Probate Delays and Pension Charges

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When someone dies and leaves a property in their own name, or has significant savings or investments, the executors must apply for probate - a legal document which gives them the right to deal with the dead person's estate and distribute their assets. The Ministry of Justice says probate should be granted within 16 weeks, but some bereaved families have been facing delays of nearly a year. Why is that?

A new report shared exclusively with Money Box suggests many of us know very little about the charges being taken out of our pensions. People's Partnership carried out a survey which found that out of a thousand people who'd transferred their pension in the past two years without getting advice beforehand - 72% didn’t know exactly what the fees for their old pensions were, or what they were being charged for their new one. What should you look out for?

And for the first time the percentage people in England who're married or in a civil partnership has fallen below 50 percent. If you live with someone and share your money - what do you need to know?

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Jo Krasner Researcher: Sandra Hardial Editor: Jess Quayle

(First broadcast 12pm Saturday 17th February 2024)

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:07.0	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.0	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:14.0	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for
0:21.7	Lucan. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex Fontunzelman. This is
0:27.8	the Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:39.3	New research, shared exclusively with Moneybox,
0:41.9	suggests most people don't know how much they're being charged by their pension provider
0:45.6	or how to find a cheaper one.
0:47.9	And for the first time, most couples in England and Wales who live together
0:50.9	are not married or in a civil partnership,
0:53.8	and that could mean financial
0:55.2	problems in the future. But first, the probate service is cutting access to its helpline for three
1:01.3	months, saying it will divert staff to tackle a backlog of cases. When someone dies and leave the
1:06.9	property in their own name or has significant savings or investments. The executors must apply for probate.
1:13.0	That's a legal document which gives them the right to deal with the dead person's estate
1:17.3	and distribute their assets.
1:19.6	But the time taken to grant probate has more than doubled over the last three years
1:24.0	from an average of around seven weeks to 15.
1:28.9	And some bereaved families have been facing delays of nearly a year. Malcolm, it was in Derbyshire. He had to wait almost 10 months
1:34.3	for probate to be granted after his wife died last year. I went to my financial advisor and said,
	...

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