Before assuming there's no will · England & Wales

How to find out if someone left a will

Q: How do I find out if someone left a will?

Start with the practical, close-to-home checks: their papers at home, any safe, and any solicitor or bank the family already knows about. It costs nothing, and for many families that's enough to settle the question before any formal search is needed. If nothing surfaces, a solicitor who drew up a will usually still holds the original, even years later, traceable through the firm's successor practice or the Solicitors Regulation Authority's register if the firm has since closed. A paid search with The National Will Register (the current name for what many still call "Certainty") checks a database of over 10.5 million records and, with its combined search, has solicitors and will-writers in the person's area contacted directly.

Q: How much does a will search cost, and which one should I use?

The National Will Register's two most relevant products for an executor, as checked on their site on 30 August 2026, are a Will Register Search, £65.00 inc VAT, which only checks their own database of registered wills and returns a result within about 48 hours, and a Will Search Combined, £140.00 inc VAT, which adds a targeted search of solicitors and will-writing firms in the areas connected to the person who died, plus a notice on their Missing Will Noticeboard, and takes up to 28 days. For most executors, the combined search is the one worth paying for, because most wills that exist but were never centrally registered will only surface through that outreach, not the database alone. A third product, Will Search Protect at £300.00 inc VAT, is worth knowing about too — it bundles the combined search with a Section 27 Trustee Act 1925 notice, the standard liability-protection step for a personal representative distributing an estate.

Answer

Start close to home first — a drawer, a safe, or a solicitor or bank the family already knows about. It costs nothing, and for a great many families it's enough to settle the question before any formal search is needed. If nothing surfaces there, a solicitor who drew up a will very often still holds the original even years later, and even if the firm has since closed, merged or been bought — traceable through the Solicitors Regulation Authority's register or, for a firm that no longer exists at all, through the Law Society. A paid search with The National Will Register (the organisation many people still call “Certainty”) checks a database of over 10.5 million records and, with its combined search, has solicitors and will-writers in the person's own area contacted directly. A clear result from any of this is not proof that no will exists — only that none was found this way — so the estate is then administered as if intestate, not confirmed to be will-free.

This page covers one thing only: the practical order to search in, and what each step actually proves. What happens once no will can be found is a separate question, with its own page and its own tool, linked in §IV.

What to do when someone dies Already confirmed as executor? Executor's First Hour

§I

Start with what's already in the house

Start here first — it costs nothing, and for a great many families it settles the question before any formal search is needed. Check a drawer, a filing cabinet, a safe, or — more often than people expect — simply ask family and close friends whether anyone knows of a solicitor the deceased used. It's worth being thorough about the places a will is most commonly kept before spending anything on the paid search in §III.

Papers, files and correspondence at home.

A dedicated folder or box of important documents, a filing cabinet, or simply the drawer where post and paperwork collects. Look for anything from a solicitor — a compliments slip, an invoice, or a letter — even years old; it often names the firm that holds the original.

A home safe, or a safe deposit box.

It's worth checking bank statements for a recurring 'safe custody' fee — this can sometimes indicate the bank itself is holding a sealed envelope, though not always the will itself. Ask the branch directly; banks will typically want to see a death certificate and proof of your relationship before releasing anything.

Ask before you search.

A spouse, adult children, siblings, a long-standing accountant, or a close friend may simply know — who the solicitor was, or that a will exists at all. This costs nothing and is very often faster than any formal route below.

A will made through a will-writing company, not a solicitor

Not everyone with a will used a solicitor — some used a specialist will-writing firm instead. The same logic applies: look for any paperwork with a company name on it, and the same nationwide search in §III covers registered will-writers as well as solicitors, not solicitors alone.

§II

Tracing a solicitor — including one whose firm has since closed

A will is very often lodged with the solicitor who drew it up, kept for years in what's called a "deed box." In practice, solicitors have traditionally kept a client's original will, and sometimes other title deeds, in a labelled deed box or archive — often for decades after the will was signed. The question is usually not whether the file still exists, but which firm now has it.

If the firm has closed, merged, or been bought by another practice, the client files — including the original will — are usually retained by whichever firm took over the practice, since continuity of client files is one of the things a merger or takeover is expected to preserve.

Where a firm closes voluntarily with no successor practice at all, it was required to make its own arrangements for returning clients' papers — the SRA only holds a firm's files where it has formally intervened to close it down, which is what card B covers; for a firm with no trace at all, that's card C.

