Length of time Probate taking

Ginger_boy35

Hi, hoping for some advice. My dad passed away in January this year and I applied for Probate at the start of February. It's a simple estate with just myself and 2 siblings named in the will. The only tricky part , was that my dad left a framed print to a friend who subsequently died 10 years ago. Because of this , my dad crossed that part out and signed it. 2 weeks after applying for Probate , I was informed that as it wasn't witnessed they would put the will back to it's original state. Fair enough, but it has now been six months!!! Is this normal?

I have sent numerous emails and keep receiving the same replies: " we don't require any further information, your application is in the queue for processing".

This seems to be an extraordinary length of time. Was wondering if it's worth complaining to an ombudsman.

Isthisforreal99

A quick google suggests a simple probate takes 6-9 months so think you need to manage your expectations.

Keep_pedalling

I think these sort of problem wills end up going to a specialist team which builds in additional delays.

RAS

We've seen simple on-line probate with no IHT take less than a week recently, but paper take longer.

If they pull the case out of the on-line process, it all takes a lot longer. At this stage, a call to find out what has gone wrong would be in order.

TcpnT

Applied online Thurs 6th Aug. Sent off will the same day. Email saying probate approved on Monday 10th. Grants received in post this morning. So just under 7 days from start to finish.

Cubicsrube

Per probate service reps I spoke to over many months: If your probate application gets pulled out of the queue for any reason at all (for us it was extra information required), it goes into a separate manual review process and that takes much longer. For us, 6 months.

jdvhsully

My mother in law’s was very simple, and took a year. It was only resolved when we contacted ourMP, and then within 2 days.

Ginger_boy35

Thanks for all the replies. I'll give it another couple of weeks and then see about taking things further.

Swiss_Danny67

It only took a few days for my father in law in January 2025 but there was no IHT to pay. This is very useful, I plan to apply online myself, but will be extra careful to avoid triggering follow up questions now that I'd doing my own fathers estate, this time there is IHT:

Technosaurus

Hi @Ginger_boy35 , first of all I am very sorry for your loss.

Although it is trivial in this instance, technically the will has been tampered with and this opens up a whole world of potential issues that they have to go through. I appreciate it's been ages but just to give you a background of why, so a lot of the comparisons here where the probate was just a simple rubber stamp job don't apply.

Obviously in the case of a framed print it's not exactly sinister but it'll be in the same queue as many potentially more nefarious cases with complicated issues to unravel. Unfortunately there's no fast track option on such matters, so it's just a case of waiting - it might be worth a call but be prepared to be told the same again as it'll be a specialist team who work on tampered wills, not the people who answer the phone.