|
Hello,
I have 3 brothers. Every time one of us had a child, my grandmother
gave $5000 to the child, to be held in a trust or investment account
until they turned 18, and then to be used for college hopefully, but at
18 the child gets the money regardless. The money has always been given
to my brother who is an attorney. I guess my grandmother thought the
money would be in the safest hands with him. There are a total of 9
kids in this with originally, $5000 a piece.
Its a long story but as a result of a number of things over the past few
years, this brother (the attorney) has gotten into financial trouble.
One child turned 18 in December and another one turns 18 in August. Both
children are making plans for college and need to have the money or at
least know how much money is due them. My brother cannot answer the
question and has been unable to come up with the money for the child who
just turned 18 in December after a promise to do so. He avoids everyone
now and its obvious to all of us that he used this money at some point
and is having trouble coming up with anything to pay off the one child
who is due money now.
The money initially was in some kind of trust and was in both my
brothers name and the childs name, but I've learned from one of my other
brothers that this changed a few years ago for some suspicious reason he
took the money out of these accounts and put it ALL into ONE account in
HIS name only. Yea, I know, this is starting to smell really bad.
None of us (me and my brothers) would have ever thought that he would do
this, so none of us ever asked him over the past 10 or so years to
document anything for us.
So, now we sit waiting for an answer since one of my brothers has sent
him a demand letter for the money for his daughter which came due in
December.
On top of my brother having financial trouble his wife has just been
diagnosed with cancer and its not looking good for her at all. So, we
are certain that he has enough stress in his life right at the moment
but regardless, we still need to have an answer from him. At this point
we really don't want to pursue anything legally because we don't want to
see him go to jail, even though sometimes I think maybe thats where he
belongs, or see him file bankruptcy and see our kids never get their
money, what the heck should we do? What should we do and what can we
do? I'm sure there is some fraud in here somewhere isn't there? I
would just like to know what our options are, not that we're going to
pursue any of them, but what do we have available to us and then in your
opinion, what should my brothers and I do? All we would really like to
see is have him come clean and tell us that he screwed up and tell his
how and when he will be able to pay all of the kids. Thats all we
really want, just the money for our kids.
I know it sounds like my brother the attorney is a dead beat but he
really isn't. I think he got stuck between a rock and a hard place,
thought he could work it all out and now its all coming down on him, and
coming down on him HARD.
Thanks for your help. Appreciate it immensely.
JD.
--
Jim
|
| |
| |
In article <anjn00luke781umeedd5d6nm5oqf5uf209@4ax.com>, Jim
<computerguru2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
I know it sounds like my brother the attorney is a dead beat but he
really isn't. I think he got stuck between a rock and a hard place,
thought he could work it all out and now its all coming down on him, and
coming down on him HARD.
Being an attorney, your brother has a "fiduciary" responsibility
to care for this money that was entrusted to him. Call him, or
visit him at his office, and explain to him that he has 24 hours
to either produce the money, an accounting for the money, or that
you will contact the local Bar Association. If he has used this
money, or has mis-accounted for it, he has likely committed fraud,
malpractice, and very well could be in line to lose his license
to practice and possibly face both civil and criminal charges.
You want to take care of this sooner rather than later. Whatever
is going on, it will only get worse as each day goes by. The
sooner you get things rolling, the easier it will be to clean up
in the long term. Your brother is probably in some sort of
denial, and you need to force this back to surface so it can be
dealt with.
-john-
--
====================================================================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
====================================================================
|
| |
| |
Jim wrote:
[believes a trustee for his and his sibs children's trust has converted for
his own use trust funds]
Thanks for your help. Appreciate it immensely.
You need to find out the terms of the trust. Are you saying that there are
nine beneficiaries of this trust and not one copy of the trust exists for
you to read? For example, you say he moved the trust money into another sole
account which, at the time, may have been within the scope of his duties as
trustee or it may have not been.
I agree that this smells worrisome, but until you know the trust terms you
can't say if he's violated any of its terms. You have good reason to believe
he owes the child who now has reached a majority, an accounting, but it may
be possible that he does not depending upon the trust terms and the state
where the trust exists. Personally, I can't imagine a trust so designed, but
it may be.
Keep in mind that most trusts allow the trustee to invest the money as he
sees fit, but he must act in a prudent fashion. You may find that the per
child money is less than $5k due to normal risk losses. If the brother
continues to stonewall you, then you have to seek an attorney for yourself
who will file certain demands on the behalf of the beneficiaries. This
process may end up in a civil suit. You say you don't wish to further stress
your brother, well that's nice, but it won't get it done. Either forget the
money until he loosens up or take action. There is no middle ground I can
think of.