Check the SRA register

The Solicitors Regulation Authority's solicitor and firm check tool shows whether a firm is still trading, and whether the SRA has closed it down; for the name of a successor practice you generally have to ask the SRA directly. For a firm the SRA has formally closed down, its own closed-down-firms route is the direct route. Either way, the SRA's own online records only reach back to around 1995 — for anything older than that, see card C.

If the SRA closed the firm down

Where the SRA formally shuts a firm down — an “intervention”, distinct from an ordinary merger — the SRA itself holds the client files, including original wills, and runs a free process to claim them back with proof of identity. Client files are kept for a minimum of seven years from when the matter closed; original documents are retained separately.

A firm that no longer exists at all

For a firm that ceased trading a long time ago and leaves no trace on the SRA's register, the Law Society's library holds historical directories (including the old annual Law List) going back over two hundred years, and can search them on your behalf for a fee — £30 + VAT per 30 minutes of research time. This is a slower, more specialist route, worth trying once the first two have been exhausted.

None of this requires guessing. The SRA register check is free and takes minutes; it is worth doing before paying for anything in §III, especially if the family has even a vague memory of a solicitor's name.

Figure watch

The figures on this page change.

Court fees rise, thresholds move, deadlines shift.

Every figure on this page is dated and carries its source, and we re-check them against those sources. Leave an email and it reaches us directly.

§III

The National Will Register — a paid, nationwide search

If the close-to-home checks and the solicitor trace above turn up nothing, this is the formal search. The National Will Register — the current name for the organisation many people still know as “Certainty” — has worked with the Law Society since 2006 and is its endorsed will-search and registration provider, and its database now holds over 10.5 million will records. It runs four separate search products at different prices, and they are not all the same search — or even all relevant to an executor searching after a death.

Will Register Search — £65.00 inc VAT

Checks only whether a will was registered with The National Will Register itself — a database lookup, with no outreach to any solicitor or will-writer. Returns a result within about 48 hours. Useful as a first, fast check — but registering a will has always been optional in the UK, so a negative result here proves very little on its own.

Will Search Combined — £140.00 inc VAT

Adds the REACH search — a targeted search of solicitors and will-writing firms in the areas connected to the person who died — plus a notice placed on the Missing Will Noticeboard. This is the search most likely to find a will that exists but was never centrally registered. Takes up to 28 days.

A third product is easy to miss, and is often the more relevant one for an executor. Will Search Protect, £300.00 inc VAT, bundles the Will Search Combined above with a Section 27 Trustee Act 1925 notice, a Probate Registry search and a Probate Depository search — the standard liability-protection step when a personal representative is distributing an estate: it gives creditors and unknown beneficiaries a window to come forward before assets are handed out, and protects the executor from personal liability if none do.

A fourth product, a Court of Protection search (£140.00 inc VAT), genuinely isn't relevant here — it's for someone still living who has lost testamentary capacity, not for an executor searching after a death.

Who can actually get the result. Full will-location details are released only to authorised people — typically the executors named, or close family — who can show ID and a death certificate.

This is not the same as GOV.UK's "search for a will, probate or estate record" service

GOV.UK's own tool only finds a record once a grant of probate has actually been issued — a copy costs £16, and a new record appears online only about 14 days after that grant is issued. Simply applying for probate puts nothing in the search yet.

If the death was within the last 6 months and probate hasn't been granted yet, GOV.UK instead offers a PA1S standing search for £4, valid for 6 months — which exists precisely because the main search shows nothing for an application alone, and instead notifies you once probate is later granted. Neither of these can tell a family whether a will exists in the first days after a death — they are downstream checks, useful only once an application for probate is already underway.

§IV

What it means if nothing turns up

A clear result is not proof that no will exists — it only means none was found by the routes actually checked. A Will Search Combined checks the National Will Register's own database, plus the solicitors and will-writers its REACH outreach actually reaches in the relevant area. It cannot see a will kept by a firm outside that outreach, a will made abroad, or simply a drawer nobody has opened yet. That is a real limit on what any search can tell you — not a flaw specific to this one.

The wording matters here, and it is worth being precise about it. Once the practical checks and a genuine search have been exhausted and nothing has surfaced, the estate is administered as if the person had died without a will — under England and Wales' statutory intestacy rules — rather than the absence of a will being formally “proven.”

In practice this distinction rarely changes what happens next, but it is the honest way to describe the position.

Who inherits under intestacy

The statutory order that applies once an estate is administered as if intestate — spouse or civil partner first, then a fixed order of relatives. What happens if you die without a will sets out that order in full; this page deliberately doesn't repeat it.

