This page explains what the market charges and why. If you want the figures for a specific estate value - including the copies of the grant you will need - our probate cost calculator compares all five routes side by side on a slider, using the same underlying figures as the table below. It takes about twenty seconds and it is the fastest way to see what a percentage-based quote is actually costing you.
What probate costs by route and estate value
This is the table that matters, and it is the one almost nobody publishes, because it makes the pricing look as strange as it is. Each row is a way of getting the same grant of probate and administering the same estate. The legal outcome is identical in every row. Only the invoice changes.
Every figure includes the unavoidable court costs of £534 - the £526 application fee plus £8 for 4 extra copies of the grant ordered with the application. Professional fees shown are typical market rates for comparison. They are not quotes, and a real quote will depend on the estate.
| Route | £100,000 estate | £250,000 estate | £500,000 estate | £1,000,000 estate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Do it yourself Court fee and copies only | £534 | £534 | £534 | £534 |
Fixed fee - grant only (~£900) A provider gets the grant, you do the rest | £1,434 | £1,434 | £1,434 | £1,434 |
Fixed fee - full administration (~£2,500) One agreed price for the whole estate | £3,034 | £3,034 | £3,034 | £3,034 |
Solicitor at 2.5% of the estate Typical percentage-based full administration | £3,034 | £6,784 | £13,034 | £25,534 |
Bank or trust corporation at 4% Named executor in the will, often with a minimum fee | £4,534 | £10,534 | £20,534 | £40,534 |
England and Wales, July 2026. Court fee verified against GOV.UK: £526 for estates over £5,000, raised from £300 on 13 July 2026. Professional fees are typical market rates used for comparison, not quotes or offers. Solicitor percentages in practice range from 1% to 5% and are sometimes charged alongside an hourly rate. Bank and trust corporation fees often carry a minimum, which can make small estates proportionally worse. Excludes conveyancing, valuations, Gazette notices and any inheritance tax.
Read across the £500,000 row and the point lands on its own. Doing it yourself costs £534. A bank executor at 4% costs £20,534. That is a difference of roughly £20,000 for the same grant, the same distribution and the same beneficiaries. Read down the columns instead and you see the other half of the story: the two fixed-fee rows barely move as the estate grows, while the two percentage rows multiply. On a £100,000 estate a 2.5% solicitor fee and a fixed full-administration fee are in the same neighbourhood. By £1,000,000 they are ten times apart.
The £526 court fee and the July 2026 rise
There is one flat fee to apply for a grant of probate in England and Wales - or letters of administration, if there is no valid will. It is £526 for any estate worth more than £5,000, and nothing at all for estates at or below that threshold. It does not scale. A £6,000 estate and a £6 million estate pay the same £526, which is worth remembering the next time somebody explains that their fee has to be a percentage because the estate is large.
That fee rose from £300 to £526 on 13 July 2026, an increase of about 75%. This matters more than a fee change normally would, because the change is recent and the internet has not caught up. Comparison articles, charity factsheets and a surprising number of law firm websites still quote £300. If a page you are reading gives you that number - or a quote breaks down its disbursements at £300 - it predates the change and anything else on it may be stale too.
Extra copies of the grant cost £2 each when you order them at the same time as the application, and £16 each if you go back for them afterwards - eight times the price for exactly the same document.
Almost every institution holding an asset will want to see a certified copy, and many are slow about returning it, so copies in circulation are what keeps the administration moving. Count the banks, the investment providers, the share registrar, the pension scheme, the insurer and the Land Registry, then add two or three spares. Ordering 10 copies with the application costs £20. Ordering the same 10 later costs £160. It is the single easiest saving on this page and it is entirely a matter of thinking ahead by five minutes.
Before you pay anything, it is worth checking whether you need a grant at all. Assets held as joint tenants pass automatically to the surviving owner by survivorship, outside the estate, and most banks will release a modest balance under their own small-estates limit on an indemnity form. Our guides on what probate is and applying for probate cover that ground; there is no point comparing quotes for a process you do not have to go through.
