I have received a grant of probate and five office copies all on the slant. Am I being too fussy if I ask the probate registry to resend them?. I am a paranoid sole practitioner and wonder would they have sent the grant and office copies in such a poor state so much so that it looks like they have been printed on a John Bull printing kit were I Clifford Chance or some other well known firm of solicitors. I have never received papers quite like these and feel too embarrassed to show them to my client.
I wonder if other members may consider this too trivial a matter to print on the forum page but would they accept documents in such a state?
I think if they are bad enough for you to feel embarrassment about forwarding them to your client, then absolutely you are right to raise it with the probate registry. My experience of the probate registry has been generally very good, but on the rare occasions something goes wrong (a misspelling of the name, or the wrong copy will attached to the grant) they are usually very good at putting it right.
As a sole practitioner of many years standing, I am not at all paranoid about the possibility that the Probate Registry might treat me differently from a large firm. Sometimes Grants that I receive have errors in the name or address of the deceased or a personal representative and those have always been amended immediately by the Registry that I use (Oxford) and returned with an apology. Errors do happen.
There is no reason why you should accept a Grant that is not fit for purpose, so you should simply return it for amendment.
If your clients interests will allow it, send them back. I have seen some very slapdash work, across the court service, DWP and HMRC. The Land Registry seems to manage better, perhaps because of agency status.
It occurred to me that the proposed rise in probate fees might prompt some modest improvements in service- using first class post, perhaps- but not if we accept this kind of thing as inevitable and say nothing.