Work out who inherits, in your case

The intestacy checker walks through the actual family situation — spouse, children, parents, siblings — and shows who takes what under the rules, rather than the general order alone.

§V

A different problem: missing or unknown relatives

This is a separate question from finding a will, and it only arises after one — genuinely — hasn't been found. Once an estate is confirmed to be intestate, the statutory rules can only be applied if the people entitled under them can actually be identified and located. Where a family includes relatives who are estranged, unknown, or simply cannot be traced, that becomes a tracing problem in its own right.

Probate genealogists — sometimes called "heir hunters"

Firms that specialise in tracing missing or unknown next of kin for an intestate estate — a genuinely different job from searching for a will. They typically become relevant only once §IV's position is confirmed and there are relatives who need identifying, not before. If a will hasn't yet been genuinely searched for, that comes first — §I through §III above.

FAQ

The questions people actually type.

Start with the practical, close-to-home checks. Their papers at home, any safe, and any solicitor or bank the family already knows about — it costs nothing, and for many families that's enough to settle the question before any formal search is needed.

If nothing surfaces, a solicitor who drew up a will usually still holds the original, even years later, traceable through the firm's successor practice or the Solicitors Regulation Authority's register if the firm has since closed.

A paid search with The National Will Register (the current name for what many still call “Certainty”) checks a database of over 10.5 million records and, with its combined search, has solicitors and will-writers in the person's area contacted directly.

Not directly. Registering a will with The National Will Register is optional in the UK, so a solicitor drawing up a will is not required to register it, and there is no free public register you can search yourself.

The free steps are the ones that come first anyway: checking the deceased's own papers, asking family, and asking any solicitor or bank the family already knows about.

A search of The National Will Register's own database — a paid product, from £65 inc VAT — is the first formal, nationwide check.

The two most relevant products, checked on their site on 30 August 2026. A Will Register Search, £65.00 inc VAT, only checks their own database of registered wills and returns a result within about 48 hours.

A Will Search Combined, £140.00 inc VAT, adds a targeted search of solicitors and will-writing firms in the areas connected to the person who died, plus a notice on their Missing Will Noticeboard, and takes up to 28 days.

For most executors, the combined search is the one worth paying for — most wills that exist but were never centrally registered only surface through that outreach, not the database alone.

A third product worth knowing about, Will Search Protect at £300.00 inc VAT, bundles the combined search with a Section 27 Trustee Act 1925 notice — the standard liability-protection step for a personal representative distributing an estate.

The file, including the original will, is usually retained by whichever firm took over the practice. If the firm was formally shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (an “intervention”), rather than merging or being bought, the SRA itself holds the papers, keeps client files for a minimum of seven years, and runs a free process to claim them back with proof of identity and authority.

For a firm that stopped existing a long time ago and leaves no trace on the SRA's register, the Law Society's library can search historical directories on your behalf, for a fee — a slower route reserved for genuinely old or obscure firms.

A clear result is not proof that no will exists — only that none was found by the routes actually checked. The National Will Register's database, the specific firms reached by a combined search's outreach, and wherever the family looked themselves.

If, after reasonably exhausting those routes, still nothing turns up, the estate is administered as if the person had died without a will, under England and Wales' statutory intestacy rules, rather than being formally “proven” intestate.

Only once intestacy is the confirmed position and there are relatives who are unknown, estranged, or cannot be traced. Probate genealogists — sometimes called “heir hunters” — specialise in tracing missing or unknown next of kin so the intestacy rules can actually be applied. A different job from searching for a will, and usually only needed after a will search has already come back empty.

Scoped to England and Wales. Checked against GOV.UK, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society and nationalwillregister.co.uk on 30 August 2026. This page is information about how to search, not advice on your own estate — for a contested or complex case, take advice from a solicitor.

Two different questions, depending on what the search turns up.

Right now you need the practical sequence for the next few days. Once you know whether a will exists — or know that it doesn't — the next questions are completely different, and each has its own door below.

In it now · free

What to do when someone dies

The practical sequence for the first days and weeks — registration, notification, and what genuinely has to happen in what order. No account required.

Open the guide→If no will turns up

What happens without a will

The statutory order the estate follows once it is administered as if intestate — who inherits, and in what order.

See who inherits→Confirmed as executor · £179

Executor's First Hour

A personalised, timed action plan once you know you're the one dealing with the estate — will found or not.

See what's included→