Solicitors no longer trading

Keep_pedalling

GaryBC said:

Keep_pedalling said:

GaryBC said:

Ok. Let's go back to the essence of my question..... 
The firm has ceased trading, will their records have been taken on by a successor company (ie if they were bought out and taken over)? Or, if they just shut up shop and disappeared, would their records have gone into storage/archive somewhere (if so, where)?
I'm not sure how the nature of the records or the reason I want them has any bearing on where they are. The are where they are irrespective of if anyone is interested in them. 

It has a baring as different sorts of documents are retained for different periods. If what was given was purely advice then any records will have been destroyed after 7 years, transactional records would have been held for around 15 years, only things like estate administration, trusts and wills would be held longer than that.

Thanks for that. It's a distinction I wasn't aware of. Apologies for my terse response! 

No need to apologise, I realise that answering questions with another question might come across as being nosey but on here it is normally done so that an appropriate answer can be given.

user1977

GaryBC said:

The firm has ceased trading, will their records have been taken on by a successor company (ie if they were bought out and taken over)? Or, if they just shut up shop and disappeared, would their records have gone into storage/archive somewhere (if so, where)?

If another firm has taken them over then they'll inherit whatever was archived. Sometimes these things get split up e.g. one firm takes over the conveyancing, another the litigation, etc.

As has been said, the files may have been destroyed by now, but it is also possible that nobody has got around to doing so.

GaryBC

It would appear that, if the records still exist, they could be in several places! 
I've just emailed the Law Society to see if they can help. 

RAS

And the SRA - Solicitors Regulation Authority.

TBagpuss

Keep_pedalling said:

GaryBC said:

Ok. Let's go back to the essence of my question..... 
The firm has ceased trading, will their records have been taken on by a successor company (ie if they were bought out and taken over)? Or, if they just shut up shop and disappeared, would their records have gone into storage/archive somewhere (if so, where)?
I'm not sure how the nature of the records or the reason I want them has any bearing on where they are. The are where they are irrespective of if anyone is interested in them. 

It has a baring as different sorts of documents are retained for different periods. If what was given was purely advice then any records will have been destroyed after 7 years, transactional records would have been held for around 15 years, only things like estate administration, trusts and wills would be held longer than that.

Also, it's generally up to the individual firm. The legths of time are often to do with limiation periods - for instnace, for many things, the limitation period is 5 years, so the form will keep files that long in cas e they are sued or a complaint is mande, so they have the full information to be able to defend it. 15 years is tied into the latent damages act, and if the advice related to a minor then the times may not start to run until the child turns 8 so a file for a claim on beahlf of a child might be retained until 6 years after their 18th bothday.

There is guidance from the Law Socety /SRA but it is guidance, not binding. And GDPR complicated things as while older firms might have previously kept some types of files for much longer, the requirements to tell people what daat you are keeping and why means that firms may have had the choice of trying to contact 100s of clients from years ago to tell them they still ve old files, or destroying the files and daa so they don't have to incur the cost of writing to 100s or 1000s of people, and potentially writing to old addresses and the potential for data breaches by doing so! 

When a firm is closed down r taken over, their current files will normally be trnasferred to a sucessor firm and the LAw Society or SRA may have details of which firm it was, but again, they may not take on the archive , certainly not of matters older than what is covered by their own retention policies. 

Original documents such as wills would normally be retained by the sucessor company, or the firm that is appointed to wind down the company if it was clsoed down by regualrtor, they might then either retain tose documents or return them to the client, but either way would have tried to contact your parents to inform them. (so if you were looking for an original will, that would be where to start) 

The SRA may be better than the Law Society (https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/solicitor-closed-down  ) - if you know the name of the specifc individual they saw you can also check whether that person is still on the roll by using the Law Society 'find a solicitor' function, and then try to contact them directly to ask if they know who took over the practice.

That said, I think it is fairly unlikely that anyone will have retained files or records of advice given 25 years ago, where the firm has since closed

GaryBC

Update:
The firm ceased trading over a decade ago and all records pertaining to the 1990s have been shredded.
Thanks to all for your inputs.