A Grant of Probate confirms the authority of an executor to administer and distribute the estate of someone who has died. If there was no will, in England and Wales you’ll apply for Letters of Administration instead. 

In Scotland, you’ll be applying for Confirmation, with or without a will. Without a will there’s a separate court process required to be appointed as the executor first.

Yes. Our Probate Support package is designed to guide you through the early parts of the process so you can find out if you need probate or not.

You will probably not have to apply for probate if any one of these conditions apply to the estate:

• Joint assets only: If the estate is being passed in full to a spouse, civil partner, or charity
• Less than £5,000: The value of everything that the deceased owned in their own name is worth less than £5,000: or
• There were only savings and no other assets such as property, vehicles etc.

Provided that you are either named as an executor, or you have permission from the other next of kin, you can distribute the assets according to the wishes of the deceased.

Sometimes financial services firms will insist that you  apply for probate before allowing you to access funds. This will depend on the value of the account and ranges from £5,000 – £50,000 by provider. 

Settld can check with individual providers on your behalf as part of our Probate Support service.

Yes. The first step in applying for a Grant of Probate (or Letters of Administration) is to contact all relevant organisations about the death, and get the values of all the accounts/assets and debts.

You can do this yourself, which means contacting all companies individually (often by phone), filling in multiple forms and sending off documents. Our notification service would cut out this work for you, saving an average of 20 hours of work.

As part of being an executor, you are required to work out and report the value of the estate, including estimating the value at date of death of any savings and investments, property, debts and other liabilities.

The main reason for doing this is to find out if the estate owes any Inheritance Tax. You’ll also need the figures if you need to apply for probate.

Not sure if you need probate? Use our free tool to find out

Typical solicitors charge using hourly rates of between £250 and £300 per hour (plus VAT!), working out on average between 2% and 5% of the gross estate value. Usually you won’t get the bill until after the process.

In England and Wales, there’s a Probate Registry fee of £273 and copies of the Grant of Probate cost £1.50 each.

You may also choose to place a ‘Deceased Estate Notice’ in The Gazette to avoid being personally liable for any estate creditors that come forward at a later date. The cost of advertising starts from about £80.

In Scotland, the court fee is tiered:

• Free for estates worth less than £50,000
• £276 for estates worth £50,000-£250,000
• £554 for estates over £250,000

There is also a £20 fee to appoint an executor and a special type of insurance policy to buy  if there is no will. For more help with Scottish Probate, visit our partner site.

• Death certificate (if this is not available, the Interim Coroner’s Certificate)
• A Will, if one exists. 
• Proof of your identity: your passport, driving license or residency card
• Proof of your address. A recent utility bill is preferred, but a council tax bill is also acceptable. If you don’t have either of these, a credit card, bank or building society statement issued in the last 3 months will also be accepted.

• Executors’ up-to-date names and addresses
• Deceased’s National Insurance number
• Account/reference numbers 
• Details of a deceased spouse and marriage info
• More in depth personal and financial info if you need to pay inheritance tax

Yes, as long as you are acting with their permission. The ‘correct’ person will need to sign things and present their ID.

Settld is not a legal firm but we have in-house probate experts. We are formally supported by the Law Society, and part of the Barclays Bank Legal Tech program.

Yes. Settld is compliant with all data laws and requirements. We use industry best practices to ensure data security in storage and transmission. We run our service on cloud based products that have the highest privacy and security protection. Onfido, the identity verification provider that we work with, is used to verify that your documents are authentic and have not been stolen or tampered with.