Probate - how long?

pjs493

dkay5701 said:

I have had quite a positive experience with my probate application as I was expecting to waiting until March at the earliest.

20/11/23 - Online application submitted.
29/11/23 - Confirmation documents received
14/01/24 - Email saying probate granted and docs to arrive in 10 days.

Mum's estate was below the inheritance tax threshold.

This is promising news for me. I submitted my online application at the end of November (30th I think). 

15 Dec 23 - confirmation that documents had been received (which was a good week or so after they have been signed for via the Royal Mail next day delivery service that I tracked). 

Checked the status today and it is still waiting for a caseworker to review the documents. I'm the sole beneficiary of my husband's estate and like you below IHT threshold anyway.

I've been prepared for it to go the full 16 weeks from the day they acknowledged receipt of the documents, but it might be that I'm lucky and it happens earlier. Going off your time scales it could be that I get the email in two or three weeks.

The only issue I potentially envisage is that my husband and I made our Wills 'in contemplation of marriage' to each other and make the statements in our Wills that were suggested by our solicitor to ensure they weren't automatically revoked when we married five months later. My worry is my application goes to a newbie caseworker who either doesn't understand this clause, or I get asked to provide our marriage certificate to prove the marriage took place. However, I would like to think that the Probate office would be able to cross check govt records and confirm that we did indeed marry. In the application I also pointed out why my name differs from my name in his Will (because of marriage) so it should be fairly straightforward for someone who knows what they are doing to process without issue. If he was considered to have died intestate, everything would come to me anyway due to the rules of intestacy, so it's not as if anything in his Will would differ if they decided the Will was revoked upon our marriage, other than a charitable donation and some sentimental bequests that I would honour anyway.

itzmee

Our solicitor submitted our application on 23 November and we had an email from them today to confirm probate has been granted. 

Mikey_JB

Hi all - for anyone else reading these and waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

We submitted our (paper) application on 9th October by next-day delivery, and received email confirmation that it had been received seven and a half weeks later, on 1st December.  

According to the Probate Office that means our sixteen weeks starts from then, not from the date they actually received the application.  

So fed up with this waiting process, which now looks like taking over 23 weeks now...

dkay5701

pjs493 said:

dkay5701 said:

I have had quite a positive experience with my probate application as I was expecting to waiting until March at the earliest.

20/11/23 - Online application submitted.
29/11/23 - Confirmation documents received
14/01/24 - Email saying probate granted and docs to arrive in 10 days.

Mum's estate was below the inheritance tax threshold.

This is promising news for me. I submitted my online application at the end of November (30th I think). 

15 Dec 23 - confirmation that documents had been received (which was a good week or so after they have been signed for via the Royal Mail next day delivery service that I tracked). 

Checked the status today and it is still waiting for a caseworker to review the documents. I'm the sole beneficiary of my husband's estate and like you below IHT threshold anyway.

I've been prepared for it to go the full 16 weeks from the day they acknowledged receipt of the documents, but it might be that I'm lucky and it happens earlier. Going off your time scales it could be that I get the email in two or three weeks.

The only issue I potentially envisage is that my husband and I made our Wills 'in contemplation of marriage' to each other and make the statements in our Wills that were suggested by our solicitor to ensure they weren't automatically revoked when we married five months later. My worry is my application goes to a newbie caseworker who either doesn't understand this clause, or I get asked to provide our marriage certificate to prove the marriage took place. However, I would like to think that the Probate office would be able to cross check govt records and confirm that we did indeed marry. In the application I also pointed out why my name differs from my name in his Will (because of marriage) so it should be fairly straightforward for someone who knows what they are doing to process without issue. If he was considered to have died intestate, everything would come to me anyway due to the rules of intestacy, so it's not as if anything in his Will would differ if they decided the Will was revoked upon our marriage, other than a charitable donation and some sentimental bequests that I would honour anyway.

Mine went from waiting for a caseworker to probate granted so it only seems to update once they have looked at it and made a decision.

SnowMan

Mikey_JB said:

Hi all - for anyone else reading these and waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

We submitted our (paper) application on 9th October by next-day delivery, and received email confirmation that it had been received seven and a half weeks later, on 1st December.  

According to the Probate Office that means our sixteen weeks starts from then, not from the date they actually received the application.  

So fed up with this waiting process, which now looks like taking over 23 weeks now...

