Quick Question- Solicitor cocks up!!!

kwackerman

Hi,

Our father died in April after a short illness. His estate is valued at approx. 395k. No inheritance tax is due because we can use unused tax threshold from our mother.
My brother and I dealt with all the paperwork the solicitor provided, swore the oath the went into the solicitors office to sign off everything.
A straightforward probate case we were told, 2-3 weeks and it will be sorted. The sale of our fathers house is just waiting for the grant of probate so that we can exchange contracts.
5 weeks later the solicitor tells me that they had forgotten to get my brother to sign the HMIT form and all the paperwork has been returned!!!
Question....The solicitor has promised to expedite the paperwork and phone them up to hurry the process on.....is this possible??
He says it will only take 2 weeks......is this likely?
Do we have any right to compensation if our buyer pulls out due to this extra delay?
Wish I'd never used the bloke, it took nearly 5 weeks from the initial meeting with him for him to send any paperwork out to us, I'm constantly chasing him up, £150 an hour he's charging but it's like having a dog and barking yourself. I thought these clowns were meant to be honest and trustworthy but all he does is give false promises and tell lies.

Cheers all

a very frustrated Andy

TBagpuss

OK, it's frustrating and clearly he should no have made the error.

Step one would be to check what the firm's complaints process is, and to use it.

5 weeks is not necessary very long to sort out probate documents etc but if you were old 2-3 weeks you should have been kept updated when that changed.

How big is the firm? You might be able to request that someone else in the same department take over.

Is the same firm dealing with the conveyancing?

If your sale does fall through then it is *possible* that you might have a claim, if as a result the house later sells at a lower price. However, it would depend on what you were told, when, and of course whether the sale falling though was as a direct result of the delay.

Obviously the preferred option is to avoid losing the sale - I'd suggest that you *write* to the solicitor, set out clearly your concerns (try to be as factual and unemotional as you can - e.g:
- on [date] we were told this should only take 3 weeks, however it was 5 weeks before [whatever] and we were not given any update or explanation for this taking nearly twice as long as we were told.
- on [date] we were told that [name] had failed to ensure that the paperwork was all signed, resulting in further delays
- we have felt that we have not been kept informed about progress ans that we have had to chase to get any information.

Be clear about what you want them to do - e.g. transfer the file to a more senior solicitor / ensure that matters are now expedited

Crabapple

The other replies have covered the complaint side of things.

I'd say it's perfectly possible to get a grant in two weeks and the probate registry will expedite issue when there is a house sale pending.

getmore4less

You don't need probate to exchange(if you are named executors), although the extra cost of the contracts terms and the buyer probably won't want to take the risk(even when small) it is probably worth just waiting and keeping the buyer on side.
(probate sales have a reputation you need to make sure the buyer sees you are very motivated sellers)

Why did you not just do the forms yourself if it is a simple case, the oath is a small charge and in most cases you end up having to provide the info for the forms anyway.

At a min they should do the rework for free.
Any further issue they should look at the option for a grant to just sell the house.

kwackerman

Thank you for all your helpful replies. Although a simple case I was led to believe that probate would be required when a property is involved. I'm glad to learn that the probate office will expedite a case when a property sale is imminent. I just hope the solicitor has informed them of the delay as he said he would. Perhaps I will check with him on Monday.

Yorkshireman99

kwackerman wrote: »

Thank you for all your helpful replies. Although a simple case I was led to believe that probate would be required when a property is involved. I'm glad to learn that the probate office will expedite a case when a property sale is imminent. I just hope the solicitor has informed them of the delay as he said he would. Perhaps I will check with him on Monday.

Probate is required when a property forms part of the estate because few, if any, solicitors will take the risk. As far as your solicitor is concerned read the riot Act to him. A formal complaint using his firm's complaints procedure is called for. With luck he might agree to waive the fees.

HHarry

From swearing the oath (at my local registry) to receiving the Grant in the post has just taken 10 days, so it can be done quickly.

I hadn't asked for it to be expediated, so hopefully yours can be turned around pretty quickly.