Help please you legal experts! will/ no will and probate

[thesandwich]

Hello, I know there are some wise experts on here- could you please give me some guidance?
dm has sadly passed after a v long life very peacefully. We now are starting sorting out probate etc.
she made a Will in 2006- we have a copy. The original is help with a company who took over the original solicitor and moved all wills onto their storage 40 miles away.
without consulting us or seeking consent.
it is proving to be the most difficult and challenging thing to get the Will back-
as we know her wishes, straight divide between offspring, all in agreement, two offspring named as executors( me one of them)
we are all one one page.
would it be a mistake to go through probate declaring there is no will? There is money and a property involved, but will be comfortably below the iht threshold.
Opinions very welcome! Thank you

Instruct a different solicitor. This one sounds incompetent. Be worth making a complaint to the ones that made the Will too.

I would threaten them with the law society if you cannot collect the Will in 24 hours. You don't need a solicitor for probate and they've no right t9 keep it. They might charge for release but the terms of storage should have been agreed and in your mum's records.
You can't say there is no Will when you know there is.

Follow their complaints procedure because you have to do that first and then complain to their professional body.

Be glad that the solicitors aren't the executors too, it could always be worse.

What is it they’re doing thats making it difficult?

It has been v difficult getting hold of them and getting forms required for releasing the will- which they say will take up to 14 days from receiving the documents.
plus they want to charge £30 for a service mum never signed up for.
will it be much harder if we say we don’t have a will?

You can't say there isn't a will. There is! That would be fraud. If there's no will you have to be appointed as the right person to handle the estate. This is usually a formality but it's still a serious legal process. You know the will benefits you - but what if you're wrong? And you distribute the estate according to what you think she wanted but it isn't. You could potentially defraud your family and friends out of their due. Just get the bloody document as quickly as possible. I don't think £30 is excessive but the wait is.

But there IS one! Getting hold of it in a few days as opposed to a couple of weeks won’t make any difference. Your DM must have known about this, otherwise how did you know where it was stored?
the paperwork is necessary, and the cost is reasonable.

Thank you all for giving me good advice and a head wobble. The storage of the Will was transferred along with ours from our local solicitor when they were taken over by a large chain. Without advice/ consent/ acknowledgement.
surprisingly 😉my carefully worded 😉email with a mention of a negative on line review/ trust pilot somehow spurred them into action 🤣🤣🤣and the will will be released as soon as our docs are sent electronically.
Thank you all!

update… finally after several more emails/ phone calls and recorded doc sent which took days to reach the right dept…. I have it.
thanks all.

I am glad you managed to sort it out

@thesandwich so glad you have the will, you must be relieved.

Thanks all.