-paul
ianal
|
| |
| |
It seems "Jim" wrote in misc.legal.moderated in article
<anjn00luke781umeedd5d6nm5oqf5uf209@4ax.com>:
[uncle received $5000 from grandmother "in trust" for each of his
nephews till they turned 18; now two have turned 18 and uncle won't
disgorge, probably has embezzled the money]
At this point
we really don't want to pursue anything legally because we don't want to
see him go to jail, even though sometimes I think maybe thats where he
belongs, or see him file bankruptcy and see our kids never get their
money, what the heck should we do?
Well, there are really only two ways to get the boy their money:
persuasion, or legal action. It sounds like persuasion has failed,
and you rule out legal action. What's left?
In hindsight, it would be better if the boys' parents had asked for
some sort of periodic accounting. A sum of $5000 should certainly
grow into at least double that in 18 years, given the reasonable and
prudent investment that is required of a trustee. (That's a compound
annual return of only 3.93%.) Heck, if Gramma had bought savings
bonds with $5000 they would have been worth more than that today. So
the uncle has a LOT to answer for: not just the $5000 but the
reasonable expectation of return on investment.
That said, I urge you to consult a lawyer. Counting all the boys,
not just the two who are about 18, there's a very considerable
amount of money here. Despite feeling sorry for your brother I don't
think you should let him get away with embezzlement, but it may not
be necessary to file criminal charges. Perhaps with a lawyer's help,
acting as mediator rather than adversary, a payment plan could be
worked out, or your brother could take a second mortgage to pay what
he owes, etc.
P.S. Ask the lawyer to what extent the boys, as beneficiaries of the
trusts, ought to be involved in discussions or give consent to final
arrangements.
P.P.S. I understand your reluctance to press hardly upon your
brother because his life isn't going well right now. But misfortune
in one's own life does not justifying screwing up the lives of
others, not legally and (IMHO) not morally. You do nobody, not even
him, any favors by not holding him to account.
--
If you e-mail me from a fake address, your fingers will drop off.
I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. When you read anything
legal on the net, always verify it on your own, in light of your
particular circumstances. You may also need to consult a lawyer.
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
|
| |
| |
On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 07:37:14 -0500, Jim <computerguru2001@yahoo.com>
wrote:
I have 3 brothers. Every time one of us had a child, my grandmother
gave $5000 to the child, to be held in a trust or investment account
until they turned 18, and then to be used for college hopefully, but at
18 the child gets the money regardless. The money has always been given
to my brother who is an attorney. I guess my grandmother thought the
money would be in the safest hands with him. There are a total of 9
kids in this with originally, $5000 a piece.
Its a long story but as a result of a number of things over the past few
years, this brother (the attorney) has gotten into financial trouble.
[Skip evidence of brother's possible embezzlement of funds]
You can obviously sue the brother, but he sound as if he may be
judgment-proof (i.e., he has no money to repay you with).
However, a lawsuit might allow you to collect from his malpractice
carrier (assuming that the carrier agrees that these trusts were part
of his practice and not personal).
You might also look into whether the state has any funds to reimburse
clients for attorney embezzlement (there is such a fund in
Pennsylvania). Once again, you still might have a problem if the
trust funds were considered to be personal and not part of his
practice.
Good luck.
**Dan Evans
**I post information, not advice.
|
| |
| |
On 19/01/04 12:37, in article anjn00luke781umeedd5d6nm5oqf5uf209@4ax.com,
"Jim" <computerguru2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
I have 3 brothers. Every time one of us had a child, my grandmother
gave $5000 to the child, to be held in a trust or investment account
until they turned 18, and then to be used for college hopefully, but at
18 the child gets the money regardless. The money has always been given
to my brother who is an attorney. I guess my grandmother thought the
money would be in the safest hands with him. There are a total of 9
kids in this with originally, $5000 a piece.
Its a long story but as a result of a number of things over the past few
years, this brother (the attorney) has gotten into financial trouble.
Depending upon your brother's state of bar membership the debt may be
recoverable, at least in part, from the lawyers' client protection fund. He
will doubtless be disbarred.
You need to retain a lawyer at once because the statute of limitations is
running.
There is little use trying to "protect" your brother's right to practice
law. Chances are he has misappropriated the funds of other clients, too.
They always do. Many client protection funds have low limits of cover; you
might as well get there first.
|
| |
| |
In article <t0bq00d5u64hadvt9tu36gmnc5mg7j88t5@4ax.com>,
john@johnweeks.com says...
