Simpson said with the new system the longest processing time he had seen was 30 weeks with the average being 24 weeks.
He believed while the current system may work for straightforward cases, it does not work for the more complex ones which require more communication with the registry.
Summers said she had been approached by various practitioners who wanted to try to help look over probate applications and said it could be one way to reduce delays.
She said: “If there is a way of a whole pile of experienced probate lawyers all rolling their sleeves up together and helping out they will because if you can get rid of that backlog I think the system would work and waiting times would come down.”
Simpson felt the probate registry needed to take in more qualified staff to remove the backlog.
Both Summers and Simpson agreed there needed to be better signposting for members of the public of where to go to find out if they needed probate.
She said: “If people had somewhere to go to find out whether they needed probate rather than asking the probate registry it would free up some of their time to focus on the backlog.”
“We’re not asking for the system to go back to processing applications in four weeks, what we need is consistent delivery and we want to see progress,” Simpson added.
alina.khan@ft.com
