Complaint Review: Norton Peskett Solicitors - Lowestoft, Beccles, Southwold, Gt. Yarmouth Select State/Province

This law firm operates throughout East Anglia, and has offices in: Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Gorleston, Southwold, Halesworth, and Beccles.

Although this law firm is one of the largest in East Anglia, that is no guarantee of honesty, integrity, or indeed even technical competence.

The partner that heads the probate department of this firm, John Loftus, has deliberately lied to me, fought against me, embezzled my money, destroyed irreplaceable family heirlooms. And I was the client paying for his time! He has frequently given me legal advice that was outright wrong, even in the most fundamental areas of inheritance and probate law, while maintaining that he has over 30 years experience in this practice area.

And my experiences with this law firm are by no means unusual: Indeed, another solicitor previously employed by Norton Peskett, Christopher Savage, was imprisoned for embezzlement of money from several clients. In an unrelated crime, this same solicitor was struck off the register of solicitors for forging client signatures on mortgage documents. These facts are all verifiable from independent sources: I recommend the Eastern Daily Press newspaper website.

If you are considering doing business with this law firm, I would strongly recommend doing your due diligence, and carefully considering the experiences of those that have gone before you. Hopefully you will be able to avoid the hellish experience that I suffered at their hands. Of course there are many hundreds of other law firms operating in East Anglia. Some may be good, some bad. But I doubt you would have the misfortune to find yourself the client of a worse firm than Norton Peskett.

My Father's Estate

I was an only child. My mother died in 1984, then about 19 years later, in 2003,  my father died. We were a very close family, and cherished our time together.

Our family collected many momentos and cherished items. Some of them would have great financial value, some would have negligible financial value. But they were all of immense sentimental value. Our house was packed full of these items. In some rooms it was difficult to move around due to the sheer volume of items. Some people might judge us as dysfunctional for this hoarding, but it was our right to do this, and it gave us pleasure and great peace of mind. The house had not changed since my teenage years, it was frozen in time. Nothing had been thrown away. Everything was in exactly the same place it had always been in. It was as though my mother and father were still living there. This was our sanctuary.

We could go out into a hostile changing world because we had our house and all our possessions to come home to. Since leaving home to go to college, and subsequent career, I had often taken or sent my most cherished possessions back to my father to place in safe keeping in our family home. The house was thus also our depository. In addition to the house and it's precious contents, my father's estate comprised financial assets of well in excess of a million pounds.

The Will

My father wanted the house and contents to be transfered to me undisturbed. He repeatedly told me that the family house and all it's contents would be coming to me upon his death. He knew that I would preserve the house frozen in time as he had done. He knew that I needed to do this for my emotional wellbeing, just as he needed to do so in his lifetime. We had discussed this issue many times, and we both clearly knew each other's intentions in this matter.

My father had a series of strokes towards the end of his life. Knowing that the end was near he he made his Will. In order to be certain that there would be no problems after his death he engaged the services of a professional solicitor, specializing in the field of inheritance and probate, to write his Will. That solicitor was John Loftus, the head of the probate department of Norton Peskett. He asked Revd. Loftus to leave the house, and all contents thereof, to his son. There is rigorous evidence to support this: My father told me during his lifetime that this was how his Will was written. 

Indeed, after his Will was written my father told me that his Will left the house and contents to me. Thus he was clearly under the impression that this was exactly what his Will said. There are instructions to John Loftus handwritten by my father that confirm this. Revd. Loftus' own attendance notes confirm this. But this is not what Revd. Loftus put in the Will. Instead he structured the Will as a trust for sale, a lawyer's trick that allows the executors to do whatever they want. The consequences of this were never explained to my father. Revd. Loftus told my father that the Will did in fact match his wishes. That was a lie. But my father was ill, a large part of his brain dead from his strokes.

