Simpson Solicitors

Used Right legal to try to obtain probate for the estate of my parents who sadly both passed away in 2022. Chose Right Legal as my parents had used them (as Simpson Solicitors) for wills and they seemed a very customer focused organisation based on their website.
Experience with them has really been unbelievably bad and as of April this matter has now been passed to the Legal Ombudsman.
I have had the worst customer experience with any company I have ever dealt with. This includes:
Documents sent by them to the wrong address.
Wrong/out of date terms of business sent out.
Impossible to get hold of - 15+ emails/calls ignored. Many promises to pass message on/call back never done.
Meeting to discuss issues missed by rights legal staff with no call/explanation as to why.
When trying to complaints internally none of the staff seemed to know the complaints procedure I should use.
Eventually, having spoken to member of staff dealing with my probate (and foolishly given them a second chance) agreed deadlines were again missed (and lots more calls ignored).
When finally getting the documents to sign found errors - incorrect spelling of surnames - This alone took almost a month to get the corrected form sent out!
Managed, eventually, to raise an official complaint (again after multiple phone calls and being told different things). Initial response was simply to ignore some of the points and generally brush off this criticism with a rather generic corporate email.
Finally got to speak to Head of Customer service who - to be fair - was very honest in admitting that the company had some severe issues with customer service and seemed very genuine and embarrassed and apologised for the service. She offered £150 compensation which I agreed to accept at the end of the process on the condition that there were no more issues and that they kept me proactively informed of progress (Money was going to be donated to Cancer research).
Sadly - no proactivity in keeping me informed - wasn't until I chased, I found out they had received my Fathers probate a month earlier (but hadn't informed me), they also said they would chase my Mothers probate case that day but making a simple phone call to the courts ended up taking 2 weeks.

Based on these last frustrations I've now sent the complaint to the legal ombudsman; I can’t believe the delay Rights Legal has caused, the only area of the business that seemed in anyway proactive was the accounts department chasing payment (which they got at the start of the process last year) . Probates never going to be a nice process given its nature , but a half decent professional service would have made this situation significantly easier.

Incompetent does not even come close. 7 years after my dads death and Simpsons Solicitors have still not completed the work they were assigned to do.

Dad made them executors so we couldn’t even get rid of them.

Im now Pursuing a claim for negligence and have made a complaint to the legal ombudsman.

Please do not make the same mistake my dad did, avoid these solicitors it’s not worth the stress, anxiety and frustration involved with dealing with them.

This review is for a different branch.

Couldn’t have been more helpful to book i. the initial meeting to sign us up for probate services following an unexpected death. RP were listed as an executor. Probate still
not submitted 10 months on despite them having everything ready months ago. No contact, no advice, just nothing. It’s exhausting having to chase them. We would have been better doing it ourselves.

This review is for a different branch.

This firm do not even deserve one star. The service has been absolutely appalling and prospective clients should go elsewhere. Right Legal were instructed in June 2022 to process my mother's straightforward probate application. We have speedily provided all information requested to keep things moving. For no good reason, the development of the probate application has proceeded at slower than snail's pace. We have politely waited weeks sometimes months for updates and these have only been provided after several emails from us. The firm has upheld two formal complaints from me about slow service and poor communication. Finally the papers came through to sign in November 2023 and the firm verified that they had been received back by them and would be sent on. Unbelievably my sister found out yesterday (April 2024) that the application has still not been submitted!!!

This review is for a different branch.

If I could give Rights zero stars it would be too many. This company took over 2.5 years to do a straight forward probate. We had three different legal advisors. Documents were lost, they were incorrect and try getting them to answer or return your telephone calls - impossible!
Simpsons solicitors added themselves as an executor when updating my dads Will - he had onset dementia and they told him it would be for the best and then told us we needed to use Rights for the Probate. What this resulted in was a costly and extremely drawn out Probate that was handled poorly by Rights. This firm has put our family in great financial and emotional stress. We even reported them to the Legal Ombudsman and won but it still didnt make anything happen any quicker.
Now we are battling with their Document Management Team to get the return of our property docs - its been 4 months so far and they cant even do a simple thing like that correctly.

People giving 5* reviews for the Will service - check it and make sure they havent added themselves in as an executor and if so get it changed immediately and save the sanity of your family.

This review is for a different branch.

I had the pleasure of a visit from the lovely Jessica this morning from the Derby office. She was very friendly and chatty and completely put me at ease. She answered my questions and explained everything to me clearly so I could understand.
This young lady is going to be a huge asset to your company and if I need legal advice in the future I shall be employing Jessica and recommending her to family and friends.