Solicitor: How long do they keep files for.

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Megan

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My friend got in touch with his late mother's solicitor to get a copy of a form they signed re: signing over land to a family member. This happened about 15 years ago. The solicitor told him that they only keep files for 7 years. Could that be right?
 
Megan said:
My friend got in touch with his late mother's solicitor to get a copy of a form they signed re: signing over land to a family member. This happened about 15 years ago. The solicitor told him that they only keep files for 7 years. Could that be right?
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Why does he want it? The reason I ask is that if he wants certain information there are other ways of obtaining it.

Of course it is true that solicitors keep files only a certain number of years- otherwise they would run out of storage space.
 
Thanks Vanilla. One member of the family wanted a site and as their father didn't make a will they were all due a share of the family farm. When they signed this form they thought they were just signing for a site but as it turned out they actually signed their claim to their share of the farm. The family member now has the farm and has built a house on it. It wasn't until their mother died that they found this out. I know they should have got their own lega advise at the time but they just did what their mother wanted as they thought.
 
Although the solicitor doesn't have to store the files 7 years seems a bit short of a period for the solicitor to have destroyed the file. I regularly have to deal with enquiries about files that go back 20 or 30 years and most of the files are still there.
 
If the property is registered in the Land Regsitry it might be possible to get a copy of the form. Any claim to the land iteslf might be statute barred at this stage though.
 
Seven years is a tad short.

The Law Society have published guidelines for solicitors; I think most files involving property have a ten year minimum (recommended) storage period.

It is also good practice to send the client a 'file closing' letter, which would state that the file is now going out to archives, that it will be shredded in due course and that the client is welcome to come and take anything they like from the file before it goes out to archive. In this case, that would not have helped OP's friend, in that the friend was not the client.

The problem is, of course, that the siblings should have got independent legal advice when they originally signed the disclaimers (or whatever it is that they signed). But, having said that, unless there are particular circumstances (such as perhaps a pre-retirement clean-up, a move to a new office building, merger of practices, complete shortage of storage space) the destruction of a file after seven years is distinctly odd.
 
FKH said:
Any claim to the land iteslf might be statute barred at this stage though.
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Yes, unless of course there was fraud involved though this would be very very hard to prove.

The difficulty with getting the document now will be that it may not even have been recorded in the land registry as the grant itself is enough for the land registry- even if a deed of family arrangement was signed and sent in. Still it might be there and best to consult an other solicitor who can advise about legal options having all the relevant details.

Most solicitors would tend to hold on to files longer and even when closing files would take out any title documents and store these.
 
>10 years

when does the 10 years begin? from the date of the last correspondence? if so then perhaps you should send a token letter to your solicitor every 9.9 years to keep the file on his shelves; be sure to quote the files reference number though
 

Yes, this would definitely work...
 
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