EXPERIENCE AS A JOINT EXECUTOR

From February 2004 to November 2005, he acted as Executor for the estates of two deceased relatives (his uncle and his father). This involved working full-time to recover assets and settle liabilities, resolve complex legal and financial issues and complete official documents.

This role was made far more difficult by the fact that his father, who had acted as his uncle's Executor, died four months into this role, and he had to trace and pick up various threads of activity.

He acted as a de facto 'Service Manager', 'Project Manager' and 'Analyst' to a large number of beneficiaries on his late uncle's estate, liaising with them over the many estate formalities, arranging interim statements of account and payments, and arranging the necessary 'sign-offs' at key points. This made full use of his negotiating and analytical skills, and the complex spreadsheets that he built were equivalent to nearly three years of contractors' accounts.

This responsibility entailed selling a property owned by his late uncle. One of the many complications he had to resolve was that the intending buyer had unofficially moved in his possessions after being given a key by a neighbour. There were also errors in the estate accounts inherited and he had to audit an entire file of statements and other paperwork.

On his father's estate, this entailed working with his brother (joint executor) to maintain the family home and dispose of other assets. Similar accounting work was needed.

He also represented his family in protracted discussions with the BBC after their drama series, The Long Firm, featured a controversial character with too many 'background similarities' to his father, who had served the Metropolitan Police with distinction.

He managed to get a suitable disclaimer broadcast at the end of episodes and added to the series webpages.

He also resolved minor complications arising from previously undiscovered assets from his late mother's estate.

The bulk of the 'customer-facing' Executor work was completed by May 2005, and was followed by a good summer holiday for total refreshment. The formalities needed to resolve technicalities over his late father's property continued into autumn 2005.

In this period, he also revised his trading company's structure for compliance reasons, and resolved issues due to its accountant retiring on health grounds. Other background activities including upgrading the company's technology infrastructure, following industry developments and making his property virtually maintenance-free.

It may also be worth noting that he passed three contract interviews from Sept 2005, although for various reasons beyond client control, the vacancies were dropped. In Nov/Dec 2005, a contract was won but cancelled just before it was due to start.

This page updated: 24 January 2006