Some matters are straightforward, others take years to resolve. Either way, we will never give up.

We have recently wrapped up a matter that started in 2014 as a simple UK probate case with a few foreign shares.

We obtained the UK probate with ease and got to work on selling the foreign shares. It involved resealing the UK probate.

We sent off the paperwork to reseal the Grant in early 2015 and anticipated it would take around 3 months for the Grant to be issued. This is when the first obstacle appeared – apparently the Trinidad & Tobago probate registry had run out of paper(!) and they could not issue any Grants. At the end of 2016, 19 months later, we finally received the foreign Grant!

Very relieved, we immediately sent off the paperwork to the stockbrokers to sell the shares. Then came the next obstacle, the stockbrokers were not very efficient or very good at replying. They wanted an inordinate amount of information regarding the executor and all documents to be notarized.

Once this was complete, they finally confirmed they had in fact sold the shares! Hurrah! We informed the executor and asked for the funds to be sent to us as soon as possible so we could wrap up the estate. This is when the final obstacle appeared – there was no sterling currency available to send us the funds and it was anticipated that it would take years to be available.

Frustrated but not one to be defeated, we continued to chase the stockbroker in the hopes of a positive result; and we finally got one last week. The funds have been released and we received them promptly. The executor was delighted, as was the whole team here at Purely Probate.

The moral of the story is no task is impossible regardless of how many obstacles you encounter.

Contact Purely Probate if you require any assistance with foreign Probate.