The Estate Registry found that consumers’ experience of probate is almost universally poor, the process is unnecessarily complicated, and the outcome is often unfair.
Probate is the legal process that validates a will and grants the named executor(s) the authority to manage and distribute the deceased person’s assets, known as their estate, after their death.
Executors have a single route to notify public sector organisations of a death through the Government’s ‘Tell Us Once’ service. But there is not a similar universally agreed process for the private sector – and this contributes to a more stressful bereavement experience.
Research conducted for the Estate Registry found that nearly three in four (72%) of the 2,000 UK adults surveyed agree that every bank and utility company should have a specific death notification service similar to the service provided by the Government.
In one case, a bereaved widow had to contact more than 20 individual organisations to inform them that her husband had died.
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This comes after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) urged the Government to mandate firms to accept digital death notifications to ease the stress on bereaved families.
Phil Hickson, SVP for global partnerships at the Estate Registry, said: “We have long believed that third-party providers – and not only those authorised by FCA – should be mandated to have a dedicated bereavement team and minimum key performance indicators in how the bereaved are handled.
“The findings of the research are clear that every bank, utility company and service provider should have a consistent death notification service and much better signposting is needed to steer consumers to the help available in explaining how the process works.
“We believe that the appointment of a Bereavement ‘Tsar’ is now long overdue to champion the better treatment of consumers managing a death and who should have the power to sanction those third parties who fall short of best-practice.”
Admin burden
In the research, two-fifths (45%) reported that the administrative burden of probate was complex and time-consuming, and 38% agreed that the probate process took too long.
More than a quarter (28%) thought it was too complicated and difficult to understand, and 27% agreed that there is not enough information about it.
Nearly three in five (57%) of those questioned used the Government’s ‘Tell Us Once’ service and around two-fifths (39%) found the service useful. Interestingly, younger UK adults who have gone through this process were more likely to use the service (82%) and find it useful than those aged 55-plus (43%).
As part of the same research programme, a panel of 200 independent financial advisers and probate solicitors were also questioned regarding their views of the probate process.
More than three out of five (61%) believed the whole process takes too long and a quarter (25%) said that the process is difficult to understand. A fifth (21%) believed the process could also be made simpler if there was more information made publicly available, while a similar number (18%) believed the process to be unfair.
