My dad died in July in harrowing circumstances. Our probate application was close to being finalised by our solicitor.<\/p>\n
Then this month we received an email from the solicitor, Samuel Phillips Law<\/a>, to say it had ceased trading. No explanation was given.<\/p>\n We have instructed new solicitors, but Samuel Phillips still has our file and won\u2019t answer calls or emails.<\/p>\n I have no money left as I\u2019m self-employed, and was unable to work while my dad was dying. Now I can\u2019t access Dad\u2019s legacy or confirm that we don\u2019t meet the inheritance tax threshold because this firm is holding files hostage.<\/p>\n The new solicitors have said they can complain to the regulator, but it may take months. I\u2019ve never felt more hopeless or alone in my life.<\/p>\n FM Falmouth, Cornwall<\/p>\n I\u2019m horrified to hear of your situation. You are still young and an only child, and are buckling under the weight of grief and red tape.<\/p>\n Your solicitor, I discovered, was shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority<\/a> (SRA) which also closed a sister firm, Hathaways<\/a>, run by the same man, Sufe Miah. The SRA told me there is \u201creason to suspect dishonesty on the part of Sufe Miah in connection with his practice as a solicitor\u201d and that it had to act to protect clients.<\/p>\n The staff and trainee solicitors at both companies have lost their jobs without warning. The SRA has appointed another legal firm to deal with the companies\u2019 clients.<\/p>\n When I alerted the SRA to your situation, things happened fast. You were immediately called by the stand-in agent and you received electronic copies of your files there and then.<\/p>\n The SRA will hold the paperwork of closed cases<\/a> such as deeds and wills in its own archive and will disburse funds retrieved from client accounts. Others affected should contact the agent, John Owen of Gordons LLP in Bradford.<\/p>\n We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com<\/a> or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My dad died in July in harrowing circumstances. Our probate application was close to being finalised by our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-354852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-personalfinance","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}