so that they don't pay any more money into this account, and instead ringfence it as I asked.

e.g. would there be such a thing as "bad faith" grounds on which my relative's non-thieving relatives could go after the company if they do pay the money into the disputed account and it is stolen / used in anything other than for the care of the relative (there is absolutely no question that the dishonest children will misappropriate the money, I am 100% sure of that)?  Or does that only happen in the movies...

Also, if the company wants to protect themselves - am I right to say that, if they did ringfence the money outstanding, even if one or both of the dodgy children decided to sue, the company's exposure would be zero as they could a) point to the 4 years worth of correspondence full of serious allegations telling them NOT to pay, and b) show that the money is sitting somewhere ready to go? 

Finally - the company is part of a giant multi-national group (in fact, I keep being told that they would never do anything dodgy, like collude in the exploitation of a vulnerable person to save a a few quid precisely because if it ever got back to their parent company, they would be crushed like the bugs they are) : would I be completely out of order to threaten to notify the parent company of what's going on?

Basically, I want to send them the most "disobey me and pay these criminals, and you sleep with the fishes" style letter I can and hope they become more scared of me than the dodgy children, but it would be good if it was still sort of grounded in legal reality.

Sorry for the epic post, but any suggestions would be appreciated. (And abuse, snark as usual, of course - I wouldn't want to break RoF!)

If you have an honest family member they could make an application to the Court of Protection to be appointed as deputy. Notify everybody (including the directors of the company) and I’d imagine that would put the fear of god into them.

They can’t pay the money into a 3rd party account without his instruction (unless they fancy paying twice)

Absent a power of attorney, the tenant company may not pay rent into any other bank account and monies paid and any monies it plans to pay into any other account will not as a matter of law satisfy the requirement to pay rent (including arrears), and it will still have a liability to pay rent including arrears while trying to collect the monies it has mistakenly paid to any third parties.

Again, absent a power of attorney the company should not have listened to the squabbling offspring and simply continued to pay rent into the nominated account. Failure to do so even though it thought it had reasons to withhold rent is a breach of the lease and a very serious one at that. It now owes arrears and interest to the landlord.

If the offspring are concerned for the welfare of the aged P and there is no power of attorney, then their proper course of action would be to make an application to the Court of Protection to appoint a 'Deputy'. This would cost them all a bloody fortune unless they were able to come to some agreement as to who would be deputy.

Query whether you have standing to say anything to the tenant company about anything, unfortunately.

"Describe company's norks."

Not nearly as perky as they used to be, the last few years have definitely taken a toll!

FF - thanks, but time is of the essence (sorry, I should probably have started with that little detail) they are threatening to pay on Wednesday (I have also notified the bank that the previous dodginess that caused the bank to freeze the accounts are still an issue, and asked that the accounts remain frozen, but I want to cover all bases - and I know these people, if they think that the money is NOT going to get paid, they will just go away until the next time they think there is an opportunity to steal money from an old man).   The other non-thieving relatives are starting legal proceedings to get a court appointed rep in place, but there are a LOT of them, and they are scattered all over the world, so I don't think that will move very quickly.

I do think the company will respond to whoever shouts loudest, and if I write a suitably nasty letter, they will be all to happy to pass it on to the dodgy children, and say "look at what we've received, you go deal with this bitch"), so I definitely want to try the angry,l shouty route, if possible.

Benj - thank you.  I suppose I have as much "standing" as the dodgy children do.

Interesting that you say that they should have continued to pay into the original account, even if they were on notice that the receiving account was compromised, and that people (not the landlord) who controlled the account were misappropriating the money, and the landlord would not receive it...  That is a surprise - I had always assumed that if one were given credible evidence of wrongdoing like that, and continued to pay, one would be putting oneself at risk of being sued and ending up paying twice.  You live and learn!

Reads like the squabbling offspring have requested the money is paid into the account it was originally paid into pre-dispute. Not sure a POA is required (potentially may have been required to cease payments to nominated account in the first place)

Cru I think even threatening to make the application would do the job. Tell them you’re going to issue and you’ll be reviewing all of the finances etc 

obviously you’ll need to gird you loins for the wailing and gnashing of teeth but, you know, they can cry it out. Alternatively get a panel deputy to do it, they will be paid from their assets anyway. 

