Halifax not accepting Probate granted at High Court

Norman_Castle

Possibly to late for you, but extra copies are £1 if requested with the original grant of probate.
http://www.probate1.com/application_fee.html. Might be of use to others.

As they have lost the original document and possibly the additional copy I would suggest that they could pay for the replacement.

icelandic_queen

I had problems with Santander of this sort. In the end I faxed and e-mailed the Chief Executive's Office every hour on the hour and the problem was sorted out in a few hours. My original docs turned up a day later! You have to be persistent and I know it's a lot of hassle. Manners and a helpful attitude cost nothing, after all are they not Customer Service Advisers?!!!

soolin

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Possibly to late for you, but extra copies are £1 if requested with the original grant of probate.
http://www.probate1.com/application_fee.html. Might be of use to others.

As they have lost the original document and possibly the additional copy I would suggest that they could pay for the replacement.

I have got a small stock of the forms as we had spread dad's money out across quite a few banks and I needed enough certified copies to be able to send one out to everyone. Luckily I also paid for a couple of spares.

What has made me cross is though that they admit they have had all the documents and have mislaid them- yet still sent out a letter that made no sense on the assumption that I was not able to supply the documents they need. If they had simply written to say that they had mislaid my forms and could I send more then I wouldn't be so cross.

mrschaucer

you're much nicer than me. I'd still be VERY cross.

soolin

mrschaucer wrote: »

you're much nicer than me. I'd still be VERY cross.

Apparently when I get cross I change into a caricature of Margaret Thatcher, my speech gets quieter and slower and I speak very clearly as though talking to a very stupid child. My husband says it is truly awful.

Tangible

Lodge a formal letter of complaint (one headed 'COMPLAINT') so that you can run through the bank's complaints process. It will be a set formal procedure which will enable you to take the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service after a set period of time, if still unresolved.

Banks don't like going to the FOS, especially as it costs them a fee and is free for customers to use, and victims of unreasonable bahaviour can even be awarded damages, and it's bad news for banks that don't behave properly.

Get your complaint on a formal footing and you'll begin to deal with people who have a clue what they're doing - you never know. Don't overdo mention of the FOS but if you happen to mention that that's where you will be heading, if the person you are speaking know who they are, you will notice the worry lines on their brow deepen. It sounds as if you have a strong case.

soolin

Thank you everyone for the good advice.

I am going away in the early hours tomorrow so it will now have to wait until I get back, and I'll report back then if i have got a result.

amibovvered

Not wanting to hijack your thread, but I hadn't realised that all named executors had to be involved in dealing with the estate? Last year my mother, brother and I all made our wills. My brother and I were joint executors for my mother, but when she died (May 2011) I dealt with most things by myself as I lived with mum but my brother lives 230 miles away. My mother's estate was tiny (we were joint tenants of house) so did not have to go to probate.

However, my brother and I put each other down as executors plus one other friend (since whoever dies first obviously can't deal with the survivors estate!) so if I die first my brother and my friend (230 miles apart) will be joint executors and if my brother dies first I and my brother's friend (also 230 miles apart) will be joint executors - I assumed one executor could deal with the estate and the other was a 'spare' - is this wrong then? Both of our estates would have to go to probate.

soolin

As long as one of the executors is happy to sign a declaration that they are happy for the other to go ahead alone it is fine. This happened when my darling MIL died, my husband did the probate stuff as the other exectuor was happy for him to do so and declared that. My problem only arose because I could not find the other executor so could not get him to officially allow me to act alone.

I had to attend the probate court (just a clerk in a room) and prove i had made every attempt to track down the missing executor before they allowed probate to go ahead with me acting alone.

Tangible

It's laid down how long the formal complaints process should last for banks, 6-8 weeks I believe, and though that's longer than you would want, it places a backstop on how long this matter can drag on and, more importantly it will make it more likely you'll deal with someone with 'half a clue'.

You won't get 'fob off' phone calls and letters will be correct. It does appear surprsing that a bank should require a legalised court document validated by a bank. After all, banks have to comply with the orders of court, not vice versa. I can only imagine that they want your signature validated as your bank cannot validate anything else, but I'm not wholly sure what that achieves. Your bank won't validate a court document but may be prepared to confirm your signature if it appears on the document.