Original Will lost in the post - any potential repercussions?

[gowelboy]

As sole non-beneficiary executor of a blood relatives will I instructed a well known legal firm to oversee things. Although I assumed they would have offices all over the country, the person initially overseeing my application asked me verbally during a phone call to post the original copy of the will to them at their head office address.

I was a bit uncomfortable doing this so asked him to email me a simple paragraph stating exactly what steps I should take in order to get the document to them safely. Perhaps ironically given the events that followed I said to him something to the effect of "If you tell me exactly what to do, then I follow your instructions, then if anything goes pear-shaped then I'll be able to blame you!".

Sure enough, I followed his specific instructions to send it via "Royal Mail Special Delivery, guaranteed by 1pm next day" and as of today 4 days later it still hasn't arrived (Royal Mail Online Tracking claims it's been at a sorting office, local to the address in question for the past 3 days. Royal Mail are investigating and I have already asked the person it was sent to if they could advise me of any potential repercussions in the event that the original will proves to be lost. Have had no response past 24 hours so my next step is to chase up tomorrow and state that unless I get a clear answer by end of tomorrow then I'll have no option other than to cancel our agreement as I'm still within an initial 14 days cooling off period.

Naturally I do have photocopies of the will and I initially sent pictures of each page to the legal firm at the outset.

I guess I'm looking for a potential worse-case scenario, or better still wondering if maybe it's not as serious as I'm thinking it might be.

Thanks in anticipation of any pointers.

[Pezza54]

Hi
The will has probably been delayed in the sorting office and should eventually turn up. Did you send it "signed for"?
It is good that you took a copy of the original will, but it is not a straight forward process with the Probate Registry if the original will is definitely lost
Please read the article "Are Copy Wills Valid If The Original Cannot Be Found" at www.buckles-law.co.uk

[scoobydoo1]

i asked this question when i went to get the original will from solictors, they told me i had to send the original off for probate, so i asked them that specific question what happens if it gets lost in post, they told me to come back and they would produce another , so might be an option to speak to them if it still hasnt turned up