“It’s in probate” has become Ireland’s explanation for every frozen estate — and it is out of date. The system has genuinely modernised: an online eProbate platform rolled out nationally, national average processing around eleven weeks in 2025, an eight-week Government target. Which makes the two-year “stuck” estate a diagnosis question: if it isn’t the system any more, what is it? This page answers both halves — the honest timeline, and the honest diagnosis.
Most people arrive at these pages while grieving. We run these files with that in mind: plain answers, no pressure, and matters moved forward so you don’t have to carry the process as well as the loss.
The Timeline, Honestly
Three legs, not one: assembly — assets identified, valuations obtained, the Revenue SA.2 completed, the application built (weeks to months, and where most avoidable time is actually lost); the office — now averaging weeks rather than the folkloric year, with times varying by registry and published by the Courts Service (confirm current figures when they matter to you); and administration after the grant — collection, sale, debts, distribution, the leg the “executor’s year” benchmarks. End-to-end, a straightforward estate is realistically months; complexity adds honestly. The system’s one genuine trap: rejected applications lose their queue place entirely — and the leading rejection causes (defective jurats, name and address inconsistencies across the will, death certificate and SA.2) are precisely the errors right-first-time preparation exists to prevent. That, plainly, is the case for the professional application.
Diagnosing the Stuck Estate
“It’s just probate” survives about ten minutes of specific questions. The real candidates, each with a different fix: never lodged (the named executor drifting — citations exist); rejected and drifting (resubmission, right this time); granted long ago — the delay since is a person, and the beneficiary’s machinery engages, from the framed letter to removal; a dispute nobody named — a caveat on the record, a family standoff, a challenge waiting; or genuine complexity — foreign assets, missing beneficiaries, title problems — which deserves a plan rather than a shrug. The grant date is public record and checking it is often the revelation: two minutes on the Stuck Estate Navigator runs the diagnosis; one confidential call runs it properly and names the fix.
Two Years of 'It's in Probate'?
Ten specific questions usually find the real blockage - and every blockage has a mapped fix. Bring the dates you know; we'll establish the ones you don't.
Call 01 5827148