Inheritance and division of an estate. What is a reasonable amount of time.

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Hi there.
I am asking for my daughters, boyfriends mother.
Her dad has died leaving a large house divided between 2 siblings and half sibling and the residue of the Estate divided between 2.
No arguments everyone is happy with their lot. Everyone gets in well.
Dad died in Feb. They have decided not to sell the house and rent out at the moment. This was partly because the solicitor (who is executor) appears really slow and is definitely uncommunicative.

What is a 'average' timescale to apply for probate (House is £650k) additional £200k in 3 accounts - all same bank. That's it. No extras . Dad was meticulously organised .

Son in laws mum is very concerned as she still has kids at home and her ex has stopped paying the mortgage saying his business has collapsed (could be true) and that friend has 'got all that money from her dad'..
Mortgage is 2 months in arrears. Solicitor has never once answered an email or returned a phone call. He does however send letters asking for things already provided and also send letters , like last week - urgently requesting parents marriage very.
If it was so urgent why couldn't he phone. Much faster ! Why was he only requesting this now - 7 months after the death.

Basically I am asking , what can my friend expect from the executor as a beneficiary in the way of time scale and communication.

He is very 'old school ' and terribly patronising according to friend.

Last but not least, could the Estate release money to pay her mortgage arrears.

my mums was complicated and done in 9mths

Thank you. Can I ask , was there property involved. ?

My parents died within a few months of each other. We were just getting probate on my mother's estate when my father died, so that was cancelled and we had to start again.
Everything was valued for probate. Household stuff was done by auctioneers. This was then sold at auction and added to the pot. The house was put up for sale and took a year to sell.
Probate on the estate was granted about 12 months after my father's death. On the sale of the house (a couple of months later) the inheritance tax was paid (probate has to be granted before the house can be sold). The money left was then divided amongst the beneficiaries.
My older brother and I were executors, but of course we had solicitors (and accountants as it was a complicated estate).
I don't know if this is of any help? It was a straightforward but lengthy process and we spent a lot of time chasing the solicitors to get things done, as they never seemed in any hurry. I would suggest someone gets behind this solicitor to get things moving. I don't know if there is a time limit after which hmrc will start wondering where their cut is. From what you say, there might be an iht liability.
We were only allowed to have money from the estate prior to probate to pay for the funeral. I doubt very much it could be taken for any other reason.
It was, needless to say, all very stressful. I am no expert in all this, just giving you a run down of how it happened for us.