Joint wills - Storage with Probate Registry

gryzler

My Wife and I recently sorted joint wills which are currently being stored with a legal firm. They are charging us around £8 per month for storage, but also offer ongoing general legal advice within this charge as well.
We decided that we would rather take our wills out of their care and send them to the Probate Registry for storage instead.
Does anyone have any experience of dealing with the Probate Registry that could answer my questions, as every time I try to call them I get put through to an automated and when I leave a message I receive no reply?
I did e-mail them for info about safe storage with them and received a generic reply with scanned attachments that contained info readily available online.
My main questions are:

1. If it is a joint will we are sending to them, can it all be sent in 1 envelope with everything contined within for 1 fee of £20?

2. Do we need 2 copies of the witness signatures (1 for me, 1 for my wife's) to be included?

Any help is much appreciated!:)

SevenOfNine

"Joint will"? Surely you mean mirror wills, 2 separate wills for 2 people. They may read the same apart from your names - but they aren't 'joint'.

Personally I'd treat them as individual.

I found the Probate Registry very helpful when I was enquiring about locating the possibility of a will stored there - but I wrote an old fashioned letter.

Tuesday_Tenor

First of all, make sure you are dealing with the correct organisation.
There are some legal firms calling themselves things like 'probate register' and 'probate service' and it's easy to get onto their websites by mistake.

Here are the guidance notes explaining about the service, including the special envelopes, which themselves also need to be witnessed.
http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/hmctsformfinder/pa007-eng.pdf

Assuming you've got the correct pack/envelopes:

1. It must be £20 per will, surely?

2. Don't quite understand your second question. Each will needs witnesses to the testator signing the will. Possibly you're talking of the witness signatures on the envelope, and in which case, I'm sorry, I can't help, as have never used this service myself.

Tuesday_Tenor

P.S.

On reading the PA7 form to the end, it seems fairly clear that the wills will need to be sent and treated separately.

Each testator will be sent a certificate for the deposit.

During the lifetime of the testator, ONLY the testator can withdraw the will from safekeeping.

So there is no 'joint deposit', they are 2 separate wills, surely?