Email query from Probate- want to contact witnesses

[Exhaustedonallfronts]

I was wondering if anyone has any experience of this, please?

My wonderful lovely father died very suddenly and unexpectedly last year (heart attack with no warning, seemingly very healthy till the last moment). My mum was his executor. I helped her with the huge piles of IHT forms. Everything went to her (bar two small gifts to his godchildren). We had to do all the IHT forms and schedules because they have a holiday house in Europe. No IHT due as all going to his spouse. We had an email from HMRC saying all in order, and they’d pass to probate.

My mum was contacted yesterday by email from the probate service with the following email:

‘We have reviewed your application for probate.

The Will you sent us has a signature that gives doubt of knowledge of contents, and we need to confirm what happened when it was signed.

You must provide us with the name, address, email, and phone number of the two witnesses who signed the Will, so we can contact them for further information.
We will send the witnesses a questionnaire and will contact you again if we need any further information.’

Initially she thought it might be a phishing scam. Typically it arrived on a Friday so can’t call them till Monday. However doing a bit of googling it does seem the probate office does contact witnesses if there is suspicious activity surrounding a will.

However, as far as I can see this is a fairly textbook case: will made and signed 6 years before his death (so he was 69, still working and compos mentis). No changes to any previous will. I would have thought the most common allocation- mirror wills with everything going to the married partner unless they predecease them, in which case split between children (apart from two gifts of £3k each to godchildren). Marriage of 49 years, no previous spouses or other children etc that might otherwise complicate things. Will was drawn up by solicitors.

Witnesses were two close friends he’d known for 15 odd years through his sport/hobby. His friends really, more than my mum’s but they’re still in touch. We can contact them and let them know, but before we do it would be reassuring to know what the issue might be.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

Gosh. No idea but interested in response as it does sound like it should be straight forward. Can't see anything that could be disputed...

There was an eye-opening Radio 4 series recently about probate. They appeared to have been waving through all sorts of obviously fraudulent wills and not checking anything. I wonder if you are caught up in a backlash where they start checking everything.

Perhaps it's just a random check eg they send this out for 1 in every say 250 wills ?

I wouldn’t reply I would Google and call but I’m very of the mind that scammers are everywhere I

My thoughts too although a will leaving everything to a spouse wouldn't flag this as an issue - does your DM go by a non-married surname so it might look odd if it is the last will and testament of Jo Bloggs who leaves his estate to his spouse Jemima Puddleduck? I'd call the probate service on Monday - use a number from their official website and double check.

There's no reason for witnesses to know the content of the will. They are witnessing the process of signing. Nothing more.
Sounds odd to me.

Sorry I can’t help, but wondering why it went to probate when everything sounded straight forward?

Because some of the bank accounts that were in his name need probate before releasing funds.

Please don’t think this is what happens….do you know what probate is?

The witnesses don't need to know the contents but obviously the testator does.

Is the attestation clause at the very top of the last page, or does that last page contain some of the will clauses? It may look suspicious if, for example the last clause of the will is followed by some blank space, and then the attestation clause is on a page by itself (this should never happen)

How does his signature on the will look?

That was what I initially thought when I read it… but doing a google I think they are talking about HIS knowledge- which I could understand if there was something suspicious- he’d suddenly left everything to his ‘new friend’, his carer or similar…. But obviously that’s not applicable here. Everything to wife, and no decline in health/understanding etc that would make one suspicious he’d been hoodwinked.

Nope! Same surname since they were married!

Exactly as it always did. Not the neatest I’ll admit! And the sort of signature where you probably need to know what the name is, iyswim, then you can ‘see’ what it says.

One possible issue is if his will had been stapled and then restapled, which happens if the staple fails but which you are warned against when making a will (as it looks as is someone could have changed a page then restapled his signature to it.)

Call probate and check that it's a legitimate letter using the official number rather than one on the letter. Double check their address too on the gov.uk site . .

Best of luck

I had one of these a month or so ago. I thought it was strange too. Given that they don’t ask for witnesses to be able to do anything except sign their name, it was a bit of a cheek!

They asked if the will shown was the one I had witnessed - err no, that’s none of my business. I did think that it may be someone in the family contesting but I just answered the questions and I’ve heard nothing since. Tick boxing exercise maybe?

I’ll have a look.

Thank you.

Please don't be alarmed.

This is a fairly standard request from the Courts and Tribunals Service if there is any doubt (at all) as to the validity of a will. They don't have to tell you why they have raised a query. Until they are satisfied all is in order probate won't be granted.