Even speech was an effort for him: He had to think carefully to form the words, then the words just exploded from his mouth in a tremendous effort. He trusted his own lawyer. Even though we are told to pay attention only to written documents and ignore verbal overrides, he was told by his own lawyer, a vicar, that the discrepancy was just a technicality, done to make the executor's job easier. Revd. Loftus has since told me the same lies. I have recorded telephone conversations with Revd. Loftus that prove this. It certainly did make it easier for the executors, easier to embezzle that is.Thus John Loftus deprived me of legal title to the house and contents.

The Will was written in arcane legal terminology that a layman such as my father could not understand. That is why solicitors are employed to translate a lay client's wishes into this mysterious dialect, and to explain the meaning of legal documents to their clients. Since my father had clearly instructed John Loftus to leave the house and contents to his son, he was entitled to rely on the document presented to him for signature as being a correct translation of his instructions. He signed the Will because he trusted his solicitor, John Loftus, to do the job correctly. John Loftus has confirmed in a telephone conversation with myself that he did not explain the consequences of this Trust For Sale to my father. Thus my father was misled into signing a Will that did not reflect his stated wishes.

Probate IndustryIn his position as the head of the probate department at Norton Peskett, Revd. Loftus uses a loss leader to generate new business. He advertises a cheap Will writing service, then writes himself into the Will as an executor to get the highly lucrative probate industry business later.It is well know that the administration of estates is an exceedingly lucrative business for solicitors. It takes very little knowledge: Mostly it consists of filling out forms and mailing standard letters. Most of the work is performed by para-legals or even secretarys. Thus costs are kept low, while still billing the client a premium rate. Indeed, the work is so profitable that it is often referred to as the "Probate Industry".

In order to lock in this lucrative work it has become common practice for law firms to offer cheap Will preparation as a loss leader. Unscrupulous solicitors write themselves into the Will as executors to get the estate administration business later. The Will is often written by making minimal changes to a standard template Will. This minimizes the cost to the solicitor, but results in a very low quality product for the client. It is deplorable that solicitors do not give due care and attention to a document so critical as a Will. There is no second chance for the client to correct problems that come to light only after their deaths!

House Contents at Time of Death

My father had carefully collected important estate documents, filed and labeled them, and placed them in prominent places in our family home where they would easily be found after his death. Everything else in our family home was in its' usual place, frozen in time for 50 years.

Everything was as it should be: No work or effort was needed or wanted from the executors. Their duty was to leave well alone. But John Loftus ordered a house clearance, destroying not only these important documents, but also our family's most cherished heirlooms, and even my personal property that was never part of the estate. From the very instant of my father's death, the executors went on a rampage of destruction. Their duty was to protect the estate assets, but instead that were determined to destroy. Indeed, the executors have personally profited from the theft of our family's possessions. In some cases they have just helped themselves to household chattels.

Anything they wanted for themselves they just took. They treated my home as their personal zero-cost shopping spree. In other cases they have sold valuable assets to their friends, and close business associates, for rediculously low prices. In yet other cases they have willfully destroyed my most treasured possessions out of pure spite, just to cause me emotional torment. My father had tried so hard to do everything right, and to make things as easy as possible for me. But all his best efforts were so easily destroyed by Norton Peskett.

The First Grant of Probate

My father wanted me to be an executor of his Will. Both myself and John Loftus were named as executors in the Will. However, John Loftus obtained a Grant of Probate that did not include myself. He wished to exclude the residual beneficiary from estate administration, as only the residual beneficiary would have any interest in the honest and cost efficient administration of the estate.

John Loftus committed perjury in order to obtain that grant, he swore in his executor's oath that he had notified myself, and all partners in Norton Peskett, that he was obtaining that Grant. I know from personal knowledge that he did not notify me. I have been told by Mrs. Joanne Bagshaw (nee Madle), the personal assistant to John Loftus, that he did not notify the other partners. It is unclear if Revd. Loftus swore this oath on a Bible, or merely swore a secular oath. In any event it is perjury. I raise the issue of the Bible because this ordained vicar claims to be a Christian.

