By Helen Tovey
Following a price reduction in the ‘Find a will’ service in July, when the cost for ordering post-1858 wills for England and Wales dropped from £10 to £1.50 per will, many family historians have taken up the offer and the service has been inevitably inundated. This has led to frustration with the service, particularly as customers have noted their orders aren’t being fulfilled in sequence.
FT reader Ruth Simpson writes: ‘I ordered one will on 11 August and had not yet received it 74 days later, yet I’ve received some ordered later. I’ve contacted them several times, but only received automatic replies saying they were busy. They offer no explanation why the will hasn’t been sent. I suspect they are doing them at random rather than in order of receipt, which isn’t fair to those who are waiting.’ Others, while frustrated, are prepared to wait. Joanne Phillips said: ‘I expect the service is desperately underresourced having totally failed to predict how popular this new facility would be. It is very good value for money and is definitely worth the wait, so hopefully they will be revising their delivery times to something more realistic.’