In article <anjn00luke781umeedd5d6nm5oqf5uf209@4ax.com>, Jim
<computerguru2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
Being an attorney, your brother has a "fiduciary" responsibility
to care for this money that was entrusted to him. Call him, or
visit him at his office, and explain to him that he has 24 hours
to either produce the money, an accounting for the money, or that
you will contact the local Bar Association. If he has used this
money, or has mis-accounted for it, he has likely committed fraud,
malpractice, and very well could be in line to lose his license
to practice and possibly face both civil and criminal charges.
You want to take care of this sooner rather than later. Whatever
is going on, it will only get worse as each day goes by. The
sooner you get things rolling, the easier it will be to clean up
in the long term. Your brother is probably in some sort of
denial, and you need to force this back to surface so it can be
dealt with.
-john-
Thank You and I happen to agree with you completely. Getting my two
other brothers to agree to this is a problem. They are much more
forgiving than I am. I want him to be punished for this and they don't
want to send him to jail, or take away his ability to pay us back. He
hasn't agreed to pay back yet anyway.
Appreciate your feedback.
Jim
--
Jim
|
| |
| |
<lots of comments re: lawyer brother who may have misappropriated
trust funds>
Thank You and I happen to agree with you completely. Getting my two
other brothers to agree to this is a problem. They are much more
forgiving than I am. I want him to be punished for this and they don't
want to send him to jail, or take away his ability to pay us back. He
hasn't agreed to pay back yet anyway.
Um, you _don't_need_ your other brothers' consent, to file a grievance
with your local attorney grievance commission (whatever they are
called in your state), OR to file a criminal complaint with the
police. If you don't want to send him to jail, and just want the
money back, and also want to keep him from getting sticky fingers with
other people's money by preventing him from having the privilege of
acting as an attorney, then IMO filing an atty grievance would be a
good first step.
It's nice that your brothers are forgiving. But part of what your
brother has to do to deserve forgiveness is to promise to try never to
do it again, and to do what he can to pay back the damages he caused.
He having shown no intention of doing either, sounds like it's time
to bring in the authorities.
Good luck,
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult a lawyer in a private
communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
|
| |
| |
In article <anjn00luke781umeedd5d6nm5oqf5uf209@4ax.com>,
computerguru2001@yahoo.com says...
Hello,
I have 3 brothers. Every time one of us had a child, my grandmother
gave $5000 to the child, to be held in a trust or investment account
until they turned 18, and then to be used for college hopefully, but at
Let me just respond to everyone who has posted so far, and to all, I
thank you.
First, I don't know if this money was ever in a trust account or how it
was invested, all I know is that he was taking care of the money for all
the kids education and NOBODY, EVER thought, not even for a Minute that
there would EVER be a problem with this. This brother is/was a highly
respected member of the family and in our family, we've never had to
have anyone account for anything before because we are honest people.
My brother had a promising law practice going and then he decided to
sell out and buy the family business from my father so he could retire.
This is where things began going wrong. After about 5 or so years, he
reached a point where he sold all the businesses and closed everything
down. It wasn't making money or maybe he wasn;t such a good businessman.
After this he had to find a job. He decided to invest in realestate. He
bought a bunch of apartment buildings, small ones and houses/duplexes
rent them out and become wealthy this way. We have found out last night
that when he bought all these properties, this is when you used our
childrens education funds. He told me last night that these properties
were all foreclosed on. He lied to me about that because he told me a
few months ago he sold them. I don't know if this means anything but I
remember when he bought these properties, he has telling me about how he
set them up so nobody could ever find out he owned them. He set them up
in some kind of blind trust??? Or something like that. He setup a
trust and put the property in this trust. He made an attempt to try and
make it sound like he put the kids money into these "investments" like
he would have any other investment, the investment went bad, and too bad
for you guys. I told him bull s___ don't try and sell that to me
because that is not the case at all. He bought those properties for his
own purpose, this was to be his job, managing these properties.
So, I don't know where this would end up if we went to court with it. I
am not in a financial position to be able to hire an attorney to do
this, as much as I would like to. My two other brothers are telling me
wait, wait, lets attempt to get the money out of him first before we do
anything like sue him, and I have to partially agree with that but I'm
not going to wait for ever.
Oh, and my brother since he's been in financial trouble for a year or
better now has already refinanced his house to 100% percent so he says.
