Does anyone know what the delay is in obtaining copies of historical Wills/Probates is being caused by? I’ve been waiting for over 8 weeks for a copy of the pre-deceased spouse’s Will and Probate so I can complete the IHT400 and it has still not been sent to me.
I am concerned about penalties but also don’t want to complete the return on a guess as my client’s arguably know that they the information they are submitting is incorrect.
You do not say whether you have applied by post or not, but just in case - have you tried requesting through the probate search service at gov.uk? That usually yields a downloadable copy in a short time. Presumably you do not require a sealed copy, and a copy provided by the registry would do?
Apologies if you have already done this!
I have encountered exactly the same problem having applied online for a copy of the pre-deceased spouse’s Will & grant of probate for the same purpose as Kathryn. I applied online on 14th December and paid the increased fee of £16.
I sent a chaser email on 23rd December pointing out that this service used to cost £1.50 and as noted by Damian, I used to receive the documents I had requested within a day or two at most.
I used to receive the documents I had requested within a day or two at most.
On 31st December I received the following reply:
‘Dear customer,
Please accept our apologies for the delay in fulfilling your order(s). We are currently experiencing a backlog of orders and are working hard to get them all processed as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, as the fee for obtaining grants and wills had been announced to rise from £1.50 to £16 two weeks before the 17th November, we have been inundated with thousands more requests than we normally would.
Your order(s) have not been forgotten and we will endeavour to get them serviced and resolved as soon as possible. You will be notified, usually by an automatic email, as soon as your documents are sorted. We will also be monitoring orders to ensure that you are notified quickly.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.’
The reply was from HMCTS Wills Helpdesk.
I addressed my email to hmctswills@ironmountain.co.uk
I am going to chase them again as I am also up against HMRC IHT 400 deadline.
“Who could possibly have imagined, Minister, that a fee increase of 1066% would prompt a deluge of applications?”
Sir Humphrey Appleby KCMG
Jack Harper
A third-party was offering this service for free and they made the initial application online. We have subsequently placed our own application and are still waiting for a response on both matters. The third party received the same reply this week as was posted above.
The whole situation is a farce.
Yes and a farce which creates unnecessary work for clients to pay for, at least as regards non-taxable trusts, and the fees though reasonably calculated do not assist the relationship with the adviser. Also, it is part of the monstrous ubiquitous cost/shifting strategy of HMG which includes the scandalous time wasted by agents waiting in the HMRC phone queue.
I once had a client who always phoned me after 6pm under the impression that my time would then be free. In those days I had to advise clients chosen by my firm.
Jack Harper
Good morning Kathryn. Have you received the copy documents you requested? Despite another chaser, and a similar response from HMCTS, I am still waiting for my documents.
I finally received it on Thursday but this was the second request which we made in December and not the original one which I think was placed October/November. I only received the email advising it was available for download after I had logged into my account and saw the documents available.
I am glad you have received your documents at last.
This really is an unacceptable level of service and I am wondering what we as professionals can do to lobby for improvements in the same way that has resulted in a marked improvement in turnaround times for online probate applications.
I would suggest that the client should write to their local MP. Unlike inviegling them to do that when complaining about the service from HMRC, they are not likely to be placed on a secret blacklist for future retribution, which many taxpayers quite reasonably fear.
Politicians shy away from granular technical disputes. A frequent experience is that a complaint to an MP about a detailed tax complaint will receive a direct response from HMRC—absurd outcome but MPs are unlikely to have the necessary tax knowledge.
But MPs like the rest of us recognise rotten service when they see it and can readily imagine themselves in their constituent’s shoes.
Again, unlike tax matters, interfaces with other civil service agencies are often likely to be a one-off encounter, so having an MP on their case may be the catalyst that achieves an official reappraisal of their ossified in-tray priorities. This is my fortunate experience with my own MP, though I didn’t vote for him, as he is old school like me and not a 12 year old activist suffering from Stage IV metastasised amour propre.
Jack Harper
Thank you Jack. That is a course of action I have been considering.
Curiously enough, in their response yesterday afternoon to my latest chaser, HMCTS Wills Helpdesk wrote as if they were a separate body from HMCTS stating that ‘it was HMCTS that (sic) have put the prices up’ and ‘we were only told at the same time as the rest of the public i.e. two weeks before the 17th November giving us no chance to make provisions for the onslaught of orders’.
I have asked them to clarify their relationship to HMCTS given their HMCTS sign-off title on their emails and have requested contact details for the relevant part of HMCTS for me to follow up with if the self-styled ‘HMCTS Wills Helpdesk’ is indeed not part of HMCTS. Needless to say, I have not received any response.