Probate problem

macaroon9

My mum passed away in may last year.   

My mum had left a will, leaving everything to me, her only child, and money to my two children.  She made my husband executor of her estate.

her estate is small, a two bedroom house worth about £130k and that’s it.

we applied for probate last June, we did it ourselves as the estate is small.  A month after sending the will we got confirmation that the ball had started to roll, another month later we had an email to say that the two witness signatures were not dated calling into question the validity of the will and could we provide contacts for the witnesses.  The will had been bound and dated by the solicitor.  The witnesses had moved away and the so,icitor had gone into partnership with another solicitor who had since retired.  We spoke to the solicitors partner who told us that under the wills act a date for the witness signatures was not required.  However we managed to find a forwarding address for the witnesses and sent this into the probate office.  In October of last year my husband rang the probate office as we had still heard nothing, then again in December and was told that it had progressed to the second stage.  In February I called the probate office to be told that the will had been sent to the Manchester office to be motorised and the file had not been updated since!  The lady I spoke to said she would email them, she would not give me their contact info as she said they didn’t speak to members of the public, and that currently it was takin* them ten days to respond to email.  Three weeks later my husband rang the office again, they’ve had no response from Manchester therefore they gave my husband the email address for them to respond to him directly.  They haven’t done.  We’re now approaching April and I feel that we are totally in limbo, no one seems to know what’s go8 g on, no one is responding to emails, the last t8me that I rang the probate office I waited 50 minutes for someone to answer the phone.  

My mums house isn’t in the greatest of areas, I’m going weekly to check that everything is okay.  I’m paying bills and repairs on a property which technically isn’t mine.

Any advice much appreciated

Savvy_Sue

Complaint? I know details are on another thread ... If I stumble across them I'll add them.

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue said:

Complaint? I know details are on another thread ... If I stumble across them I'll add them.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6253248/and-the-lost-will-saga-continues#latest

Here  I think

GDB2222

" we had an email to say that the two witness signatures were not dated calling into question the validity of the will "

Normally, the testator signs the will in front of the two witnesses. So, the date on the will is the date that the testator signed it and also the two witnesses watched that signature. Therefore, I have no idea at all why the probate office expects the witnesses to have dated their signatures, and I guess they haven't said? Does the will have a space for a date against each witness's signature? But, even so...

Certainly, a complaint is a good idea, as it may kick-start things.

Apart from that, you should think about getting a solicitor to help with just this part of the process. That will cost money, but keeping the place empty is also costing you money.