Personal Record
The biographical baseline an executor needs in the first five days. Five sections — all from memory, no paperwork hunt. Mother's maiden name, place of birth, occupation, previous addresses, children, previous marriages, and living next-of-kin. Twenty minutes.
The things you know by heart — your mother's maiden name, where you were born, the addresses you have lived at — are exactly what an executor cannot find in a hurry. P-15 stores them once, in the right place, under the right protection. Twenty minutes from memory.
Three places this record saves hours
Most estate administration systems ask for documents.
P-15 asks for facts — the biographical layer that sits behind the documents and is required on every form that matters in the first week.
Mother's maiden name unlocks bank re-identification calls. Place of birth and occupation appear on the death registration form. Occupation goes on the death certificate. These facts are asked before any paperwork is produced.
PA1P requires an issue declaration (children). IHT402 needs previous-marriage history for transferable nil-rate band claims worth up to £500,000 of additional allowance. Address history feeds IHT417 and Tell Us Once.
Section E captures four facts that decide who inherits without a will. The most consequential: an unmarried partner inherits nothing under England & Wales intestacy, regardless of how long the relationship has lasted.
Five sections, in plain English
Sections A and E are single-value: fill in once.
Sections B, C and D are repeating rows — add as many as apply. Sections C and D are optional for most; Section A is the core.
About you
Six biographical anchors, all from memory. No paperwork hunt. Mother's maiden name, father's full name, place of birth, occupation, previous legal names, marital status.
Required on the UK death registration form and recognised by virtually every UK bank as a high-strength security question. Record the maiden name — your mother's surname at birth, not the married name. This single field unblocks most executor bank calls in the first five days.
Both appear on the death registration form. Record your father's full legal name as it appears on your birth certificate — the version the registrar cross-references. Place of birth is the registration district or town; not the hospital name.
The occupation that will appear on your death certificate, recorded by the registrar. If retired, the convention is the prior substantive occupation followed by 'retired' — e.g. 'Solicitor (retired)'. Use the substantive role, not a modern corporate title.
Every legal name you have used: maiden name, married names, deed-poll changes, professional names if formally registered. Probate and HMRC reconcile prior records under these names. Aliases and nicknames are not legal names.
Current legal marital status — single, married, civil partnership, separated, divorced, or widowed. Required on every death-registration form and determines spouse-related fields downstream: PA1P, IHT402, the spousal exemption calculation.
Previous addresses
Every address you have lived at, most recent first. IHT417 non-domicile checks, Tell Us Once, passport and driving-licence replacements. Five-year minimum; ten years is comfortable.
IHT417 (the non-UK-domicile supplementary page for inheritance tax) requires a full address history. Tell Us Once — the government service that notifies multiple departments of a death in one call — also needs it. Driving-licence and passport replacements use address history for identity verification.
Five years is the minimum most authorities ask for; ten years covers most scenarios comfortably. Record all four fields for each address: full address, postcode, year from, and year to (or 'current'). Approximate years are fine.
Record them. Foreign addresses are material for IHT417 domicile questions and may affect the tax treatment of worldwide assets. Record the country alongside the address.
Children
Biological, adopted, and step-children — all relevant to probate. PA1P §6 issue declaration, PA1A intestacy succession, Memorial Booklet biography. Leave blank if you have no children.
PA1P asks executors to declare all 'issue' — children and grandchildren. PA1A intestacy applications ask the same to determine succession. Children must be declared even if they are also named in the will.
Biological and adopted children inherit under intestacy. Step-children do not — they inherit only if named in a will. Record all three types with the correct relationship so the probate court reads succession correctly.
Where a child has predeceased you, their own children (your grandchildren) may inherit their share under the 'issue' rules. Record deceased children so this branch of succession is visible in probate.
Previous marriages
Often blank. Critical for IHT402 transferable nil-rate band claims where a prior spouse died. Up to £325,000 + £175,000 = £500,000 of additional inheritance tax allowance.
If a previous spouse died and did not use their nil-rate band — for example they left everything to you — that unused band transfers to your estate. This can add up to £325,000 of nil-rate band plus potentially £175,000 of residence nil-rate band. Material for estates over the single threshold.
Record whether the partnership ended by death, divorce (decree absolute), or annulment. The IHT402 transferable-NRB claim applies only where the prior spouse died — not divorce. Where the marriage ended by the spouse's death, also record whether they used their full nil-rate band.
Leave Section D blank — it is optional. It is here for the significant minority of estates where a prior marriage exists and the IHT402 claim is material enough to change the tax calculation substantially.
Living next-of-kin
Four facts, two minutes, from memory. These are the only fields that let us show you the actual intestacy outcome — and they are the most common gap in every other system.
If you died without a will, the law follows a fixed order: spouse or civil partner first, then children, then parents, then brothers and sisters, then half-siblings, then the Crown. Without knowing which of these are alive, any intestacy outcome is a guess.
An unmarried partner — even of decades, even with shared children — has NO automatic right to inherit anything under England & Wales intestacy. There is no 'common-law marriage'. This is the single most surprising and consequential gap in estate planning. Section E is where we flag it.
If you have no spouse and no children, your estate passes to living parents. If parents have also died, it passes to full siblings. These two facts complete the intestacy picture for the majority of childless, unmarried estates.
Your Personal Record, section by section
Sections A and E are single-value fields — fill in once and done. Sections B, C and D are repeating rows; add as many as apply. Answers save to this device only — no account, no signup.
About you
The biographical anchor every official form asks for. Mother's maiden name unlocks bank security questions. Place of birth and occupation are required on the death-registration form. Previous legal names matter where you have changed your name (marriage, professional, deed poll).
Where P-15 goes once it is filled in
P-15 feeds nine downstream documents and walkthroughs.
Fill it in once and these compositions are filled from your records — no re-entering the same facts on every form.
What this record covers — and what's outside it
P-15 is the biographical layer — facts from memory. ID document numbers (passport, NI number, driving licence) live in P-05.
Financial accounts, property and insurance belong in the appropriate record instruments. Together they form the household record your executor can actually use.
- P-15 is an internal Valoren instrument — not a legal document and not submitted anywhere.
- Valoren is not a solicitor and does not give legal or tax advice. IHT402 calculations and intestacy outcomes should be confirmed with a regulated adviser where the amounts are material.
- K04 / K08 privacy applies — answers are stored in your Valoren account only. The try-it walkthrough above saves to this device only and is not linked to your account.
The form is the short part.
The record is what makes every form fillable.
P-15 sits alongside P-05 (ID documents) in the household record.
Together they collapse the biographical and documentary hunt that takes most executors days into a single afternoon's preparation.