Executor running illegal taxi with beneficiary’s car
Dear Mrs Macaulay,
I was named one of two executors for my uncle’s estate. He was married and had five adult children. His car was bequeathed to his son; however, it was taken by my uncle’s brother, who was named as the other executor. He has literally disappeared and refuses to respond to all correspondence from the lawyer, blocked all numbers from the family, and has the car running an illegal robot taxi. The will is in probate currently, which I paid for. What recourse does my cousin have as far as getting back this car that was left for him upon completion of the probate? How do we go forward?
Your first and second questions should in fact relate to you. You would be the executor with responsibility for all the assets of your uncle’s estate. You must find and collect and take possession of all the estate’s properties and that includes the car. You have, and will have a legal and fiduciary duty to do so because you must hold these properties in trust for the beneficiaries the deceased testator directed. The duty is yours and not your cousin’s, who is merely a beneficiary. He has no legal or moral duty to do anything but look to you and hold you accountable for what was bequeathed to him.
So what can and should you do? You must report the theft because that in the simplest terms is what the other person has done. He stole it. So you can report it and have the police take the vehicle from him. There may be other criminal charges which could be pursued against him, for instance, he may have forged documents in order to obtain all the documents he may have needed to have it on the road. So you can proceed by using the criminal law. But you should talk with the lawyer dealing with the estate about this.
In the civil law, you can apply for recovery of possession of the vehicle, plus for him to account and pay over all the income he has collected by his wrongful use of the motor car and/or damages for his breach of trust and his wrongful detention of the car and his wrongful conversion of it for his own use and benefit contrary to the deceased’s will, and to law.
You as the executor must do all that you can and use all the legal means which exist for you to get the car back and the monies he made with his illegal use of the car, and if it is in any way damaged, you must file for damages for the repairs as well and for what an assessor can report is the depreciation in the value of the car from the date he took it to the date it was taken from him, from his use of it and, of course, from any actual damage to it.
You cannot be free of your duties as an executor until you settle all the gifts/bequests in your deceased uncle’s will on each of the beneficiaries. In relation to the car, you must hand it over to your cousin and see to the transfer of the title to him. Then you would have finished your duty as executor where his gift is concerned and so on for all other bequests in the will.
As I mentioned, but I do strongly suggest this, please speak with your lawyer about all this and get his assistance to retrieve the car from that person. If you do not, your cousin can file a claim against you for your failure to protect his estate property and to give it to him and transfer the title to him. As I have tried to make clear, the legal duty to do so is yours as executor and not the son to go chasing around to get the car. There are too many legal grounds for you to succeed in retrieving the car, but you must try and act as quickly as you can and ensure that he makes good in every legal way for his atrociously criminal and shameful act of theft.
I trust you will act quickly and I am sure that if you do, you will succeed.
Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.
DISCLAIMER:
The contents of this article are for informational purposes only, and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.
