Probate professionals across the country are echoing their frustrations through social media in regards to the online probate service recently.
Jade Gani, solicitor and head of private client at Aston Bond criticised HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s (HMCTS) approach to reform and modernising the system for the better. She argued that the current process is not helping with backlogs. She posted on LinkedIn saying:
“Soooooo
“Rather than have #probate applications come in the post all together in one go, they have ‘modernised’ it so that they receive:-
“1. Original Wills and Statements of Truth in the post from the solicitor as before.
“2. Online submissions from solicitors with the PA1P information.
“3. IHT421’s directly from HMRC.
“Which they then have to all match up together…
“Yeah, this ‘modernising’ should help with the backlogs…”
Numerous professionals replied back to Jade with their responses…
Lyndzey Smitten, head of wills, trusts and probate at Paytons Solicitors replied saying:
“All of my delays seem to be related to them not matching information together and the loss of experienced staff means anything slightly removed from the ordinary seems to take months, eg. 7 months to date on one application where the sole Executor has lost capacity and the attorney doesn’t want to administer the estate.”
Lyndsey confirmed to Today’s Wills and Probate that she found out yesterday (Wednesday) they are working on Stops from 7 weeks ago.
Sarah Bowes, private client associate solicitor at Samuel Phillips Law replied saying:
“This was my exact reaction the first time I tried the new system. Well, that and realising I had spent at least 5 times as long producing a statement for executors as I would have when we could just type them. Not exactly good news for clients, and I am convinced the costs of designing and implementing the system have not been good for the taxpayer either.”
Other professionals replied saying:
“The system as a whole seems worse at the moment. The amount of errors on Grants I’ve received have certainly increased, then it takes even longer to have the document amended. Further, since doing online applications I can’t seem to speak to anyone with any form of working knowledge of the process, who say all they can do is submit the issue to the relevant team. You can’t just speak to someone to try and resolve any issue. Seems to be a downgrade so far, in my opinion.”
“I’ve noticed more errors since the changes too. I miss the days of calling your local probate registry and speaking to experienced staff.”
“We found that HMRC sometimes couldn’t match an SDLT payment with an online SDLT return. A bit alarming considering the sums involved. I don’t know if that problem persists.”
The probate service have confirmed that waiting times for grants of probate have fallen to roughly five weeks following a ‘productive’ January.
HMCTS told the Law Society that the number of grants being issued per week has now overtaken the number of applications being received.
Provisional figures released by HMCTS show that 17,218 grants were issued in December 2020 compared to 15,635 received applications. In total, around 260,000 grants are understood to have been issued in 2020, up from 237,130 in 2019. Official figures are due out in March 2021 to confirm actual figures.
2 responses
I suppose that not increasing the probate fees which everyone rebelled against has now left HMCTS with many inexperienced staff after losing the many experienced well-paid people who knew what they were doing and were able to answer complicated questions. I suppose one gets what one pays for and unfortunately we are getting the cheap end of the market. Last year, I experienced a long delay in getting probate caused solely by errors/delay both at HMRC IHT and HMCTS with the result that by the time I could sell a sizeable portfolio of shares, the beneficiaries lost well over £100,000. Whose fault was that?
We were on a basic Court Clerk wage, our experience and knowledge counted for nothing, clearly. They pay a hundred more staff now to implement all the changes made. A lot of which are to qualified legal staff on a overtime basis. Saving money due to the increased fees being thrown out has never been an issue for them. The money wasting changes had started long before then.