Probate - how long?

pjs493

I've just received the email from HMCTS Probate to let me know that Probate has been granted and I should receive the Grant of Probate in the next ten days. From the date they acknowledged receipt of my documents it has taken a little over six weeks (and that's with Christmas and New Year in the middle of that period).

My time line was:

30 Nov - submitted online application

15 Dec - received email acknowledging receipt of my documents and that the 16 weeks started from that day (this was a good week or so after they received my documents according to the Royal Mail Tracked Signed for service I used)

30 Jan - received email at 0808 this morning stating Probate had been granted (I checked online yesterday afternoon and my case was still waiting to be assigned to a caseworker, so it has been approved very quickly once it was looked at by someone.

My application was for my husband's Will and was an excepted estate. We wrote mirror wills five months before we got married and they included a 'contemplation of marriage' clause. My name had obviously changed between the Wills being written and when my husband died, but I ticked the appropriate box on the application and I'm named as his wife on the death certificate so it seems that was all very straightforward.

Mikey_JB

pjs493 said:

I've just received the email from HMCTS Probate to let me know that Probate has been granted and I should receive the Grant of Probate in the next ten days. From the date they acknowledged receipt of my documents it has taken a little over six weeks (and that's with Christmas and New Year in the middle of that period).

My time line was:

30 Nov - submitted online application

15 Dec - received email acknowledging receipt of my documents and that the 16 weeks started from that day (this was a good week or so after they received my documents according to the Royal Mail Tracked Signed for service I used)

30 Jan - received email at 0808 this morning stating Probate had been granted (I checked online yesterday afternoon and my case was still waiting to be assigned to a caseworker, so it has been approved very quickly once it was looked at by someone.

My application was for my husband's Will and was an excepted estate. We wrote mirror wills five months before we got married and they included a 'contemplation of marriage' clause. My name had obviously changed between the Wills being written and when my husband died, but I ticked the appropriate box on the application and I'm named as his wife on the death certificate so it seems that was all very straightforward.

Congratulations, that is a very quick turnaround and gives us all hope that things are freeing themselves up!  

I am pleased that you can now have some closure and move forwards.  

pjs493

Mikey_JB said:

pjs493 said:

I've just received the email from HMCTS Probate to let me know that Probate has been granted and I should receive the Grant of Probate in the next ten days. From the date they acknowledged receipt of my documents it has taken a little over six weeks (and that's with Christmas and New Year in the middle of that period).

My time line was:

30 Nov - submitted online application

15 Dec - received email acknowledging receipt of my documents and that the 16 weeks started from that day (this was a good week or so after they received my documents according to the Royal Mail Tracked Signed for service I used)

30 Jan - received email at 0808 this morning stating Probate had been granted (I checked online yesterday afternoon and my case was still waiting to be assigned to a caseworker, so it has been approved very quickly once it was looked at by someone.

My application was for my husband's Will and was an excepted estate. We wrote mirror wills five months before we got married and they included a 'contemplation of marriage' clause. My name had obviously changed between the Wills being written and when my husband died, but I ticked the appropriate box on the application and I'm named as his wife on the death certificate so it seems that was all very straightforward.

Congratulations, that is a very quick turnaround and gives us all hope that things are freeing themselves up!  

I am pleased that you can now have some closure and move forwards.  

Thank you. The main thing for me is that I can now pay off the mortgage without incurring exit fees, etc.

SnowMan

pjs493 said:

I've just received the email from HMCTS Probate to let me know that Probate has been granted and I should receive the Grant of Probate in the next ten days. From the date they acknowledged receipt of my documents it has taken a little over six weeks (and that's with Christmas and New Year in the middle of that period).

My time line was:

30 Nov - submitted online application

15 Dec - received email acknowledging receipt of my documents and that the 16 weeks started from that day (this was a good week or so after they received my documents according to the Royal Mail Tracked Signed for service I used)

30 Jan - received email at 0808 this morning stating Probate had been granted (I checked online yesterday afternoon and my case was still waiting to be assigned to a caseworker, so it has been approved very quickly once it was looked at by someone.

My application was for my husband's Will and was an excepted estate. We wrote mirror wills five months before we got married and they included a 'contemplation of marriage' clause. My name had obviously changed between the Wills being written and when my husband died, but I ticked the appropriate box on the application and I'm named as his wife on the death certificate so it seems that was all very straightforward.

Very pleased for you that you've got the grant and can move on to some extent. Thanks for letting us know.

