Probate: Standards
(asked on 7th June 2021) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time taken is for a probate grant to be issued; what plans he has to reduce that time taken; what progress he has made in reducing the length of the time taken to process all probate cases in 2021; and if he will make a statement.
The most recently published information regarding combined waiting times for a grant of probate, on paper and digital cases, covers September 2020 to December 2020 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 26):
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2020
Average time to grant issue for grants of Probate, England and Wales, quarterly Q2 2019 - Q4 20201,2,3
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| Probate - All | |||||
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| Application submission to grant issue |
| Document receipt to grant issue4 | ||
Year | Quarter | Grants issued | Mean weeks | Median weeks |
| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
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2019 | Q25 | : | : | : | : | : | : |
2,019 | Q3 | 53,403 | 9.5 | 8.0 |
| 9.5 | 8.0 |
2,019 | Q4 | 54,389 | 7.8 | 5.6 |
| 7.6 | 5.4 |
2020 | Q1 | 49,706 | 6.7 | 4.3 |
| 6.5 | 4.1 |
2020 | Q2 | 45,493 | 6.6 | 4.6 |
| 6.3 | 4.4 |
2020 | Q3 | 60,225 | 6.7 | 4.9 |
| 6.0 | 4.4 |
2020 | Q4 | 54,476 | 7.2 | 5.3 |
| 6.2 | 4.9 |
Probate - Digital | |||||
| Application submission to grant issue |
| Document receipt to grant issue4 | ||
Grants issued | Mean weeks | Median weeks |
| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
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|
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: | : | : | : | : | : |
7,166 | 9.4 | 7.6 |
| 9.0 | 7.1 |
11,060 | 10.2 | 9.0 |
| 9.2 | 8.3 |
10,784 | 7.1 | 4.9 |
| 6.0 | 3.7 |
10,955 | 6.1 | 3.7 |
| 4.7 | 2.1 |
21,591 | 6.4 | 4.4 |
| 4.3 | 2.6 |
21,875 | 6.6 | 3.1 |
| 4.2 | 0.3 |
Probate - Paper | |||||
| Application submission to grant issue |
| Document receipt to grant issue4 | ||
Grants issued | Mean weeks | Median weeks |
| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
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|
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|
: | : | : | : | : | : |
46,237 | 9.6 | 8.1 |
| 9.6 | 8.1 |
43,329 | 7.2 | 4.7 |
| 7.2 | 4.7 |
38,922 | 6.6 | 4.1 |
| 6.6 | 4.1 |
34,538 | 6.8 | 4.7 |
| 6.8 | 4.7 |
38,634 | 6.9 | 5.1 |
| 6.9 | 5.1 |
32,601 | 7.6 | 6.3 |
| 7.6 | 6.3 |
Source: HMCTS Core Case Data
Notes:
1) HMCTS Core Case Data came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding the Probate Service.
2) The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period. Currently grants being issued on the same day as the application submission/document receipt are being calculated as 0 days. This is being reviewed as to whether it is an accurate reflection of workload and may be adjusted in future..
3) Some averages presented here may be based on a small number of grants. Where this occurs, any conclusion drawn from these will be limited..
4) Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS.
5) Due to quality issues in the transition between data systems, the breakdown by type of grant has not been published for Q2 2019.
6) A probate application can be stopped for several reasons: a caveat can be entered when there’s a dispute about either who can apply for probate or issues with a will or proposed will, or if an error is identified and a request for further information is made.
Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the probate service during the Covid 19 pandemic, the average waiting for a grant of probate following receipt of the documents required has been maintained at between four to six weeks.
More recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly) provides waiting time information up to March 2021. This shows that the waiting time on digital grant of probate applications, which are not stopped due to errors or missing documentation, has been below one week since September 2020. Similarly paper cases, not stopped, took less than three weeks on average in March 2021 compared to five weeks in March 2020.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/hmcts-management-information-march-2021