poor service from solicitor

exup

After my father passed away in March without making a will, myself and brother and sister decided to contact a solicitor to make sure the estate was handled correctly.
There was a mutual agreement between us and even though I am the youngest, but probably closest to my Dad it was decided that the main funeral arrangements etc would be mostly my chioce although we didn't have any arguments - everything was discussed and worked out, and no fighting over who wanted what - even to this day.
However as for the solicitor, when I first saw him about how to handle the legalities, I took all documents I could think of that was relevant, bank accounts, divorce papers, details of all family members.

He gave us a brief outline of what was going to happen, and that he would need to check whether my father had made a wlll with anyone else.
(OK)
and a possible timescale of from 10 days to 6 weeks.
Since then it has been a constant struggle to get information out of him.
There is very little communication fron the solicitor except from when we actually call to find out what is going on.
Once we were satisified that no will had been made, probate was applied for, which meant more holdups.
Forms were delayed to us and only sent when we contacted the senior partner and threatened to remove all documents from their premises due to seeming lack of progress. (apologies for the junior partner being ill).
We placed our fathers belongings in storage and even now that is where they still are, as he was renting then the property was no difficulty but also a car and motorcycle to sort out.
Forms were sent and then resent due to mistakes on the forms, even though we checked against some of these errors and were told
"No thats OK - it wont cause a problem"
Then it did cause a problem and the form was sent back to resign or restart.
Confirmation of the date of divorce which we were told was not needed originally (we put the documents into storage as we were told they were not needed)
Then told we did need the records and that this was "unusual" as the solicitor hadnt known it to be needed before.
After more to and fro with papers (which were only really sent out when one of us had pushed again on the pnone or gone to the office) what seemed like the last set of papers was sent out to us.
Or so we gathered from an answerphone message left on my sisters phone. Or at least we thought they had been. When they didnt arrive we called the solictor to be told he had changed his mind due to our concern about postal strikes in the area. Although we had voiced these concerns before he had decided he would send them anyway and then changed his mind.
My brother then decided to collect the papers and bring them through (I live 80 miles from the solicitors, my sister over 100 miles).

I feel that from calling on a solictor my father had records of in his house who we thought he had prior dealings with to make sure things were done with all T's crossed and 's dotted it has just been constant stress and we have not really been able to move on.
10 days to 6 weeks just seems like a joke now, over 6 months and a feeling that this guy hadn't hadn't much more of an idea than we had ourselves.

Now closure seems to be finally coming (I hope), there is the matter of the solicitor fee and frankly for what shoddy service he has given, there is absolutely no way I want to pay him the full rate.

I miss my Dad like mad and thought we had a few good years left, he used to come over and see me almost every weekend as he loved driving his car or riding his motorbike to see me and his grandkids and there is a big hole there now. Obviously there are uncomfortable legal processes that need to be sorted out when something like this happens, but the way this has gone on just makes everything much much worse.

How do I stand with come back on this service from solictor?

misspoppy

Why don't you contact the firm and ask to speak to a manager or partner and tell them of all the problems and difficulties and try to negotiate a reduced rate failing that you can complain to the law society http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/redressscheme.law