The number of families waiting at least six months for a grant of probate has more than doubled since 2020.
In the first nine months of 2023 — the most recent data available — 6,942 people waited at least half a year for a probate application to be approved. That’s a rise of 112 per cent from the 3,267 applications that took that long in 2020, according to figures obtained from the Ministry of Justice through a freedom of information request by the wealth manager Quilter.
Probate is the legal document that you need to deal with someone’s estate after they die. It is the responsibility of the executor — the person appointed to deal with an estate — to apply for probate. The government
