Valuing personal possessions (chattels) for probate

What value do you put on possessions for probate?

Personal possessions, called chattels in probate, are valued at their open market value: the price each item would realistically fetch if sold at the date of death. That means the second-hand price, not the insurance value, not the replacement cost, and not what the item cost new. The legal test comes from section 160 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984, which HMRC's Inheritance Tax Manual at IHTM21041 summarises as "the price which the property might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold in the open market at that time".

This page is the quick answer on chattels only. For the whole exercise, working through property, bank accounts, investments, debts and gifts, see our fuller guide on how to value an estate for probate. What follows is general information to help you get the chattels figure right; it is not legal or financial advice, and unusual or high-value estates deserve professional input.

Second-hand value, not insurance value

The single point that trips up most personal representatives is the basis of valuation. Insurance schedules value items at what it would cost to replace them new. Probate values them at what they would sell for now, used. The gap can be enormous: a sofa insured for £3,000 may fetch £150 on a resale site, a five-year-old car is worth its trade price, and most everyday furniture, electricals and clothing have only modest second-hand value.

HMRC's manual makes the point explicitly: a valuation prepared "for insurance purposes" using replacement values may not satisfy the section 160 test because it can overstate the value. Using insurance figures inflates the estate, and because chattels count towards the £325,000 nil-rate band like every other asset (see GOV.UK's inheritance tax guidance), an inflated contents figure can mean paying 40% tax on value that never really existed.

The opposite error matters too. Guessing a token £500 for the entire contents of a large house with antiques and jewellery invites HMRC scrutiny, especially if items later sell at auction for far more. Aim for a genuinely realistic figure in both directions.

How to value everyday contents

GOV.UK's guidance on estimating an estate's value keeps it practical: for items such as cars, jewellery and paintings, work out how much you would have got if you had sold them, and you can check what similar items are selling for on online marketplaces. In practice, for ordinary household goods:

• Walk the property room by room and list what is there, ideally with photographs before anything is cleared or given away.
• Batch the ordinary items. Furniture, white goods, clothing and general effects can be estimated together at a sensible second-hand total; item-by-item precision is not expected for low-value contents.
• Check real selling prices, not asking prices, for comparable used items online, and note how you reached your figure.
• Value cars separately using trade guides or comparable sale listings for the same model, age and condition.

A realistic outcome for a typical home is often a fairly small number. When siblings Priya and Daniel cleared their father's three-bed semi, the insurance schedule said £48,000 of contents; their honest second-hand estimate, checked against marketplace prices, came to about £3,200 plus £7,500 for the car, and that is the kind of figure HMRC sees on most estates.

When to bring in a professional valuer

Anything individually valuable or hard to price is worth a professional valuation: jewellery and watches, antiques, paintings and other art, silverware, rare books, stamp or coin collections, classic vehicles. HMRC will usually accept a professional valuation that states it was prepared on the open market value basis or in the terms of section 160; a valuation on any other basis may be challenged. If chattels are later sold, sales soon after death, particularly at auction, are the best evidence of their true value, so keep the paperwork. Auction and selling costs incurred after death are administration expenses and are not deductible from the reported value.

The same logic applies to the house itself, where the stakes are much higher; our companion piece on whether you need a professional RICS valuation for probate covers that decision.

Where the figures go

How you report the chattels figure depends on the estate. If a full inheritance tax account (IHT400) is required, household and personal goods go on schedule IHT407, which asks separately about jewellery, vehicles, antiques and collections, and then the general contents. For excepted estates (deaths on or after 1 January 2022), there is no separate IHT form to file; the chattels simply form part of the estate values declared on the probate application itself. Our guide to the probate process explains which route your estate falls into, and the probate cost calculator gives you a quick estimate of the fees and costs the estate is facing.

If the estate holds contents that are genuinely valuable, split between family members, or tangled up with lifetime gifts, an estate administration specialist can take the valuation and reporting off your hands and make sure the figures stand up if HMRC asks. Getting the basis right at the start is far easier than defending a wrong number later.