Any lawyers around? Is there any comeback if a lawyer has lost your will?

[PattiMayor]

My very elderly gran made a will years ago which she lodged with a local solicitor. Said solicitor has retired and another firm has taken over the practice.

She has a copy of her will but the new firm say that they can't find the original and she needs it apparently as no one will accept a copy.

So now my dad has had to get another solicitor out to see my gran (she is in a home) to make a new will which is effectively a copy of the old one.

Obviously this is going to cost money which she doesn't have a lot of. Is there any comeback via the Law Society or anything? It seems a bit rubbish to me that a solicitor can retire and all their paperwork go missing and there's no recourse.

Thanks nappy. The new firm are making out that they're not anything to do with the retired solicitor though - they're telling my dad that they took over the premises and that's all.

I will try the Solicitors Regulation Authority although I suspect my dad may feel it's easier just to pay up rather than go through a load more hoops - as you can imagine, this has been a bit of a bloody pita already.

Thanks so much for your help, nappy, didn't have a clue where to start :)

Have had a look at the website now. My dad has all the details, I don't, but I've forwarded him their contact details and it seems from what is on their site that they might be able to track down the original will.

I am cross at the other firm for being so bloody unhelpful though - my dad is nearly 80 (my gran really is very old indeed!) so he finds this sort of thing really hard work as you can imagine.