Why percentage fees are a trap
The work of administering an estate is broadly the same whatever the estate is worth. You value the assets, complete the application, deal with any inheritance tax, collect the money, settle the debts, distribute to the beneficiaries and keep accounts that stand up to scrutiny. That list does not lengthen because the house is in a more expensive postcode.
A percentage fee prices the estate rather than the work, and that produces some genuinely odd results:
- Value drives the bill, complexity does not. A £1,000,000 estate made up of one house and three bank accounts is simpler than a £200,000 estate with a half-share in a business, a disputed will and a beneficiary who cannot be traced. On a percentage basis the simple one costs five times as much.
- The house does most of the charging. In most estates the property is the bulk of the value. A percentage fee therefore charges heavily for an asset whose administration is largely handled - and separately billed - by a conveyancer.
- Percentages sometimes sit on top of hourly rates. Some firms charge a "value element" alongside time costs. Read any engagement letter for that combination specifically, and ask for a single number.
- Minimum fees hurt small estates. Bank and trust corporation quotes commonly carry a minimum of several thousand pounds, so a modest estate can end up paying an effective rate far above the headline percentage.
This is not a fringe complaint. The Legal Ombudsman has criticised unclear pricing in probate work, and the SRA's transparency rules require firms to publish price information for it. That gives you a practical starting point: a firm's own website should tell you its pricing model before you ever pick up the phone, and any firm that will not put a fixed figure in writing afterwards is telling you something useful.
A professional executor named in the will is not immovable. It can renounce probate provided it has not yet "intermeddled" in the estate - meaning it has not already begun dealing with the assets. Many will agree to step aside if the family asks, particularly where the will also names family executors who can act instead.
So ask, in writing, before you accept anything. Ask early, because intermeddling closes the door. If the answer is no, you are still entitled to negotiate the fee, and two or three comparison quotes are the only leverage that reliably works. Our executor duties guide explains what an executor is actually taking on when they act.
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When paying for help genuinely is worth it
None of the above means you should always do it yourself. It means you should know what you are buying. Professional help buys time, administrative capacity and someone else carrying the liability - and there are estates where all three are worth a great deal more than the fee. The decision tree below covers the situations where we would not hesitate.
- 1 Simple estate, valid will, no inheritance tax, and you have the time→ Do it yourself. Court fee plus copies - around £534 in total. The GOV.UK application is written for lay executors, and a straightforward estate of a house and a few accounts is well within reach. Read our applying-for-probate guide first so you know the order of the steps.
- 2 Straightforward estate, but you want the grant handled for you→ Fixed fee, grant only - typically around £900. A provider prepares and submits the application; you collect the assets, settle the debts and distribute the estate yourself. This is the sweet spot for executors who are confident with admin but nervous about the form.
- 3 Inheritance tax is payable, or the estate is near the threshold→ Pay for help, and ask for a fixed fee. Getting the reliefs, the transferable nil-rate band and the residence nil-rate band right is where money is genuinely won and lost, and an error is the executor's personal problem. Model the tax position first with our inheritance tax calculator so you know what you are dealing with before you take quotes.
- 4 The will is contested, or someone is threatening a claim→ Take advice immediately, before you distribute anything. Claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act have strict time limits, and an executor who distributes an estate in the face of a known claim can be personally liable. This is not a DIY situation at any estate value.
- 5 The estate holds a business, farm, agricultural land or foreign assets→ Pay for specialist help. Business Relief and Agricultural Relief have to be claimed correctly, and overseas assets can mean a second jurisdiction, a second set of formalities and a double-taxation question. The fee is small relative to a relief that is lost.
- 6 A beneficiary is a minor or lacks mental capacity→ Pay for help. A gift to a minor usually creates a trust that has to be constituted and administered properly, sometimes for many years. Getting the structure wrong at the outset is expensive to unpick later.
- 7 You are grieving, working, or simply do not have the capacity→ That is a legitimate reason on its own, and nobody should feel they have to justify it. Buy a fixed-fee full administration - typically around £2,500 - rather than a percentage. You are buying months of your life back at a known price.
