Probate 16 weeks plus

junebaby

@ Msb123. 

We may not have to pay any bills now but we will have to in the future. 

The service charge for the flat needs paying whether someone lives there or not. Also there was no Council Tax to pay for the first 6 months but we are about to start paying it again. 

If we get probate and sell the flat we will be saving in the long run. 

Sarahspangles

junebaby said:

It’s not just cash there is a property as well. 

Sarah how do you know the average turnaround is 19 weeks? I can’t find anything online. 

Jowwie linked to the data table I referred to.  The timescale from data upload is relevant because at one time there were significant delays between the Will (and the application if submitted on paper) being received and scanned/uploaded for the probate team to review.  Assuming the scanning is outsourced the stats would show if the bottleneck was the contractor or the in-house team.

I was not able to find anything that defined what 'stopped' actually meant although you can deduce that complicated matters or partially/incorrect forms are likely to be the issue.

oglop

Jowwie said:

I am currently waiting 10 weeks (plus of course the time it took to value the estate). Finances all frozen since death. The delay could end up costing us into thousands just in lost bank interest.

I did a quick estimate yesterday of the fees we have all paid to HMCTS over the last year for probate. Came out with a figure of approaching £87 million (318k applications x £273).  There must be some money in this pot somewhere for some more staff for this service? Clearly under resourced.

I've been waiting 33 weeks now. I'm definitely thousands of pounds down. I refuse to calculate it because it would be too depressing 

Jarman2

We applied on line 2/12/22 a very simple application only a bank account and no IHT to pay. Immediate acknowledgement and documents returned within a week. It all looked promising. But.
After 16+ weeks I called and was told it hasn't even been looked at. Apologies and It would be escalated to a queue and to call back in 3 weeks if I haven't heard. I called again just over a week later as I don't have any trust in them. now.  It still hasn't been looked at. No indication as to why, no idea as to when or how long the queue is. They really know nothing and can give no more information than I can get logging in.  it is now just coming up to 18 weeks. The bank stopped interest ??? as soon as the death was reported and account frozen. It could have earned over £4,000 in interest since the probate application had I been able to move it into the account opened for that purpose.
All the last person could say was they are very behind. They seem to have no streaming system for simple or complex cases and from what i've read they are not going by date of application any longer just trying to hit targets. Just a weird lucky dip and you only get into the queue if you  call. Which by the way takes no less than 20mins each time. I have hung up at 20 several times. Their website stats say December 22 applications to grant timeline was 10.2 weeks. How did ours fall between the cracks? It's so frustrating 

KSS1991

Jarman2 said:

We applied on line 2/12/22 a very simple application only a bank account and no IHT to pay. Immediate acknowledgement and documents returned within a week. It all looked promising. But.
After 16+ weeks I called and was told it hasn't even been looked at. Apologies and It would be escalated to a queue and to call back in 3 weeks if I haven't heard. I called again just over a week later as I don't have any trust in them. now.  It still hasn't been looked at. No indication as to why, no idea as to when or how long the queue is. They really know nothing and can give no more information than I can get logging in.  it is now just coming up to 18 weeks. The bank stopped interest ??? as soon as the death was reported and account frozen. It could have earned over £4,000 in interest since the probate application had I been able to move it into the account opened for that purpose.
All the last person could say was they are very behind. They seem to have no streaming system for simple or complex cases and from what i've read they are not going by date of application any longer just trying to hit targets. Just a weird lucky dip and you only get into the queue if you  call. Which by the way takes no less than 20mins each time. I have hung up at 20 several times. Their website stats say December 22 applications to grant timeline was 10.2 weeks. How did ours fall between the cracks? It's so frustrating 

Exactly same situation. We are buying a house and sellers awaiting grant of probate which they applied for 18wks ago. Chased up already were told 3week wait and still nothing. No timescales. Seems like Jan/Feb applications are being processed just to mislead "target times". So so depressing to wait for the unknown

Jarman2

Update today. Probate has now been granted 1 day short of 19 weeks. I have continually called every week after the 16th even when they said not to call for 3 weeks. It was confirmed about 1 hr after today's call. Now awaiting hard copies.

KSS1991

Jarman2 said:

Update today. Probate has now been granted 1 day short of 19 weeks. I have continually called every week after the 16th even when they said not to call for 3 weeks. It was confirmed about 1 hr after today's call. Now awaiting hard copies.

Amazing. Gives us all hope

Jowwie

Latest performance stats to end of February have been released today (Table 5)

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmcts-management-information#2023

For non-stopped digital submissions it shows average 7.5 weeks. I am 14 weeks now

KSS1991

Jowwie said:

Latest performance stats to end of February have been released today (Table 5)

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmcts-management-information#2023

For non-stopped digital submissions it shows average 7.5 weeks. I am 14 weeks now

I don't trust their stats

uknick

The suggestion HMCTS is looking at new applications first to massage their performance figures makes sense.  The older ones will just disappear into the overall figure.