Readers line up with solicitor complaints

THE Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating Harraway Law Ltd and its owner, solicitor Caroline Harraway.

As I reported last Sunday, she and her firm charged a reader more than £1,200 to prepare a will for him and Lasting Powers of Attorney for both his parents. The will was drafted, but more than a year later, the LPAs have never been completed and one of the reader’s parents has died while waiting.

Harraway, pictured, then cast doubt on whether the reader was her client at all, suggesting that he had never paid the bill. She also suggested he had made a private deal with one of her staff and paid him directly for the work, cutting out her firm.

However, the reader’s bank statement proved the payment was banked by Harraway.

Other readers of The Mail on

Sunday have now come forward with complaints about the firm. One says: ‘We instructed her in January 2021 to start probate proceedings for my late husband and paid her £1,300 upfront costs for the work and probate fees, and she did nothing.’ Again, Harraway blamed her staff.

Another reader paid more than £1,300 for Harraway to implement his late father’s will, and says: ‘It’s been 12 months now and we’ve ended up doing it all ourselves’. He has claimed a refund from his credit card issuer. Harraway Law’s offices in Cottingham, East Yorkshire, closed in July this year, though some clients appear to have been unaware that the firm had shut down. Harraway herself still holds a licence as a solicitor. The watchdog SRA is investigating her conduct in running the firm, while the Legal Ombudsman is accepting complaints from individual clients.