Give them the names and contact details of the witnesses, and also advise the witnesses they will be receiving questionnaires, which you would be grateful if they could complete and return in a timely manner.

Our Mum died in 2015. She had made a will and my Sister was Executor. A Cousin had witnessed my Mum's signature on her will. The probate office weren't happy with the Our Mum's signature, they said it looked like somebody had possibly tried to erase it. My Cousin was contacted and asked to attend the probate Office. Myself and my Sister went with her, I cannot remember if my Sister ( as Executor) was asked to attend. Our Cousin was interviewed in private. After speaking to our Cousin, the Probate Office was happy that everything was in order. We were told of this immediately after the interview. There was nothing put in writing and probate was granted without any further problems.
Hope it is resolved easily for you also.

Just checked as I had photos of it on my phone as I needed the paperwork when I helped her sell his car.

There are a few sentences/lines from the previous page at the top of the page where the signatures are.

I can’t see from the photo whether there was any issues with staples. It doesn’t look like it from what I can see, but the photo clips the very top of the corner off.

Signatures and witnesses on a page that doesn’t have anything else?

pages not numbered?

restapled?

some pages folded and not others?

fountain pen signature so no indent on the paper

Probate will be checking for two things.

Firstly that the witnesses are genuine/real people and did indeed witness the signature of the deceased.

Secondly, to confirm that the deceased appeared to be of sound mind at the time of signing and not under duress etc.

All very straightforward and reasonable.

It won't be questioning the witnesses as to the content of the will etc.

This is exactly one of the reasons I always advocate for wills to be signed in front of and witnessed by the solicitor (and a solicitors clerk) as it provides "evidence" as to the validity of the signing, and usually costs little if anything on top of the will drafting itself.

Thank you all.

Hopefully it’s nothing to be worried about and just another admin hoop to jump through.

My mum has really really struggled since loosing him, he was her entire world, and I think this is just another straw on the already broken camel’s back.

Hopefully it can be sorted quickly. I’ll get her to call the office from the official website contact number to confirm the email was legit on Monday, and then contact the witnesses to let them know.

Thanks for all the help.

When my husband died in 2023 his will left everything to me, and all looked very straightforward. The Probate office asked me for contact details for one of the two witnesses, and sent her a pre printed questionnaire.
Although I gave full details including address and phone number they chose to contact her via EMail. Her email address didn’t include her name and could have been anyone. The witness replied and they made no further enquiries.
The whole thing seemed a bit of a box ticking exercise, but the worst part about it was the delay it caused.

The Radio 4 series I mentioned looked at a very specific fraud involving probate. Typically it went something like this:

Elderly recluse dies in possession of a house and possibly some savings and no will can be found. Friends and neighbours have no details of family and believe deceased had had no contact with family for many years.

Local authority has to step in to organise a simple funeral and find out if there are any heirs.

Value of estate and details of deceased go on bona vacantia list - this is a list kept by the Probate Office showing estates where deceased appears to have left no will and heirs are sought. Until very recently it was online and anybody could see it.

Genealogy companies scan this list regularly and look for heirs. They contact them and offer their help in return for a percentage of the estate. They are bona fide businesses helping people to get money they are entitled to by law but which they wouldn't have known about otherwise.

However, in the scam, once the family has been alerted and applied for probate, they discover that the fraudsters have stepped in first. Using the details on the bona vacantia list, they have knocked up a fake will, using a signature taken from something online of the deceased's if possible, and with witnesses who were real people but who had almost certainly never met the deceased and (crucially) are now dead, so can neither confirm nor deny that they'd witnessed a will. The will would appoint a young Hungarian man as executor and sole beneficiary of the estate. Nobody who knew the deceased can remember a young Hungarian man ever visiting the house, of course.

Young Hungarian man then applies for probate, gets it, transfers any cash out of the country asap and sells house or hands it over to other criminals for use as a cannabis farm.

In applying for probate online, YHM or associate would be asked to tick a box to say if inheritance tax was due. They would say no and this was not queried, even when the estate included a house in London. House would be listed at a fraction of its genuine market value. YHM was not asked to supply ID. Witnesses were not verified.

Even when people connected with the deceased and genealogy companies raised their concerns, the Probate Office response was that it was nothing to do with them. The police also declined to investigate.

I have the impression this has all changed in the last few weeks as the government woke up to what a disaster this has been. The Tories put probate online in 2017, apparently, and for some reason no safeguards were put in place at all, if the BBC programme is accurate. Belatedly, it may be that they are sorting this out now. The bona vacantia list is no longer visible to all and sundry, which is a start.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m002fvgg