How to get and compare probate quotes
Most people take one quote, from the firm that wrote the will, and treat it as the price of probate. It is not - it is one firm's price, from one pricing model. Putting three quotes on the same footing takes an afternoon and is usually the highest-value afternoon of the whole administration.
- 1. Will you give me a fixed fee in writing? If the answer is a percentage, ask what fixed figure that percentage implies for this estate, and negotiate from there.
- 2. Exactly what is included? Get the scope in writing: grant only, or full administration including collecting assets, settling debts, preparing estate accounts and distributing.
- 3. What is excluded? Conveyancing, tax advice, property valuations, Gazette notices and dealing with a contested claim usually are. Excluded work is where fixed fees quietly stop being fixed.
- 4. Are disbursements inside or outside the quote? The £526 court fee, copies of the grant and Gazette notices are disbursements. Some quotes include them, some do not, and a quote that excludes them looks cheaper than it is.
- 5. What happens if the estate turns out to be more complicated? Ask for the specific trigger events that would change the price, and what the revised basis would be.
- 6. Is there a minimum fee? Particularly relevant with banks and trust corporations, where a minimum can make the effective rate far higher than the headline percentage on a modest estate.
- 7. Who will actually do the work? A partner's hourly rate on the engagement letter and a paralegal doing the work is a common and legitimate arrangement - but you should know, and it should be priced accordingly.
- 8. How and how often will I be updated? Probate takes months. Agreeing a reporting rhythm up front prevents the most common complaint about probate services, which is silence.
- 9. What is your complaints process? Solicitors must tell you about the Legal Ombudsman. A provider who is vague about this is a provider to avoid.
Get at least three quotes, and make sure at least one comes from a fixed-fee specialist rather than only high-street solicitors - that is where the price difference usually shows up. Check the SRA register, or the relevant regulator, before instructing anyone.
The costs nobody budgets for
The court fee and the professional fee are the numbers everyone asks about. The incidentals are the ones that turn up one at a time over six months and quietly add several hundred pounds to the estate accounts.
| Cost | Typical range | When you need it |
|---|---|---|
| Certified death certificate copies | A few pounds each | Almost always - order several at registration |
| Extra copies of the grant | £2 each with the application | One per institution, plus spares. £16 each later |
| Property valuation | Varies | Where there is a property, especially if IHT is in play |
| London Gazette and local paper notices | ~£200-£300 | Optional, but protects the executor against unknown creditors |
| Conveyancing | Varies | If a property is sold or transferred to a beneficiary |
| Estate agent fees and house clearance | Varies | If the property is being sold |
| Accountant for the final tax return | Varies | Where the deceased was self-employed or had complex income |
Ranges are indicative for England and Wales in July 2026 and vary by provider and region. On a straightforward estate that includes a property, £500 to £1,500 of incidental costs on top of the court fee is typical.
Statutory notices under section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925 - one in the London Gazette and one in a newspaper local to the deceased - run for a two-month notice period and cost around £200 to £300 in total. They are optional, and it is tempting to skip them on a small estate.
What they buy is personal protection for the executor. If a creditor nobody knew about appears after the estate has been distributed, an executor who placed the notices and waited out the notice period is generally protected; an executor who did not may have to meet the claim personally. On any estate where the deceased's affairs were not fully transparent to you, treat it as insurance rather than an optional extra.
Who pays the probate costs, and when
The costs of administering an estate come out of the estate, not out of the executor's own pocket. That includes the court fee, professional fees, Gazette notices, valuations and the rest. The executor is administering someone else's money, and is entitled to be reimbursed for properly incurred expenses before anything is distributed to the beneficiaries.
The awkwardness is the timing. The £526 fee is generally due before the grant is issued, and the grant is the thing that unlocks the deceased's accounts. So the fee often has to be found at exactly the moment the estate's money is out of reach. Three practical routes around that:
- Ask the bank directly. Many will release funds from the deceased's account to pay the court fee, funeral costs and inheritance tax before the grant is issued. It is not a favour they always advertise; you have to ask.
