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Private Client blog
Opinions and insights from our Private Client team
Since the emergence of covid-19 in March 2020, every industry in the UK has faced challenges. Some have seen their development and growth thwarted, whilst others have shone. We’ve hopefully seen the back of the worst of it. I’m now at the beginning of my second week working at Roythornes, so I thought it was an opportune time to reflect on what’s to come in the probate industry.
It was easy to start with technology. The private client sector is not alone in adapting technologically to the pandemic. We’ve all faced many challenges. Almost overnight, one evening in March 2020, we were forced to embrace new and better ways of working. Parliament was forced to consider emergency updates to the archaic Wills Act 1837 to allow remote witnessing of wills. More probate practitioners have ditched paper probate applications in favour of the online equivalent. A new online process for creating lasting powers of attorney was also launched. There was also the very-welcomed move from the Probate Service to bring all non-contentious probate registries under one roof in Birmingham.
Speaking with other practitioners in the area at other firms, both the contentious and non-contentious private client sectors are inundated with work. I have seen it reported nationally that some firms have doubled their fee income in contentious probate work in the past year.
This is not necessarily new, nor is it restricted to the probate industry, but it is worth a mention, nonetheless. Many of the courts and tribunals seem to be operating at longer timescales than before. There were some teething problems from the move to the centralised probate service system in Birmingham. 6 months ago it was reported that the most straightforward grant applications are taking approximately 7 weeks to be processed.
Technology in certain respects is still in its infancy. The contentious probate cynic in me supposes that this would inevitably lead to increases in contentious probate work. For example, I predict that by the end of 2022, we will likely have seen our first High Court claim for want of due execution (a challenge to the way in which a will has been executed by video witnessing).
The volume of work increased last year, especially in contentious probate work. The shared consensus amongst others that I have spoken with is that there are no signs that this trend is likely to change; all indications are that growth will continue.
I say more with hope than anything else, but I hope to see that the teething problems experienced by the new centralised probate service will now have been overcome, and notwithstanding any increases in grant applications, we should see a reduction in processing times.
Inevitably, austerity measures are just around the corner. Last month, it was announced that National Insurance contributions would drastically increase (for some). Last week saw the end of the ‘furlough’ scheme. The Universal Credits top-up payments came to an end last week too. With an increase in the strain on family finances, I foresee more disputes arising. The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 has historically been seen as a means for the court to award provision from deceased estates for certain categories of persons in the most deserving or needing circumstances. With more people in necessitous circumstances, I think we are likely to see more challenges brought to estates in this way.
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