One figure per asset, not three per house
The number of valuations an estate needs is set by how many things the person owned, not by how many opinions you gather on each one. GOV.UK's guidance on reporting the value of an estate says you "can get a professional valuation for anything worth over £1,500" and that you "can get any property or land valued by an estate agent or chartered surveyor". Both sentences use the word can. There is no legal requirement to obtain three valuations of a house, two of anything, or any particular number at all.
What the law does require is a standard. Every asset in the estate is valued at open market value, defined in HMRC's Inheritance Tax Manual at IHTM09703 under section 160 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 as "the price it might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold in the open market at that time". And every figure carries the same date. GOV.UK's page on estimating the estate's value tells executors to "find out or estimate the value of each on the date the person died". This page covers England and Wales and gives general information rather than legal or financial advice.
Where the three estate agents convention came from
The advice to get three valuations and average them is real, widespread and entirely unofficial. It migrated into probate from selling a house and from divorce settlements, where free agent appraisals are plentiful and averaging three of them smooths out the optimism of whoever most wants the instruction. As a rule of thumb on a small estate it is perfectly sensible. It shows you did not simply invent a number.
Its weakness shows up when a figure is challenged. Three free appraisals given after a fifteen minute walk round are three opinions, and an average of opinions is still an opinion. A single valuation written on the open market basis, at the date of death, by a surveyor prepared to stand behind it is a document you can produce. That difference is worth paying for when the estate is near a threshold and worth skipping when it plainly is not. Our sibling guides cover the two halves of that decision: what a probate valuation costs, and whether you need a professional RICS valuation.
Count the assets, then count the valuations
Work through the inventory instead. Most of it produces exact figures for free.
| Asset | What is needed | Who provides it |
|---|---|---|
| Bank, building society, ISA, NS&I | Exact balance at the date of death, including accrued interest | The institution, on request, usually free |
| Pensions and death benefits | Exact figure and scheme details | The pension provider |
| Listed shares, funds, investment accounts | Value on the date of death | Registrar, broker or platform statement |
| The home, other land or buildings | Open market value at the date of death | Estate agent or chartered surveyor |
| Private company shares or a business | Open market valuation of the interest | Accountant or specialist valuer |
| General household contents | Sensible second hand estimate for the batch | The executors |
| Individual items over about £1,500 | Professional valuation on the open market basis | Jewellery, art, antiques or vehicle specialist |
| Jointly owned property | The deceased's share, with the joint ownership discount applied | Agent or surveyor, reviewed by the District Valuer |
| Assets held in trust | Value of the trust fund and the nature of the interest | The trustees |
Two rows on that table are permissions rather than duties. Everything else arrives as a number by letter or statement. Jointly owned land is the row people miss: HMRC's practice, set out at IHTM15072, is that a share in jointly owned land is discounted below the simple arithmetic fraction, with the District Valuer reporting the figure. Contents are the row people overspend on. Ordinary furniture and electricals can be estimated as a group at second hand value, which our guide to valuing personal possessions works through.
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A worked count
Priya and Anand are joint executors for their father, a retired engineer in Derby. His estate contains eleven things: a house, two current accounts, a cash ISA, premium bonds, a small portfolio of listed shares, a workplace pension, a car, general household contents, a wedding ring left to Priya, and a quarter share in a holiday cottage he owned with his brother.
Nine of those eleven produce an exact figure on request, from the bank, NS&I, the registrar and the pension scheme, with the car checked against trade guides and the contents estimated as a batch. That leaves the house and the cottage share, which need genuine valuations, and the ring, which needs one only if it looks worth more than about £1,500. Eleven assets, one or two invoices. The answer to "how many valuations" was never three.
The date, and what happens when the sale price differs
Every figure is fixed at the date of death, which is what catches families out when a house eventually sells eight months later for £20,000 more or less. The inheritance tax value does not simply follow the sale. Where land or buildings are sold at a loss within four years of the death, whoever is liable for the tax may claim relief on form IHT38 so the sale price replaces the death value. Where it sells for more, the excess over the probate value is normally a capital gains question instead, covered in our guide to capital gains tax on inherited property. That is the practical reason not to lowball a property figure to save effort: an artificially low probate value simply moves the tax across to the beneficiaries later.
Next steps
For the full sequence of identifying assets, valuing them and reporting the total, see our main guide on how to value an estate for probate, and our inheritance tax pillar guide for how the £325,000 nil-rate band and the residence nil-rate band then apply to the figure you arrive at. The probate cost calculator will show you where valuation fees sit against the £526 probate application fee and the other costs of administering an estate.
If the inventory includes a business interest, a jointly owned property or a chattel you cannot price with confidence, that is the point at which a probate specialist earns their place: they will tell you which two or three items genuinely need a paid figure and which nine you can evidence yourself. We can put you in touch with one who handles estates of that shape regularly.