A couple of weeks ago we were faced with a strange situation which has left us asking questions. Dad of 3’s grandfather passed away some five years ago now and at the time we were also faced with his father been taken seriously ill. Over a period of a few months my mother in-law started to work through various paperwork that had belonged to her father in order to get his estate in order.
Then a few weeks back we had a telephone call from my mother in-law telling us that while she was looking through some family birth and death certificates for the family tree she’s completing, she had come across a cheque made out to her father from his solicitor. She believed the cheque was from the sale of her father’s house some thirty years ago and by the looks of things it had never been cashed.
Dad of 3 urged his mother to contact the solicitor and make enquirers regarding the cheque. She wasn’t convinced her father could have made a mistake nor the solicitor but dad of 3 explained these things can and do happen. A couple of hours later she rang back and explained that the solicitor could find no record of the cheque and as it had been a few years since his death the bank were also unhelpful. The fact it happened so long ago makes it harder to trace although not impossible.
This got dad of 3, myself and his mother talking about circumstances that could led to professional negligence claims against solicitors.Was it possible that we had one of those situations? Dad of 3 started looking for information on ways to go about resolving the issue while I tried to get him to slow down. It’s not something that had ever crossed my mind that would occur but reading information that dad of 3 found made me realise it does happen sadly and there are companies out there that can help make the process of making a professional negligence claim easier by helping you through it.
My mother in law has since decided that it must have been an honest mistake and that her father must have mislaid the cheque and requested a replacement. So she feels the cheque she found was the original one that he mislaid and does not want to pursue it further. But what would you do? would you make a claim?
This post is brought to you by Redresslaw however the content of the post is 100% my own.