Pensioners seeking the return of their house deeds after the local solicitors' office closed have criticised the delay they faced.

Gotelee closed its Hadleigh branch on October 31, causing upset as it was the town's last law office.

Town residents George and Lynn Marner - who are in their late eighties - wanted their deeds returned as they are looking to buy a house with their daughter in the New Year. 

The deeds were delivered to their door today after the firm was approached by this paper.

Mrs Marner said the lack of communication caused both of them stress.

"They didn't tell anybody (they were closing) - it was only from hearing from different people we learnt it was happening," she said.

"We are in our late eighties and thinking of selling the house to live with our daughter."

After learning of the office closure, the couple visited the office and asked for their deeds to be returned.

"There were lots of elderly people like us there - all very worried," said Mrs Marner.

But the Marners then faced weeks of delay, during which time they phoned regularly to try to find out what was happening.

Mrs Marner said she was very pleased to have now received the documents - which were a treasured item with huge meaning for them as it marked the end of their mortgage payments.

"You work hard to get your mortgage paid off and you are really happy to get your own deeds and you put them away for safekeeping," she said.

Following the closure of Gotelee's Hadleigh office, another Ipswich-based firm, Bates Wells and Braithwaite, has launched a pop-up legal office at the town library.

Partner Denise Head said they would be happy to help anyone who was having difficulty following the departure of Gotelee from Hadleigh and would help them with retrieving documents if necessary.

Gotelee - which still has offices in Ipswich, Woodbridge, Felixstowe and Framlingham - was acquired earlier this year by international law firm Mezzle. It sold its wills arm to another firm called Right Legal Group.

Other legal documents stored at the Hadleigh office are being relocated to another secure storage facility.

A spokesperson for Mezzle said: “As we have evolved our style of working at Gotelee to be more flexible, our document storage processes have changed.

"Documents in our care are now held in secure off-site storage. We can access these documents at any time and requests to retrieve a document are typically processed within 24-48 hours and are most often associated with active matters the firm has been instructed to act upon.

"These are prioritised over requests related to documents that are not required for an active matter and that can be digitally retrieved by clients themselves."