Trying to buy probate property for 9 months

jalu47 · 2022-07-28T21:11:29+00:00

Hi Is anyone experiencing problems with the probate registry? We had an offer on a house accepted in November 2021 - an elderly lady had died and her estate was due to be processed. The estate agents told us it would be 6 weeks, which I knew wouldn't be the case but we've been waiting 9 months now and we are losing our minds. We have a toddler and are living with family temporarily. Everyone is chasing and following up as much as possible but just seems these government depts aren't functioning properly. Any advice??

moonriverandme · 28/07/2022 22:46

It took about 13 weeks for probate to be granted for my mum's estate. There was nothing complicated about the estate or mum's will. We had to make two phone calls to get them to expedite it, some things had needed authorisation by a senior officer or something, a part of the will had been crossed out apparently & it raised a query, the person dealing had not actioned it but put it to one side. We have sold the house & complete on Friday. It went on sale in April.

nokitchen · 29/07/2022 13:27

We applied for probate in early March and it was granted a month ago. It was straight forward and we did the probate ourselves. It does tend to take a lot longer if a solicitor is handling the probate in our experience.

CrotchetyQuaver · 29/07/2022 13:45

My dads probate came through in about 8 weeks which is what we were told to expect. My mothers probate hasn't been granted yet, there was an issue with the numbering of the clauses in her will which they flagged up - clearly an error, the will reads fine and makes sense. I've had to sign a form about it saying we believe it's a clerical error of no significance. That was about a month ago and we're still waiting.

I guess something similar in your case? Thankfully as dad was the last to die and his probate has come through it means that when we get a buyer for the house we can proceed without that holding it up.

QuestionsOnAPostcard · 29/07/2022 15:32

There are lots of possible answers to this....

My first question would be who is doing the probate - is it the family doing DIY probate, or a solicitor? It seems to be that solicitors tend to be slower. We did it ourselves and so were able to chase things as and when we wanted.

Also, had the probate application actually been made when you put in your offer? (Our estate agent advised us not to put the house on the market until we had submitted our probate application). The estate agent should know whether this was the case.

Please also note - there are lots of different steps in the process, which are sometimes referred to as "applying for probate". Briefly, these are

Value estate - ie gather information about assets held

Fill in inheritance tax (IHT) forms

Pay inheritance tax (or part of)

Then, and only then, can you Submit your application for Probate

The Probate people have a "target" of dealing with cases within 8 weeks. If things go smoothly it can be shorter. We received an email that probate had been granted 4 weeks after submitting it, and then the hard copy arrived in the post 3 days later.

Having said that, there is lots of info (eg on the MoneySavingsExpert forum re probate) about holdups and it seems that when it goes wrong it goes badly wrong.

Finally, you can search to see whether Probate has been granted if you know the name of the person and when they died on this website.

Hope this is helpful!

Original poster

jalu47 · 31/07/2022 07:05

QuestionsOnAPostcard · 29/07/2022 15:32

There are lots of possible answers to this....

My first question would be who is doing the probate - is it the family doing DIY probate, or a solicitor? It seems to be that solicitors tend to be slower. We did it ourselves and so were able to chase things as and when we wanted.

Also, had the probate application actually been made when you put in your offer? (Our estate agent advised us not to put the house on the market until we had submitted our probate application). The estate agent should know whether this was the case.

Please also note - there are lots of different steps in the process, which are sometimes referred to as "applying for probate". Briefly, these are

Value estate - ie gather information about assets held

Fill in inheritance tax (IHT) forms

Pay inheritance tax (or part of)

Then, and only then, can you Submit your application for Probate

The Probate people have a "target" of dealing with cases within 8 weeks. If things go smoothly it can be shorter. We received an email that probate had been granted 4 weeks after submitting it, and then the hard copy arrived in the post 3 days later.

Having said that, there is lots of info (eg on the MoneySavingsExpert forum re probate) about holdups and it seems that when it goes wrong it goes badly wrong.

Finally, you can search to see whether Probate has been granted if you know the name of the person and when they died on this website.

Hope this is helpful!

Thanks for your lengthy response.

Yes it is a solicitor, but he has full authorisation to deal with everything. It was submitted about 2 weeks after our offer was accepted, so it was definitely end of November.

I know it has been complicated as there was no will, and there was a request for a little bit more information in early February but the response was immediate - nothing since then.

The solicitor is very on top of it and communicative. He has requested expedition, a timeline etc and all refused. He made an official complaint over two weeks ago and still nothing.

I'm thinking it can't possibly be much longer. We've had to redo our mortgage once already, at great expense as the rates have gone up so much. We have until October to complete but time is ticking so quickly.

OP posts:

Yabado · 02/08/2022 22:09

my parents house was sold in November
probate took 7 weeks
I started it in Oct and had it by mid Nov
buyers moved in April