Solicitors lost the will

Nickig13

My late grandfathers solicitor states they have lost the original will and there is a copy only. They state the probate registry will not accept this and wish to contact all relatives of my late Grandfather. However in the copy of the will my grandfather left his estate to my father (his step-son), myself and my brother (grandchildren). My grandfather was in his nineties when he died, however we know he was married and had children in his twenties but divorced marrying my late grandmother when he was in his thirties. My worry is that this will now be dealt with as if there is no will and intestacy rules state the money will go to his previous sons and family so any advice on that please. Also this will be a long complicated procedure and have to go to court, should we be paying for what appears to be a solicitors error. Many thanks for any help or advice in this difficult time.

da_rule

If the solicitor has admitted loosing the will then any additional costs relating to this should be covered by their indemnity insurance.

If you/the solicitor are confident that the will wasn't destroyed on purpose (which would revoke it) then they can apply to the court to allow the copy to be accepted. The solicitor would have to explain that it was their error but that the copy is a true copy of the original will.

They would have to say that the will was destroyed in error and not on purpose (either by your grandfather or under his instruction) and that they have no evidence of a will being made after the lost will which would have revoked it.

pmlindyloo

In certain case the probate office will accept copies of the will.

To save expenses from the solicitor, in the first instance I would be telephoning the probate offices and asking what needs to be done in this instance.

http://www.probateforms.info/probate-registries/

da_rule

Out of curiosity, who did the will appoint as executor?

Nickig13

My father and the solicitor, why?

da_rule

Nickig13 wrote: »

My father and the solicitor, why?

Just thought if the solicitor hadn't been appointed it may be that he only had a copy to start with. Or being more cynical, if he hadn't been appointed this could be a way of getting some work out of it.

PasturesNew

The solicitor had the original Will and acted upon it.
You got your money.
The solicitor cannot now produce the original Will.
Any future claims that might arise would fall squarely at HIS feet, not yours.

Any claim might be happy with "Well, we had the original, here's a copy ... see?" - and shuffle off going "OK thanks". But if they said "fake, forgery, con, scam..." that's the solicitor's problem, not yours. You'd just be required to make a statement at some point as to what happened and that's straight forward as you'd just tell what happened: "had original Will, solicitor dealt with it, all paid out. Job over".

If I were you I'd just sit and see what happens .... not go rushing off to solicitors when there's no need.

Snuggles

PasturesNew wrote: »

The solicitor had the original Will and acted upon it.
You got your money.
The solicitor cannot now produce the original Will.
Any future claims that might arise would fall squarely at HIS feet, not yours.

Unless I'm missing something, this isn't what has happened.

da_rule

PasturesNew wrote: »

The solicitor had the original Will and acted upon it.
You got your money.
The solicitor cannot now produce the original Will.
Any future claims that might arise would fall squarely at HIS feet, not yours.

This isn't what has happened. The solicitor has lost the original will before probate so nothing has been distributed yet.

Mojisola

Nickig13 wrote: »

My late grandfathers solicitor states they have lost the original will and there is a copy only. They state the probate registry will not accept this

This isn't true.

Our solicitor was dealing with a case like this a couple of years ago.

In that case, the executor had collected the will, realised that he would get a bigger cut under the intestacy rules and destroyed the will. He then tried to be the Administrator to deal with the estate.

Our solicitors were able to provide the court with a copy of the will and the notes that had been made of the meetings with the deceased when the will was discussed. The court accepted the copy without any issues.