How long does probate take with or without a will?

For a straightforward estate in England and Wales, probate typically takes around 9 to 12 months from death to final distribution. The court stage in the middle is often the fastest part: official HMCTS statistics for January to March 2026 show grants issued in a mean of 6.4 weeks from submission across all channels, and just 4.5 weeks for digital applications, which made up 82.6% of all applications. Paper applications averaged 16.5 weeks. Waits vary, and the real timetable is dominated by everything either side of the court: valuing the estate and dealing with inheritance tax before you apply, then collecting assets, selling property and distributing afterwards.

Whether there is a will makes surprisingly little difference to the court's processing time, but it can make a real difference to how quickly you get to the application in the first place. This guide walks through each stage with realistic durations, explains the with-a-will and without-a-will routes, and covers the things that most commonly stretch a 9 month estate into an 18 month one. If you want a personalised estimate rather than ranges, our free probate timeline estimator works out a start-to-finish timetable for your estate in about two minutes, using the official wait-time data below.

The probate timeline, stage by stage

Probate is the legal process of proving a will and giving the executor authority to deal with the deceased person's estate (their money, property and possessions). The document the court issues is a grant of probate; where there is no will it is called letters of administration, and both are types of "grant of representation". This is the position in England and Wales. Scotland has a separate system called confirmation, with different courts and timescales.

Here is how the whole process typically breaks down for an estate that needs a grant. Not every estate does: small estates and jointly owned assets often pass without one, which we cover in do you need probate?.

Stage	What happens	Typical duration
1. Register the death and secure the estate	Death certificate, notify banks and insurers, secure property	1 to 4 weeks
2. Gather information and value the estate	Date-of-death valuations for property, accounts, shares, pensions, debts	1 to 3 months
3. Inheritance tax forms and any payment	Estimate the estate, complete the IHT400 if required, pay any tax due	Included above for simple estates; add 1 to 3 months if a full IHT400 is needed
4. Apply for the grant	Online or paper application to HMCTS with the probate fee	Days, once the paperwork is ready
5. Wait for the grant	HMCTS processes the application	Mean 4.5 weeks digital, 16.5 weeks paper (Jan to Mar 2026); waits vary
6. Administer the estate	Collect assets, sell property, pay debts and tax, prepare accounts	3 to 9 months, longer with a property sale
7. Distribute and close	Pay beneficiaries, finalise accounts	2 to 6 weeks

Add those together and you can see why "how long does probate take?" has two honest answers: the grant often arrives within about six weeks of applying, but the estate as a whole usually takes the best part of a year to complete.

Stage 2 in detail: why the valuations take so long

Before anyone can apply, the personal representative must value the estate: everything owned at the date of death, at open market value, plus gifts made in the seven years before death. Banks respond in days or weeks; pension schemes, life insurers and share registrars can take considerably longer, and a professional property valuation may be needed for inheritance tax. For most estates this information-gathering phase, not the court, is the first big block of elapsed time.

Stage 3: the inheritance tax gate

The probate application cannot be finalised until the inheritance tax position is dealt with. Most estates are "excepted" and simply report values as part of the probate application. But if the estate needs a full IHT400 account, because tax is due or the estate does not qualify as excepted, HMRC must process it first: you normally wait 20 working days after submitting the IHT400 before applying for probate, and any tax due on most assets must be paid before the grant can issue. Whether tax is due at all depends on the £325,000 nil-rate band and the reliefs on top of it, which is a separate topic we cover in the UK inheritance tax threshold guide.

Stage 5: the official court wait times

This is the number most people are actually searching for, and it is published quarterly. The Family Court Statistics Quarterly for January to March 2026 reports the following mean waits from submission to grant:

• All channels: 6.4 weeks
• Digital applications: 4.5 weeks (82.6% of applications were digital)
• Paper applications: 16.5 weeks

Those are all grant types combined, and that total is dominated by grants of probate, which were 80.5% of applications in the quarter. Split by the grant you are actually applying for, the same quarter looks like this:

• Grant of probate (there is a will): 5.0 weeks mean, 1.3 weeks median
• Letters of administration (no will): 10.5 weeks mean, 11.0 weeks median
• Letters of administration with will annexed (there is a will, but no executor able or willing to act): 20.4 weeks mean, 17.0 weeks median

If you are dealing with an intestate estate, budget against the letters of administration figure rather than the headline. The section on with a will vs without a will below explains why the gap exists.

Waits vary from quarter to quarter and case to case, and a stopped application (more on that below) can take far longer than the mean. We track these figures every quarter, with the history and the digital-versus-paper gap over time, in our UK probate wait times index. The source data is the Ministry of Justice's Family Court Statistics Quarterly. While you wait, digital applicants can track the application online by signing in to the probate service; paper applicants should hear within 12 weeks according to gov.uk guidance.

The application fee is £526 for estates over £5,000 (it rose on 13 July 2026); there is no fee for estates at or below £5,000, and sealed copies of the grant cost £2 each when ordered with the application. Fees are a small part of the overall cost picture, which we break down separately in how much does probate cost?.

