Our £40k legacy lost by Barclays
G.C. writes: Barclays at Alnwick in Northumberland has lost me a £20,000 legacy and a further £20,000 which should have gone to my wife. A dear friend of 28 years died last year. Her will was witnessed by a member of the bank’s staff, but she signed without the other witness being present. Solicitors acting for two distant cousins of our friend have had the will declared invalid.
YOU and your wife are not the only victims in this cruel situation. Your friend’s will left her estate to be shared between you and your wife, three other friends, and the local church. She left nothing to the two cousins, yet they have pocketed the lot.
Your friend was elderly and appears not to have had much knowledge of the law or financial matters. But why should she? She trusted her bank, probably because when she was younger the local bank manager knew every customer and would happily have witnessed wills, countersigned passport applications, and so on.
But when she went into the branch in Alnwick in Northumberland, the staff member who witnessed the will made a very basic and hugely important error. For the will to be valid, it needed your friend to sign it in the presence of two witnesses who also signed it. The will says that this is exactly what happened. But it wasn’t.
The Barclays employee could have called a colleague in as the second witness, and all would have been well. Instead, she signed alone and your friend later had a neighbour add his signature as the second witness. But the two witnesses never met, let alone be present together for the signing.
Somehow, the distant cousins discovered this and had the will declared invalid. This meant your friend died intestate, and the cousins pocketed over £100,000.
When you complained, Barclays suggested you contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, but this was pointless as you were not the bank’s customer and this is not the sort of situation the Ombudsman investigates. Barclays told me: ‘It is our policy to advise colleagues not to witness wills in a professional capacity. We were not involved in the preparation of the will, nor do we provide a service for the witnessing of wills.’
In short, the staff member was breaking the bank’s own rules when she called your friend into a private office at the branch and signed the will which falsely said the other witness was present.
I know who the staff member was, but local enquiries show she has quit Barclays. I cannot get her side of the story, which is why I have not named her today. But there may be a way you can take this forward.
There is a legal concept called ‘vicarious liability’. In a nutshell, there have been court cases in which an employer has been held responsible for the actions of an employee, even when the employee ignores the employer’s rules and advice. Each case is decided individually, so there is no guarantee you would win.
But it might well be worth getting together with the other beneficiaries to ask a lawyer whether Barclays could be liable after all. It seems unfair to betray your friend’s final wishes and let two distant relatives get away with the lot.