How long does Probate usually take?

[Velmy]

My father's parents (mother and stepfather) passed away just over a year ago. They had a solicitor who is dealing with probate, and the only two people named in their wills are my father and my brother.

The estate will be worth a significant sum (min low seven figures with properties and cash).

Not sure if this complicates anything but they were never legally married and all assets (house, money) were in his name. She essentially died penniless in a care home while he remained in their house until he died.

She had at least one other child from a previous relationship who was taken into care, but there was no contact between them as adults. We believe one of the reasons we they never married was to prevent other children of hers having a claim to any of 'his' money.

He was also the type to be...creative with his accounting shall we say, to keep as much of it out of the taxman's hands as possible. However we simply don't know what the full extent of that situation is, or if there is money outside of the UK.

Solicitor is a one-man-band and a very poor communicator, and our father - who had virtually zero contact with his parents for 20+ years until a couple of years before they died - is not great with dealing with this kind of stuff at the best of times, and has had significant work/family health issues to deal with over the last 12 months.

Does Probate normally take this long? If not is there anything we can do to speed up the process?

Could any of her potential children have a claim to anything and complicate things further?

My mother is worried that the solicitor is dragging the process out in order to charge more, is that possible? If so can they be removed/replaced?

Thanks in advance!

Going through this at the moment. My mother is executor of a will and has very much left the solicitor to get on with it as my mother doesn't like stress.

House has been sold but for less than probate estimate. We've each received an initial sum as percentage of the total sum coming our way but now have to wait anything up to 12 months for probate rebate to receive the remainder of the sum coming our way.

My father (divorced from my mother) says he applied for probate after the house sale of his mother's house and applied for it himself without use of expensive solicitors. I'm beginning to think my mother has ballsed this up that has resulted in this long winded exercise and probably an expensive solicitors bill to accompany it.

This is probably a really stupid question - if there is property in an estate and there are multiple beneficiaries, would the solicitor sell the property then divide the money? Or is this a choice/responsibility of the beneficiaries?

My auntie appointed the solicitor to write up her will and my mum felt she had to stay tied to the solicitor to handle the estate from cradle to grave (excuse the pun) but my mother had to do all the arrangements with estate agents etc for the sale of the property. We too have multiple beneficiaries in the will here. The solicitor has then distributed all the initial sums to each of the beneficiaries.

It seems to vary very significantly. When my mum died, it took almost exactly a month for probate to be granted once the application had been made. It was a reasonably straightforward estate, and my mum was a tenant in common with my late stepfather. When the house was sold, the solicitor passed on my stepsisters’ share but this wasn’t part of my mum’s will. As joint executor of the will with my solicitor, I distributed the bequests that my mum had made, mainly to save on the solicitors’ costs.

Thank you. My partner had a very similar situation with a grandparent on her side family passing away at a similar time. There were many more beneficiaries there, but the properties were sold and everyone received their inheritance within about 8 months.

I expect it's 50% DF not chasing things and 50% a dozy solicitor, but it's good to know that these things can actually take some time!

How long is a piece of string?

I've done probates for my father, mother, and father in law, and also been subcontracted by a local solicitor to do the "numbers", i.e. record keeping, gathering information and preparing probate applications and IHT returns, for many clients over a couple of decades.

If everything is simple, records are all transparent, banks and others (DWP, investment platforms, company share administrators, insurance and pension firms) provide the necessary information (i.e. settlement amounts, etc) quickly enough, then it can all be done and dusted in a few months.

All you need is one organisation/institution to drag their feet (I'm looking at YOU, Halifax!) then months go by and you're paralysed because you can't move on - you can't apply for probate or do the IHT return if you're awaiting a settlement/termination figure. Halifax bereavement dept is notoriously useless for this!

My MIL died over New Year and the Halifax have still not responded to give me closing balances for a couple of simple ISA accounts she had with them. All other banks, institutions and organisations have done so (some faster than others), but we're stuck until Halifax get their finger out of their arse!

The probate offices themselves are also very variable. Different offices (different areas) seem to move at different speeds. I've had one back fully completed within a month, a couple took the specified 16 weeks, and one took best part of a year because they were staffed by incompetent morons who hadn't a clue and waited the 16 week before even looking at the application, and then asking stupid questions that were unnecessarily which reset the 16 week waiting period again before they looked at it again after I replied, and when it came to the "swearing" date I had to attend, the sods cancelled it last minute and it was put back another 16 sodding weeks!

It's really not always the solicitor's fault if things take a long time. They're hog tied by everyone else who has to be involved. Not excusing the ones who are slow, but plenty of them actually get on with it and do the best they can.

Thanks!

DF says that he's constantly struggling to get an answer from the solicitor, so I guess there's as much chance that the solicitor is waiting on others as just being slow (or DF using that as a stock response because he hasn't done something!)

Currently going through probate for DH's grandmother. Started in May last 2024 and still waiting.

An executor cannot be made do distribute the estate until one year from the date of death. Even after that, they cannot be forced to distribute the estate if there is a good reason for the delay, e.g. waiting for a house sale to complete. A solicitor acting as executor will want to take the time to make sure they don't end up personally liable for any outstanding debts and that there won't be any unexpected claims against the estate.

Currently waiting almost 2 years for df's (straight forward ) estate to come through. We are not getting our hopes up incase it will be another year or more! No explanation for the delay and I have no previous experience with this so completely clueless as to what we should expect or ask 🤷‍♀️

Sorry you're having to deal with that! My partner's relative's all went through relatively quickly with lots of updates, hence part of our concern that something was amiss.

Seems like it's just one of those things though!