Has anyone else encountered a problem when applying for probate online and your firm is the executor of a Will and only 2 of the partners/members are applying for probate with power reserved to the others? We have been advised by the Probate Registry that we have to list all the members/partners in the firm who are to have power reserved by name and as there are 7 of these then there are too many to fit into the boxes on the online application and we will therefore have to submit the application by paper using the PA1P form. This seems incredible as we cannot be the only firm that will encounter this problem. Anyone else encountered tis or knows of a way around this issue?
I am sure I’ve seen a precedent somewhere which included giving power reserved to all other partners of the firm in existence at the date of death. Whilst it might not be accepted, I would Suggest that you just put in as many partners as the document will accept and hope that HMCTS doesn’t check the number of partners in your firm. They can only reject it And require you to make a paper application.
Thank you Patrick for your reply. We have telephoned the Probate Office again and received a different answer! They are now saying that we can list all the partners who have power reserved if we want to but alternatively we can just say ‘the remaining profit-sharing shareholders/partners’ in the drop down box where you would normally enter the first name and in the drop down box for the surname put the name of our firm and specify power reserved. This seems to make more sense! I will let you know if they reject this after we have submitted it!
