Independent. Nothing to sell, nothing to sign up to.

Need to talk now? Samaritans 116 123 All helplines

The long tail

Probate and paperwork

This is the part that runs for six to twelve months after everybody else has stopped ringing. Most of it is dull rather than difficult, and a good deal of it can be done without a solicitor.

Published 4 min read

What actually has to be done, and in what order

  1. Register the death and obtain certified copies. See registering a death .
  2. Use Tell Us Once for the government side. See Tell Us Once .
  3. Find the will and identify the executor. Check with the deceased’s solicitor, the bank, and the National Will Register if you cannot find one.
  4. Secure the assets — the property, the vehicle, anything valuable. Tell the buildings insurer that the house is unoccupied, because most policies restrict cover after 30 days and an unnotified empty house is a common and expensive discovery.
  5. List everything the person owned and owed, with a value at the date of death.
  6. Work out whether probate is needed, and whether there is inheritance tax to pay.
  7. Apply for probate (or Confirmation, in Scotland).
  8. Pay the debts, in the correct order, then distribute the estate.
  9. Keep the paperwork — a set of accounts showing what came in, what went out and who received what.

Who has to be told

Tell Us Once handles the government departments. Everything below is yours:

Money: banks and building societies, credit cards, loans, hire purchase and car finance, the mortgage lender, investment and share accounts, Premium Bonds and NS&I, private and workplace pension providers, life insurers, and any other insurer.

The home: the landlord or the mortgage lender, buildings and contents insurers, the utilities, water, broadband, mobile, TV licence, and the Royal Mail if post needs redirecting.

Everything else: the employer, the GP surgery and any hospital clinics, the dentist and optician, subscriptions and memberships, clubs, charities taking direct debits, and any online accounts. Most large online services now have a bereavement process, and they are better than they used to be.

The Death Notification Service covers several major banks and building societies in one online form, and is worth doing first.

Probate, briefly

England, Wales and Northern Ireland. A Grant of Probate where there is a will naming an executor; Letters of Administration where there is not. Applied for online or on paper. The fee in England and Wales is £300 for estates over £5,000, with extra copies a few pounds each.

Scotland. The equivalent is Confirmation, applied for through the sheriff court, with its own fee scale and a different inventory process.

You may not need it at all. Assets held jointly — a house owned as joint tenants, a joint bank account — usually pass to the survivor automatically. Each bank sets its own threshold below which it will release funds without a grant, and those thresholds are often in the tens of thousands. Ask each institution before assuming: it is one telephone call and it can remove the whole exercise.

Inheritance tax

Most estates pay none.

  • Nil-rate band: £325,000.
  • Residence nil-rate band: up to £175,000 more where the home passes to children or grandchildren.
  • Both are frozen until April 2030.
  • Anything passing to a spouse or civil partner is exempt, and the survivor can normally inherit the unused proportion of the first death’s bands — which is where the familiar “£1 million for a couple” figure comes from.
  • Above the threshold, the rate is 40%, with a reduced 36% rate where at least 10% of the net estate goes to charity.
  • Unused pension funds are due to be brought within inheritance tax from April 2027, which changes the arithmetic materially for a lot of estates and is worth advice if it applies.

There is a hard deadline: inheritance tax is generally due by the end of the sixth month after death, and it usually has to be paid before probate is granted — which produces the awkward position of needing money from an estate you cannot yet access. Banks will normally release funds directly to HMRC for this purpose under a specific scheme, and HMRC allows tax on property to be paid in instalments.

When to use a solicitor

Do it yourself where the estate is simple: a property, a few accounts, a pension, a clear will, no tax to pay.

Use a solicitor where there is a business or agricultural property, assets abroad, a trust, a disputed or homemade will, a possible inheritance tax liability, an insolvent estate, or a beneficiary who is a child or lacks capacity — and equally where you simply do not have the time or the stomach for it, which is a perfectly good reason.

Ask for a fixed fee and compare it against a percentage-of-estate quote. On a typical estate with a house in it, the difference between the two is frequently several thousand pounds for identical work.

