This review is for a different branch.
When my mother lost mental capacity without a Power of Attorney, the family agreed to the appointment of Mr McGarry as independent deputy to manage her finances. This lasted just over 1 year until her death in 2020.
I identified many errors during the deputyship and on reviewing files after assuming role of executor on my mother’s death. Despite errors being identified early in the deputyship, nothing appears to have been done to ensure similar errors were not repeated, many of which were down to a lack of care and attention to detail.
A small example include: -
Email from firm cancelling an appointment with myself, Mum and the Court of Protection visiting officer to discuss the problems, their email stated a different date to that which had been pre-arranged.
Several overpayments of expenses I incurred on behalf of my mother. When I made the firm aware of these, I was given incorrect bank details to make the refunds.
A payment of £7551 in care home fees paid with an incorrect care home reference, when a family member queried the nonpayment of fees the same amount was paid again.
Failed to insure my mother’s property for nearly 7 weeks, despite my help in providing quotations and reminding the firm it was due.
On my mother’s death he failed to provide a complete and accurate handover of financial information, including the omission of a significant investment made by the firm.
They stated closing balance on one bank account was £6k less than the actual closing balance.
Failed to inform me, that they’d engaged the services of a 3rd party to manage a large investment made by the firm. This resulted in the third party continuing to take advisor fees for several months after her death.
A bank transfer for a large investment was made to both an incorrect account number and incorrect reference, thankfully the payment failed.
Deputy accounts submitted to the Office of Public Guardian contained significant errors. Value and quantity of shares held were incorrectly recorded e.g. only 12 shares in one company were recorded, instead of the 1755 owned. 27 in another company instead of 217 and 4924 shares in another company were completely omitted. More concerning was that the errors were carried over from one year’s accounts to the next.
Included in my late mother’s file was documentation containing the full names and confidential financial information relating to 3 of the firms other Court of Protection clients, correspondence relating to a deceased client’s estate and the home council tax bill for Mr McGarry. Despite notifying the firm of these data breaches, they did not respond.
Entries on their bills of costs claimed fees relating to closure of a bank acct. The entry was dated before I handed over any financial information to the firm and 3 months prior to the first bank account they declared as having closed.
Taken payment of fees which exceeded the total of their bills of costs by £305.
Charged court fees for the Senior Courts Cost Office (SCCO) assessment of bills of costs which exceeded the fees paid by the firm. Fees which were never agreed or discussed with me as executor beforehand.
On assessment, amongst other deductions the SCCO reduced his hourly rate by £45 per hour, resulting in a refund due of £2451.70. Despite several requests, over several months, they failed to refund this money, respond to my formal complaint or hasteners to another partner.
As a final attempt to recover the money owed, I made a court application. Only when notice of my court application was served on the firm did they finally refund the money owed in April 2023, with no interest paid, no apology or reason for the delay.
In my opinion, the service provided by the firm could be described as poor at the very best, if my mother had mental capacity, she most certainly would not have allowed the firm to act for her in any capacity.
