London Probate Department

Agree with most of the other reviews.Received an 'undated letter' following application for probate and it contained several errors - the main one being naming the applicant as the deceased!!! Also asked for information already supplied in the original application.Staff need to be more sensitive and careful when handling the bereaved. Phone is never answered - rings then you get cut off. No reply to email complaints. Service needs a major overhaul.

The telephone customer service is an utter disgrace. I sent my application in August 2018, it is now Jan 2019. The phone is always engaged, or rings then converts to the engaged signal - is someone taking it off the hook? Can there honestly only be one phone line? I have spoken to the same customer ‘service’ guy 3 times - he is pompous, reluctant to help and is seemingly only focussed on how soon he can knock off for lunch/after-work drinks. Sadly I am in Australia, so am unable to attend the office in person and deal with those apparently friendly and helpful staff at the front desk. Each time I call (at between 10pm and 2am in Australia) I feel that my application is sitting at the bottom of a pile of applications gathering dust, in a vault, in a locked room, at the end of a very long, dark corridor, accessible only by minecart.

Spoke to a gentleman called Kevin who was extremely rude and unhelpful. Did not believe my clients middle name and put the phone down on me.Cannot believe someone who works in such a sensitive area of the Government could be employed to be client facing.Very disappointing.Called back an hour late and spoke to Amagit who not only found the information I needed in half the time I was on the phone with her colleague Kevin. Wish I could rate my experience with her separately as it would be five out of five for her call.

I checked on the web that the London office was open and travelled to London to deposit application 24/01/2023 due to Postal delays. When I arrived I was told that the office was no longer in operation and I was given an address in Oxford.A complete waist of time any money,

This is closed and Department moved. It is currently central family court and court of protection.

No one answers the phone. Finally got put through to an answer machine where I requested for someone to return my call....I’m still waiting.Common decency for any company that provides a service is communication. These are hard times for families that can’t move forward without Probate so delays and no way of getting answers just adds to that anxiety.

An embarrassment for the UK. Inept staff still using the Covid excuse.

This would be zero stars if I had that option. They sent a letter to us stating a question on the form we sent had not been completed and that a question on a different form had not been completed. The form we sent had been fully completed (I sent them a photo to confirm this!) and we hadn’t even sent the other form that they stated was incomplete. Absolutely impossible to talk to anyone on the phone about this. The number rings out with nobody bothering to answer. Shocking customer service from a government department at what is usually a heartbreaking and tremendously difficult time in people’s lives - and we pay a fee for this “service”!

I applied for probate last week after waiting weeks for the form in the post. We were meticulously careful to get every detail correct, including the check. The day after they received the form they returned the check with a letter saying it was not signed...it WAS. Further down the letter it said that the charge for copies had gone up from 50p to £1.50. This was not what the form said and we had paid 50p as stated on the form we were sent. This was their mistake not ours. I spend Thursday Friday and Monday hitting redial, so I could pay on my card, i just kept getting the busy tone or just ringing. Today I looked online to see if I could find another number which I did but just got busy or ringing again. Then I read some reviews which were awful (except one). One lady said to try dialling 8507 which I did and after an hour it was answered....I almost dropped the phone and I had a mouthful of sandwich that I had to swallow unchewed. A lovely lady answered, listened to my complaint and took the payment. It sounds like there are 5 people doing the job of 20.It is distressing enough to lose a loved one and having to complete a complicated probate form but the service (or lack of) that we get from the probate department is appalling and needs to be sorted.

Reading other reviews filled me with concern. BUT I can only say that from start to finish in three weeks. Including posting completed forms and receiving documents back. The visit to the office was a very efficient. Helpful security staff and a meeting with a very knowledgeable softly spoken man who was so polite I could not belive it. Sad reason for dealing with the Probate Office but they made life easy for me.