How to know if you need probate: five checks you can run in an evening

Work through the assets, not the estate

You need probate if something stood in the deceased's sole name and the organisation holding it will not hand it over without a grant. That is the entire test, and it is answered holding by holding rather than by the size of the estate, which is why two families with almost identical wealth can get opposite answers. Set aside an evening with the death certificate, the most recent statement for each account, the last pension and insurance letters, and the property paperwork. The five checks below are ordered so that the biggest questions resolve first.

Prefer to answer a short series of questions instead? The probate checker walkthrough and the do I need probate checker reach the same place in tool form; this page is the method underneath them. It covers England and Wales (Scotland runs a separate process called confirmation) and is general information rather than legal or financial advice.

Check 1: how the home was owned

For most estates the house is the largest item and it sets the shape of everything else. As joint tenants, the whole property passes automatically to the survivor and no grant is needed to move it, which is why GOV.UK lists joint tenancy among the situations where probate may not be required. As tenants in common, each owner holds a distinct share, and the deceased's share passes under their will or the intestacy rules, which usually means a grant.

The title register normally settles which applies. It costs £7 from HM Land Registry's search service and shows the current owners and any restriction on the title, and GOV.UK's guidance on checking ownership details points to the transfer document, lease or declaration of trust as a cross-check. Our guide to probate for jointly owned assets reads the register restriction by restriction. A sole name property always needs a grant before sale or transfer.

Check 2: what each institution says about its own balance

There is no national bank threshold. GOV.UK puts it plainly: contact the financial organisations the person used, because every organisation has its own rules. Those internal limits sit somewhere between £5,000 and £50,000, each applied to that institution's holding alone, so an estate spread across four banks may clear all four limits while one larger account elsewhere trips its own.

Ring each bereavement team and ask two questions: what is your threshold for releasing funds without a grant, and what will you accept instead. Below the limit, most pay out against a death certificate and a small estates indemnity form. Note the answers on one sheet as you go. ISAs deserve their own line, because they cannot be held jointly, so every ISA is a sole name asset judged on its own value. Accounts, ISAs, Premium Bonds and insurance payouts are taken further in probate for bank accounts, ISAs and life insurance.

Check 3: anything that passes by nomination or sits in trust

Some of the largest sums a family receives never enter the estate at all, so they need no grant and they do not push the rest of the estate towards one.

• Pension death benefits paid at the scheme trustees' discretion go to the nominated beneficiary on the scheme's own paperwork.
• Life policies written in trust pay the trustees directly rather than the estate, which our explainer on life insurance written in trust sets out. A policy not in trust pays the estate and joins the queue behind the grant.
• Death in service benefits from a registered scheme follow the scheme rules.

Keep the two questions apart as you work: an asset can sit outside the grant and still sit inside the inheritance tax calculation.

Check 4: who would be entitled to apply

If checks 1 to 3 leave something that needs a grant, the next question is who applies. Where there is a will, the executors named in it apply. Where there is none, the closest living relative applies for letters of administration instead, and the order of entitlement is fixed rather than a family decision. Two variations recur: an estate with no will or barely any assets, covered in probate with no will or no assets, and the case where one person is both executor and sole beneficiary, which changes nothing about whether a grant is required and is unpicked in executor and sole beneficiary. Running these checks after a parent's death? Probate when a parent dies follows the same sequence with a parent's typical asset mix.

Check 5: total up what is left, then price it

Holding	What decides it	Who gives you the answer
Home	Joint tenants or tenants in common, or sole name	Title register (£7) or the transfer deed
Bank and savings accounts	Sole or joint, and the provider's own threshold	Each bereavement team
ISAs, shares, funds	Always sole name, so value against the provider's threshold	The provider or platform
Pensions and life cover	Nomination or trust versus payable to the estate	Scheme administrator or insurer
Vehicles and possessions	Usually released without a grant	The buyer or transferee

If anything on that list still needs a grant, applying costs £526 where the estate is worth more than £5,000 and nothing at or below £5,000, per GOV.UK's probate fees guidance. Sealed copies are £2 each ordered with the application and £16 each afterwards, so count the institutions from your sheet and order one per organisation up front.

Reporting the estate for tax is a separate question

Plenty of estates need a grant and no inheritance tax account, and a few need the reverse. Most qualify as excepted, but GOV.UK's guidance on the type of estate requires full details where, among other triggers, the estate exceeds £3 million, gifts in the seven years before death exceeded £250,000, or foreign assets exceeded £100,000. Those details are due within 12 months of the death, and the tax itself by the end of the sixth month after the person died, usually before the grant issues. See probate for a small or excepted estate and IHT205 or IHT400 before probate.

Where this leaves you

Run the checks in order and the answer is usually clear by the end of check 2. Background sits in our probate pillar guide and in do you need probate, and the position after a husband or wife dies in probate when a spouse dies.

Two situations deserve a second opinion before you act on your own conclusion: a home held in a way the paperwork does not clearly explain, and a business, trust interest or overseas asset surfacing part way through. Either can flip the answer late. We can put you in touch with a probate specialist who will confirm the position from the documents you have already assembled, so nothing is distributed on a guess.