Although there are still delays at the Probate Registry, Davisons Law have recently found that simple cases are being prioritised (some within 4-6 weeks) but this is at the expenses of more complex cases taking longer than the average (up to 20 weeks and sometimes longer). The matter is of national concern and the House of Commons Justice Committee launched an inquiry in November 2023 (“the Inquiry”).
In April 2024, the Justice Committee were planning on examining possible solutions to the ongoing delays. The current delays can be seen below: –
- Grants of probate (80% of all grant applications) – just under 10 weeks in the third quarter of 2019 (i.e. before COVID) to 14 weeks in the last quarter of 2023.
- Grants of letters of administration (16% of total) – about 11 weeks in the third quarter of 2019 slipping to 16-17 weeks last quarter of 2023.
- Grants of letters of administration with Will annexed (4% of total) – about 13 weeks in the third quarter of 2019 slipping to 23-24 weeks last quarter of 2023.
Cause of the probate delays
Covid is only one of the reasons for the ongoing delays. The primary cause is due to recent centralisation and the closing of regional probate registries at the same as moving to digitisation of the service and a drastic loss of qualified court staff at a time when they are most needed to oversee the transition. The Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners (STEP) stated earlier this year that at present there are only 2.6 full-time equivalent registrars and deputies, when there have previously been 30.
Delays are also caused due to errors in probate applications. To ensure that an application isn’t “stopped” by the Probate Registry and unnecessarily delayed, the application has to be perfect in every way and all of the necessary documents need to be included with the application.
Impacts of delays
Some of the impacts that the delays are causing are: –
- Clients having to cancel a house sale due to probate delays.
- Clients not understanding why it has taken so long to wind-up an estate, and this damaging the reputation of probate practitioners.
- Financial hardship for beneficiaries.
- Significant impact on the operations of Cancer Research UK (and likely other charities) as their budget forecasts do not include money currently sitting in the probate backlog, which is currently estimated to be £30m.
Possible solutions
STEP’s suggestions to HMCTS are:
- To outsource complex cases to a limited number of experienced law firms to try to tackle the build-up of applications.
- To arrange for private practice probate practitioners to be assigned to the probate registry for a fixed period.
- To assign probate staff to private practice law firms in order to allow them to gain experience quickly, better understand the types of issues that can arise in probate matters and learn how best to solve them.
- To change the current system of not allowing direct phone conversation between case handlers and practitioners.
Hopefully the conclusions of the Inquiry, when published, will include these sensible and pragmatic recommendations by STEP, which will lead to less delays and go some way to clearing the current backlog.
