Probate Explained: How It Works in the UK, Step by Step

Picture a dining table a month after a funeral. On it there is a shoebox of bank letters, a laptop open at a government website, and a brown envelope containing a will that names you as executor. The building society has written to say it cannot release your mother's savings until it sees a "grant of representation". The estate agent wants to know when the house can go on the market. And you are still not entirely sure what probate actually is.

You are far from alone. Around 1,800 people die in the UK every day, as we explained in how many people die in the UK every day, part of the roughly 170,000 deaths a day you can watch on our live counter. Behind a large share of those deaths, someone ends up at a table like this, learning the probate process from scratch, usually while grieving.

This guide explains it in plain English. It focuses on England and Wales, with notes on Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the rules are different.

What probate actually is

Probate is the legal process that gives someone the right to deal with a person's estate after they die: their money, property and possessions. In England and Wales, that right comes in a document from the Probate Registry, part of HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

Situation	Document you receive	Who it goes to
There is a valid will naming executors	Grant of probate	The executor or executors
There is no will, or no executor can act	Letters of administration	The closest eligible relative, usually
Scotland	Confirmation	The executor, through the sheriff court
Northern Ireland	Grant of probate or letters of administration	Through the Probate Office in Belfast

People often say "probate" to mean all of these, and to mean the whole job of sorting out an estate. Strictly, the grant is just the key that unlocks the estate. The work of collecting money, paying debts and passing things on, known as administering the estate, comes afterwards.

How many people go through it

Probate is far from a rare event. Around 660,000 people die in the UK each year, a small slice of the global toll on our live death counter. HMCTS issued roughly 295,000 grants of representation in England and Wales in 2025, according to figures reported by the accountancy body ICAEW.

Time period	Approx. UK deaths	Approx. probate grants (England and Wales)
Per year	660,000	295,000
Per month	55,000	24,600
Per week	12,700	5,700
Per day	1,800	810
Per hour	75	34

The gap between the two columns is mostly estates that do not need a grant at all, plus estates in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which are counted separately.

Do you need probate?

Not always. According to GOV.UK, you may not need probate if the person who died only had savings, or if everything they owned was held jointly and passes automatically to the surviving owner. The deciding factor is usually whether the banks, building societies, pension providers and other organisations holding their assets will release the money without a grant.

Asset	Is probate usually needed?
Joint bank account	No. It normally passes straight to the surviving holder
House owned as "joint tenants"	No. It passes automatically to the surviving owner
House owned in the sole name, or as "tenants in common"	Usually yes, to sell or transfer the share
Bank or building society account in sole name	Depends on the balance and the bank's own limit
Shares and investments in sole name	Usually yes, above small amounts
Life insurance written in trust	No. It is paid to the trustees directly
Pensions with a nominated beneficiary	Usually no; the provider pays out under its own rules

Each bank sets its own limit for releasing money without a grant, and these vary widely. Our guide to what happens to your bank account when you die explains how that works and how joint accounts are treated. The safest approach is to write to each organisation, tell them the balance or value, and ask whether they need to see a grant.

Step one: find the will, and the paperwork

Before anything else, the executor needs to find the will, if there is one, and build a picture of what the person owned and owed. This is where many families get stuck for weeks. There is no central register of bank accounts. Pensions, old ISAs and premium bonds can sit in forgotten corners. A will made years ago may be held by a solicitor the family has never heard of.

If there is no will, the estate passes under the intestacy rules, which we explain in what happens if you die without a will in the UK. Letters of administration then usually go to the nearest relative under those rules.

The single biggest thing anyone can do to make probate easier for their family is to leave a clear map: where the will is kept, which banks and providers they use, and where the paperwork lives.

Step two: value the estate and check inheritance tax

The executor has to estimate the value of everything the person owned at the date of death, minus their debts. Even if no inheritance tax is due, GOV.UK says you still need these figures for the probate application.

For deaths on or after 1 January 2022, most estates that do not owe inheritance tax are "excepted estates". In that case there is no separate HMRC form: the values go straight into the probate application. The old IHT205 form is no longer used for those deaths. If the estate does not qualify as excepted, the executor must complete the full IHT400 return instead.

Inheritance tax basics	Current position
Nil-rate band (tax-free allowance)	£325,000
Residence nil-rate band (home left to children or grandchildren)	up to £175,000
Maximum for a married couple or civil partners	up to £1,000,000 combined
Residence allowance taper	Reduced by £1 for every £2 the estate is worth above £2 million
Thresholds frozen until	at least April 2030
Payment deadline	By the end of the sixth month after the death, or interest is charged

Anything left to a spouse or civil partner is normally free of inheritance tax, and unused allowances can usually pass to them. If IHT400 is needed, GOV.UK says you must wait for a code from HMRC, normally 20 working days after sending the form, before you can apply for probate. Any tax due usually has to be at least partly paid before the grant is issued, which can be awkward when the money is locked in the estate. Some banks will release funds directly to HMRC to help with this.

Step three: apply for probate

Most people now apply online through GOV.UK, which is faster than paper. You will need the original will, the death certificate details, and the estate values from step two.

