Inheritance tax/grant of probate

[ForgedInFire]

Hello, has anybody recently had to sort out the affairs of a loved one and can I ask how long it took for you to get a response about inheritance tax owed and/or how long it took for you to recieve the grant of probate? We've already been waiting a couple of months and it's hard not knowing if it will be a few weeks or months

It could be months and I would prepare yourself for that TBH, so if you get anything sooner it'll be a bonus. I'm waiting for a Grant I applied for in January. HMRC can easily take six months to issue IHT clearance. There will be people who tell you it should only take a couple of weeks, and sometimes that does happen, but it's unusual and I think it's quite unhelpful to know that the timescales are so erratic. You can chase but your chaser will end up in the same pile as all the others and it may not get you anywhere.

If you're waiting for HMRC to issue the tax calculation I'd give them a ring and push for that, because after six months from the end of the month of death interest starts to accrue. Did you get an IHT reference? If you didn't it'll take them longer to process your account.

Inheritance Tax - about 14 months

Probate - just under four weeks from submission

We are going through probate and have done it ourselves. We were asked for the original copy of the will and therefore our application was put 'on stop' in mid March. Have been chasing every week with probate and been told they are now working to the 'on stop' backlog for the beginning of March. There's evidently a huge delay with scanning in stuff also

Thanks everyone. We only submitted the forms a couple of months ago so I guess we had better settle ourselves in for a long wait