Right now all he does for a living is he has a small office where he
does a hand full of bankruptcies each month he generates from an ad in
the newspaper, plus a couple of clients who he's had for years. I've
told him why don't you go get a darn job and pay us back he says at 49
you just don't go out and get hired with a law firm, they hire all the
25 year olds fresh out of college. I suppose there's a certain amount of
truth to that but don't some law firms want to hire seasoned
professionals? He graduated Magna Cum Laude.(sp?) from a well respected
law school. Also, because of his current situation, I have no idea if
he even has malpractice insurance. What do you think? Does he have to
have it for sure? Who checks?
Thanks again for everyones help in this. Obviously, it is an extremely
painful time for us right now. Not only do I have two daughters hurt by
this but I've lost a brother who used to be my pride and joy. He and I
were the closest.
If we turned this over to the bar would they do the dirty work for us?
So we don't have to go out and hire an attorney. I have no problem
hiring an attorney except that none of us really can afford one. Not at
all.
Thanks
********************************
The above message was written yesterday the 20th but I had to do some
additional editing before it would post, so I will add a little bit to
this since we talked to him today.
We've decided for all information to go between one brother from now on
rather than all 3 of us calling him. So, brother J called him today and
negotiated with him and asked him just how and when he was going to be
able to pay the kids their money back. He said he's got his wife's car
for sale, its worth about 10 grand, he said he's trying to refinance his
house of which he has about 40 grand in equity and then there's
something else I can't remember, oh yea, a very expensive Mink Coat and
Diamond Ring. So, if he's telling the truth, he is making an attempt at
raising the money so we've decided to give him a little time to see if
he comes through with anything. If he comes up with nothing in a month
or so, they we attack. (sigh)
Again, Thanks for listening, I"ve really needed to dump this on someone,
and you really have been wonderful! :) Appreciate it everyone.
Oh, one final thing. I want to let everyone know about this. WE haven't
told my Dad about this, my Mom, if she were still alive would be having
fits right now and she is probably just who we need to fix this but I
want to tell everyone, Aunts, Uncles, everyone. What do you think? Is
that just being mean spirited?
I guess I'd like to hear any final comments on this and then I'll go
away so you all can get back to your lives.
Thanks
Jim
|
| |
| |
Jim wrote:
In article <anjn00luke781umeedd5d6nm5oqf5uf209@4ax.com>,
[explains the money may not be in a trust and that attorney brother may
have fallen on hard times]
If we turned this over to the bar would they do the dirty work for us?
So we don't have to go out and hire an attorney. I have no problem
hiring an attorney except that none of us really can afford one. Not
at all.
Bar associations take conversion of client funds very seriously so if you
did file a complaint, you have a good chance of starting an investigation
which could, perhaps, end in a disciplinary action. I doubt the Bar would
repay you. The Bar isn't an insurance or bonding agency. The entity liable
seems to be your brother. It is surely not the Bar.
[is now negotiating with brother who claims to be liquidating assets]
Oh, one final thing. I want to let everyone know about this. WE
haven't told my Dad about this, my Mom, if she were still alive would
be having fits right now and she is probably just who we need to fix
this but I want to tell everyone, Aunts, Uncles, everyone. What do
you think? Is that just being mean spirited?
Your dad may have specific information on exactly what the arrangement was
between your brother and your mom. That could be exremely useful knowing
exactly what your brother's obligation was. Nowhere in your narratives do
you indicate you really do know the form of the supposed bequest or the
terms. You need to balance that lack of info with the pain you'll cause your
dad. I don't know how much the money means to you or your dad's temper, so
can't offer specifics.
I guess I'd like to hear any final comments on this and then I'll go
away so you all can get back to your lives.
Were it my child, I'd plan on she going to college w/o the benefit of the
funds and take it as a gift if any ever show up.
-paul
ianal
|
| |
| |
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:45:14 -0500, Jim <computerguru2001@yahoo.com>
wrote:
First, I don't know if this money was ever in a trust account ....
There might be some confusion with terminology here.
What is sometimes called a "trust account" is not really a trust at
all, but a form of "pay on death" account. So, if A establishes an
account in the name of "A in trust for B," the effect is to allow the
money to pass to B at A's death, but A is not really a trustee and has
no trustee obligations to B during A's lifetime.
Whether or not an enforceable trust exists depends on the terms or
conditions upon which the money was delivered, not how it was held or
invested.
So, if the money was delivered to the brother for him to hold for the
benefit of a nephew, and to pay over that money to that nephew for
certain purposes or upon some future event, a trust may exist whether
the instructions were oral or written, and regardless of whether or
not the word "trust" was used.
**Dan Evans
**I post information, not advice.
|
| |
| |
|
