Solicitor no longer in business - Law Society

Hi. I bought my house in 2006 and am in the process of switching to a new mortgage provider. I was contacted by the legal firm acting for me who told me they were having difficulty getting in touch with the solicitor I used in 2006 in relation to the registration of my house with the Land Registry. They told me there were looking for the folio number. I rang the Law Socity and they told me that the Solicitor is no longer in business and that my file should have been passed to another solicitor to complete. They told me they would find out who it was and would get back to me. Can someone advise as to what happens in circumstances such as these.

Talk to your new solicitor.
Ask them to talk to your original lender. Has the original lender got the Deeds?
If yes , there is no problem.

If no, the Law Society will investigate. It is extremely unusual for a solicitor to simply close up without dealing with outstanding files - unless they were very high profile ,as per very recent cases.

If all else fails, it is possible to reconstitute title - this would not be that difficult here - if this is a new house and your builder's solicitor will usually oblige with copy documents if necessary.

But first talk to your new solicitor.

mf

Turns out that the Solicitor (not someone currently in the public eye) still has the deeds and as far as anyone can see has done no work in registering the property. Can you give me your view as to what you think I should do (I appreciate that I will need legal advice). Can the Law Soc do anything for me.

Is this guy still a solicitor?

Happened us in the 90's. Law Society shut down our Solicitor (never found out why). We had sold our house, were in rented accommodation awaiting our new home. Solicitor took fee for sale and for new home purchase from the house sale funds. This left us with no Solicitor and fee paid.

We appointed new Solicitor which we had to pay again. Law Society made an offer to compensate us the lost fee, we declined (against advise of new Solicitor) and we did succeed in getting more from the Law Society, but were still out of pocket.

All in all, it was us that suffered. But we got there in the end.