Up in the heir: Inheritors enduring huge delays after botched migration at UK probate service

An IT glitch has contributed to a backlog in the number of UK probate applications, with users still reporting huge delays in the processing of their wills and probate grants. The long-running issue can be traced back to April, when Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) transitioned to a new IT system, creating a …

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Delays of up to four weeks sounds good to me, compared to the two and a half years we waited when my ex was an executor...

[VBF]

And yet in 2013, when I was Executor to my late Mother's estate, the whole process took less than 6 weeks from application to Grant of Probate being issued.

[Andy Non]

Sounds like a typical

Government IT project; well executed, on time, on budget and fulfilling all requirements.

[Ken Moorhouse]

with users hoping to get applications in before the hike came into force

"The motive for the killing was to beat the probate price hike"

Fake News?

[hatti]

Staying alive could be a viable workaround

[IGotOut]

Missing but. from quote

"HMCTS to reduce the backlogs and create a probate service fit for the 21st century....We hope to complete this by the time Buck Rogers passes away"

[Anonymous Coward]

Metrics

>> Samantha Hamilton, of London and Essex-based firm Mullis & Peake, told the Gazette: "We still have delays on older applications, as the probate registry has admitted that new applications are being dealt with more quickly."

I strongly suspect that they're doing what happened two years ago with massive delays in doing Criminal Record Checks. The metrics upon which the service was measured was what percentage of checks were completed within X weeks of receipt. The consequence of that was as soon as a check failed to be completed within X weeks, there was no incentive to finish it off. There was an incentive however to put it on one side and work on a check that had just come in to try and get that one done within X weeks.

[Andy J]

Problem is not a price hike, but a price drop.

Prior to July the cost for obtaining a copy of a will or grant was £10.50. This was reduced £1.50 in July. Who could possibly have guessed this would result in more applications, causing the system to buckle under the strain? There's never a crystal ball around when you need one.