Do you need a grant of probate? Start here
Almost every article on this subject leads with a number - "you need probate above £X". That framing is wrong, and it sends people down the wrong path. The Probate Registry does not apply a value test to decide whether you must apply. What actually determines the answer is how each asset was owned and what each institution requires before it will hand the money over. Work through the branches below asset by asset, not estate by estate.
- 1 The deceased owned a property in their sole name, or a share of one as tenants in common→ You need a grant. HM Land Registry will not register a transfer or a sale of the deceased's interest without one, regardless of what the property is worth. This single fact decides most estates.
- 2 Everything was held jointly with a surviving spouse or partner as joint tenants→ You probably need nothing. Jointly held assets pass automatically to the survivor by survivorship, outside the estate. Send a certified copy of the death certificate to each provider and ask them to update the account into the survivor's sole name.
- 3 There are sole-name bank or building society accounts, but each is fairly small→ It depends on each provider. Every bank sets its own "small estates" limit, commonly somewhere between £5,000 and £50,000, with around £20,000 a typical mid-point. Below it, most release funds on an indemnity form. Ask each one in writing before you assume anything.
- 4 The estate includes directly held shares or a share-dealing account→ Assume you need a grant. Registrars and platforms nearly always require one before they will transfer or sell holdings. A handful will process very small holdings on an indemnity, but do not count on it.
- 5 The only assets are personal possessions, a car and modest cash→ A grant is unlikely to be needed. Chattels pass without any formal transfer, and a small cash balance normally falls under the provider's release limit. You may still need to deal with income tax to the date of death.
If you want to put figures against this, our probate cost calculator works through the same logic and then prices up the DIY, fixed-fee and percentage-based routes side by side.
What probate actually is
When someone dies, their assets are frozen. A bank cannot safely pay out a balance, and HM Land Registry cannot safely register a transfer, until somebody proves they have legal authority to receive it. Probate is that proof. The document issued by HM Courts & Tribunals Service is a grant of representation, and it comes in two main flavours:
- Grant of probate - issued where there is a valid will naming an executor who is able and willing to act.
- Grant of letters of administration - issued where there is no valid will, so the estate passes under the intestacy rules and an administrator applies instead.
Once issued, the grant is a single sealed document. You send certified copies to each organisation holding an asset, and they release it. That is the whole mechanism. Everything else people call "probate" - valuing the estate, settling debts, filing tax returns, distributing to beneficiaries - is the wider job of estate administration, which the grant merely unlocks.
- Probate - narrowly, the grant proving a will; loosely, the whole administration process.
- Estate administration - the actual work: collecting assets, paying debts and tax, distributing what is left.
- Inheritance tax - a separate question entirely. Many estates that need a grant owe no tax; a few that owe tax need no grant.
When you do not need probate
A meaningful proportion of estates are settled with no grant at all. There are four routes round it, and the first is by far the most important.
1. Assets held as joint tenants
Where two or more people own something as joint tenants, each owns the whole of it rather than a divisible share. On death, the deceased's interest simply evaporates and the survivor owns it outright. This is called survivorship, and it happens automatically by operation of law - not under the will, and not through the estate. It applies to jointly owned homes, joint current and savings accounts, and jointly held investments.
The practical consequence is stark. A married couple who own a £600,000 house as joint tenants and hold everything else in joint names may need no grant whatsoever when the first of them dies. The survivor sends certified copies of the death certificate to the bank and submits a straightforward application to HM Land Registry to remove the deceased's name. The size of the estate is irrelevant.
This is the single most consequential distinction on the page, and plenty of people do not know which they have. Joint tenants pass by survivorship, with no grant needed. Tenants in common each own a distinct share - often 50/50, but not always - and that share forms part of the deceased's estate, passing under their will or the intestacy rules. A tenants-in-common share of a property will generally require a grant.