Excluding me from the Grant of Probate enabled John Loftus to control all the assets of the estate, to sell anything he wanted, without my consent, or even my knowledge. I was left with no way of gaining control of any estate asset, totally helpless to protect my familys most treasured possessions. I was forced to watch as everything that mattered to me in this world was taken from me. When I challenged him on this, John Loftus fought me for over six years, and still continues to fight me to this day.

He worked against me, deliberately and willfully defying my instructions He did everything in his power to exclude me from the estate administration. He tried to make me feel unwelcome. He told me that I was not an executor, and had no right to take any part in the estate administration. When I expressed surprise, and said But I thought I was an executor, I am named in the Will as an executor, he told me Not in Law. I told John Loftus that I would fight him tooth and nail. Thus there can be no doubt that he was well aware that I did not approve of his actions. Many years later, after I had become much better educated in probate law, I discovered that John Loftus was absolutely wrong on this point of law.

I discovered that when an executor is named in the Will, they derive their authority from the Will itself, and not from the Grant of Probate. Thus an executor's authority begins at the instant of death. The Grant merely confirms a pre-existing authority. There was never an instant in time at which John Loftus was an executor and I was not. John Loftus had told me an absolutely false version of the law in order to further his goals. No specialist probate lawyer should have any excuse for not knowing such a fundamental piece of probate law. Either he deliberately and willfully lied to me on this point of law, or else he is grossly incompetent.

If the latter, then he committed fraud by representing himself as a competent probate lawyer, and extorting payment for his expertise. This war between myself and John Loftus has lasted for over 6 years. I dedicated myself full time to fighting him. I spent large sums of money to get advice from other lawyers. I was unable to hold a full time job, do to the amount of my time that was consumed in fighting this war. I estimate spending in excess of 60 hours per week, every week, during this 6 year period. More than a regular full time job. This is considerably more time than would have been required for me to administer the estate by myself. I had to watch helpless as my treasured possessions were destroyed. I suffered extreme mental anguish. I suffered the loss of items that are irreplaceable, and worth more to me than life itself. In other words, he almost caused my suicide.
 
Repeatedly Defied My Instructions

I told John Loftus that he must keep me in the loop, and discuss all actions with me prior to carrying them out. He defied this general instruction: He acted on his own initiative, and did not tell me what he had done. Often I found out about his actions from third parties. When I challenged him as to why he had not kept me in the loop, he told me that I was not an executor. When I insisted that I was an executor, he said not in law. After further questioning he told me that it was because I was not named on the Grant of Probate that I was not an executor, and that he did not need to consider my wishes. A solicitor is required by Law Society rules to treat all executors as clients, there is no distinction between proving executors and non proving executors. Not only was I an executor, but I was also the residual beneficiary.

 Law Society rules also require that a residual beneficiary be treated as a client. Clearly John Loftus was wrong on this point of law. He deliberately and willfully excluded me from the administration of my own father's estate against my wishes. This resulted in great emotional trauma to myself, denied me an important rite of passage and bonding with my parents, and resulted in the loss of our family's treasured heirlooms, and great financial loss.

On several occasions John Loftus has told third parties not to co-operate with me. When I was trying to obtain information regarding property stolen from my home and subsequently fenced at Durrants Auction Rooms in Beccles, John Loftus told Miles Lambdin, the general manager of Durrants, that I was not an executor, and that he should not co-operate with me. When I challenged John Loftus on this he told me that he had not given Miles Lambdin any such instructions. Both these conversations were recorded. In due course I will add the audio of these conversations to this web site.

