Probate - how long?

Jon1970

ChocolateTea 50 days from postage to LoA being received by post, no will so paper app, brother died intestate, no property, no IHT, simple estate, just bank accounts, 2 cars & caravan, no solicitor involved as did it myself. That was a month and a half ago approx.

HTH

Fermion

thewad said:

Straight forward will with no IHT to pay submitted in mid June......e mailed requesting more info but did not specify what info so e mailed them 3 times over last 8 days but nothing back.......bit of a joke really.....14 weeks in.

This was exactly the same situation we had - straight forward no IHT but they emailed requesting more info after about 6 weeks - but the info they requested was already stated on the "Check your Answers" submission. We eventually got the Grant of Probate after 17 weeks. 

I suspect that the "more info request" from HMCTS was simply so they could restart the clock in order to ensure they met the Service Level Max Timescales.

MobileSaver

Fermion said:

thewad said:

Straight forward will with no IHT to pay submitted in mid June......e mailed requesting more info but did not specify what info so e mailed them 3 times over last 8 days but nothing back.......bit of a joke really.....14 weeks in.

  We eventually got the Grant of Probate after 17 weeks.

A postal application for probate submitted last month was granted just over 3 weeks later in my case.

SnowMan

The HMCTS July probate data was released this morning. Here is a table I've created from the data. 

Average wait times overall have decreased since June 2024 by around 8 days. 

Wait times have reduced for all categories paper/digital, stopped/not stopped. 

The number of outstanding digital cases continues to decrease with about 4,500 more grants than receipts in July, but the number of outstanding paper cases has risen very slightly in July by about 50 (not shown in the table)

 

SnowMan

And here is my chart from that data of the average wait times over time for digital/paper, stopped/non stopped grants issued up to July 2024.

SnowMan

Here are the HMCTS October probate wait times published on 12th December, the table has been created by me from the data.  I stopped posting up after the July data as nobody seemed to be looking at that but can start posting it up again as the monthly data comes in if anyone wants me to. The monthly update data is published on the second Thursday of each month so the November data comes out in January 2025.

Overall they actually issued more grants than grants were received in October (27,592 issued vs 26,988 received in October), so that last blip in October just reflects they've been working more on the paper cases (7,197 issued vs 5,392 received in October) rather than the newer digital cases (20,395 issued vs 21,596 received in October).

SnowMan

And here is my chart from that data of the average wait times over time for digital/paper, stopped/non stopped grants issued up to October 2024.

EnsFinch

It feels only polite to say that I submitted the application online on a Friday morning, it was approved that afternoon and I received copies of the letters of administration (no will) in the post the next Tuesday.

I am sure one relevant point is that I didn't have to submit an IHT account as it was an exempt excepted estate.

RAS

Thanks SnowMan

Some of us do read you report. It's really useful for buyers who discover it's a probate property. I recommend people ask whether it's a paper or digital application and when it was made. Then read your report.

SnowMan

Here are the HMCTS November probate wait times https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/hmcts-management-information-november-2024 published this morning. The table has been created by me from the data.  The monthly update data is published on the second Thursday of each month, so the December data comes out in February 2025.

They actually issued (slightly) fewer grants than grants were received in November (23,618 issued vs 23,694 received). That's the first time this has happened since August 2023. Hopefully that's just a small blip.