AR - yes, that's correct.  The problem (well, one of them) is the company's inconsistent behaviour - it would have been one thing if they had ignored the differing instructions at the time and said "look, we're paying as instructed by your father before he became ill, you lot fight it out with each other, leave us out of it", and continued to do that.

But they didn't - they stopped paying on the grounds that "they weren't willing to take sides, they would respectfully wait till they received the joint instruction from the parties (or some such crap)".

And now, all of a sudden, they've changed their minds and have decided that they actually are ready to take sides, and that side is the one that has been accused of actual theft AND continues to have access to the dodgy account   i.e. the only people who are putting pressure on for the money to be paid immediately into the account are the ones who are able to get their grubby hands on it.  Which should raise red flags, right?

But, are you all saying that, even with all of the flags raised, the company would have no liability if they did pay into the disputed account and that is, in fact, what they should do?

 

It’d be great if we could all stop paying rent because some 3rd party told us there was a dispute over what account the money should go to per the contract….

FF - the one thing that is for sure is that there will an "attorney" appointed soon to take charge of his affairs, who would then be in a position to clean up this sh1tshow, enforcing contracts, chasing debts, all of that.  But while the process for that is working its way through the system, I wanted to see if I could minimise the chance that the thieving bastards would have cleaned him out already.

the landlord will likely be estopped from taking investment action under the lease against the tenant

if they are faced with someone with ostensible authority on the landlord side they will probably do as they say

 

‘But while the process for that is working its way through the system, I wanted to see if I could minimise the chance that the thieving bastards would have cleaned him out already’

well as I say a pending application is probably your best bet - if they are on notice that the LL’s accounts are going to be reviewed by a professional deputy in the near future that ought to keep them on the straight and narrow. Unless they are absolute idiots ofc

Urgent application to Court of Protection who will appoint a panel solicitor as deputy. Solicitor will seek directions for money to be paid to their client account. Proceedings may undertaken with a litigation friend probably the deputy. 

"Unless they are absolute idiots ofc"

Well, seeing as - I suspect - they may have decided to buddy up with the thieving band of brothers in exchange for the concessions I mentioned before (presumably because they bought into the "don't you mind anyone else, sun, you're safe with me cos I'm the oldest, hear me roar" shtick that the oldest starts every communication with), I'm thinking that they're not the brightest tools in the box. (And yes, I know that will be hard to prove, but not impossible).

I reckon the best "bad faith" type argument to say they will be making themselves liable, is to say that if they pay the money into that account they will be dishonestly assisting in a breach of trust, and should it become established later on that (as you expect) the money is then misappropriated, the company will be liable in dishonest assistance.

Refer them to the Wikipedia page on dishonest assistance and this bit:

"His Lordship then gave a few examples of dishonesty, such as deception, knowingly taking the property of others, participation in a transaction in light of knowledge that it involves a misapplication of trust assets, willful blindness etc."

Ie it is enough, for dishonesty, to deliberately participate in a transaction in light of knowledge that it is likely to involve a misapplication of trust assets.

I remain your humble &c. &c. &c.

Whether it would actually be dishonest assistance who knows, but that should scare the shyt out of them.

I think you are right that their exposure would be zero, especially if they demanded to your toxic rellies that a Court of Protection application be made before they ate prepared to make any payment.

Also can't see anything wrong with threatening to tell on them to their parent company.

Spurius - thank you!

I shall try to make it as pompous as I can, while still maintaining a healthy amount of menace : as if the product of Michael Corleone smashed together with Rumpole of the Bailey wrote the letter.

That is a commendable writing style to aim for, perhaps wikipedia is overly accessible, you can refer them instead to what is said about dishonest assistance in Goff and Jones on The Law of Unjust Enrichment. If you write that with one eyebrow arched they will never guess you haven't read it.

"If you write that with one eyebrow arched they will never guess you haven't read it."

I am going to do this, exactly. And then, I'm going to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

Also as other people have pointed out, speak to a Court of Protection solicitor. If they are appointed as deputy they can receive the money owed and hold it for the benefit of your relative. No one will be able to get at it.

Join the discussion

Login Register