Complicated - solicitor never transferred land, need help!

[Bluebean]

Morning all,
This is a complicated story, but I would appreciate some help if anyone could advise.

Quick synopsis of the story so far:

My mother's uncle died back in April 1981, leaving a house + land to his sister (my grandmother), in his will.

My grandmother died 4 months later, and she left the house + land to her 2 sons.

The solicitor was paid at the time for doing the work of transferring the land (twice). We even have the bill that was paid at the time.

Roll forward almost 20 years to 1999. Both sons live in England since approx 1965. One of the sons died in 1999, without a will. It then comes to light that the solicitor never did any of the work at all, on either my granduncles's will nor my grandmother's will. So the house + land are still in the original persons name (my granduncle).
Solicitor denies any wrong doing, and then suddenly (conveniently for him) the file goes missing.

In order to try and sort this out, (if it is even possible), what steps should/could be taken? Even if we were to manage to get the property transferred to the 2 sons, one of them died without a will so I imagine we would have to ensure that he did not owe any money to the revenue in the UK or the social welfare.

Could anyone help us on this? Any idea of the costs involved in trying to sort this mess out?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mf1]

Two issues: (1) sort out the mess. (2) check if solicitor is responsible and should he now pay for the cost of (1)

1. Sort out mess.
Work out who the beneficiaries are. 2 sons. One dead. So its one son and others sons beneficiaries - in simple terms. What do these people want done? Vest property in themselves or sell?
It is complicated but possible to resolve.

2. Is solicitor responsible?
Go to another solicitor.

mf

 

[Bluebean]

Thanks MF1, good advise there.

I think that the property would be sold if all was sorted out. The son that died was not married, so his half would would be split between the other son (his brother) and his sister (my mother).
Am I right in thinking that it may be possible to transfer it done as far as the 2 sons without huge difficulty? But that the problem arises in making sure that the son who died, that his affairs in the UK were ok? as in, he didn't owe anything to anyone?

The solicitor is not accepting responsability for not doing the work. When challenged with the bill he charged which had a breakdown of costs (land registry fees etc.), he sort of wormed his way out of it and said things like 'oh, they were just search fees blah blah blah'. The law society can't do anything about him as it is long past their 5 years term.

The fact that he 'lost' the file makes the whole thing even more disastrous - as now I'm not sure if there are copies of the documents anywhere.

I have also heard that solicitors will not 'take on' another solicitor - is this true?

If its not, can anyone recommend someone in the Limerick/Cork area who would be able to sort this out?

Thanks again MF1, any further help would be appreciated.