I submitted my online probate application on 1st December and receipt of the will was confirmed by HMCTS on 11th December in my case. So I'm hoping there is a chance that we will get probate soon.

GoogleMeNow

pjs493 said:

I've just received the email from HMCTS Probate to let me know that Probate has been granted and I should receive the Grant of Probate in the next ten days. From the date they acknowledged receipt of my documents it has taken a little over six weeks (and that's with Christmas and New Year in the middle of that period).

My time line was:

30 Nov - submitted online application

15 Dec - received email acknowledging receipt of my documents and that the 16 weeks started from that day (this was a good week or so after they received my documents according to the Royal Mail Tracked Signed for service I used)

30 Jan - received email at 0808 this morning stating Probate had been granted (I checked online yesterday afternoon and my case was still waiting to be assigned to a caseworker, so it has been approved very quickly once it was looked at by someone.

My application was for my husband's Will and was an excepted estate. We wrote mirror wills five months before we got married and they included a 'contemplation of marriage' clause. My name had obviously changed between the Wills being written and when my husband died, but I ticked the appropriate box on the application and I'm named as his wife on the death certificate so it seems that was all very straightforward.

Congratulations!  That must be a weight off your mind and a relief that everything went through without it being stopped mid-way.   So sorry for your loss - I lost my husband 15 years ago so can imagine what you're having to go through.

I submitted my application following my mum's passing on 28th September, acknowledged as received on 5th October and I'm still waiting.  It's very difficult to get any information from HMCTS so I'm quite frustrated at the moment

pjs493

To add to my timeline above (email acknowledging receipt of my docs on 15 Dec 23 and receiving the email telling me Probate had been granted on 30 Jan), I received copies of the Grant of Probate today. So well within the ten days they suggest it can take. Hopefully this is good news for other people.

SnowMan

The Probate Registry are going to make it even more difficult for applicants to contact them by reducing the helpline hours to 9am to 1pm from 14th February. So if your application is stopped and you don't know why, you have to wait 16 weeks and then you've got even less chance of getting through on the phone

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmcts-weekly-operational-summary

GoogleMeNow

SnowMan said:

The Probate Registry are going to make it even more difficult for applicants to contact them by reducing the helpline hours to 9am to 1pm from 14th February. So if your application is stopped and you don't know why, you have to wait 16 weeks and then you've got even less chance of getting through on the phone

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmcts-weekly-operational-summary

It took me 45 minutes to get through to them last week regarding my stopped application.  I can't help thinking they want to make it as difficult as possible for people to contact them.  To be honest, I wouldn't contact them if they put more information on their website as to why an application has been stopped, what they require to start it again and how far down the queue your application is and a tentative estimate of when it will be looked at.  I have been in the dark from day one and I don't think it is unreasonable to let me know what the hold up is or what they need to progress.  Utter dismay at the system.

SnowMan

Totally agree.

When you submit the application you should be given an estimated date when they will have looked at the application by, and clearly that can be updated by them as time progresses.

And if the case is stopped they should tell the applicant immediately it is stopped and what needs to happen next and how long that might take. And if it's some information from the applicant that they need then it should be made easy for the applicant to supply that information (major cuts to the helpline hours make that much more difficult), and they should act on that information immediately when provided.

We can look at the average submission to grant times in the HMCTS data (which themselves are terrible) but those are just averages and hide a huge amount of variation in times between cases even non stopped cases.

As a result the applicant has no idea what is going on or when they will get the grant of probate. And if they've got a prospective house buyer of an estate property all you could tell them is I don't know when we might get the grant.

I'm into my 10th week of waiting and if I don't hear anything this week it is likely that the case has been stopped without them telling me. But I'm not even allowed to contact them for another 6 weeks.

SnowMan

Just over 9 weeks in and I've now received today the dreaded email from the probate registry to say that further information is required.

They say (the poor wording is theirs)  'the original codicil bears tears on all right centre page'.

I think they are referring to a single small tear on the paper fold of one of the codicils. I made the mistake of mentioning it on the probate application (with an explanation)

They've ignored the explanation and used it as an excuse to stop the case.

This is in relation to a will and codicils produced by solicitors and stored with solicitors. The solicitors bound the will and codicils together when the last codicil was drafted and they've had it in storage continuously in that bound state until it was picked up and sent in that same bound state to Harlow.

I've sent my reply but as we know it goes to the back of the queue now

Feeling really miserable as I know this will drag on for months now.