Registering a death · Tell Us Once · Help with funeral costs · The first year

  • Six to twelve months is normal

    A straightforward estate takes most of a year end to end. Probate itself is currently measured in weeks to a few months; the banks and pension providers take longer than the court does.

  • You may not need probate at all

    Small estates, jointly held property and jointly held accounts frequently pass without it. Ask each institution what its own threshold is before assuming.

  • You are not liable for their debts

    Debts are paid from the estate, not by relatives. Nobody inherits a debt they did not guarantee or hold jointly — whatever a caller says on the telephone.

Questions people ask us most

What is probate and do I need it?
Probate is the legal authority to deal with someone’s estate — in England, Wales and Northern Ireland a Grant of Probate where there is a will, or Letters of Administration where there is not; in Scotland it is called Confirmation. You need it where an asset holder demands it, which in practice means larger bank balances, any property held in the deceased’s sole name, and most investments. Jointly held property and accounts usually pass to the survivor without it, and small balances are often released on a simple form.
How much does probate cost?
The application fee in England and Wales is £300 for estates over £5,000, and nothing below that; extra copies of the grant are a few pounds each. Scotland and Northern Ireland charge on their own scales. That is the court fee only — a solicitor doing the whole administration typically charges between 1% and 5% of the estate, or an hourly rate, and for a straightforward estate a great many executors do it themselves.
Is there inheritance tax to pay?
Most estates pay none. The nil-rate band is £325,000, with an additional residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 where a home passes to children or grandchildren, and both are frozen until April 2030. Anything left to a spouse or civil partner is exempt, and a surviving spouse can normally inherit the unused portion of the first partner’s bands — which is why many couples’ estates have up to £1m of allowance between them. Above the threshold the rate is 40%. Get advice if the estate is near the line, and note that unused pension funds are due to come within the charge from April 2027.
Do I need a solicitor?
Not necessarily. Executors can and frequently do apply for probate themselves online, and for a simple estate — a house, a couple of bank accounts, a pension — the work is administrative rather than legal. Use a solicitor where there is a business, agricultural or foreign property, a trust, a dispute, an unclear or homemade will, a possible inheritance tax liability, or where you simply do not want the job. Compare a fixed fee against a percentage: the difference on a modest estate can be thousands.
What if there is no will?
The estate passes under the intestacy rules, which are fixed by statute and differ between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They favour spouses and children in a set order. The rules ignore unmarried partners entirely in England and Wales, however long the relationship — a partner may have to make a claim under separate legislation to receive anything at all. This is the single most common source of hardship and of family litigation after a death.
Am I responsible for the deceased's debts?
No, unless you held the debt jointly or guaranteed it. Debts are paid out of the estate, in a legal order of priority, and if the estate cannot cover them it is insolvent and the creditors go unpaid. Debt collectors do sometimes imply otherwise to relatives; they are wrong. If the estate looks insolvent, take advice before paying anybody anything, because paying the wrong creditor first can make an executor personally liable.
How long does the whole thing take?
Six to twelve months for a straightforward estate. The grant itself is usually a matter of weeks to a few months. What takes the time is everything else: valuing assets, waiting on pension providers and share registrars, selling a property, and the six-month period executors normally allow for claims against the estate before distributing. Executors are not expected to finish inside a year — the ’executor’s year’ is a real convention and nobody should be pressing you inside it.

Keep reading

Other pages in this guide

  • Registering a death

    The deadline, who can do it, what to take, and how many certificates to buy.

  • Tell Us Once

    One conversation that notifies most of government, instead of twenty separate letters.

  • Choosing a funeral director

    How to compare firms in fifteen minutes, what to ask, and what you can refuse.

  • Burial or cremation

    The one decision that changes the cost most — and what each option actually involves.

  • Planning the service

    Who leads it, what goes in it, how to write a eulogy, and how long you actually have.

  • What to do with ashes

    Where you may scatter, what needs permission, and why there is no hurry at all.

You do not have to work this out in one sitting

Very little has to be done on the first day, and almost nothing has to be decided tonight. Start with the step-by-step guide, and if you need a person rather than a page, the helplines are free and answered by people who do this every day.

Start with the first steps Where to get help