In a similar scenario, Joanne Bagshaw, acting on the instructions of John Loftus, told David Cooper of Howards Estate Agents not to co-operate with me. Joanne Bagsahw's own attendance notes confirm this point.  (The initials "JM" refer to her maiden name: Joanne Madle)

House Clearance Shortly after my fathers death I made it very clear to John Loftus that I wanted the house, and all its contents, to pass to me undisturbed. This instruction was given clearly and repeatedly, both verbally and in writing. There is no way that John Loftus was not fully aware of my wishes. Because I live in the United States, and had work commitments there, I was away from the UK for a few months following my fathers death. However, my instructions to John Loftus were clear: Leave my property undisturbed! But when I returned to the UK, just a few months later, I found that my house had been cleared. My most treasured possessions were gone, lost forever. I just collapsed to the floor.

My legs would not support me. I cried and cried for hours. I became so sick that I vomited. My life has irrevocably changed since that fateful day. Not a waking moment goes by that I am not fixated on this situation. I dream about it and awake in a cold sweat. I cannot concentrate on anything else, my thoughts just come back to this situation. I am unable to work or function normally. As I investigated what had happened to my treasured possessions I encountered a wall of lies and deception. I asked John Loftus who had ordered the house clearance. At first he told me that he had done so. Then he changed his story, claiming that my aunt had in fact ordered the clearance. My aunt denied that she had done so. I contacted the various local contractors and auction rooms that had participated in the house clearance. They told me that John Loftus had instructed them. I asked John Loftus if an executor had a Duty of Candour to co-executors and to the beneficiaries.

He told me that he did. Thus while he was telling me big fat lies he well knew that he had a duty in law to be truthful to me. John Loftus destroyed the contents of my house without any regard to their importance. Many critical documents essential for estate administration have been lost: I may never now be able to locate estate assets in several other countries. I have no idea even where to look. My parents research papers are destroyed, thrown out like garbage. My school books, and art and craft work from my school days destroyed. Letters from my parents left for me to find after their deaths destroyed. Audio tapes of my childhood voice, and an audio journal of our family also wantonly destroyed. Many cherished family photos likewise thrown into the garbage.

I have spent 9 days up to my knees in garbage at several local landfills where I was told my treasured possessions were taken, but nothing was found. In some cases I discovered that John Loftus had arranged for his friends and close business associates to profit from my misfortune: For example, my fathers low-mileage BMW car was sold to one of John Loftus buddies in the used car trade for a mere 800, a tiny fraction of its true value. Many of my treasures were sold at Durrants Auction Rooms in Beccles; another close and cozy business associate of John Loftus. The prices obtained here were also ludicrous. In some cases the fees and commissions were greater than the amount obtained: In other words the price obtained was actually negative. If John Loftus had set fire to my treasured possessions the estate would have been financially better off!

Facilitated Thefts and Criminal Damage

At my fathers funeral a con-artist approached me claiming to be a dear and trusted friend of my late father. He asked if he could rent our family house as a favour to me. Note that he claimed that he wanted to rent my house not for his own pleasure, but in order to do me a favour.I clearly told him no way!. He then asked if he could help to clear my house. I told him that I did not want my house cleared and that his help was not wanted. He then coveted several items of my fathers estate, saying that he wanted them as a cherished reminder of his love for my late father. It seems that the word "love" was the most common word in his vocabulary. I told him no way! He then asked if he could have the keys to
my house in order to guard my house and possessions from burglars and squatters. I told him to go away and never set foot on my property.

This kind of hearse chasing is of course a well know and classic scam. When it was clear that he would get nowhere with me, he approached John Loftus with the same requests. Since John Loftus claims to have in excess of 30 years experience in estate administration, surely he too would recognize this scam right away. But no, John Loftus gave this low-life the keys to my house, wrote him several letters inviting him to have unrestricted and unsupervised access to my house, and gave him valuable items from the estate as payment for his services in guarding the house. So, what happened then you might ask. No surprise: This con-artist stole many items that had financial value and then fenced them at a local auction house: Durrants Auction Rooms of Beccles. There is a clear paper trail that proves this. After John Loftus had cleared my house of all my most treasured possessions, this low-life moved into my house and established a squat.

