Solicitor asking for previous will

Oldwonam

Hi,  Thanks in advance for any comments suggestions.

Solicitor firm 'A' has drawn up a new will, to replace one originally drawn up by firm 'B'.  The main changes are removal of the spouse, who died, and to assign new executors.

All is good with the new will, signed & witnessed, and returned to the solicitor and invoice paid.
Now 7 weeks after signing, firm 'A' is asking for the location of the previous will and should they request it from firm 'B'?
So I'm wondering what plausible reasons to be asking for this and if it's usual practise?

Keep_pedalling

In a small number of cases having two wills in existence causes problems so best practice would be the recovery destruction of the old will. You could of cause do this yourself.

user1977

If nothing else it will also save firm B from having to look after the old WIll to infinity.

pjs493

I recently wrote a new Will following the death of my husband last year. I sent an email to the previous firm and informed them that I had written a new Will and it was being held by Solicitor Firm X. They were aware of my husband's death as I requested his original Will from them following his death so I suspect they were expecting me to write a new Will at some point. I've not had a response yet as to what they have done i.e. kept the old Will but noted a new one is with Firm X, or destroyed the original.

Marcon

Oldwonam said:

Hi,  Thanks in advance for any comments suggestions.

Solicitor firm 'A' has drawn up a new will, to replace one originally drawn up by firm 'B'.  The main changes are removal of the spouse, who died, and to assign new executors.

All is good with the new will, signed & witnessed, and returned to the solicitor and invoice paid.
Now 7 weeks after signing, firm 'A' is asking for the location of the previous will and should they request it from firm 'B'?
So I'm wondering what plausible reasons to be asking for this and if it's usual practise?

Firm A is doing its job properly! They are trying to ensure that only one will (the most recent one) remains in existence, to ensure there is no possibility that the 'wrong' one could be brought into play when the testator dies.

Oldwonam

Thanks for the replies.  It makes sense.
I see no reason to have the old will transferred to the new solicitor.
So I think the best thing is to retrieve the original will from the old solicitor and then keep it as a personal copy marked superceded, or simply destroy it, and tell the new solicitor it's been dealt with.

pjs493

Oldwonam said:

Thanks for the replies.  It makes sense.
I see no reason to have the old will transferred to the new solicitor.
So I think the best thing is to retrieve the original will from the old solicitor and then keep it as a personal copy marked superceded, or simply destroy it, and tell the new solicitor it's been dealt with.

Yes. Following on from my comment above, the firm who held my old Will called me yesterday to confirm they’d put it in the post so I could do with as I saw fit.