FAMILY HANDOVER KIT · SCOTLAND

Confirmation, not probate — how a Scottish estate actually works

Q: Is inheritance tax different in Scotland?

No. Inheritance Tax is reserved to the UK Parliament, not devolved — the same £325,000 nil-rate band and £175,000 residence nil-rate band apply whether the deceased lived in Aberdeen or Ashford. What differs is the administration route (confirmation), not the tax.

Same 33-record system, the same £195 price — but every record accounts for the Sheriff Court process, the C1 inventory, and the rights a will alone can't override.

Guidance, not legal advice — for confirmation itself, speak to a Scottish solicitor.

Explore The Household Continuity Dossier→

§1

Confirmation, not probate

Scotland's equivalent of probate is a document called confirmation.

It does the same job — legal authority for an executor to access bank accounts, sell property, and distribute an estate — but the process runs through the local Sheriff Court, not a probate registry, and it isn't paperwork you can submit online. Every application starts with Form C1, the Inventory of Estate, listing everything the deceased owned in Scotland. The C1 has to be printed and posted or handed in — there's no digital submission route.

Estates valued at £36,000 or less count as a "small estate," and the Sheriff Clerk can help an executor complete the forms directly — a real difference from the English & Welsh system, where court staff don't fill in forms on an applicant's behalf.

§2

The confirmation timeline

Step 1

The C1 Inventory of Estate

Every asset the deceased owned in Scotland, valued as at the date of death — bank balances, investments, property, vehicles, anything of value. Submitted with the death certificate to the local Sheriff Court.

Step 2

Sheriff Clerk examination

Typically three to six weeks for a straightforward estate — longer for a busy court or a complex one. There's no fixed statutory deadline the way there is for some English forms; timing is court-dependent.

Step 3

Confirmation issued

The executor can now uplift funds, transfer or sell property, and begin distributing the estate — the Scottish equivalent of a Grant of Probate landing on the doormat.

Figure watch · checked weekly

These figures are set by statutory order.

Prior-rights amounts and Scottish court fees are uprated periodically. Leave an email and we'll send one short note if anything on this page moves — only when it actually changes.

§3

Prior rights and legal rights

This is the part England & Wales doesn't have — and it changes what your records need to hold.

Prior rights — on intestacy only

Where there's no will, a surviving spouse or civil partner has a statutory right to the family home (up to a set value), its furniture and contents, and a cash sum — taken before anything else is divided under the standard intestacy rules. These figures are set by statutory order and uprated periodically, so treat any exact number as a starting point to confirm, not a fixed fact.

Legal rights — whether or not there's a will

Under the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, a spouse or civil partner (jus relictae/jus relicti) and children (legitim) can claim a fixed share of the moveable estate — cash, investments, personal possessions, not heritable property like land — even if a will leaves them nothing. If a spouse survives, children share one third of the moveable estate; if no spouse survives, they share one half.

What this means for your kit: a Scottish household's records need to name every potential legal-rights claimant clearly, and separate moveable from heritable estate — a distinction an England-shaped template won't ask for. That's the difference The Household Continuity Dossier accounts for.

Common questions

They do the same job — the legal document that lets an executor access and distribute an estate. But confirmation is issued by the local Sheriff Court, not a probate registry, and starts with a different form (C1, the Inventory of Estate, not PA1P). It isn't a rebrand of English probate; it runs on separate legislation and separate court practice.

Three to six weeks is typical for a straightforward estate once the C1 Inventory of Estate is with the Sheriff Court — longer for a busy court or a complex estate. There's no fixed statutory deadline for applying; the clock that matters is the court's own. The stretch an executor can actually shorten sits before submission — finding and valuing everything the deceased owned — which is exactly the part prepared records compress.

Estates valued at £36,000 or less count as small estates, and the Sheriff Clerk can help an executor complete the forms directly — practical help with no equivalent in England & Wales. Whether confirmation is needed at all depends on what the estate holds: institutions set their own thresholds for releasing funds without it, so ask the bank or a Scottish solicitor before assuming either way.

No. Inheritance Tax is reserved to the UK Parliament, not devolved — the same £325,000 nil-rate band and £175,000 residence nil-rate band apply whether the deceased lived in Aberdeen or Ashford. What differs is the administration route (confirmation), not the tax.

They're the two protections Scots law gives a surviving spouse and children that England & Wales doesn't have in the same form. Prior rights apply on intestacy — a surviving spouse or civil partner's right to the home, its furnishings, and a cash sum, before anything else is divided. Legal rights (jus relictae, jus relicti, and legitim for children) go further: they apply whether or not there's a will, as a fixed share of the moveable estate. A Scottish household's records need to name who those legal-rights claimants actually are — it's the single fact that most changes what "complete" records look like north of the border.

Yes — every record it holds (accounts, property, contacts, wishes) applies exactly the same north or south of the border. The one place Scotland genuinely differs is the legal process after a death — confirmation instead of probate — and this page exists to make sure your kit reflects that correctly.

Records built for how a Scottish estate actually works — not an England-shaped template.

£195 first year, then £99/yr. All 33 records, your Advisor on call, annual review prompts so it never goes stale.

Explore The Household Continuity Dossier→Or the £29 Family Handover Kit→Or the free template→

The £29 brief writes up your records for you — who to call, where things are kept, what exists. Those hold wherever the estate sits. The confirmation process itself stays Scottish, and stays with a Scottish solicitor. And the £29 counts in full toward the Dossier’s first year if you move up within 30 days — nothing you start with is wasted.