From the land of you could not make it up; excerpts from the letters issued by the ‘Probate Service Owner’ - In short practitioners now need to adhere to personal application procedures and forms etc.
John Cartlidge
Campion Solicitors
[Mr X]
Probate Service Owner
HM Courts & Tribunals Service
19th March 2020
Dear Sir/Madam,
New Grant of Representation Application Forms for Professionals
I am writing to inform you that from the 23rd March 2020 we will be launching new standard application forms for professional-practitioners. The forms were designed following extensive consultation with various representative bodies and practitioners in this area of work.
What forms are being introduced?
Three of our current grant of representation forms completed by citizens have been redesigned with the legal sector in mind. They are the PA1A (applying for grant of letters of administration), PA1P (applying for a grant of probate) and PA8A (applying for a caveat). These forms would need to be completed in place of the Statement of Truth, and can be accessed from https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/probate-forms Once completed they will be lodged at the Probate Registries as usual, and after a period, these forms will be sent to the Courts and Tribunal Service Centres. We will inform you of the change of address in due course.
Why are the forms being introduced?
HMCTS receive a lot of grant of representation applications from the professional sector - approximately 170,000 applications per year. Unlike in other areas of the court service, there is currently no standard format for these forms and with the future introduction of bulk scanning into the service, these forms will enable us to digitise the information and insert it directly into our systems. This will also reduce errors and speed up the process. How will you transition to the new forms?
The forms will be introduced on 23rd March 2020 for a period of 4 weeks.
During this period Probate Registries will be permitted to accept the old-style Statements of Truth, if received instead of the new forms.
After the 4-week period (after 20th April 2020), if any Statements of Truth are received they will be returned requesting the appropriate new form.
[Mr X]
Probate Service Owner
HM Courts & Tribunals Service
26th March 2020
Dear Sir/Madam,
Re: New Grant of Representation Application Forms for Professionals
Further to my letter of 19th March advising of the launch of new standard application forms for professional-practitioners, we have received some valuable feedback in respect of the transitional arrangements. Having considered your feedback we have reviewed these arrangements in light of the current unprecedented situation regarding COVID-19 and have extended the transition period from 4 weeks to 8 weeks. This is to enable practitioners sufficient time to progress any inflight cases that you have already been working on.
We would advise that any new work which is undertaken should now be completed by either using the new paper application forms (electronic signatures including typed signatures will be accepted) or applying online. HMCTS is actively encouraging the use of online applications as this enables us to maintain the service whilst many of our staff are also remote working.
Some of the feedback received questioned why we are introducing the new forms when everyone in the system is under so much pressure. The overriding reason is to enable us to utilise our bulk scanning service which digitises the paper applications and allows us to work remotely. This will help ensure your clients still receive their grants during this significant disruption to our normal business.
The revised timeline for the introduction of the new forms
The forms were introduced on 23rd March 2020
The time that the Probate Registries will be permitted to accept the old-style Statements of Truth, will be 8 weeks (extended from the previous 4 weeks suggested)
After the 8-week period (after 18th May 2020), if any applications with separate Statements of Truth are received they will be returned requesting the appropriate new combined form.
You can apply online
We would like to take this opportunity again to confirm that the digital process can support the remote working that is currently taking place, if you want to apply for a grant of representation or caveat online, please visit:
Further information
We are currently considering other elements of our practices to see if any interim measures can be introduced to help you continue to operate during this pandemic and I hope to be able to share more news over the coming days.
If you would like further information about our work or have any further feedback on the forms, please email probatefeedback@justice.gov.uk
Yours faithfully,
[X]