Probate timescales and requests for further info

Rmd2021

update- a week after they said they’d try to process it that same day, apparently the status is ‘ready to issue’ but they can’t confirm when it’ll be issued. Can anyone help? I’m not sure what ‘ready to issue’ actually means in the probate world!

pphillips

Rmd2021 said:

update- a week after they said they’d try to process it that same day, apparently the status is ‘ready to issue’ but they can’t confirm when it’ll be issued. Can anyone help? I’m not sure what ‘ready to issue’ actually means in the probate world!

Presumably the grants are put into a queue for printing off and/or dispatching in bulk.  

pphillips

Rmd2021 said:

@pphillips and @Tiglet2 - the whole system is a farce and while the probate U.K. charity will tell you ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ (ie don’t blame the registry staff), it must be incredibly frustrating to be told nothing, other than read off generic scripts, or allude to some higher power who makes arbitrary decisions about will-binding! 

When ours is chased up we’ve been told multiple times ‘it’s in the queue’ and they can’t/won’t tell you anything else.
25 weeks now… though there have been some encouraging words exchanged today when they actually replied to an email (wonders never cease!), but let’s see if it actually comes to anything. I daren’t get excited! 😞

Totally arbitrary and also baseless, I cannot find anything in the Rules or Practice Directions that states an application can be stopped because of the non-binding of a will. If a will appears to have never been bound then the Rules actually suggest the opposite:

"...where there appears in a will any obliteration, interlineation, or other alteration which is not authenticated...the registrar shall require evidence to show whether the alteration was present at the time the will was executed and shall give directions as to the form in which the will is to be proved. The provisions...above shall not apply to any alteration which appears to the registrar to be of no practical importance."

When the email eventually comes through I'll complete the online complaints form at Complaints procedure - HM Courts & Tribunals Service - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and see if anything comes of it.

Rmd2021

pphillips said: Totally arbitrary and also baseless, I cannot find anything in the Rules or Practice Directions that states an application can be stopped because of the non-binding of a will. If a will appears to have never been bound then the Rules actually suggest the opposite

It’s all mystery policies and obfuscation! You’re right to complain, get it on record that the system is not working.
26 weeks at my end. Still ‘ready to issue…’ 🤦‍♀️

Rmd2021

@pphillips I hope your complaint got you somewhere! 

We went into Christmas shutdown with no sign of the grant. For 4 weeks the status was that it was ready for the registry to print, so I was convinced it would complete before Christmas but sadly not. Now at 28 weeks of a ‘16 week’ process!

solicitor has lodged a complaint, but I’m not full of festive hope that that’ll produce any results! Been battling probate on two properties for over a year and I hope never to have to deal with them again. The whole system needs an overhaul.