Probate - how long?

Mikey_JB

@SnowMan - that's wonderful news, congratulations.   I hope that helps you to bring some closure.  

Much the same as @GoogleMeNow, my application was submitted in early October.  It was not acknowledged as received until 1st December, and I have been told the 16-week wait is "likely to be at least doubled" as Mum died in Spain.  

This is despite having paid a lot of money to have all Spanish documents formally and legally translated into English.  

HMRC have accepted everything (very quickly) and agreed all relevant inheritance taxes have been paid in Spain.  

I really do not see it can be too complicated, there is only one executor and one beneficiary to her estate.  As many have said on this thread previously, it is about wanting to feel a sense of closure and being able to get on with your lives...  

SnowMan

Thanks GoogleMeNow and polar_pig. Really hope that you get your grant soon GoogleMeNow. Where they stop an application and ask for further information and that information is supplied then that case should be looked at as a priority as to state the obvious that applicant has been waiting longer than the applicant whose case has not yet been looked at yet. They are going to have to look at it at some point so it's not saving them any work. In fact they are creating work for themselves because of the need for you to keep chasing it up. Yet instead of doing this they make it even more difficult for you to contact them by halving the helpline hours. 

It's like trying to deal with a hole in a dam wall by employing a series of people to plug the hole with their finger and nobody thinks to actually repair the dam wall. And the person who wants to repair the dam isn't able to contact the person who is plugging the dam with their finger to find out where it is on the excuse that it is might interfere with the plugging of the wall. The repairer can call dam headquarters, although they don't know where any of the dams are, and because dam headquarters then get lots of calls they then reduce their hours of contact.   

When the case is looked at first it should be looked at by a named individual and that individual should take responsibility for progressing the case and should deal with the request for further information. If that happened that person would be incentivised to resolve issues, firstly because they would have responsibility for the case until it was completed, and secondly because they would face the wrath of the applicant if they didn't. Instead it is a case of hiding behind anonymity and passing the buck and kicking the can down the road by stopping an application because of some non-issue such as an inconsequential tear, and the next person is left to deal with the mess, before the can gets kicked on again. I suspect most issues could be resolved over the phone if they rang the applicant because a two way interaction would happen (a bit like when the old face to face local registry appointment system was in place) and any action required could be easily identified. Instead they cut and paste a generic request for further information and it becomes a bureaucratic mess which is unlikely to identify any real and serious issues with applications.

And pleased as I am to get the grant it isn't right that whoever's got the best constituency MP, or which MP has got the best contacts in the probate registry can essentially decide which stopped case is looked at first. 

In terms of contacting MPs, because of the parliamentary enquiry and other constituents contacting them they will be aware of the issues at the probate registry. My advice to any applicant would be to contact your MP straight away if your case is stopped and you have provided any further information that they have requested. Say in that letter you would have contacted the registry yourself to see what was going on and ask when your case might be looked at and how any stop could be dealt with, but you are not allowed to ring them until 16 weeks, and that's also going to be difficult because the helpline hours are being reduced, and because they don't even tell you if they have received your further information. Ask the MP to contact the probate registry on your behalf either now, or if they won't do that now at 16 weeks. If you are lucky they will contact the probate registry now, if not you have set the groundwork to contact your MP at 16 weeks. And at that 16 week point, you ring the probate registry and when that gets you nowhere, you contact your MP again in a polite but assertive manner, to say the MP failed to contact the probate registry on initial contact, lots of further misery has occurred, please contact them now.     

SnowMan

Mikey_JB said:

@SnowMan - that's wonderful news, congratulations.   I hope that helps you to bring some closure.  

Much the same as @GoogleMeNow, my application was submitted in early October.  It was not acknowledged as received until 1st December, and I have been told the 16-week wait is "likely to be at least doubled" as Mum died in Spain.  

This is despite having paid a lot of money to have all Spanish documents formally and legally translated into English.  

HMRC have accepted everything (very quickly) and agreed all relevant inheritance taxes have been paid in Spain.  

I really do not see it can be too complicated, there is only one executor and one beneficiary to her estate.  As many have said on this thread previously, it is about wanting to feel a sense of closure and being able to get on with your lives...  

Thanks Mikey_JB. Does feel like a weight has been lifted off me. Totally understand your need for closure, it is my mum's estate too that the grant is for. I hope you get the grant soon. Given that it's 4 months in have you tried contacting your MP especially if the probate registry won't speak to you or tell you what specifically is causing the delay?  

GoogleMeNow

Guess What??!!

My probate application has been approved!  Email dropped into my inbox 5 minutes ago - obviously have to wait for the Grant to arrive in the post, but so relieved.  Like @SnowMan and @Mikey_JB, it was for my mum's estate.

Thanks to this thread for keeping me sane.

Fingers crossed @Mikey_JB that you will get your probate approval very soon.

SnowMan

GoogleMeNow said:

Guess What??!!

My probate application has been approved!  Email dropped into my inbox 5 minutes ago - obviously have to wait for the Grant to arrive in the post, but so relieved.  Like @SnowMan and @Mikey_JB, it was for my mum's estate.

Thanks to this thread for keeping me sane.

Fingers crossed @Mikey_JB that you will get your probate approval very soon.

That's totally brilliant. I'm so pleased for you  

My paper copies arrived today (2 days after the grant was issued)

GoogleMeNow

SnowMan said:

GoogleMeNow said:

Guess What??!!

My probate application has been approved!  Email dropped into my inbox 5 minutes ago - obviously have to wait for the Grant to arrive in the post, but so relieved.  Like @SnowMan and @Mikey_JB, it was for my mum's estate.

Thanks to this thread for keeping me sane.

Fingers crossed @Mikey_JB that you will get your probate approval very soon.

That's totally brilliant. I'm so pleased for you  

My paper copies arrived today (2 days after the grant was issued)

Thank you!  

Pleased to hear you now have the paper copies - now you can start to wind down the estate as per the Will and have closure.

SnowMan

The December HMCTS data is out and average wait times in every category digital/paper, stopped/not stopped have come down a bit since November

SnowMan

And here are those wait times above in chart form

SnowMan

And the numbers of outstanding cases awaiting a grant have come down to about 75,000 cases. There perhaps should be 20,000 in the system if grants were taking about 3 weeks, so that's a 55,000 backlog. Disappointingly there were slightly more paper receipts (4,318) than grants (3,878) in December, but hopefully that's just a blip (there were more grants than receipts in the previous 3 months).

Winter deaths peak in January usually and higher probate applications coming out of those deaths won't result in grants until around May 2024 perhaps. So will be interesting to see where things are then.

techphobe

Well those December stats have got me annoyed. I am currently waiting on an application submitted about two weeks ago. It is one of the 15% which had to be submitted on paper due to one of the executors being unable to act due to dementia.

I had hoped that the paper stop rate being over 50% in November was a blip and it would come down again but now the paper stop rate is 55.5%!!! So the chances are I am looking at a 7 month wait 😡