How many copies of the grant of probate do you need?

The one-per-institution rule

Order one official sealed copy of the grant of probate for every institution that holds the deceased's assets, plus one or two spares. For a typical estate that means four to six copies: one for each bank or building society, one per investment or pension provider, one per insurer, and one for HM Land Registry if a property is being sold or transferred. The pricing makes the decision easy. According to GOV.UK's probate fees page, sealed copies cost £2 each when ordered with your probate application but £16 each if you order them afterwards. A spare copy you never use costs you £2; a missing copy costs £16 and a delay. This page is general information about the process, not legal advice for your particular estate.

Why sealed copies, not photocopies

A sealed copy is an official duplicate of the grant carrying the embossed seal of His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service. The seal is what asset holders check, because it proves the document came from the probate registry rather than a home printer. Most banks, investment platforms and the Land Registry will therefore refuse a plain photocopy when releasing funds or registering a transfer. Practice is softening at the edges: some institutions with online bereavement portals accept an uploaded scan of a sealed copy, and several banks participate in the Death Notification Service, which reduces the paperwork. But you cannot know in advance which of the deceased's providers will be flexible, so the safe planning assumption is one sealed copy per institution.

The real payoff is speed. If you have only one sealed copy, you must send it to the first bank, wait for it to be returned, then send it to the next, and so on. With a copy for each institution you can write to all of them in the same week and let the claims run in parallel. Estate administration commonly takes months even when nothing goes wrong, and sequential document circulation is one of the avoidable causes of drift. Our probate timeline estimator shows how the stages stack up, and our guide to how long probate takes covers the other common bottlenecks.

How to count the copies you need

Before you apply, list every asset holder you will need to approach. A workable checklist:

• Banks and building societies: one copy per institution, not per account. Three accounts at one bank need one copy.
• Investment and share holdings: one per platform, fund manager or registrar.
• Pension providers: one per scheme still holding funds or paying death benefits.
• Insurers: one per company with a policy paying out to the estate.
• Property: one for HM Land Registry if land or property is being transferred or sold, and one for the conveyancer if a sale is under way.
• Spares: add one or two for assets you discover later. Unknown accounts surface surprisingly often.

Take, for example, two brothers acting as executors for their late father: two bank accounts at different banks, an ISA platform, a small personal pension and a house to sell. That is five institutions, so seven copies ordered with the application (five plus two spares) costs £14. Ordering the same seven copies after the grant issued would cost £112. The count goes on the probate application itself, alongside the documents covered in our guide to what you need to apply for probate.

Fees in context

The copies are a minor line next to the application fee. GOV.UK confirms the probate application fee in England and Wales is £526 where the estate is worth over £5,000, and no fee applies at £5,000 or under. Help with fees may be available for the application itself if you are on a low income or certain benefits, but GOV.UK notes that fee help does not extend to the cost of extra copies. For the full picture of what an estate typically spends, see how much probate costs, and for the wider process from application to distribution, start with our probate guide.

Running short later

If you under-ordered, all is not lost. Once a grant has issued, the probate record (including the will, where there is one) becomes public, and further copies can be ordered through the probate records search service on GOV.UK at £16 per copy ordered online, or by post using form PA1S. The same service is how a beneficiary, creditor or researcher can obtain a copy independently of the executor. It works, it is just eight times the price and another item on an already long to-do list.

Counting copies is one of the small decisions that quietly shapes how smoothly an estate runs. If the estate you are handling has many asset holders, overseas elements or anything you are unsure how to approach, a probate specialist can take the administration off your hands or simply sanity-check your plan before you apply. Getting the application right first time, copies included, is usually where they save you the most.