Revenue has teamed up with the Courts Service’s Probate Office on an initiative which aims to make it easier for people to apply for probate or administration.

They have launched a new online version of the Inland Revenue Affidavit (Form CA.24), called the ‘Statement of Affairs (Probate)’ (Form SA.2).

First stage

This is a new online first stage to filing and processing an application for probate or administration.

Revenue and the Probate Office hope the move will reduce previous common errors, and allow applicants to file efficiently from their office or home.

They stress that the second stage in the process will still require solicitors and personal applicants, such as executors or administrators of an estate, to ensure that the required papers for the administration of the estate, now including the Form SA.2, are received in hard copy by the Probate Office.

Efficiencies

The Probate Office will confirm to Revenue on ROS the date of issue of the grant in each application and summary information will be available to the Probate Office online – linking up both stages.

The new procedures will cover new probate applications for deaths occurring on or after 5 December, 2001.

Courts Service chief executive Angela Denning (pictured) said the new form would being efficiencies and should speed up the overall probate process for everyone involved.

“Working collaboratively with partners such as Revenue and with the users, in this case including the Law Society, to improve the user experience, is the approach we are taking in the Courts Service across all projects under our modernisation programme, planned for the next ten years,” she said.

Steps

The changes will mean that solicitors and personal applicants will need to follow a number of steps to go through the probate process and also to prove a will:

• Solicitors and personal applicants for probate need to log on to ROS or MyAccount to complete and submit to Revenue a new online version called the SA.2,
• When this application stage is completed and submitted electronically, Revenue automatically generates a Notice of Acknowledgement (Probate) with a unique number and headline information for the Probate Office,
• The notice must be printed and submitted by the executor to the Probate Office along with other required papers related to the administration of the estate. From today (14 September), the Probate Office will accept only new Grant of Probate applications that include Revenue’s acknowledgment document,
• Once the application is approved and the Grant of Probate issues, the Probate Office will notify Revenue electronically,
• The Form SA.2 will then be activated on Revenue systems and beneficiaries will be contacted to file their IT38 if they reach the required thresholds. Further information on CAT thresholds can be found on the Revenue website.

Changes

The new form will remove the need to complete a follow-up Corrective Affidavit (Form CA.26), where errors or omissions are discovered after the form is sent to Revenue.

The new Form SA.2 can be amended after a grant has already been issued, if changes need to be made to details already submitted.

The new system will also remove the need to complete a paper Form A3C for second or subsequent (De Bonis Non) grant applications concerning deaths occurring on or after 5 December 2001.