Probate - how long?

MidnightWolf

I submitted a probate application online on 9th Feb. The will was posted on 29th Feb (after a delay in receiving it from the solictors that were storing it) and I received acknowedgement of receipt of the will from HMCTS yesterday (18th March). Today I've had the email saying that probate has been granted. It was a straightforward application, so they must be doing the easy ones first. I certainly wasn't expecting to hear anything from them for at least a few months.

Rinnie

I have had a similar experience to MidnightWolf, so I thought it was worth sharing to give those who have recently applied some hope.  I submitted my online application on 11 Feb, posted the paperwork on 12th Feb, and this was acknowledged on 28 Feb.  I checked the portal everyday afterwards and on 19 March, it changed to say a caseworker had been allocated.  Then, much to my surprise I received an email to say probate had been granted on 22 March.  In the grand scheme of things it was a straightforward case apart from the fact my Dad died in 2016 and we have only just applied for probate, so I was definitely expecting some questions about why it was so late. But nothing.  So don't give up hope.  Some of the cases are being dealt with very quickly.

Genepaul

Just wanted to share my timeline, I submitted the online application on the 17th Feb and posted the paperwork on the 20th Feb, can't remember the exact date that the paperwork was acknowledged, about 10 days I think, received an email on the 24th March to say that probate had been approved and that the grant of probate should be received in the next 10 working days. Straightforward case is reality just had to use my Dad's NRB during the application. Was shocked that it only took 5 weeks. 

techphobe

Following up some fast turnarounds with one of my own. I can’t remember when I sent it - early Feb? - but got the acknowledgment of my application on 16th Feb.  I got the email that it had been approved on 25th March so just over 5 weeks later! It was a paper application as well.

it was an easy excepted estate - have forgotten the terminology already! - and I already included the medical form from mum’s GP as she and I were joint executors but she is too unwell to do it. 

The downside is that now I have to restart the death admin and get everything distributed. 

Happy_Kitties

My mum’s was the easiest of applications (easy excepted estate, there was nothing to leave). Submitted on Sept 9th 2023.

Quick notification of documents received. Originally she had attached her previous wills to the current will but because of some unique damage to the wills they had separated. (To be on the safe side when I did the initial application I also submitted the previous wills aswell because of them previously being attached. I had to do a statement to answer questions and confirm how they had separated, very straight forward, no issue so this was done straight away. Everything fairly quick to this point.
 They then responded  to me quite quickly to say they wanted to contact a witness. Again no issue here, witness details supplied who is happy to answer anything. The witness details provided beginning of January and then nothing. Numerous messages sent, not responded to, two phone messages left, nothing. For an application that needed questions answering I thought it was moving quite quickly and then it has  just suddenly stopped. 

Managed to give them a call and get through yesterday, the chap I spoke to said I can see very straight forward, I don’t really understand why the witness has not been contacted. If I hadn’t of followed it up yesterday I think it would have just of been sitting there for god  knows how long. I only gave them a call as the witness-one of my mums friends had  messaged me again to say she hadn’t heard anything and was I certain they had received her contact details. 

They are sending the witness out a form to fill in so hopefully once this is done, things won’t take too long after but I have followed and completed things to the letter and what they have requested from me, 

Cazzaloulou68

Does the probate generally take longer if there is IHT to pay? Or quicker because they want their money!!?

RAS

It won't be the quickest because some are done within a few weeks. If IHT is due, then the relevant forms have to to HMRC who are supposed to provide the case number inform the Probate Registry within a month.

IHT has to be paid within 6 months so executors need to keep hold of liquid assets rather than make interim distributions if there is property to sell.

CarolWHerts

I submitted online on 7 March and got the email confirming that probate had been granted on 8 April, with paperwork expected within 10 days. This was a very simple estate with no IHT to pay and probate was only needed to release money held with NS&I. 

SnowMan

The February HMCTS data is out. Here is a table I've created from the data. Average wait times overall have marginally decreased since January (by about 1 day). Note the paper stopped rate mean time has sharply increased

SnowMan

Again more grants were issued in February 2024 than new applications for grants were received. See the attached chart of open cases I've produced from the data. Although this chart doesn't show this, both the outstanding number of open paper applications and open digital applications have fallen. So the large increase in mean wait time for stopped paper cases mentioned earlier may just be an affect of them working on older stopped paper cases in February