- Use the direct payment scheme for inheritance tax. Where IHT is payable, banks and building societies can pay it straight to HMRC from the deceased's accounts before probate. Our inheritance tax calculator will tell you whether there is likely to be any to pay.
- Pay personally and keep every receipt. Perfectly normal, and you reimburse yourself from the estate before distributing. Keep the paperwork: the estate accounts should show every expense, and a beneficiary is entitled to ask.
Three estates, three very different bills
Situation: Dorothy died in Manchester leaving her bungalow, two current accounts and a small ISA to her two daughters equally. Her daughter Ruth is named as sole executor and works part-time.
Ruth's first quote came from the firm that drew up the will: full administration at 2.5% of the estate, which on £310,000 works out at about £7,750 plus disbursements and conveyancing. Nothing improper about it - it is a standard quote from a standard pricing model.
She took two more. A fixed-fee provider offered full administration for a figure in the region of £2,500; another offered a grant-only service at around £900, leaving Ruth to collect the assets and distribute.
Ruth chose to do it herself. The estate was simple: one property going to two obvious beneficiaries, no inheritance tax, no business, no dispute. She paid the £526 court fee, ordered eight copies of the grant with the application for £16 rather than £128 later, spent around £250 on Gazette and local paper notices, and instructed a conveyancer separately for the sale of the bungalow.
Outcome: roughly £792 in probate-related costs against an initial quote of about £7,750. The saving stayed in the estate and went to her and her sister. It cost her roughly three weekends of paperwork spread over five months.
Situation: Gordon Ashworth's will, written in 2009, named his bank's trust corporation as sole executor alongside his son Michael. The estate is a house, a share portfolio and cash. There is inheritance tax to pay.
The trust corporation quoted its standard scale of around 4% of the estate - about £28,800 on £720,000, plus disbursements, plus conveyancing on the house. Michael assumed this was simply what the will required.
It was not. Because the corporation had not yet intermeddled in the estate, it was able to renounce probate. Michael wrote and asked. It agreed to step aside, leaving him to act as sole executor - a request that professional executors receive routinely and frequently accept, particularly where the will also names a family executor.
This estate did need professional help: inheritance tax was payable, and the share portfolio needed valuing at the date of death. Michael instructed a solicitor on a fixed fee for the tax and grant work, obtained after three quotes, rather than on a percentage - and handled the collection and distribution himself.
Outcome: a four-figure professional bill instead of a bill approaching £28,800, and the tax return still done by someone qualified to do it. The lesson is not "never pay" - Michael paid, and correctly. It is "ask the professional executor to renounce, and ask early, before it intermeddles".
Situation: Priya died without a will. Her assets include a half-share in a retail unit she owned with her brother, a modest flat and a savings account. One of her three beneficiaries lives in Canada.
On value alone this is the smallest of the three estates, and a percentage-based quote would be the cheapest of the three - around £4,500 at 2.5%. It is also, by some distance, the most complicated.
There is no will, so the intestacy rules decide who inherits and who is entitled to apply for letters of administration. The half-share in the shop needs valuing and may attract Business Relief, which has to be claimed correctly. A beneficiary abroad brings identity verification, currency and cross-border formalities.
Her sister Anjali took professional advice and paid for it, on a fixed fee agreed in writing after three quotes. It was the right call: the relief position on the business share alone was worth more than the fee, and an intestate estate with a commercial asset is exactly the shape of estate where a self-taught executor makes an expensive mistake.
Outcome: a professional bill that Anjali would call money well spent - and a demonstration that estate value is a bad proxy for complexity in both directions. The cheapest estate on this page needed the most help.
Six ways to cut the cost, in order of impact
- Check whether you need probate at all. Joint tenancies pass by survivorship and most banks have a small-estates limit. If no institution requires a grant, the cost is zero.
- Refuse percentage pricing. Ask every provider for a fixed fee for a defined scope. This is the single biggest lever on the whole bill.
- Ask a professional executor to renounce before it intermeddles, if one is named in the will.
- Unbundle the work. Grant-only services exist precisely because the application is the intimidating part and the rest is legwork. Pay for the grant, do the legwork.
- Order copies of the grant with the application at £2 rather than £16.
