according to the Express newspaper.
Kelly has recently spoken to Solicitors for the Elderly about difficulties professionals are experiencing with delays at the Court of Protection with the issue of Grants of Probate.
Covid introduction the implementation of a new online probate application facility, removing the efficient, amazing service we have historically received from local Probate Registries. As with all modernisation updates they fail to rollout smoothly and this one has certainly had bumps!
All administration has now been centralised in Harlow, the bulk scanning capital of the Probate world. This has resulted in lost applications, missing pages of wills, partly scanned documents and accusations that professionals are not sending in correct applications. There are online delays with the portal which works somedays and not others, crashes frequently and dislikes amendments! The telephone lines are not answered, nor are emails and we are not being told that updates to cases cannot be provided over the telephone. This is before you involve the new automated process for H M Revenue & Customs role in the process.
As you will see from the article we are now being told that applications cannot be fastracked for the sale of properties or shares or other time critical sales. Historically this has never been a problem as we could always rely on the Probate Registry to have matters completed within three weeks, at the longest. However, what do you do when you are waiting for months?
If you fancy a read of the article here is the link:
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1370631/inheritance-tax-probate-grant-rule-asset-sales
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