You can check for free on the HM Land Registry title register: a Form A restriction on the proprietorship register indicates a tenancy in common. Couples who did deliberate inheritance tax or care-fee planning, and anyone who bought with a friend or sibling, are much more likely to be tenants in common.
2. Balances below each institution's "small estates" limit
Banks and building societies are permitted to release modest balances without a grant, on production of a death certificate and a signed indemnity from the person receiving the money. The indemnity is the point: the bank is accepting a small commercial risk in exchange for not making a bereaved family wait months for a few thousand pounds.
Every provider sets its own limit, reviews it periodically, and generally does not publish it. Some apply discretion case by case. The table below describes the ranges you will typically encounter by type of institution - it is a planning guide, not a promise, and you should always ask each provider directly.
| Type of holding | Typical release limit without a grant | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| High street bank - current and instant-access savings | £5,000 - £50,000 | The widest range of any category. Most cluster around £20,000 - £25,000. |
| Building society - share and savings accounts | £5,000 - £30,000 | Often governed by rules made under the Administration of Estates (Small Payments) Act 1965. |
| National Savings & Investments (Premium Bonds, savings) | Around £5,000 | NS&I publishes its own claim process; higher holdings normally need a grant. |
| Cash ISAs | Same limit as the provider's other accounts | The ISA wrapper continues as a "continuing account" until the estate is settled. |
| Directly held shares and share-dealing accounts | Usually nil | Registrars almost always want a grant. Very small holdings occasionally go through on an indemnity. |
| Property in the deceased's sole name | Nil - always needs a grant | HM Land Registry will not register a transfer or a sale without one. |
Indicative ranges only. Limits are set individually by each bank, building society and platform, are rarely published, and change without notice. Around £20,000 is a common mid-point across the high street but should never be relied on for a specific provider. Always ask in writing.
3. Assets that never form part of the estate
Some of the largest sums a family receives after a death bypass probate entirely because they were never the deceased's to leave:
- Pension death benefits. Most defined-contribution pensions are held under trust and paid at the scheme administrator's discretion, guided by your expression-of-wishes form. They do not need a grant. Note that from 6 April 2027 unused pension funds come into the estate for inheritance tax purposes - see our guide to inheritance tax on pensions - but that is a tax change, not a change to who needs a grant.
- Life insurance written in trust. Pays directly to the named beneficiaries, outside the estate, usually within weeks.
- Death in service benefits from an employer, which normally sit under the same discretionary trust arrangement as the pension.
4. Personal possessions
Furniture, jewellery, tools, a car, the contents of the house: none of these require any formal transfer of legal title, so no grant is needed to hand them to the people entitled to them. They still need valuing for the estate accounts and any inheritance tax return, but that is a separate obligation.
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When you do need probate
The flip side. Three categories of asset will send you to the Probate Registry more or less regardless of the estate's size.
Property in the deceased's sole name - always
This is the immovable one. HM Land Registry requires a grant before it will register a transfer of a deceased sole proprietor's title, or a sale by the personal representatives. No grant, no completion. You can market the property, accept an offer and progress the conveyancing while you wait, and buyers are generally used to it - but the sale cannot complete until the grant arrives. The same applies to the deceased's share where the property was held as tenants in common.
Directly held shares and share-dealing accounts - nearly always
Share registrars such as those administering FTSE company registers, and most investment platforms, want the grant before they will transfer holdings into a beneficiary's name or sell them. Some will process a genuinely tiny holding on an indemnity, but the working assumption should be that a grant is required. Legacy paper share certificates found in a drawer are a particularly common reason for otherwise simple estates needing to apply.
Larger bank, building society and investment balances
Once a single account with one provider is comfortably above that provider's small estates limit, they will ask for the grant. Note that the test is usually applied to the total held with that institution, not per account - three accounts of £9,000 each with the same bank will typically be treated as £27,000.
