Probate - how long?

silverwhistle

Just to say thanks to SnowMan for this work, wish I'd seen it earlier! I'm sure many must benefit even if they don't comment. 

I had a session close on me prematurely (for me!) so went paper since I knew documents would have to be sent in the post anyway, but if I'd known the difference was so great I'd have persisted. No financial hardship involved but it will be nice when it's all done and dusted.

p00pieb0tt0m

Intestate, no IHT due.
Applied online 4.2.25
Email approval 21.2.25
Letters of administration received 22.2.25

silverwhistle

Excepted simple estate.

Paper sent registered post 06/02/25 

Managed to miss the DC in the bundle and that went in the following morning's post unregistered (I had spare copies..)!

Email approval received  23/02/25. 

(Yesterday afternoon, a Sunday. So thanks anybody at HMCTS if you were working overtime!)

Edit: probate document received today, Wednesday 26/02/25

yogitravels

Great to read through this and I'm not sure if this is the right thread to get advice from but I am one of 4 beneficiaries, our friend passed away Feb 24, he had a will drawn up by a solicitor who is also the executor. We have a buyer patiently waiting for his house, the solicitor told us there will be no IT. Probate was submitted last May and we are still waiting. One of the other beneficiaries was chasing it up last summer and as the solicitor was unhelpful they ended up arguing I think the solicitor acted unprofessional but the other beneficiary was also to blame as from what he said he must have come across rude. Anyway since then we just left it to run its course but a couple of weeks ago I thought I would ring as it's been so long I spoke to the secretary who said she would ask solicitor to chase, she did ring back a week later to say it's now with the tax office, I said ok thanks for letting us know but is there a problem? She said not as far a I know they do have a backlog ? Does this sound normal, I can't find out direct from probate can I as I'm not an executor nor do I have a case number?

Any help would be appreciated. 

AP3

To add mine. Simple Exempt Excepted Estate, with me as the sole executor, and sole beneficiary.

1st March - Completed application online and posted the will (Sent "Signed for", on a Saturday).
4th March - Signed for by "Tom" on Royal Mail site.
10th March - Email saying documents received.
12th March - Email saying application approved.
17th March - Physical copies arrived in the post.

LovelyJubbly90

Has anyone completed a paper application recently? Just wanting to know what the timescale was looking like. Thank you

SnowMan

Here are the HMCTS January probate wait times https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/hmcts-management-information-january-2025 published yesterday. 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 February data comes out in April. Overall there were 27,629 applications received in January and 28,059 grants issued. Generally the improving trend continues with wait times down compared to December in every category apart from paper not stopped applications.

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 January 2025.

Murphy_The_Cat

Submitted online on Fri 7th Mar and paperwork posted the same day. 

Probate approved today Mon 17th March.  6 working days is an excellant result.

Straight forward application, with no complications.

warfield

IHT to pay.

Applied online for IHT reference number which was received in about 10 days.

IHT400 and supplementary forms have been posted to HMRC.

Now waiting for HMRC unique probate code from HMRC

Does anyone have any experience of how long HMRC takes to respond?