Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia
Starting a Lawsuite
First of all Thank you for your time, I know how valueable it is. A friend hired me to do some investigating for him because he was robbed in his home and the police had NO clues. He and I agreed on a price and I went to work. Shortly I found the people involved and at his request i workedwith the cops to bring allof them in. The cops found out about our deal and told him not to pay until everyone was tried. My friend tells me of this and asked me to wait to be paid, i agreed. While waiting for the last one to go to trial he died. I had a witness with me when the agreement was struck and because we were friends i didnt put it into writing, stupid i know. like i said we were waiting for the last to goto trail and he died. he had a large estate being handled by an attorney because his son is in prison right now for drugs with 10 years left to pull. my question is how do i go about getting paid by his estate. Please help me... thank you.. Dave
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Starting a Lawsuite
The executor of the estate (administrator in
Virginia) will have to publish a note in the
newspaper inviting all creditors to submit their
claims to the administrator. Rather than watch
the papers, you can go to the courthouse and see
the probate file and get the address.
Rather than filing a lawsuit, you should submit
a claim, with a professional-looking invoice,
to the estate for payment.
A verbal agreement is enforceable if you can
prove it. The problem is that it is often very
difficult to prove.
In this case, if you have witnesses and you can
prove (through any documentation, notes, whatever)
that you did the work, then there is a fairly
good chance that you can collect.
You may have to file a lawsuit against the
estate via the executor/administrator. If you
want help, let me know, I only charge $110 per
hour.
It would help if you could identify the police
officers that he talked to about this, as they
might be witnesses. Admissions by the other
party are an exception to hearsay, and are usually
admissible in court. So you could get the police
officer to testify that your client agreed the
money was due.
Re: Starting a Lawsuite
You should present your detailed written claim(supported by whatever witness affidavits you can muster)to the executor of the estate once the notice to creditors appears in the local newspaper or you are informed that the probate process has commenced and that the the executor of the estate is willing to accept creditor claims.
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