Probate advice at the end of our tether

[probatepurchase]

We are the bottom house in a chain of 3 houses. The owner of the top of the chain has died in April 24, and so we are waiting for probate to be granted. Apparently it's with HMRC to wait for a code to be released and there is talk of an inheritance tax 'cheque'.

The information we have is from the lady we are buying from.

We are going to lose our buyer if we don't complete within 2-3 weeks.

Does anyone understand what the above means and, if our timescale of 2-3 weeks is realistic?

Just received an email saying ours has gone through. Couple of questions for you knowledgeable people …

Do we have to put my MILs house into our names prior to sale?

Do banks require an original probate certificate or will a copy do? How many do they send? I can’t remember!

@FrenchandSaunders Do we have to put my MILs house into our names prior to sale?

No

Probate grants cost £1.50 per copy I think and originals are required, but banks etc will return the original ime. My dm had shares and the they were happy with an emailed copy of the grant.

Fab thanks.

Not sure if this will offer encouragement to anyone but we've just had Grant of Probate granted this afternoon. Application went in on 26th July 2024. So 4 weeks. The inheritance tax code was issued in just under 4 weeks as well.

You have made my day! So pleased for you.

For simple estates it’s 3 weeks. Ours was this summer.

@FrenchandSaunders You either sell as executors (that’s what I’m doing) or as beneficiaries. Only register it as yours if it’s 100% yours.

Wow that’s amazing and gives me hope ! My IHT code went missing in the post and it took three months to get it 🙄 finally got it end of July and probate applied for straight away .. I’m hoping it’s not too long to wait as I’m starting cancer treatment and don’t need the additional stress of the probate malarkey !

@Rockschooldropout
Sorry to hear that about the code. What a nightmare.
Fingers crossed everything goes well. The treatment and the probate application. Input from DH, apparently it was an office outside London but not up north. He isn't sure where as the solicitor actually sent the application.

Good luck with your treatment.

well DH chased yet again on Thursday.

Response was that they had no idea what was happening. There is no issue with the form etc. It just seems to keep disappearing into a black hole. Apparently we should hear within 5 working days.

Given that we are more than 18 months down the line I'll believe that when I see it.

I'm so sorry to hear this--how utterly stressful for you on top of everything else.

Why is it not possible for them to send the code electronically? I have a self-assessment account with HMRC and use their app without issues and can't see why it's not possible for all branches to adopt 'new' technology.

It’s so annoying .. they could literally just email it over 🙈 we had to chase and chase to get a replacement sent

I’m hoping it won’t be a year or so because we are having to maintain his house as well and with the aggressive cancer treatment I’m starting it’s going to be a nightmare 🙈

I'm coming back to this thread to tell you that we have been issued our IHT code for probate. We submitted on 16 August and it was issued on 9 September and posted on 10 September, but as they use second-class post we probably won't get it for a few days...

So less time than we feared to get through this stage! Ours was reasonably complicated as we had gifts out of income insurance policies, stocks, transferred allowances for pre-deceased parents, etc, so we had a lot of supplementary forms to complete.

Late parent was 10 days!

There was IRT to pay too.

I think the delays occur when there are errors on the various forms

I’m hoping probate is as quick! I’ll be panicking as still a bit of sorting to be done at the house. But ‘good’ problem to have.

Probate was granted on my late father’s estate last week.
IHT code applied for end of May , rrceived end of July. Probate submitted beginning of August , there were delays with the IHT as it was apparently “lost in the post “

They urge you to apply for probate online, but iht still has to be done by post, which is so outdated and ridiculous. If IHT is going to be more of a revenue stream, they need to streamline it.

We had probate granted today. Applied on 12th September. Applied for IHT code, submitting all forms on 16 August.