Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time is for probate applications requiring specialist consideration, including cases involving lost wills and affidavits.

Caseworkers receive ongoing training across all aspects of probate work and are deployed flexibly across workstreams to respond to operational demand and ensure resources are directed where they are needed most.

To improve waiting times, HMCTS has invested in additional staff in 2026, alongside system and process improvements and a programme of upskilling. These measures are intended to improve processing times and prevent growth in the outstanding caseload.

The Ministry of Justice publishes regular data on probate timeliness and open caseload in the quarterly Family Court Statistics bulletin, available at: Family Court Statistics Quarterly - GOV.UK.

However, HM Courts & Tribunals Service does not categorise probate applications as “specialist” or “non-specialist”, nor does it hold central data on whether each application involves a lost will or affidavit. HMCTS therefore does not hold comprehensive management information on these cases and cannot provide an exact figure for the time taken to process applications referred for specialist review for specific reasons.