South Australians being made to wait months, spend thousands to divide deceased estates

GRIEVING South Australians are waiting months and spending thousands to divide deceased estates as the probate registry struggles to bring the over-stretched system up to speed.

SOUTH Australians are waiting six times longer and paying thousands of dollars more than people interstate to get the legal approval to distribute the assets of a deceased person’s estate.

The issue has prompted calls for the State Government to feed more courts revenue into the justice system instead of into government coffers.

Law Society of SA President Tim Mellor told the Sunday Mail that, in SA, to get a grant of probate — the legal approval to distribute the assets of a deceased person’s estate — is far too time-consuming and costly.

“In SA, it currently can take up to 12 weeks, in some cases far longer, for a straightforward probate application to be approved,” Mr Mellor said.
“In most other jurisdictions the average wait is about two weeks.”

“This is unacceptable and can cause great anguish to family members waiting to execute a will.

“Many families do not have the money readily available to pay for funeral expenses upfront and may rely on the administering of a will to cover the costs.”

A State Government spokesman confirmed that there were problems with waiting times.

However, he stressed the issue was being addressed.

“The Probate registry is one of the hardest working parts of the SA justice system,” the spokesman said.

“Due to the high demand, this area often experiences delays.

“The Electronic Courts Management System is nearing completion, with the probate registry soon to be a benefactor of this streamlined document-management system.”

Mr Mellor hoped the new system would make a difference but said: “There is still concern over whether more complex applications will be processed within an acceptable time frame unless the registry is better resourced.”

He also raised concerns about the costs of probate applications.

“SA is the most expensive state to apply for probate and fees are calculated according to a sliding scale based on the gross value of an estate,” Mr Mellor said.

He said, as an example, the probate fee in SA for estates with a gross value of between $500,000 and $1 million is $2000 compared to Victoria where the fee for an estate of the same value is $350.

‘The probate registry is highly profitable but the money it generates does not go into improving the service of the registry,” he said.

“It instead is transferred to the government’s coffers.”

The State Government spokesman said that revenue from the justice system would assist the government in delivering $146 million to help compensate institutional victims of child sex abuse.