- Instruct the conveyancer separately. If a property is being sold, shop for the conveyancing on its own merits rather than accepting whoever the probate firm bundles in.
Two related guides are worth reading before you commit to anything: our how long probate takes guide, because the timescale is usually what pushes people towards paying for help, and the probate, wills and power of attorney hub for the full picture. To put figures on your own estate, go back to the probate cost calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does probate cost in the UK?
- In England and Wales the only unavoidable cost is the court application fee of £526 for any estate worth more than £5,000. Estates at or below £5,000 pay nothing. That fee rose from £300 on 13 July 2026. Every other cost is a choice about who does the work. Applying yourself costs the fee plus £2 for each extra copy of the grant. Fixed-fee providers typically charge around £900 for a grant-only service or around £2,500 for full administration. Solicitors charging a percentage of the estate typically take 1-5%, and banks acting as executor around 4%, so on a £500,000 estate the same legal outcome can cost roughly £526 or roughly £20,000 depending purely on who you appoint. These are typical market rates for comparison, not quotes.
- Why did the probate fee go up to £526?
- The application fee in England and Wales rose from £300 to £526 on 13 July 2026, an increase of about 75%. HM Courts and Tribunals Service fees are periodically reset to move the service closer to cost recovery, and probate had been left at £300 for several years. The important practical point is that a great many guides, comparison pages and even law firm websites have not updated. If a page, a leaflet or a quote you have been given still says £300, it is out of date and you should check the fee page on GOV.UK before budgeting. The fee is flat: it does not scale with the size of the estate, so a £6,000 estate and a £6 million estate pay exactly the same £526.
- Can I do probate myself?
- Yes. There is no legal requirement in England and Wales to use a solicitor to apply for a grant of probate or letters of administration. The application is designed to be completed by lay executors, and most straightforward estates can be handled without professional help: a valid will, a handful of bank accounts, a house passing to an obvious beneficiary and no inheritance tax to pay. What you are buying with professional help is time, administrative capacity and someone else carrying the liability, not a different legal result. The estate still has to be valued accurately, the tax position still has to be reported correctly, and the executor is still personally accountable for getting the distribution right - so the honest question is whether you have the time and the appetite, not whether you are allowed.
- How much do probate solicitors charge?
- There are three common pricing models and they produce wildly different bills. A percentage of the estate is the most common for traditional full administration, typically 1% to 5% with around 2.5% being a fair mid-market benchmark, and some firms add an hourly element on top of the percentage. Hourly rates alone are used by some firms, which makes the final bill hard to predict. Fixed fees are increasingly available and typically cluster around £900 for grant-only work and around £2,500 for full administration. The SRA requires firms to publish price information for probate work, so a firm's website should tell you its model before you make contact. Always ask for the fee to be confirmed in writing, and always ask what is excluded.
- Why do solicitors charge a percentage of the estate?
- It is a pricing convention inherited from the profession, not a measure of how much work is involved. Administering a £1 million estate made up of three bank accounts and one house is not five times harder than administering a £200,000 estate of exactly the same shape, but a percentage fee charges five times as much for it. The percentage does bear some relationship to the risk the firm is carrying, since a mistake on a larger estate is a larger claim, but it is a poor proxy for effort. The Legal Ombudsman has criticised unclear probate pricing, and the SRA transparency rules now require firms to publish price information. The practical response is simple: ask every provider for a fixed-fee quote, and treat a percentage-only quote as a starting point for negotiation rather than a fixed price.
- What if a bank is named as executor in the will?
- Banks and trust corporations named as executor typically charge around 4% of the estate, often with a minimum fee of several thousand pounds, which usually makes them the most expensive route available. You are not necessarily stuck with it. A professional executor can renounce probate provided it has not yet "intermeddled" in the estate - that is, has not already started dealing with the assets - and many will agree to step aside if the family asks, particularly where the will also names family executors who can act instead. Write and ask before you accept any quote. If the bank will not renounce, you can still negotiate the fee, and having two or three comparison quotes in hand is the only realistic way to do that.
- How many copies of the grant should I order?