If a squatter lives in your house long enough they will acquire legal title to your house. It is called Adverse Possession. Sounds crazy, but unfortunately it is all too true. After stealing or destroying the contents of my house, now these people were going to steal the house itself. I ordered him to leave my house. He replied by setting his large and ferocious German Shepherd dog on me.

I asked the Police to help me. They said that because this low-life had letters from John Loftus inviting him to guard my house he was entitled to be there. When I continued to complain, the Police threatened to arrest me for harassing this low-life. I have calculated that this burglar entered my house in excess of 1000 times against my wishes. That is 1000+ counts of burglary. But the Police assert that this is a civil matter. However, if I make a phone call telling him to stay away from my house, then that is a criminal offence of harassment. Since harassment is based on repetition, surely 1000+ counts of burglary would be considered harassment of me. But no, not when I am the victim. I tried to rescue my house by selling it to a friend who would then sell it back to me. But John Loftus instructed his personal assistant  to block
that sale by telling the estate agent that I was not an executor. I believe that John Loftus saw this con-artist as an opportunity: A way to conceal John Loftus' own thefts.

He steals everything I hold dear in this world, then takes my house. But I am the one going to be arrested. Eventually I succeeded in evicting this low-life. When I finally got back possession of my house it was completely trashed: All flitted appliances had been destroyed. Electrical wiring that was embedded in the walls had been shorted out and melted. Obscenities had been spray painted on the walls. There was urine smell and feces throughout the house. Maybe from this low-lifes dog, or maybe from him and his wife.

Who knows? There were holes drilled in the wooden window frames and wooden stairway. No logical reason, just drilled holes for the fun of it! Several brick walls had large holes smashed into them with a sledge hammer. The only way to fix this was to demolish the walls and rebuild from scratch. And even then it is impossible to match the brick work, leaving an obvious and unsightly repair.

I have brought several law suits against this low-life. Unfortunately John Loftus work has placed me in an extremely weak legal position. He cannot be accused of burglary because John Loftus gave him the keys to my house, and wrote him two letters inviting him to be there. And of course he can claim that he is blameless because he was acting on the instructions of an executor of the estate. And as for John Loftus, well of course the lawyers know how to cover their own a*s. The trust for sale that he wrote into my fathers Will gives him the right to sell, or otherwise dispose of, my most treasured possessions. He can destroy them, give them away to his buddies, or whatever else he wants to do.

The Second Grant of Probate

I repeatedly told John Loftus that the situation of me being omitted from the Grant of Probate was absolutely unacceptable, and that it must be rectified. John Loftus said that fixing the situation was impossible:

He said it can't be done, it's impossible and it's too late. Because he was a professional solicitor specializing in inheritance and probate law he assumed that I would just accept his claims as fact, and give up. But this battle was too important to me. I told John Loftus that I would fight him tooth and nail, and I did! I had to research the procedures and teach John Loftus how to obtain the second grant. I told him exactly what forms he needed to use (CAP A5C). John Loftus fought me for almost a year over this form.

Often he would claim that he was going on vacation and would deal with it on his return. But upon his return he did nothing. It took many phone calls to get each tiny step completed, it was a running battle all the way! He argued that he did not have such a form, even though the Laserform application used by Norton Peskett is well known to have this form in its repertoire. I offered to send him a hard copy of the form, but still he stalled, giving me ludicrous excuses as to why it could not be done.

Only when I pointed out to him that he had lied on his Executors Oath in order to obtain the first grant, and that a perjury conviction would not look good on a solicitors resume, did he eventually reluctantly agree to complete the form, and apply for a second grant. Eventually the second grant, in favour of myself, was obtained. Obviously John Loftus claim that obtaining a second grant was impossible was absolutely wrong because ultimately the second grant was obtained. There are only two explanations for his stance on this point: Either he deliberately lied to me in an attempt to prevent me from fixing the situation, or else he was incompetent. Since he has claimed to have more than 30 years experience in inheritance and probate law in order to obtain money for his expertise, his incompetence amounts to fraud.

