How Long an Irish Grant Takes When the Executor Lives Abroad

The question every executor abroad asks first is how long it will take, and the honest answer has two parts. The Irish Probate Office’s own processing time for a clean application is measured in weeks, and we set out the current position for domestic estates in how long probate takes in Ireland. The cross-border file adds a second timeline that runs before the first: the time it takes to assemble an application that the office will accept, from documents that have to be produced in three countries. That second timeline is where non-resident estates gain or lose months, and it is almost entirely a function of how the file is run.

Phase One: Assembly

Assembly starts with the asset schedule and the family picture, and from the first week it should have four slow items running in parallel. The sealed or exemplified copy of the foreign grant, ordered from the court that issued it, which takes anywhere from days in some English registries to many weeks in some US county courts. PPS numbers for the deceased and every beneficiary who does not have one, applied for through the Irish system from abroad, which is the item that most often sets the overall pace; see the PPS number bottleneck. Date-of-death valuations from each Irish institution, which arrive at their own speed. And identification and certified translations, which depend on the family. Where no foreign grant exists, an affidavit of foreign law from a lawyer in the country of domicile joins the list. Run in sequence, these items take the sum of their times. Run together, they take the longest of them.

Phase Two: Revenue

Once the schedule and the PPS numbers are in, the Statement of Affairs (Form SA.2) is filed with Revenue online, and Revenue issues the acknowledgement that goes with the probate application. On a file where the figures are complete and the PPS numbers are correct this is quick. Where a PPS number is missing or an asset is unvalued, it cannot be filed at all. Revenue may raise queries on the form, particularly on cross-border estates with foreign assets or unusual beneficiaries, and answering them is part of the timeline. We do not advise on tax, and where the estate needs an accountant’s input on the figures their work has to be slotted in here. The form is explained in the SA.2 Statement of Affairs explained.

Phase Three: The Sworn Papers

The probate papers are drafted while Revenue is pending and sent to the applicant as soon as the acknowledgement issues, or earlier where the office’s requirements allow. The round trip is a courier out, an appointment with a notary, and a courier back: a week from the UK, two from Australia, depending on the applicant’s diary. Scans are checked before the originals leave, because a defective jurat or a missing exhibit signature means the whole round trip again, and the Probate Office will not accept the application without the originals. The detail is in swearing Irish probate papers abroad.

Phase Four: The Office

Lodgement, the queue, and the grant. A non-resident application joins the same queue as every other and is processed in the same way; the office does not run a slower lane for foreign files. If the application is complete it issues in the office’s current time. If it is queried, it waits for the answer and then rejoins the queue. For most non-resident estates this phase is the shortest of the four, which surprises executors who assumed the Irish bureaucracy would be the problem.

Phase Five: After the Grant

Accounts and shares release in weeks. Property takes as long as an Irish sale takes, which is why the sale process, from valuation to marketing to a contract conditional on the grant, is started during the earlier phases rather than after them, as described in selling Irish property from abroad. Distribution to beneficiaries abroad follows once the estate’s Irish obligations are discharged. The whole journey, from first email to funds in foreign accounts, is typically measured in months for an estate where a foreign grant already exists and the beneficiaries cooperate, and in more months where documents have to be reconstructed, PPS numbers obtained for a large family, or a property sold. We give a realistic estimate for the particular file at the outset and update it at each phase.