How long does probate actually take?

Seven stages, start to finish

Once the medical examiner's office confirms the death can be registered, it must normally be registered within 5 days in England & Wales — unless the coroner is involved.

The registrar issues the death certificate — order several certified copies (£12.50 each) because banks, insurers and the Land Registry each want their own.

Ask the registrar about Tell Us Once, which notifies HMRC, DWP, DVLA and the Passport Office in one pass.

Locate the original will (not a copy) and identify the executors.

Secure the property, redirect post, and notify banks and insurers of the death — accounts freeze on notification, which is normal.

If there is no will, the intestacy rules decide who administers and who inherits; the timeline still applies, but the grant is called letters of administration.

Every asset and liability is valued at the date of death: property (a formal valuation for anything near a tax threshold), accounts, pensions, shares, debts. This is the stage executors most underestimate — each institution answers on its own schedule.

A complete household record collapses this stage from months to days; without one, every account is a fresh piece of detective work.

Many estates no longer file a separate IHT return.

For deaths on or after 1 January 2022, an excepted estate — broadly, under the £325,000 nil-rate band, or under £650,000 where a spouse's unused band transfers, or where everything passes to the surviving spouse or charity — reports its values inside the probate application itself.

No IHT205; that form is abolished. Estates over the thresholds, or with trusts, foreign assets or big lifetime gifts, file the full IHT400.

Any tax due must be arranged before the grant — at least the first instalment — and HMRC then takes about 20 working days to issue the unique code the probate application needs.

Inheritance tax itself is due by the end of the sixth month after the month of death, after which interest runs.

The application (form PA1P with a will, PA1A without) goes to HMCTS online or by post, with the £526 application fee (estates of £5,000 or under pay nothing). Extra sealed copies requested with the application are £2 each; copies ordered later cost £16.

Order every copy you'll need with the application — one per institution holding assets.

GOV.UK's benchmark is within 12 weeks of submission. The single most common stop is a mismatch between the IHT figures and the application — which is why Stage 4's code matters.

The grant unlocks everything: banks release balances, the Land Registry transfers or sells property, shares are sold or transferred.

Debts, funeral costs and expenses are paid first.

Executors should keep estate accounts from day one — every beneficiary is entitled to see them, and disputes about money are really disputes about records.

Many executors wait six months from the grant before final distribution — the window for issuing an Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 claim — and cautious ones wait ten months, because a claim issued in time can be served up to four months later.

Late creditor claims are a separate risk with a separate protection: s.27 Trustee Act notices, advertised at least two months before distribution.

Then legacies are paid, the residue is split per the will, final accounts are signed, and the estate closes.

Why it takes so long

Probate, answered plainly.