Length of time for probate for death of a foreign domicile

SadCodeMan

Hi,

Does anyone have any recent experience of timings for probate when the person who died was domiciled abroad? (France in my case).

Just wondering really what sort of timeframe others have had so it might give me an idea.

I reached my 12 weeks just recently and called them. They have the file but all foreign domocile casess need go to an expert person apparantly. They said that it had still not been looked at at all yet unfortunately.

TIA

RAS

Snowman publishes recent timescales in the Probate - how long thread.

SadCodeMan

He does, (and it is very good!) but I think he is not able to break out foreign domocile cases is he? I think I only saw digital vs paper and 'stopped' vs 'not stopped'. 
I am guessing the MI they provide is quite limited for any other breakdown.

poseidon1

SadCodeMan said:

Hi,

Does anyone have any recent experience of timings for probate when the person who died was domiciled abroad? (France in my case).

Just wondering really what sort of timeframe others have had so it might give me an idea.

I reached my 12 weeks just recently and called them. They have the file but all foreign domocile casess need go to an expert person apparantly. They said that it had still not been looked at at all yet unfortunately.

TIA

Do you mean resident abroad or domiciled ( for IHT purposes) in France ( not the same tax concepts).

If you are claiming a UK born person has changed their tax domicile at birth, to a new permanent French domicile of choice ( where they then died) , the implication is  that all the overseas assets are excluded for IHT purposes, and only UK situs assets are reportable for probate purposes.

In this scenario, every case like this will require an individual domicile ruling after an extensive Q & A for HMRC to be satisfied its correct to exclude overseas assets, so there is no 'standard' turn around time.

The experts on domicile at HMRC IHT unit are now few and far between, whilst there has also  been changes to domicile and resident tax rules for deaths after 5 April 2025, so no doubt a bit of a queue.

SadCodeMan

I mean domiciled in France.

Actually, the IHT bit was fairly painless. Partly helped by the fact he had been paying French tax for so long and that UK tax authorities had already given him a 'code' for this. That only took 4 weeks or so.

The really slow bit seems to be the probate part (HMCTS). Just wondered if anyone else had any experience of their timeframes.