Caveat requests are now registered without checking for
grant
01 March 2012
In an unannounced change of policy, some
probate registries are now routinely entering caveats onto a
probate application without checking whether a grant has already
been issued.
The new practice first emerged two months ago,
when a practitioner applied to enter a caveat at the Ipswich
registry. She discovered that the registry's policy is now to enter
the caveat regardless of whether a grant has already been issued,
and then notify the applicant that the caveat is in place.
Under the traditional practice, the registry
clerks would have searched their records first. If the search
showed probate had already been granted, they would then ask the
applicant if she wished to withdraw the caveat application and thus
save the fee (GBP20 for six months' protection).
Ipswich is one of England's most popular
registries, receiving about 20,000 probate applications a year,
mostly from professionals. But the policy is thought to be general,
though there has apparently been no attempt to publicise the new
rules because they are internal to the probate registries.
The motive appears to be at least partly
budgetary, in that it saves registry officials the trouble of
searching the record and calling the applicant when a grant turns
up. But the new rules may mislead a practitioner in a contentious
probate case into believing that no grant has been issued, and that
they can contact the other party to try to negotiate a
settlement.
Simon Leney, of law firm Cripps Harries Hall,
and a member of the executive committee of the Law Society's
private client section, commented that the new system is "an
unsatisfactory state of affairs and a recipe for claims against
solicitors handling will disputes". He intends to ask the Probate
Registry to introduce some degree of risk management into the
procedure.
In the meantime practitioners applying for a
caveat should enclose a request for a search as well, with a
covering letter making it clear that the caveat is only to be
entered if the search shows that no grant has yet been issued.
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