The Government set a target of issuing grants of probate applications within 10 working days, as they attempted to reduce the backlog they had. However, a recent Freedom of Information (FoI) request submitted by the Law Gazette revealed that this target was being substantially missed.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ), disclosed that only in 9% of cases, grants of probate are issued within the 10 working day target set down by the Government, since April 2019.
However, progress has been made in clearing some of the backlog, reducing the delay applicants have been receiving. Although this is still not enough.
The mean end-to-end time for grants issued in December 2019 was eight weeks. This was a reduction of two weeks, as it took 10 weeks in the summer. Grants issued in December which were not stopped because of missing documents or errors took an average of five weeks to arrive, down from nine weeks in the summer.
This delay news rubs further salt in the wounds of those waiting as it was announced that 18 probate sub-registries closed their doors and further closures are planned.
