Claims under I (PFD) 1975 Act

I was wondering if forum members could assist me with an issue that has arisen on an estate.

The Will of a deceased names son and daughter-in-law as executors with partners of my firm as reserves. Son and daughter-in-law renounce and so the partners obtain Grant of Probate. This is issued on the 6th January 2021.

However the Grant of Probate is issued in the wrong names. They issue it in my name along with one of the partners, because of how it was inputted into MyHMCTS. I return GoP, pointing out that I am the fee earner and not a partner and subsequently Probate Registry amend and re-issue the GoP on the 16th March 2021.

In terms of claims being made under 1975 Act, what do forum members think is the start date would be for the six months? Is it the initial issue date or the late re-issue date.

The Probate Registry’s Find a Will service shows the GoP having been issued on the 6th January 2021 however it wasn’t actually correctly issued until 16th March.

My understanding is that the clock starts ticking when a grant is first issued, so that I would work to the January date.

The fact that there was an error in the grant when first issued, so that it needed to be re-issued, could well be a factor the court would take into account should an application need to be made to issue a claim outside of the 6 month period.

If there is concern over the need to issue proceedings, and the attendant costs, if the matter is close to resolution, perhaps a standstill agreement should be put in place.

Paul Saunders FCIB TEP

Independent Trust Consultant

Providing support and advice to fellow professionals

I had the same problem with the name on the grant, it was rectified within a week but I also queried this with a colleague as I wanted to ensure I placed the correct deadlines on my file.
We came to the conclusion that the date of the original grant stood as it was merely amended and not revoked.

I am very surprised that the amended Grant had a different date from the date when the Grant was originally issued.

I regularly have to return Grants for amendment due to various errors such as in a name or address. I also received a Grant recently that referred to a Will and Executors when the deceased had died intestate. The amended Grants have always been dated the same date as the date of the original incorrect Grant.

I would therefore treat the date when the Grant was originally issued as being the correct date for time limits and it is interesting that that is also the date in the Probate Registry’s Find a Will service.

Cliona O’Tuama

Solicitor

Thank you all for your responses. My initial inclination was to treat it as at the date it was originally issued too.

Cliona just to clarify on the re-issue it does still list the date of issue as the 6th January 2021 but then it also has as a subheading under where it says Grant of Probate saying “Amended and re-issued 16th March 2021 pursuant to…” and it was the question of whether this date superseded the 6th Jan as the issue date.