That's appalling that they took so long to acknowledge receipt of your application. 

Based on the November position in the HMCTS data (see the paper columns in the attached), if your application isn't stopped (it's about a 1 in 3 chance of being stopped for for paper applications) then you might expect to get the grant pretty soon as you are at 14.5 weeks.

They had a massive 28,000 paper applications in the system awaiting grants at the end of September 2023 despite most grants now being digital, which is more than the 25,000 paper applications in the system at the end of May 2020, when most grants were paper based!  

I'm getting frustrated waiting for the grant for a digital application put in on 1st December so can understand how you feel. Good luck.

MargateAdam

The Probate service acknowledged receipt of my Grandad's will on 24th July, and we are still waiting for grant of probate. It will be six months next week!

It was escalated in the first week of December as we didn't know who the two witnesses were on his handwritten will, and had no way of finding out. As of this week they are still saying it is with their 'specialist/management team', that there's no update they can currently provide and we just have to sit tight.

Where is the accountability?! It is all very 'computer says no,' feels like we are being treated with contempt. This is so stressful and exhausting at a time when you are already grieving. 

It's also extremely galling if you calculate the interest that could have been accrued on any funds during this wait. 

polar_pig

Just received email from HMCTS that my probate application has been granted! :-)

I did my online application on 17th October 2023 and sent the Will the next day. My timeline from 17/10/23 was:

1 week - email confirmed receipt of Will

8 weeks - received an email query from HMCTS that I was able to resolve within a day

14.5 weeks - received an email today confirming grant approved.

I guess I'll get the paper copy in the next few days.

I thought that my forenames being swapped between Will and probate application might cause a problem, but ticking the name change by Deed Poll on the application seemed to work fine.

GoogleMeNow

I'm in the same position as ax84mdy84.  I was waiting two months to receive an email from HMCTS regarding some further information they required for my late mother's estate.  Finally got through to someone yesterday (as it is 16 weeks from receipt of my application), to ask what information they require as I didn't get any email.  The person then sent the email straight away (while I was still on the phone), which basically wanted confirmation of gross and net value of the estate for inheritance tax purposes and probate purposes and for me to confirm in a Declaration that the figures were a true reflection of the estate - it's below the tax threshold as we are including the non used Nil Rate Band from my pre-deceased father.

I have replied to the email with confirmation of figures and the declaration, so I'm hoping I won't have to wait another 16 weeks for the probate office to deal with it!

Why couldn't they have sent the email ages ago, rather than let it slide until 16 weeks have passed and they would actually speak to me??  Painful process.

SnowMan

The Justice Committee investigation into the Probate Registry is here

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8035/probate/

If you click on the publications tab and read the submissions from the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and Institute of Chartered Accountants, you realise what a complete disaster the digital system has been. The delays are terrible but the whole system is a complete mess and far inferior to the old Local Registry system. It's not that anyone objects to a digital system in principle, but it's the way this digital system has been set up and run that is the problem.

These issues such as GoogleMeNow has faced in trying to get a stopped case moving again is highlighted for example. Surely if a case is stopped then the applicant should be told there and then why the case has been stopped, and what the next steps are and how long they might take. At the very least it should be allowable for the applicant to ring the Probate Registry straight away to find out what is causing the stop so that whatever information is needed to get the case started again can be provided. And when that information is provided the case should not be put to the back of the queue gain.

The submission from the Ministry of Justice is an absolute disgrace. It seems to claim this is an issue of there just being more applications. And then it goes on to blame applicants for all the stops. The complete failure to even admit to their errors is scary. For example they claim that applicants submitting the probate application too early after the IHT400 and IHT421 has been sent on is a major cause of stops. Strange as by the time they get round to looking at cases the IHT421 should be with them. And reading this thread the issue of IHT forms is that the process of HMRC sending them to the Probate Registry isn't working. 

You sense that while those running the Probate Registry try to create bogus reasons for what is going wrong in the system to deflect blame from themselves, this is going to remain a complete nightmare for applicants.      

SnowMan

A STEP article about their consultation response to the Justice Committee investigation into the Probate Registry delays is here

https://www.step.org/press-office/probate-registry-errors-and-inexperienced-staff-key-causes-probate-delay-step-survey

Their full response is linked to at the end of their article and is fairly concise and also very readable