The hydrolytic ring opening reactions of pyromellitic dianhydride is an effective method to prepare transition metal carboxylate complexes. In this paper, two dinuclear complexes [Ni 2 (2,2'-bipy) 2 -(btec)(H 2 O) 6 ]·2H 2 O (1) and [Cd 2 (phen) 4 (H 2 O) 2 (H 2 btec)]·H 2 btec·2H 2 O (2) (H 4 btec = 1,2,4,5-benzenetetracarboxylic acid, phen = 1,10-phenanthroline, and 2,2'-bipy = 2,2'-bipyridine) were synthesized by slow diffusion methods and their structures were determined by X-ray structure analysis. In both structures metal atoms are in distorted