Royal Mail lost IHT forms - next steps?

jmr95

Hey all.

I posted IHT forms via Royal Mail Tracked. After over 2 weeks, they have not been marked delivered. The last tracking was that it was in "North Midlands MC"

Despite being a tracked service, RM have been extremely dismissive and unhelpful - they don't know where it is and assume it is lost. 

HMRC have not received it. 

I appreciate this may be an obvious answer of "just resend it" but this isn't trivial as far as I'm concerned because there is extremely sensitive personal information in that letter. Not just for my mother's estate but for my wife and I (both executors, I'm the beneficiary)

I suspect it is not a unique situation but what should I do now? Send again with a cover letter?

This also just makes me even more angry with this stupid process - there's no tax to pay and I have to print form after form of sensitive info as it cannot be submitted electronically, only to have to use a third party who then don't deliver it. Absolutely ridiculous process. 

Thanks for any advice. 

retiredbanker1

Make a copy of the copies you have and resend.

You did make copies right?

swingaloo

I would wait another week or so. Its quite possible they have got them and they just have not started to action them yet. 
HMRC do not sign for letters individually, they are delivered in bulk and so signed for as a bag full not as individual items. 

jmr95

I filled in the PDFs and saved them, so all good on that front, yes. 

But is that it? Royal Mail can fail to deliver on a tracked service and all I should do is send it again?

I'll include a cover letter - it's really frustrating 

jmr95

swingaloo said:

I would wait another week or so. Its quite possible they have got them and they just have not started to action them yet. 
HMRC do not sign for letters individually, they are delivered in bulk and so signed for as a bag full not as individual items. 

Ok that's interesting, thank you - so even a tracked service may not show delivered in such circumstances?

user1977

jmr95 said:

But is that it? Royal Mail can fail to deliver on a tracked service and all I should do is send it again?

Well you can claim the value of the paper and ink if you want? I don't think there's any claim beyond that, the service is literally just tracking the item, not any more guarantee it will get there than normal postage. For Special Delivery you can at least claim back the postage if they fail to deliver on time (or at all).

Grey_Critic

Is it not possible to scan all the documents and email to HMRC? 

The Post Office has just gone downhill in recent years. They want to concentrate on parcels - maybe we should do an Amazon and put everything in big boxes no matter that it is just a sheet of paper

swingaloo

jmr95 said:

swingaloo said:

I would wait another week or so. Its quite possible they have got them and they just have not started to action them yet. 
HMRC do not sign for letters individually, they are delivered in bulk and so signed for as a bag full not as individual items. 

Ok that's interesting, thank you - so even a tracked service may not show delivered in such circumstances?

I worked for Royal Mail many years ago and I delivered many bags of mail to lots of companies. A company would need a full time employee to sit and sign for hundreds of letters individually when the driver or postie arrived and of course the delivery person wouldnt have time to stand and wait.

jmr95

user1977 said:

jmr95 said:

But is that it? Royal Mail can fail to deliver on a tracked service and all I should do is send it again?

Well you can claim the value of the paper and ink if you want? I don't think there's any claim beyond that, the service is literally just tracking the item, not any more guarantee it will get there than normal postage. For Special Delivery you can at least claim back the postage if they fail to deliver on time (or at all).

Just to be clear - I couldn't care less about the cost of postage nor claiming it back. Rather, an IHT submission has been lost and it has super sensitive personal information within that envelope 

jmr95

Grey_Critic said:

Is it not possible to scan all the documents and email to HMRC? 

The Post Office has just gone downhill in recent years. They want to concentrate on parcels - maybe we should do an Amazon and put everything in big boxes no matter that it is just a sheet of paper

Unfortunately no - this is a paper and post process, ridiculous as that may seem in 2025.

HMRC advised that even if they had received it, they wouldn't have a record if it yet as they have not got round to processing mail from that date.

They advised that there is no harm sending a duplicate.

I am left in limbo, really. 

Bue21

When I sent my Mothers Will to Probate the Royal Mail tracking was the same. After a couple of weeks of Panic (I did have a certified copy but there is only one original will) I called the probate Office and they confirmed they had received the will. Apparently it does happen all the time as  Royal Mail don’t get individual signatures when they deliver in bulk. Rather defeats the objective of the service when you want to prove something has arrived though!