Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what avenues are available to applicants for Probate whose applications have not been actioned for at least four months and who are informed by the recorded message at the Probate Office that no information will be provided on the progress of existing applications.

As of March 2020, all calls are now answered by the Courts & Tribunals Service Centres, which are equipped with modern technology to monitor performance levels and make improvements to the service being offered.

The service can be contacted Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm, moving to 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 2pm on a Saturday from the 1^st February via:

• webchat available at https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate/apply-for-probate (opens in a new tab)
• telephone on 0300 303 0648
• email at contactprobate@justice.gov.uk

The Courts and Tribunals Service Centre is currently focusing on providing progress updates via telephone on cases over eight weeks of age due to high levels of demand.

For professional users, real time information about the progress of digital cases can be obtained via the online Probate service without the need to contact HMCTS.