With a will vs without a will: what actually changes

With a valid will, the executors named in it apply for a grant of probate. Their authority technically dates from the death itself, and as soon as the will is located they can start valuing the estate. The will also states who inherits, so there is usually no research needed into entitlement.

Without a will, the estate is intestate. Nobody is an executor; instead, the people entitled to inherit under the intestacy rules apply to be administrators and receive letters of administration rather than a grant of probate. Entitlement to apply follows a strict order of priority, starting with the surviving spouse or civil partner, then children, then more distant relatives. A surviving spouse takes the first £322,000 (the statutory legacy in England and Wales) plus personal possessions and half of anything above that, with the rest passing to children.

The court stage is slower for an intestate estate, and by more than most guides admit. In the January to March 2026 statistics, letters of administration took a mean of 10.5 weeks from submission to grant against 5.0 weeks for grants of probate, with a median of 11.0 weeks against 1.3 weeks. Most of that gap is the application channel rather than the registry treating intestate estates differently: only 45.3% of letters of administration applications were made digitally, against 92.6% of probate applications, and paper is the slow route whatever the grant type. A digital application for letters of administration averaged 5.1 weeks. Delay also comes earlier in the process:

• Working out who can apply. Families need to establish the order of priority and sometimes prove relationships with certificates.
• Agreeing who will act. Where several people have equal entitlement, deciding who applies (and getting others to step back) takes time, and disagreement takes much longer.
• Tracing beneficiaries. Intestacy can pass money to relatives nobody has spoken to in decades, and they must be found before distribution.
• No expressed wishes. Questions a will would have answered (who takes the house, who acts, what happens to specific items) must be negotiated instead.

As a working rule, expect an intestate estate to take at least a few weeks longer than an equivalent estate with a will, and materially longer where the family situation is complicated. If you are the one taking this on, our guide for executors and administrators covers the role itself.

What delays probate most often

Stopped applications

HMCTS "stops" an application when something is wrong or missing: the will is damaged or has evidence of removed staples, a name does not match, the inheritance tax figures do not line up, or a document was not enclosed. A stopped application leaves the mean wait times behind entirely and can sit for months while queries go back and forth. The single best way to keep probate fast is to submit a complete, accurate digital application first time.

Caveats and disputes

Anyone who believes there is a problem with the will or the applicant can enter a caveat, which blocks any grant from issuing for six months and can be renewed. Caveats are meant for genuine concerns (a later will, doubts about capacity), and while one is in place the whole process is frozen. Resolving a contested caveat is a legal dispute of its own and sits outside the scope of this guide.

The full IHT400 account

As above, a taxable or non-excepted estate must send HMRC a full IHT400 before applying, wait for HMRC's processing, and pay tax due on most assets up front. Raising the money for that payment (banks can pay HMRC directly from the deceased's accounts, and tax on property can be paid in instalments) adds its own logistics. Budget an extra one to three months whenever an IHT400 is in play.

Property that will not sell

The grant usually arrives long before the house sells. An estate cannot normally be wound up until its largest asset is turned into money, so a slow market can hold the final distribution open for many months even though every legal step was quick.

Everything else

Missing share certificates, foreign assets, a business to value or wind down, missing beneficiaries, and Department for Work and Pensions checks on estates that received means-tested benefits all add time. None of these is unusual, which is why sensible executors tell beneficiaries "about a year" rather than "a couple of months".

Is there a deadline for completing probate?

No statute says probate must finish by a particular date, but two timing rules shape the timetable. Any inheritance tax must be paid by the end of the sixth month after the month of death, after which HMRC charges interest, so slow valuations have a real cost. And executors are conventionally allowed an "executor's year": beneficiaries generally cannot demand their inheritance within twelve months of the death, but once that year has passed they are entitled to ask why the estate is still open. In practice, beneficiaries usually receive their money three to six months after the grant on a straightforward estate, and later where a property has to sell first.

How long do I need to keep probate paperwork?

Longer than most people expect. HMRC can open an enquiry into an inheritance tax account well after the estate is wound up, beneficiaries may need the probate value of assets for capital gains tax decades later, and claims against estates can surface late. A practical retention policy:

• At least 12 years from final distribution: the full working file, including valuations, IHT forms and calculations, correspondence with HMRC and HMCTS, bank statements for the executor's account, receipts and beneficiary payment records.
• Indefinitely: the grant of probate or letters of administration, the will (the original goes to the court with a paper application, so keep certified copies), the final estate accounts, and the death certificate.

Executors are personally liable for the estate's tax, so the file is your protection: if a question arrives in year six, the answer should be in the box, not in anyone's memory.

Get a realistic estimate for your estate

Averages only get you so far. Whether there is a will, whether an IHT400 is needed, whether there is a house to sell and whether you apply digitally each shift the timetable by weeks or months. Our free probate timeline estimator combines your answers with the latest official HMCTS wait-time statistics to give you a stage-by-stage estimate for your own situation, in about two minutes and with nothing to sign up for. For the wider process, start with our main probate guide.

If the estate turns out to be complicated (an IHT400, a caveat, a business, overseas assets), it is often worth having a specialist handle some or all of it. This article is general information, not legal advice. We can connect you with a vetted probate specialist who can look at your estate's specifics and tell you honestly whether you need help at all.