Grant of probate vs letters of administration
Both documents do the same job - they prove your authority - but they arise differently and carry different practical consequences.
| Grant of probate | Letters of administration | |
|---|---|---|
| When it applies | There is a valid will naming an executor able to act | There is no valid will, so intestacy rules apply |
| Who applies | The executor named in the will | An administrator, in a fixed order of priority: spouse or civil partner, then children, then parents, then siblings |
| Where authority comes from | The will. The executor's powers begin at the moment of death; the grant confirms them | The grant itself. The administrator has no authority until it is issued |
| Who inherits | Whoever the will says | Whoever the intestacy rules say - which frequently is not what the family expected |
| Court fee | £526 over £5,000 | £526 over £5,000 - identical |
The practical difference that catches families out is not the paperwork - it is who inherits. Under intestacy an unmarried partner receives nothing, however long the relationship, and a surviving spouse does not automatically take the whole estate where there are children. Our guide to dying without a will sets out the distribution rules and the fixed statutory legacy in full.
The probate process, step by step
Eight stages, in the order you will meet them. Steps 1 to 3 happen before you go anywhere near the Probate Registry, and getting them right saves months later.
- Register the death and get certified copies. Order more copies of the death certificate than you think you need - every bank, insurer and registrar will want one, and photocopies are not accepted.
- Find the will and confirm who is executor. Check with the deceased's solicitor, bank and any will storage service. If there is no will, work out who has priority to apply as administrator.
- Value the estate. Write to every bank, provider and registrar for date-of-death balances. Get an open market valuation of any property. List debts, including the funeral, utilities, credit cards and any outstanding tax. You need accurate figures before you can apply.
- Work out the inheritance tax position and file the HMRC forms. The nil-rate band is £325,000; a residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 is available where a home passes to direct descendants, and an unused band can transfer between spouses, which is how couples often reach £1 million combined. Our inheritance tax calculator gives you an estimate before you commit to the forms.
- Pay any inheritance tax due. Where tax is payable it generally has to be paid before the grant is issued. See the cash-flow warning below.
- Apply for the grant. Online or on paper via GOV.UK. The fee is £526 for estates over £5,000. Order extra sealed copies at the same time - see the costs section. Full detail in our guide to applying for probate.
- Collect the assets and settle the debts. Send certified copies of the grant to each institution, close accounts, transfer or sell property, and pay creditors in the correct statutory order. Placing statutory advertisements for unknown creditors gives executors valuable protection here.
- Prepare estate accounts and distribute. Account to the beneficiaries for everything received and paid, then distribute. Convention is to wait at least six months from the grant before distributing - see the warning below.
Where inheritance tax is due, HMRC generally requires payment before the grant is issued - yet the money that would pay it is locked in accounts you cannot access without the grant. It is a genuine chicken-and-egg problem and it catches almost every first-time executor.
There are established ways through it:
- The HMRC direct payment scheme, under which participating banks and building societies pay inheritance tax straight from the deceased's accounts to HMRC before the grant is issued.
- Instalment payments over ten years for tax attributable to land and buildings, and certain business assets.
- Beneficiary loans, where someone who will inherit funds the tax bill in the meantime.
- Executor loans from specialist lenders, which work but carry interest - worth pricing against the alternatives.
An executor or administrator is personally liable for errors in administering the estate. Distribute to the wrong person, miss a creditor, undervalue an asset or underpay tax and you can be pursued personally, even though the role is unpaid and you were doing your best.
The most common trap is distributing too early. Someone who believes they were not adequately provided for - a spouse, former spouse, child, cohabitee or dependant - has six months from the date of the grant to bring a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. If you have already paid the money out and a claim succeeds, recovering it is your problem. The conventional advice is to wait out that six-month window, and longer where a claim looks possible. Our executor duties guide covers the protections available in detail.
What probate costs in 2026
The unavoidable court costs are small and fixed. The professional fees, if you use anyone, are neither.
The copies point is the cheapest piece of advice on this page. Sealed copies cost £2 each with the application and £16 each afterwards. Count your banks, providers, registrars and the Land Registry, add a few spares, and order them all up front. Ten copies ordered with the application cost £20; the same ten ordered later cost £160.
