Probate : 16 weeks and counting

oglop

Don't worry, my wife will be trying to organise the probate case for me before this one is granted, as I'll no doubt be long dead and buried before I finally get this current case sorted...

Congrats by the way. Must be a big relief 

KSS1991

ArGee68 said:

Probate approved email received at 10am!  We had reached 20 weeks today. 

I don't know if that is a result of my MP chasing or my second escalation on Tuesday but they do appear to now be working on the escalated cases so I have my fingers crossed that everyone's wait is over soon (especially Oglop).

I am amazed that more information wasn't requested as the will is a bit of a nightmare - 5 pages of beneficiaries! but maybe they are not raising as many queries due to the backlog.

Now the wait starts for the paper grants.

Congrats!

ArGee68

oglop said:

Don't worry, my wife will be trying to organise the probate case for me before this one is granted, as I'll no doubt be long dead and buried before I finally get this current case sorted...

Congrats by the way. Must be a big relief 

😱🤣 
I hope she does her application online rather than by paper!

I forgot to post that during my web chat with probate on Tuesday, they said they are now trying to deal with applications in order of receipt.  If this is true, anyone who has reached 19 weeks plus should be hearing from them shortly. 

KSS1991

ArGee68 said:

oglop said:

Don't worry, my wife will be trying to organise the probate case for me before this one is granted, as I'll no doubt be long dead and buried before I finally get this current case sorted...

Congrats by the way. Must be a big relief 

😱🤣 
I hope she does her application online rather than by paper!

I forgot to post that during my web chat with probate on Tuesday, they said they are now trying to deal with applications in order of receipt.  If this is true, anyone who has reached 19 weeks plus should be hearing from them shortly. 

Does that mean before they were processing newer applications first? In any case seems like it is all moving in a positive direction and fingers crossed for everyone to receive it asap 🤞

ArGee68

I'm making assumptions based on what I've read and from my own experience but I have found an article recently which said that after the Covid years and because there have been more UK deaths than expected (we are an aging and growing population), the normal staff levels of approximately 175 - 200 couldn't cope with the workload. 

In November 2022, it was announced 100 extra staff were to be recruited or temporarily reassigned to the probate service to work on the backlog.  This recruiting and training process was expected to take till March 2023.   

The January figures say it all - 26.5K new applications but only 20K grants issued in total.  For the statistics to claim the average approval time was 8 weeks, they must have been concentrating on newer applications and I read somewhere that they admitted that they were no longer processing applications in receipt order to try to prevent the backlog increasing.

But only the probate service knows what the actual facts are however it does appear that escalated cases are now being processed so it is really important for anyone waiting for 16 weeks to contact probate office to get their cases escalated ASAP.

tooldle

Does that mean before they were processing newer applications first? In any case seems like it is all moving in a positive direction and fingers crossed for everyone to receive it asap 🤞

Perhaps it means they are now able to merge the two streams (online and paper) to produce a date ordered queue. 

oglop

i mean, if true, it's insane they haven't been working on older applications first. it honestly feels like i should be due some form of compensation or refund. 37 weeks now...

poppystar

tooldle said:

Does that mean before they were processing newer applications first? In any case seems like it is all moving in a positive direction and fingers crossed for everyone to receive it asap 🤞

Perhaps it means they are now able to merge the two streams (online and paper) to produce a date ordered queue. 

It would be nice to think there would be only one queue. In my experience there were far more than two anyway and my application kept going to the back of each successive one. The applications seemed to be randomly allocated to regional offices. My application was far better travelled than me during Covid - it hit at least three offices to my knowledge and may well have been to more🙄

tanmich

Well all I can say is how long is a piece of string. Our solicitor applied for probate on the 22nd of July 2022, we had a buyer for the property. As there was no will the estate was simple with only one blood relative left, "my husband". We were informed that letters of administration had been granted on the 6th of December 2022.

However the actual document from the probate office never arrived and the excuse was their printers were not functioning. Eventually our solicitor did receive the document  towards the end of January 2023. Fortunately the buyer did wait.

I know full well the stress this causes for everyone involved, its just not acceptable for a service that after all we have to pay for. 

ArGee68

Wow - the paper grants have arrived today just 2 days after I received the probate approved email.  They were sent first class.

Good luck to everyone who is still waiting - I'm off to close 40 bank accounts.