Solicitors from buyer and seller disagree on documents required

[GreatJob]

We are very frastrates at moment.

We are buying a house from four children whose parents have died.

Our solicitor requested two death certificates and two probates of grants for Land Registry before even exchange. . But buyer solicitor provided one death certificate and one probate of grant and saying that these are all legally required documents according to kind of Guidance 6 of Land Registry rules, and will provide the certified copies on completion.

Can anyone shed a light as to which solicitor is right?

When did the parents die? Did they die at the same time or did one predecease the other? If one died before the other then the death certificate of the parent who died most recently is surely what is required.

I am not a legal expert but I also would have thought that only the probate and certificate of the last parent to die would be required unless they both died within 30 days of each other - is that the case here? Wills can have a clause about surviving for 30 days (or whatever else is stated) before inheriting, that's the only reason I can think that they would want both.

Hope you can sort it out soon anyway.

It’s not clear if the parents died close to each other but I suspect it is not because my solicitor did not use this as argument.

We think that it’s very likely that our solicitor is not competent because in the past they gave wrong updates - eg they have received the documents but they told us that they were still waiting for them.

I have sent an email to a senior staff of my solicitor firm but no response. And I was told that he is dealing with this kind of complaint. But on their website it says it should write a letter to another person but nowadays who is still sending letters.

I do not know what else to do, we have a school deadline to meet and at moment the case is going no where. I have let my solicitor know that we will pull out if the deadline is not met but not sure if it works. Apart from threatening to complain to Legal Ombudsmen I am not sure what else to do.

You do know that you can obtain a copy of the other death certificate yourself from the National Record Office if you have the name and other details of the deceased? Pretty sure the records are public for probate too. I.e. you don't need to lose your purchase over this.