Excessive delay in Probate.

Mcthecat

My mother died a couple of months ago. She had a will with a local solicitor. It was very simple, everything shared between the three brothers. As the solicitor had drawn up the will i went against my better judgement and decided to do probate rarther than myself. She had left a small terraced house and a couple of small bank accounts, no inheritance tax, a very very simple estate. Paid £1000. Well 10 weeks later, still no progress. The worlds most simple will and its still not resolved. My local probate office is only 10 miles away. Biggest regret, letting a solicitor get involved with something so simple. Any advice on how to progress it? Can i call the probate office and ask whats the hold up? Ask the solicitor what they are doing for£1000. If it had been complicated , a buisness or had inheritance tax issues, but this was as simple as it comes, no arguments, all three agreed to the will.

Mick

Raksha

Mcthecat wrote: »

My mother died a couple of months ago. She had a will with a local solicitor. It was very simple, everything shared between the three brothers. As the solicitor had drawn up the will i went against my better judgement and decided to do probate rarther than myself. She had left a small terraced house and a couple of small bank accounts, no inheritance tax, a very very simple estate. Paid £1000. Well 10 weeks later, still no progress. The worlds most simple will and its still not resolved. My local probate office is only 10 miles away. Biggest regret, letting a solicitor get involved with something so simple. Any advice on how to progress it? Can i call the probate office and ask whats the hold up? Ask the solicitor what they are doing for£1000. If it had been complicated , a buisness or had inheritance tax issues, but this was as simple as it comes, no arguments, all three agreed to the will.

Mick

Who is/are the executers of the will, as they will be the Solicitors 'customer', and the solicitor will be answerable to them.

CWSmith

You have my sympathy Mick, but I'm not surprised!
My mum died in January. Myself and husband were the executors of the will - totally straightforward - everything left to me (only child).
I also left it to the solicitor to handle, fully expecting the whole thing to be done and dusted within a couple of months.

Wrong!!! 10 months later and it's still not sorted!!!

This is due to an extremely minor tax issue. Even the tax office told me it "was not worth pursuing" for either them or me. But the solicitor insisted that it had to be dealt with.

I sincerely hope you have better luck!

Caroline_a

My advice with simple wills is never, ever involve a solicitor. It took 4.5 years to sort my father's estate, no house to sell (I was already living there), and apart from a few minor amounts to grandchildren, the rest came to me (I'm an only child). Several complaints to the Legal Ombudsman, zillions of phonecalls to the damn solicitors themselves and his secretary (in an attempt to save money). 99% of calls were 'have you finished yet?', only to be met with excuses and lies.

I hope it's quicker for you, but I've heard of worse stories than mine... and of course once you've put the damn thing in their hands then you're stuck!

Mcthecat

It seems to me that I can understand if there's legal complications I can understand getting some advice, but straight forward simple applications that require little or no work s little more than a rip off. Over a thousand pounds for doing almost nothing, delaying applications for little if any reason. Im advising all I know, consider very carefully if you really need a solicitor. We are the executors of the will. My brothers doing most of the work. Im going to call the solicitor and tell them to get their finger out or I'm pulling the cash and going alone.

getmore4less

What are you doing what is the solicitor doing.##

Are all the enquiries complete

Has the work for the PA1 and IHT205 been completed.

Who is applying to administer(make sure it is you guys not the solicitor)

2-3 months is not that long.

Yhe solicitors will have this as a back burner as a filler if they quoted £1k , it only covers 4-5hrs work so not that bad,if that include house sale costs probably cheap.

antrobus

It would be standard practice for a solicitor (or indeed anybody for that matter) dealing with a will to place the usual notice in the London Gazette inviting those with claims against the estate to come forward. The minimum notice required in such notices is two months, so a there is nothing unusual or excessive about a 'delay' of ten weeks.

Mcthecat

So If we don't use a solicitor, a simple will with no other claimants, we wouldn't have placed such a notice therefore it would have come through by now with us taking the risk. As we know there will never be any other claimants it explains the delay and further strengthens my mistake in hiring a solicitor. If there's no risk then I should have done it myself. My friends husband died, lots of properties, money etc. Did it all themselves, through in 8 weeks. Explains it all.

CWSmith

antrobus wrote: »

It would be standard practice for a solicitor (or indeed anybody for that matter) dealing with a will to place the usual notice in the London Gazette inviting those with claims against the estate to come forward. The minimum notice required in such notices is two months, so a there is nothing unusual or excessive about a 'delay' of ten weeks.

This isn't compulsory. Our solicitor asked if we wanted to do this, but being as sure as I could be that my mother had no outstanding debts, I refused.

Mcthecat

After finally getting the probate through the solicitor which too 13 weeks, there now appears to be a further barrier to closing a simple case, banks. Got probate, executor, will all done so why after approaching the bank with all the necessary paperwork has it taken over two weeks and still we hear nothing about withdrawl of the money.

Anyone know how to properly approach a bank to get the money they owe us?

Trapdoor

Nat West were pretty helpful with me, although not exactly quick.

Initially we took in the death cert and opened an executors account. This allowed us to pay in any monies owed, some of which came before probate (BT refund, premium bonds etc). Once we had probate through, which I did myself and came through extremely quickly (no more than 10 days from initially lodging the forms) I sent the bank the Account Closure Form AND a sealed copy of the grant of probate, and requested the funds be transferred from my mums frozen current account into the exec account. That took about 10 days to complete.

I also opened up a Nat West e-savings account which is linked to the exec account and I dump funds into that to earn interest for the estate, and keep just enough in the exec current account to pay bills etc.