Report comment

Following a recent application, I received an email to say that documents had not arrived. I supplied copy documents of those sent, and certificate of posting. I emailed for an update several times, and heard nothing. On phoning (which naturally involves time on hold these days), I was told it seemed the copies were being treated as originals (good), and that it appeared other documents had also been uploaded- i.e. the originals had in fact arrived after all. The net result, however, is that as a result of the ‘hold’ on the application, despite it not being our fault, the application now goes into another pile for processing, the current backlog for which is now four months (at date of writing, they are dealing with applications ‘held’ on January 25th 2021). How can that be?
I also learned that the post arriving at Harlow is taking 4-5 weeks even to be sorted and sent to the right department (it is not only Probate applications that go to Harlow). So one might reasonably assume that being told not to enquire as to progress before eight weeks have elapsed is intended to allow for post room issues, not actual grant processing.
I was assured the Registry is working evenings and weekends to try to catch up, but no mention of the post room. Oh, and by the way, there’s no point in sending anything ‘signed for’, as there is no one to sign since Harlow uses a P O Box number. So you must use the more expensive method, meaning that the cost goes up for the client.
There is deep-rooted inefficiency which surely must be addressed if Probate applications are ever to move properly into the 21st Century, and the Covid excuse, still readily trotted out by HMRC and many other institutions, is well and truly exhausted by now.