Estates valued at £5,000 or less pay no application fee at all. Above that, the fee is the same £526 whether the estate is £6,000 or £6 million - it is a flat charge, not a percentage. Fee remissions are available on low income or certain means-tested benefits through the Help with Fees scheme.
Professional help is where the real variation sits. Doing it yourself costs only the court fees. A fixed-fee grant-only service, where a provider obtains the grant and you do the rest, typically runs to several hundred pounds. Full administration on a fixed fee commonly falls in the low thousands, while solicitors charging a percentage of the estate - often in the range of 1% to 5%, sometimes with an hourly element on top - and banks acting as professional executor can cost multiples of that on a large estate. Our probate costs guide breaks down each route, and the probate cost calculator compares them for your own figures.
How long probate takes
Two clocks run, and people routinely confuse them.
- Getting the grant: typically 8 to 16 weeks from submitting a complete application. Longer where inheritance tax forms are involved, where the Probate Registry raises a query, or where the original will has to be examined.
- Administering the whole estate: typically 6 to 12 months. Longer still with a property that is slow to sell, missing or overseas beneficiaries, business assets, trusts, or any dispute.
Add to that the six-month post-grant window for Inheritance Act claims, which sensible executors observe before distributing, and a "quick" estate realistically completes around nine months after the death. Our guide to how long probate takes covers the stages that most often cause delay and what you can do in parallel while you wait.
Three scenarios - how the rules play out
Situation: Margaret and Derek owned their Nottingham semi as joint tenants, held a joint current account and a joint savings account, and Derek had a small workplace pension with Margaret as his nominated beneficiary. Derek left a will leaving everything to Margaret.
Margaret needs no grant at all. The house passes to her by survivorship, so she submits a straightforward application to HM Land Registry with a certified copy of the death certificate to remove Derek's name from the title. Both joint accounts move into her sole name on production of the same document. Derek's pension is paid at the scheme administrator's discretion under his expression of wishes, outside the estate entirely.
The house is worth £340,000, which is exactly the point: value was never the test. Because everything passed to a spouse, there is no inheritance tax either, and Derek's unused nil-rate band and residence nil-rate band can be claimed by Margaret's executors when she eventually dies - potentially £1 million between them.
What she should do anyway: keep the paperwork evidencing Derek's unused allowances, because her executors will need it years from now, and review her own will now that she is the sole owner.
Situation: Ade's mother Grace died leaving a one-bedroom flat in her sole name worth about £185,000, £11,000 in a building society account, £4,000 in Premium Bonds and a valid will naming Ade as sole executor and beneficiary.
Grace's estate is worth roughly £200,000 - well under the £325,000 nil-rate band, so no inheritance tax is payable. But Ade still needs a grant of probate, because the flat is in Grace's sole name and HM Land Registry will not register a transfer or a sale without one.
The building society is willing to release the £11,000 on an indemnity form, as it sits within their small estates limit, and NS&I has its own claims process for the Premium Bonds. Neither of those helps: one asset requiring a grant means applying for one.
His costs: the £526 application fee, plus £12 for six sealed copies ordered with the application - £538 in total if he does it himself. He starts marketing the flat while the application is in progress, accepts an offer in week six, and completes three weeks after the grant arrives at week fourteen. He distributes - to himself - after the six-month Inheritance Act window has passed.
Situation: Their father Vikram died without a will. He owned 50% of a London house as tenants in common with his late wife's estate, £95,000 across three accounts with the same bank, and a share portfolio worth £120,000 held directly.
There is no will, so this is letters of administration, not a grant of probate. Priya and Sanjay, as Vikram's children, have priority to apply as administrators - and crucially their authority does not begin until the grant is issued, unlike an executor's.