- More than you think, and order them at the same time as the application. Extra copies cost £2 each when ordered with the application but £16 each afterwards - 8 times the price. Count every institution holding an asset: each bank, each investment provider, the share registrar, the pension scheme, the insurer, the Land Registry if a property is being transferred. Then add two or three spares. Most institutions want to see a certified copy and many are slow to return it, so having several in circulation at once genuinely speeds up the administration. Ordering 10 copies with the application costs £20 against £160 if you go back for them later.
- Who pays the probate fees - the estate or the executor?
- The costs of administering the estate, including the court fee and any professional fees, come out of the estate rather than the executor's own pocket. The awkwardness is timing: the £526 fee is usually due before the grant is issued, and the grant is what unlocks the money in the deceased's accounts. Some banks will release funds directly to HMCTS, or to HMRC for inheritance tax under the direct payment scheme, before the grant is issued - so it is always worth asking. If you end up paying costs personally in the meantime, keep every receipt. You are entitled to reimburse yourself from the estate before anything is distributed to the beneficiaries, and a clear record of what you paid protects you if a beneficiary later queries the accounts.
- What other costs should I budget for beyond the probate fee?
- Several, and they add up. Certified copies of the death certificate cost a few pounds each at registration and you will want more than one. A property in the estate usually needs a formal valuation for inheritance tax purposes, and conveyancing fees if it is sold or transferred. Statutory notices in the London Gazette and a local newspaper cost around £200 to £300 and run for a two-month notice period; they protect the executor personally against claims from creditors nobody knew about, which is why they are worth paying for even though they are optional. Then there may be estate agent fees, house clearance, and an accountant for the deceased's final tax return. On a straightforward estate that includes a property, £500 to £1,500 of these incidental costs is typical on top of the court fee.
- When is it worth paying a solicitor for probate?
- When the estate is complicated enough that a mistake would cost more than the fee, or when you genuinely do not have the capacity to do it. The clearest cases are: the estate is taxable and inheritance tax has to be calculated, reported and paid; the will is being contested or someone is threatening a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act; the estate holds a business, farm or agricultural land where reliefs need to be claimed correctly; there are assets or beneficiaries abroad; a beneficiary is a minor or lacks capacity, so a trust arises; the deceased died intestate with a complex family structure; or you are the executor, you are grieving, and you simply cannot take on months of administration. In those situations professional help is not an indulgence. Even then, ask for a fixed fee rather than a percentage.
- Is probate cheaper in Scotland or Northern Ireland?
- The systems are different rather than simply cheaper or dearer, and this page covers England and Wales only. Scotland uses "confirmation" rather than probate, applied for through the sheriff court, with fees banded by the value of the estate and no fee at all for small estates under £50,000 - considerably more generous than the £5,000 threshold in England and Wales. Northern Ireland runs its own Probate Office with a separate fee scale. If the deceased was domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland, check the relevant court service for the current fees before using any of the figures on this page.
- How do I compare probate quotes properly?
- Put every quote on the same footing before you compare the numbers. Ask each provider for a fixed total, in writing, for a defined scope of work; ask exactly what is excluded, because conveyancing, tax advice, valuations and Gazette notices usually are; ask whether disbursements such as the court fee are inside or outside the quoted figure; ask what happens to the price if the estate turns out to be more complicated than expected; and ask who will actually do the work and how you will be updated. Get at least three quotes and make sure at least one is from a fixed-fee specialist rather than only high-street solicitors, because that is where the price difference usually shows up.
This page explains typical probate costs in England and Wales as at 2026-07-23. Scotland uses confirmation and Northern Ireland has its own Probate Office, both with separate fee scales. The £526 court fee is verified against GOV.UK; check the current figure before budgeting, as fees change.
All professional fees quoted here are typical market rates used for comparison. They are not quotes, offers or predictions of what any particular provider will charge you, and real prices vary widely by firm, region and estate. Nothing on this page is legal advice or a recommendation to use or avoid any provider. Administering an estate carries personal liability for the executor; if you are unsure, take advice from a regulated professional. See our disclaimer.
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