EmbezzlementAfter obtaining a Grant of Probate in my own name I insisted that Revd. Loftus send all estate documents to me. He resisted this for 8 months, claiming that he had to make copies for himself. As soon as I had the documents in my possession I fired Norton Peskett, or as they like to call it, dis-instructed them. Now began the long and arduous process of figuring out what Norton Peskett had done. This has turned out to be an extremely difficult task, primarily because Norton Peskett have deliberately tried to hide their actions. However, one fact is abundantly clear: There has been massive embezzlement. I have started a series of forensic audits. So far every audit has revealed missing money due to the estate. The financial instruments that have gone missing include:

Interest payments on  GILTS (UK Treasury Instruments)Interest on Corporate BondsDividend Payments on Corporate StockB-Share Distributions Interest and Dividends on Unit Trusts and Mutual FundsProceeds of Sales of Corporate StockProceeds of Sales of Unit Trusts and Mutual FundsCash that was in my father's pockets when he died, and was itemized by James Paget HospitalAs each audit takes so long to complete, and the statute of limitations is so close, I have already started filing lawsuits in the British courts.

Rather than face the allegations fairly, and make a defence based on evidence and logical argument, Norton Peskett have chosen to use lawyer's tricks to subvert the course of justice. For example, one trick they have used in to invoke a Civil Procedure Rule that prohibits someone with no business or residence address in the UK from filing a lawsuit. Of course I did have a home in the UK, but Norton Peskett stole it. They have also played numerous other dirty tricks with costs to avoid facing the issues fairly in a court of law. They also have a duty to account to me based on the executor's oath that they swore in order to obtain their Grant of Probate. But they refuse to account. They know how to make it virtually impossible, and horrendously expensive, to bring an action in the Probate Registry to compel accounting.  Norton Peskett know exactly how to beat the system: To embezzle estate assets, then refuse to account. If only they had this much competence in the work of estate administration that they were actually paid to do.

The Consequences

It was my intention that I would live in our family home upon my retirement. I was looking forward to spending my final years back in the environment in which I had grown up. To spend my twilight years revisiting memories of my childhood and adolescence. To re-read my junior school exercise books, and high school essays. To look at my large collection of family photographs that I had created over many years. To be comforted by being surrounded by my familiar possessions. Indeed, it was the knowledge that I had my home to return to that gave me the strength to live and work abroad in a strange environment. The consequences of John Loftus' actions have been devastating: Almost all of our cherished family heirlooms are destroyed, or sold for the most ludicrous prices.  The house is gone. My dreams are shattered. Even the financial losses are mind boggling: Of an estate worth well in excess of a million pounds, over half has been lost due to John Loftus' greed and incompetence.

Law firms are constantly telling the public to get their Will written by a professional. They paint a dire picture for those who fail to do so. What might happen if you were to die before you write your Will? My father wanted the family house and all the contents to go to his son, myself. How simple could that be to express in a legal document? How much simpler could his wishes have been? He went to the largest law firm in town, and instructed the partner that heads that firm's probate department to write his Will. How much safer could he be that that?

Well, the result speaks for itself: Our family house is gone, all it's precious contents destroyed, stolen, sold with the proceeds retained by the executors, their family, and friends, or currently in the possession of the executors, their family, and friends, who stubbornly refuse to return anything to their rightful owner. Indeed, some of the house contents had been ordinarily and customarily regarded as my personal property for many decades and not part of my father's estate, items I bought and paid for myself, or made by my own hands. These suffered the same fate. Clearly the executors had no right to touch these items, even with their fraudulently obtained Will. But how much worse could it have been if my father had never written a Will? The intestacy rules would then apply: All his possessions would have gone to his son, just as he wanted. If my father had never set foot in the offices of Norton Peskett, never allowed John Michael Loftus to write his Will, all would have turned out just the way he wanted it to.