Three separate triggers each independently require a grant here: the tenants-in-common share of the property, the directly held shares, and the £95,000 with one bank, which is assessed as a single total well above any small estates limit.
The squeeze: with inheritance tax due, HMRC wants payment before the grant issues, but the £95,000 is frozen. They use the HMRC direct payment scheme, asking the bank to pay the tax directly to HMRC from Vikram's accounts, which unblocks the application without either of them lending the estate money.
Because the estate is intestate, complex and taxable, they take professional advice on a fixed fee rather than a percentage of a £400,000-plus estate. See our guide to dying without a will for how the intestacy rules divide an estate like this.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
Everything above applies to England and Wales. The other UK jurisdictions run separate systems:
- Scotland uses confirmation rather than probate, applied for through the sheriff court, with its own forms and fee scale under which no fee is charged on estates under £50,000. Scots succession law also differs materially - a surviving spouse and children have legal rights in the deceased's moveable estate that a will cannot override.
- Northern Ireland has its own Probate Office within the High Court, with a broadly similar structure to England and Wales but separate forms, fees and procedures.
If the deceased was domiciled outside England and Wales, or held assets in another jurisdiction, take advice from a practitioner qualified there before applying anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
- What is probate in simple terms?
- Probate is the legal process of proving a will and getting official authority to deal with someone's property, money and possessions after they die. The document the Probate Registry issues is called a grant of probate, and it is what banks, HM Land Registry and share registrars accept as proof that you - the executor - are entitled to collect and transfer the assets. Where there is no will, the equivalent document is a grant of letters of administration. Collectively, both are known as a "grant of representation". The word "probate" is also used loosely to mean the whole job of administering an estate, which usually takes far longer than obtaining the grant itself.
- Do I need probate? What is the probate threshold in the UK?
- There is no single national probate threshold, despite what many pages imply. Whether you need a grant depends on how the assets were owned and which institutions hold them, not on the estate's total value. Property owned as joint tenants passes automatically to the survivor with no grant at all, however valuable it is. Meanwhile each bank sets its own "small estates" limit - typically somewhere between £5,000 and £50,000, with around £20,000 a common mid-point - and will release funds below that on an indemnity form. Above it, they will ask for the grant. Property in the deceased's sole name always needs one because HM Land Registry requires it. So a £700,000 estate held entirely jointly may need nothing, while a £30,000 estate containing a small flat certainly will.
- When is probate not needed?
- Probate is generally not needed where everything passed automatically or falls below each institution's release limit. The most common cases are: assets held as joint tenants (a jointly owned home, joint bank accounts, joint investments) which pass to the surviving owner by survivorship; bank and building society balances below the provider's small estates limit, released on an indemnity form and a certified copy of the death certificate; personal possessions, cars and household goods, which need no formal transfer; and pension death benefits and life insurance written in trust, which are paid at the scheme or trustee's discretion outside the estate. Note that "no grant needed" is not the same as "no inheritance tax due" - the two are separate questions.
- What is the difference between grant of probate and letters of administration?
- Grant of probate is issued where there is a valid will naming an executor who is willing and able to act. The executor's authority comes from the will itself; the grant simply confirms it. Grant of letters of administration is issued where there is no valid will, so the estate passes under the intestacy rules. Here the person applying is called an administrator, their authority begins only when the grant is issued, and who may apply is fixed by a legal order of priority - spouse or civil partner first, then children, then parents, then siblings, and so on. A third variant, letters of administration with will annexed, covers the situation where there is a will but no executor able to act. In practice the application process and the £526 court fee are the same for all three.
- How much does probate cost in 2026?
- The court application fee in England and Wales is £526 for estates valued over £5,000, and nothing at all for estates of £5,000 or less. That fee rose from £300 on 13 July 2026, an increase of around 75%, so many competing pages and older printed guides still quote the old figure. Extra sealed copies of the grant cost £2 each if you order them with the application, but £16 each afterwards - order generously the first time, because you will typically want one for each bank, registrar and the Land Registry. Doing it yourself means those court costs are your only outlay. Professional help ranges from roughly £900 for a grant-only fixed fee to 1-5% of the estate for a solicitor handling full administration, with banks acting as executor typically the dearest option.
