Business

Willmett Solicitors 'closed without warning'

December 22, 2009

A client of a Reading and Woodley-based solicitors firm that went into administration was told the news a week after it closed.

Helen Melvin found out Willmett Solicitors had ceased trading through her insurance company when they tried to contact staff at the Reading branch on her behalf.

Mrs Melvin contacted her insurance company for an update but all they received was an answerphone message from Willmett informing them it had stopped trading.

“As a client I am completely shocked I haven’t been informed still,” she told getreading.

“I only found out through my insurance company and the answer message said all 450 files had been sent to another solicitors’ firm.

“Until you ring up [Willmett] and hear the answer message you wouldn’t know.”

But Mrs Melvin was even more shocked at the news when she received a letter from the firm dated Monday, December 1, telling her it was looking into her case – on the same day staff were allegedly told of the closure.

The firm, which has other branches in Windsor and Maidenhead, was ordered to pay £1.35 million by the courts after it failed to comply with undertakings in a commercial property transaction – believed to be the reason the firm has gone under.

But it isn’t just the collapse of the company that has left Mrs Melvin, from Calcot, unhappy.

She said: “I rang my insurance company and said I wanted to deinstruct my solicitors as I have been uhappy with them for a while.

“I wasn’t getting information from them or any phone calls.”

The 42-year-old instructed the firm in May 2007 after she was involved in a road accident on the M4 close to Chieveley, near Newbury, when the car she was travelling in suffered a blow-out in April that year.

Mrs Melvin explained she was dealing with one solicitior at the Reading branch who later went on maternity leave and was replaced by a partner in the business.

She added: “He had no empathy with his clients. At the time I was suffering anxiety and the effects of the accident.”

Willmett Solicitors’ answerphone message explains clients’ files have been sent to other firms based in Oxfordshire and that clients have the option to transfer to the new solicitor’s firm or find their own solicitor.

Of the situation Mrs Melvin said: “Because we are so close to finishing this and because it’s been so difficult [talking about the incident] I am quite happy to stay with the company taking over, but if I have to wait months and months to finish this then I might consider elsewhere.”

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My point exactly Victoria. Unfortunately Millicent, not all of us have the time to trawl through the local news everyday, perhaps this is also true of Mrs Melvin?

localman
24/12/2009 at 09:53

I missed it 1st time round and am happy for the re-post though!

Racing snake, Reading
23/12/2009 at 20:38

Millicent you're being quite militant I think. The woman didn't seem to know about the closure and as you quite rightly say there were others in her position no doubt. It sometimes takes one person going to the press, for this and other companies in receivership to think about contacting their clients out of courtesy and duty of care. It is likely that she has spoken for a lot of other clients. This makes it news.

Victoria
23/12/2009 at 20:02

localman

The story's been run in the paper twice. Dec 2nd http://www.getreading.co.uk/business/s/2061892_willmett_solicitors_believed_to_be_in_administration and Dec 4th http://www.getreading.co.uk/business/s/2062058_partners_property_deal_sinks_willmetts_solicitors

The closing was news, and was reported, the fact that someone is a bit miffed they didn't get a 'phone call - isn't.

Ironic really that Mrs Melvin should go bleating about it to the local press that DID feature the news when she clearly doesn't read it.