Do I Need Probate? When You Do, When You Don't

By Executr Ltd.. Rules current as at 9 October 2026. England & Wales.

Probate is not always necessary. Plenty of estates are wound up without ever applying for a grant, and applying when you don't need to wastes £300 and several months.

What decides it is not the size of the estate or whether there is a will. It is how the assets were held and who is asking.

This page covers England and Wales. Scotland uses confirmation and Northern Ireland has its own procedure.

The quick test

Work down this list. If any answer is yes, you almost certainly need a grant.

1. Was there property or land in the deceased's sole name, or held as tenants in common?
2. Does any single institution hold more than its release threshold — usually somewhere between £5,000 and £50,000?
3. Were there shares held directly with a registrar?
4. Is there a share in a business or a partnership interest to transfer?
5. Does anyone need legal authority to deal with a third party that is refusing to engage?

If every answer is no, you may be able to avoid probate entirely.

When you don't need probate

Everything was owned jointly with a spouse or partner. Assets held as joint tenants pass automatically to the survivor by survivorship, outside the will and outside probate. This covers most married couples' homes and joint bank accounts, and it is the most common reason probate isn't needed.

Be careful: this works for joint tenants, not tenants in common. Tenants in common each own a defined share which passes under the will — and needs a grant to transfer. If you don't know which applies to a property, check the Land Registry title; a "Form A restriction" indicates tenants in common.

The estate is small and simple. Modest balances within each institution's threshold, no property, and the banks will usually release funds on a death certificate plus an indemnity form.

Assets that never need probate:

• Jointly held property, accounts and investments passing by survivorship
• Pension death benefits paid under the scheme's discretion to a nominated beneficiary
• Life insurance written in trust
• Payable-on-death nominations, where available
• Assets held in a trust the deceased did not own outright

Note that several of those — pensions from 6 April 2027, and life policies not in trust — still count for Inheritance Tax even when they bypass probate. The two questions are separate, and conflating them is the most common error in this area.

Bank thresholds

Each institution decides how much it will release without a grant. Figures move, so ask the bereavement team directly rather than relying on a table — but as a rough guide, thresholds sit between £5,000 and £50,000, with some building societies at the higher end and most large banks somewhere in the middle.

Three things worth knowing:

• The threshold applies per institution, not to the estate. Three banks each holding £30,000 may each release without a grant even though the estate is £90,000.
• Institutions can insist on a grant whatever their published threshold, particularly where there is no will or the family position looks contested.
• You will normally sign an indemnity, accepting personal responsibility if the money turns out to have gone to the wrong person.

Call every bereavement team early and ask two questions: what is your threshold, and what do you need from me? Some will settle in a fortnight and save you months.

When you definitely do need it

• Property in the sole name of the deceased, or held as tenants in common, that needs selling or transferring. The Land Registry requires a grant.
• An institution holding more than its threshold.
• Directly held shares with a registrar.
• No will and a complicated family — a second marriage, estranged children, or an unmarried partner. Here a grant of letters of administration establishes who has authority, which also protects whoever is acting.
• An insolvent estate, where the order of paying creditors is prescribed and getting it wrong leaves the administrator personally liable.
• A dispute, actual or likely.

Excepted estates — the form you can avoid

Separate question, and often the more useful one: do you need to file a full IHT400?

For deaths on or after 1 January 2022, an excepted estate doesn't. The estate details go in with the probate application instead, which is dramatically less work. Two main routes:

Route 1 — low value estate

The gross estate plus chargeable gifts in the last seven years is within the nil-rate band:

A partial transfer does not raise the limit. 50% transferred still means a £325,000 ceiling.

Route 2 — exempt estate

This is the route for a couple where the first to die leaves everything to the survivor. A £2,000,000 estate passing entirely to a spouse is an excepted estate, because nothing is chargeable.

Supplementary conditions apply to both routes, and failing any of them means a full account:

• Trust assets no more than £250,000
• Foreign assets no more than £100,000
• Chargeable lifetime gifts no more than £250,000
• No gifts with reservation of benefit
• The deceased had not made a gift into trust, or taken out certain life policy arrangements

No tax to pay still needs a full account

The trap worth spelling out, because it defeats most people's intuition.

A £450,000 estate: a £400,000 home left to the children, £50,000 of savings, and a £120,000 mortgage.

No tax. But it is not an excepted estate, because the gross estate of £450,000 exceeds £325,000 and there is no spouse or charity exemption to use route 2. A full IHT400 is required.

The reason is that the excepted estate tests measure the gross estate against the nil-rate band alone. They take no account of the mortgage and no account of the residence nil-rate band — the very two things that eliminated the tax. An estate can therefore pay nothing and still face the long form.

Gifts cause the same effect. A £300,000 estate with a £60,000 gift three years before death has £54,000 of chargeable gifts after exemptions, giving £354,000 against the £325,000 limit — so no excepted estate, and in that case some tax too, because the gift eats the band first. See the 7-year rule.

The calculator applies both excepted estate tests to your figures and tells you which account you are likely to need. It is the single most practically useful thing it reports for a modest estate.

Probate versus letters of administration

Different names for the same authority, depending on whether there is a valid will.

The intestacy rules are rigid and frequently produce outcomes nobody intended. A spouse takes the first £322,000 plus personal possessions and half the remainder, with the children taking the rest. Unmarried partners inherit nothing, however long the relationship — they can only bring a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which means court.

If you take one thing from this page: make a will. It costs a few hundred pounds, it determines whether up to £350,000 of residence nil-rate band is available, and it spares the people you leave behind a great deal of difficulty.

Put your own figures into the calculator