Probate fee (England and Wales, GOV.UK)	Cost
Estate worth £5,000 or less	No fee
Estate worth over £5,000	£526
Extra official copies, ordered with the application	£2 each
Extra copies ordered later	£16 each
Second application after a grant	£22

The main fee rose from £300 to £526 in July 2026. Extra copies are worth ordering at the start, because banks, pension providers and the Land Registry often want to see an official copy, and a cheap copy now saves days of posting the same document back and forth.

How long probate takes

Waiting times rose sharply in 2023 and have since come down. Ministry of Justice figures showed an average of about 6.3 weeks from submitting an application to the grant in April 2025: 4.9 weeks for digital applications and 12.8 weeks for paper ones. HMCTS still advises people to allow longer, because applications that are stopped for missing documents or errors take much longer.

Stage	Typical time
Finding the will and listing assets	A few weeks to a few months
Valuing the estate, including the house	1 to 3 months
HMRC code if IHT400 is needed	At least 20 working days
Grant after a complete digital application	Around 5 weeks on recent averages
Collecting assets, paying debts and distributing	Several months, often 6 to 12 in total

Overall, a straightforward estate often takes six to twelve months from death to final distribution. Estates with property sales, inheritance tax, missing assets or family disagreements can take much longer.

Step four: administer the estate

Once the grant arrives, the executor can collect the money, sell or transfer property, and pay what is owed. The executor is personally responsible for doing this properly, so it is worth being methodical.

Executor duty	What it involves
Collect the assets	Send the grant to each bank, provider and registrar to close or transfer accounts
Pay the debts	Funeral costs, tax and creditors come before anything goes to beneficiaries
Protect against unknown creditors	Placing a deceased estates notice (under section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925) gives creditors at least two months to come forward
Watch the claims window	Some relatives and dependants can claim against the estate within 6 months of the grant
Keep accounts	Record every payment in and out, to show beneficiaries
Distribute	Pass on gifts and the remainder according to the will or intestacy rules

Debts are paid from the estate, not by the family personally, unless someone was a joint borrower or guarantor. If there is not enough to go round, strict rules decide who is paid first. Our guide to what happens to your debts when you die explains this in detail, including what happens when an estate is insolvent. Funeral costs normally come first, and they are not small: our article on how much a funeral costs puts a typical UK total at around £5,140.

Many executors wait until the 6-month claims window has passed before making final payments to beneficiaries. That protects them if someone challenges the will.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland has a separate system called confirmation. The executor applies to the sheriff court, using an inventory of the estate (form C1). For a "small estate" worth £36,000 or less, the sheriff clerk's office can help prepare the paperwork, which makes the process simpler and cheaper for families without a solicitor.

Northern Ireland uses grants of probate and letters of administration like England and Wales, but applications go through the Probate Office in Belfast, with its own forms and fees. Check nidirect for the current process and costs before applying.

Common causes of delay

Most probate delays come from a short list of avoidable problems.

Cause of delay	How to avoid it
The will cannot be found, or only a copy exists	Keep the original somewhere safe and tell your executor where it is
Unknown accounts and policies	Leave a written list of banks, pensions and insurers
Mistakes or missing documents in the application	Check every figure and send the original will promptly
Waiting for the HMRC code	Submit IHT400 early if it is needed
Property valuation disputes	Use a proper professional valuation for the house
Family disagreements	A clear, up-to-date will reduces the room for argument

Look closely at that list and almost every item comes back to the same thing: how well organised the person who died was. Families whose relative left a will, a list of accounts and a note of where everything is kept often finish in months. Families starting from a shoebox can spend a year piecing a life back together.

What you can do now

If you are dealing with probate today, take it one step at a time. Our step-by-step guide to what to do when someone dies in the UK sets out the earlier stages, from registering the death to Tell Us Once, and for complex or taxable estates a solicitor or probate specialist is often worth the cost.

If you are thinking about your own family, two things make the biggest difference. The first is a valid will, and our Will Calculator is a gentle place to start. The second is writing down where everything is, which is what our When I'm Gone planner was designed for: a fillable PDF that records your documents, accounts, wishes and the people to notify, without ever storing a password. For the bigger picture, read what your family needs to know when you're gone.

While you were reading

In the twelve minutes it took to read this guide, about 15 people died in the UK and around 1,400 around the world. You can watch the count in real time or see today's running total. For many of those UK families, probate is one of the next big tasks waiting for them. A little preparation now can turn it from a year of searching into a few months of paperwork.

Sources: GOV.UK, Applying for probate and Probate fees; GOV.UK, Apply for probate with MyHMCTS (HMRC code and 20 working days); HMRC Inheritance Tax Manual (excepted estates); GOV.UK inheritance tax thresholds; Ministry of Justice family court statistics on probate waiting times (April 2025), as reported; HMCTS grant figures for 2025 as reported by ICAEW; Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, guide to dealing with a deceased's estate in Scotland; nidirect. Fees, thresholds and timescales change, so check GOV.UK before you apply. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. For complex estates, inheritance tax or disputes, speak to a solicitor or regulated probate professional.