RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Carolynxyz on Tuesday 12 August 25 23:05 BST (UK)
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Hello,
Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this question. Over the last three years I have tried to order five wills from the UK Government website. Only once have I been successful. On the other four occasions, when I have been told to download the document, I get a form statement saying that the document could not be found and to check the details I provided for accuracy. The details I gave came from the Probate Calendar and I know the information is accurate. Has anyone else had this problem? When I click on the Contact Us link for help with the order, no link can be made. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you, Carolyn
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Hi Carolyn,
You are not alone. I ordered an Admon (not a will) in early July but got no response so after 4 weeks had elapsed I emailed to find out when I might expect an answer. I received a very speedy reply (possibly automated) which said I had entered 22 for one of the dates which should have been 21. I was very surprised by this as I thought I had checked everything. Anyway assuming that I had made a mistake I submitted a new order carefully checking that all the details were correct and I immediately got back their standard 'no find.pdf' response (below). I guessed that this was the system just resending the response to my original submission and so I emailed the helpdesk again only to be told that there was no fault and I had resubmitted the wrong information a second time and that I needed to resubmit. What's more they deleted all trace of my earlier submissions. I knew this was untrue and so I responded that since they already had all the correct details they should fulfill my order without me spending another £1.50 just to get a copy of the Grant (there was no will). They said they couldn't/wouldn't and that I needed to complain to HM Courts and Tribunals Service if I wasn't happy. I got fed up with wasting time and I haven't raised the issue with HMCTS as it was only an admon which I wanted to establish the name and address of the person I suspect had applied for the Letters of Administration.
I suspect that their system is highly automated and that the humans have very little ability to manually sort things out once the system says there is an 'error' with an order. This explains the very affordable £1.50 fee, but is not an acceptable service.
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Hi Carolyn
I've ordered 51 wills and only once have I had a problem (the message that no documents could be found). It was my error - I had omitted the decedent's middle name when I placed the order.
If you're entering all the information exactly as it appears in the probate calendar you shouldn't be having this problem, and certainly an 20% success rate is outrageous.
If I were you I'd be tempted to make that complaint anyway - it's not necessarily just about this one admin file, but the totality of the service you've received. Explain to them this has happened to you 4 out of 5 times. Surely that'd get them to realise something is seriously wrong here!
As you say, yes it's nice and affordable, but regardless you deserve a much better level of service. Sorry I can't be more helpful other than to say best of luck and please keep us informed.
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Thank you both for replying to my question.
Do either of you know about folio numbers? The standard (rejection) form I received states "Folio numbers are only required where the date range is 1858-1930 and the registry is London or Principal Registry. This implies that I should have provided a folio number, but the Probate Calendar entry for my Richard Franklin of Balsall Heath, died 14th Jan 1884, probate granted February 7th 1884 at the Principal Registry", does not have one. Could this be the problem, do you think? I accessed the Probate Calendar at Ancestry. I am still unable to make the link at the end of the download notification to ask for help.
Thanks, Carolyn
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I have just sent an email to HMCTSWills@ironmountain.co.uk (hopefully this is the Help Desk) to see if they can shed light on the matter. Fingers crossed I get a response and a way to get my will, though I'm not holding my breath!
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Carolyn, because the the probate calendar that you are copying often has the details in the opposite order to the order form, it is incredibly easy to put the date of death and date of probate the wrong way round. I have done that more than once and caught it just in time. Although the only time I got one rejected I had used a date from the entry above!
However - note that your Richard DOES have a folio number. It is 114. (Folio numbers are usually hand written additions to the page.)
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Thanks, Garden Genie. I am intrigued! I just checked the Probate Calendar at Ancestry, and there is definitely no folio number. Are you looking at a different Probate Calendar elsewhere? Is there also a place for a folio number on the Find a Will application form that I am missing? I am feeling a little more encouraged now.
Carolyn
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I would search the Probate Calendar on the Government website when I want to order a will. I only use the one on Ancestry if I just want to see if there was a Will and to whom probate was granted. Sometimes Ancestry differs from the Government site.
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The ONLY place to search is https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/ ;)
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Well I have just checked the Franklins on Ancestry and the volume they have scanned for 1884 does not have folio numbers on it. Surely the whole set can't be short of them or it would be mentioned more often?
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I would search the Probate Calendar on the Government website when I want to order a will. I only use the one on Ancestry if I just want to see if there was a Will and to whom probate was granted. Sometimes Ancestry differs from the Government site.
If you do as I and others have advised and use the proper Government website, NOT Ancestry, you will find several Franklins have Folio numbers, as you have already been told Richard’s Folio number is 114 hand written in large numerals.
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Well I have just checked the Franklins on Ancestry and the volume they have scanned for 1884 does not have folio numbers on it. Surely the whole set can't be short of them or it would be mentioned more often?
The Ancestry images have been scanned from a version that doesn't have folio numbers on. The government website version has the folio numbers.
This does get raised here from time to time.
Searching the Ancestry version is fine... the search is far more flexible than the official one and more likely to produce better results... but when placing an order the government website version should be the only source.
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How helpful people are. I appreciate everyone's response. I thought I finally had it cracked. I used the government site, filled out the order form, including the folio number, and put the order in my basket. I clicked on my basket and got the following message: "There is a problem. HTTP/1.1500 returned - please contact your administrator." Sigh! So where do I go from here, I wonder?! I'll try it with a different order to see if that yields the same message, I think.
Carolyn
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So I just tried placing an order for a different will. It's taken my payment, so now I'll have to wait and see if I get the will or a standard form saying the document is not found! Fingers crossed. Thank you to everyone who has tried to help me with this problem. It's now a waiting game.
Carolyn
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So, I have had two replies from the help desk, and it's a cautionary tale. The first one said I had made a mistake with the registry. It should be Principal Registry, not Worcester, they said. They sent me a screen shot of my order, which showed that I had stated the Principal Registry! The second response was a form letter:
Dear Customer. We are currently experiencing some technical issues with our online ordering service, which are causing some customers to receive an error message when attempting to change their passwords. Our IT team is currently investigating this problem, and it appears to be a temporary glitch that has affected a limited number of customers. In the meantime, we recommend ordering a hard copy whilst we are trying to solve the issue.
Of course, as I pointed out to them, I have had this problem since 2022, so it is not a temporary glitch in my case. Nor am I trying to change my password! I will not be ordering a hard copy, because I live in Canada and cannot write them the cheque they say is how I must pay. A banker's draft would make this expensive too. I am not at all impressed with this service, I'm afraid!
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Carolyn, I share your unhappiness with the service. Unfortunately the HMCTS have outsourced the service to Iron Mountain, who being a tech company, you would think would know how to build a reliable website and fulfillment service, but I guess it's all being done on the cheap, with most of the day-to-day stuff handled by automation, (I hesitate to use the dreaded words AI). How can reverting to hard copies be a solution? The mind boggles.