- How long does probate take in the UK?
- Getting the grant itself usually takes around 8 to 16 weeks from submitting a complete application, and longer where HMRC forms are involved or the Probate Registry queries something. Administering the whole estate - collecting assets, settling debts, selling or transferring a property, dealing with income tax to the date of death and distributing to beneficiaries - commonly takes 6 to 12 months, and considerably longer for estates with property that is slow to sell, missing beneficiaries, business assets or a disputed will. Executors conventionally wait until at least six months after the grant before distributing, because that is the window for claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
- Can I sell a house before probate is granted?
- Where the property was in the deceased's sole name, no. You can market it, accept an offer and proceed through much of the conveyancing, but you cannot complete the sale until the grant is issued, because HM Land Registry will not register the transfer without it. Estate agents and buyers are usually familiar with this and will wait, though a long registry backlog can put a chain at risk. Where the property was held as joint tenants with a surviving co-owner, it passes automatically to the survivor and can be sold on production of the death certificate and a simple Land Registry application, with no grant needed. Where it was held as tenants in common, the deceased's share forms part of their estate and a grant is generally required.
- Do I have to pay inheritance tax before getting probate?
- Usually, yes - and this is the classic cash-flow squeeze in estate administration. Where inheritance tax is payable, HMRC generally requires it to be paid before the grant will issue, yet the assets you would use to pay it are frozen until you have the grant. There are established ways round it. The HMRC direct payment scheme lets banks and building societies pay inheritance tax straight from the deceased's accounts to HMRC before the grant. Tax on land and buildings can be paid in ten annual instalments. Some beneficiaries lend the money, and executor loans exist though they carry interest. The nil-rate band is £325,000, with a residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 where a home passes to direct descendants, so many married couples can pass on up to £1 million between them before any tax arises.
- Can I do probate myself without a solicitor?
- Yes, and many executors do. GOV.UK lets you apply online or on paper, and for a straightforward estate - a will, one or two banks, a house going to the obvious beneficiary, no inheritance tax - the paperwork is manageable. The reason to think twice is liability rather than difficulty. Executors are personally liable for mistakes: distributing to the wrong people, missing a creditor, undervaluing an asset or paying too little tax can all leave you personally out of pocket, and that exposure does not go away because you were doing your best unpaid. Estates worth taking advice on include those with inheritance tax to pay, business or agricultural property, trusts, foreign assets, an estranged family, a homemade or damaged will, or any hint of a claim against the estate.
- Is probate different in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
- Yes. This page covers England and Wales. In Scotland the equivalent process is called confirmation, applied for through the sheriff court, with its own forms and a fee scale under which there is no fee for estates under £50,000. Scots succession law also differs substantially, most notably in giving a surviving spouse and children legal rights in the deceased's moveable estate that cannot be written out by a will. Northern Ireland runs its own Probate Office within the High Court, with a broadly similar structure to England and Wales but separate forms and fees. If the deceased was domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland, or held assets there, take advice from a practitioner qualified in that jurisdiction.
This page is general information about how probate works in England and Wales as at 23 July 2026. It is not legal, tax or financial advice, and it does not create a solicitor-client relationship. Estate administration turns on facts specific to each estate - the wording of the will, how each asset was owned, the deceased's domicile, and the requirements of each individual institution, which are set by that institution and change without notice.
Executors and administrators are personally liable for mistakes. If the estate involves inheritance tax, property, business or agricultural assets, trusts, foreign assets, an unclear or homemade will, or any possibility of a claim against the estate, take advice from a qualified solicitor or a STEP-qualified practitioner before you distribute anything. Court fees and institutional limits quoted here were checked on 2026-07-23 and may have changed since. See our full disclaimer.
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