Grant of Probate waiting times

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Just wondering what other people's recent experiences are with waiting times for the Grant of Probate. My mum died in November and the probate application was submitted in late January (14 weeks ago now). Apparently it's still waiting to be processed. We keep being told it can take 16 weeks to issue the Grant of Probate, but the government's 'Search probate records and find a will' service shows it often doesn't take anywhere near that long, and I was speaking to someone last week whose application took 8 weeks.

Have any of you who were waiting to hear about probate heard back? We are still waiting and that’s been almost a year now. I think we’re going to have to contact a solicitor in England and see if they can make contact with the executor for an update.

@Linnet are you sure it has actually been applied for? I applied in June and got Probate on August - I was anticipating a huge wait and was shocked how quickly it came through.

We applied at the end of April and got in back by the middle of July so it was much quicker than we expected

I think a lot of people use a solicitor which adds a huge amount of time to the process. If you do the estate yourself you can have the probate application off within a month if you put some effort in. Obviously then it's in the hands of the probate office but when I did my mums I had probate through within two months of her death. This was last year so things may have got worse.

As far as we know it has been. The executor sent us a letter last September saying that they weren’t going to use a solicitor and were applying for probate themselves and hoped to hear back by December. We then got another letter in January saying probate hadn’t been granted yet and they expected it within the next 6 weeks. We then got another letter in March this year saying it still hasn’t been granted and they would be in touch when it was.

I check the probate website every day to see if it has been granted but there is nothing on there yet. We’re just a bit unsure whether or not we should try to chase it up? We knew there were delays and they take as long as they take but coming up for a year just seems a little bit excessive.

Plus I think part of a property is to be held in trust and I read that a trust has to be set up within two years of the death. I’m not sure if that’s right though but it’ll have been two years since the person died next March.

We finally got probate for my Mum’s estate a couple of weeks ago. So about five months.

I posted earlier on the thread. I applied last October and it finally came back in mid June. Once 16 weeks has passed the executor should be chasing it (only the executor can chase and 16 weeks is the minimum they must allow before doing so).

Uncle passed in October. Probate submitted in Jan or Feb and was back 2 weeks later. We were in shock

We wouldn’t be doing the chasing, we’d get a solicitor to write to the executor to ask for an update.

I’m guessing that they maybe did chase it since they told us in March that they were still waiting and we’d hear from them when it was granted.

My dilema is whether or not we should ask or just keep waiting.

Why pay a solicitor? Can’t you just message the executor yourself and ask what happening and if they have chased?

The executor has cut off all of the family. We have no way of contacting them as we’re blocked on phone and emails. The letters that are sent to us aren’t even sent by them they are sent by a third party on their behalf, not a solicitor, just someone they must pay to send letters.

We feel that it might be better to make contact through a solicitor, although this does run the risk of us paying for a letter to be sent and them returning it unopened. This has happened before when someone in the family reached out the them by letter and it was returned unopened. They do not seem to want contact from any of us.

@Linnet is there a reason why the Executor would not want to get Probate - are they living in a house which would need to be sold to service the conditions of the will or something like that?

Have you seen the will?

@FiveShelties No, There is a property of which half has been left to us with them owning the other half. We’ve been told they have a life interest in that property though so we don’t inherit it until they die. They don’t live in this property, they live in one of their other properties.

We have not seen the Will they refused to let us see it, we have to wait for probate to be granted then we will get a certified copy of the Will. Legally they don’t have to show it to anyone until probate has been granted anyway.

I don't envy you with that situation @Linnet - it sounds like a huge problem, especially after being bereaved.

In springtime probate for my late mother took 8 weeks. It was simple ish, the only query was I’d written the date of my dad’s Will incorrectly so it didn’t match what i had enclosed. You can pay to put a trace on. I don’t see how it annoys anyone - you can’t just sit there forever not knowing!

I work for an estate lawyer , between submitting and getting probate it's taking about 8-9 months . Personally had to apply for a family member. Applied in January , got probate end of June . However I had to get my local MP involved to get probate as they lost my family members case. Ring them was very much "computer says no" so frustrating .

@Linnet I think you need to contact a solicitor, the executor needs to act for the estate and there is potentially a conflict of interest here if they are also a beneficiary. If there is a problem with their handling of the estate, there is only a limited time to question what is going on.
Usually a life interest in a property is only given if the person lives at the property and you only have their word that this is the case.

Ongoing here - been told about 9-10 months

Oh no. I have to apply for probate soon. Is it easy enough to do yourself without a solicitor? There is a property and 2 bank accounts. Nothing else so I’m anticipating it being simple enough? Although house prices are going down at the moment so the longer probate takes the less money the house will be worth 😢

I applied in February- fairly straightforward case - bank account, couple of ISAs and a property. I had to answer a few questions in May (due to DM inheriting DDad's IHT allowance). I was still waiting in August, so towards the end of the month I tried to ring, got no answer, tried the webchat, no-one available, so emailed, asking why the online case said they were waiting for answers, which I'd replied to, but that it also said the case was under review.
I don't think it was a coincidence that five hours later I had an email to say it was granted. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@RainCloudsInTheSky, fill the main form in first - there is some weird legalese speech which is confusing so you will have to do a bit of reading up. The main form will direct you to subsidiary forms, which you will also need to complete - it was either eight or nine extra for me.
I did it myself, but it was very fiddly, so took some time! I scanned everything so I had copies I could refer to just in case, which was worth it when I had to answer some questions as I mentioned in my first post.

@vipersnest1 thank you. Is it something you can complete a bit of and save and complete a bit more?

We had a letter from a solicitor in June 2022 which laid out what we were to inherit from the Will and it says that the one half share of the property passes to the executor for their lifetime and thereafter reverts to us in equal shares. The executor then chose not to use this solicitor a few weeks later and we were told they would be applying for probate themselves.

Presumably to write that letter the solicitor must have actually seen the Will. We also had to sign a page and send it back to agree to that and send ID. In subsequent letters from the executor they have referred to that, which we keep thinking is odd. They’ll say “in the letter dated xx/xx/xx which you agreed to.” Surely there can’t be anything else in the Will that we should know about that they haven’t told us.

I think we’ll have to look at finding a solicitor in England to send a letter and see if we get anywhere. I’m trying to work out the best way to do that, might have to go stick a pin in a map.

@RainCloudsInTheSky, I started the process online so I had the case reference number (I also completed the online declaration), then printed off and completed the forms by hand. It felt more manageable that way.
I made a note of the extra forms I had to fill in, so knew what else needed to be printed off and completed.
I then worked my way through the list. A lot of it is repeated information.
I sent it all recorded delivery or whatever the most secure, fastest mail was (can't remember the name) which was also next day delivery.
As I mentioned before, I also scanned everything (I have a printer / scanner at home, but scanned at work as it was much quicker). Having the copies is handy in case you get asked questions, which I did. (My mum's IHT allowance was worth more than the estate, so I had to give some extra information.)

Thanks. I’m yet to look into it. Keep putting it off but it is next weeks job.