It's a sad time and I suspect that no one rushes into this. As time has past and I've gathered together what is needed I've discovered a few things that would have made the process, easier or quicker if I had understood it earlier.
I'm not going to explain what probate is, because if you are reading this, you will have probably read dozens of sites that always start with the same explanation. I'm going to assume that you know that you need it. I do need to point out that this is about the process in England and Wales as it was in 2023. I understand this is similar to the process for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Tax, Tax, Inheritance Tax First
STOP READING THIS and go straight to the government inheritance tax site and request an inheritance tax reference number, then come back and carry on reading
I found it very annoying that after nearly two months, when I was ready to submit everything for probate, I found out that it is necessary to have done all the inheritance tax stuff BEFORE requesting probate, not the other way round! It takes up to 15 days to get the reference number that is required on the forms. The tax reference is not actually essential, but if there is any chance of needing to pay tax, it is required!
Valuations
The requirements for valuations for inheritance tax are more stringent than those to request probate where no tax is due. More specifically, where the estate is under the nil rate, which is currently £325,000. Too many of the other articles that I have read, assume that the estate will be under that threshold, but where I live, I've known first time buyers who have had to spend more than that to buy their starter home!
There is an additional amount of tax free allowance if the estate is going to the children of the deceased and the allowance of both parents comes into play when the second parent dies and the estate had previously been left to the first parent. I'm sure it gets more complicated when the will has more beneficiaries, but I did not have to look in to that.
Possessions
Time consuming but a relatively easy task of listing everything, looking at the sold listing on eBay and see what people are paying. I always tick the option to see sold and closed auctions, the price actually paid is often a lot less than people have originally advertised it for.
I found that preparing a separate list for each room, the loft, garage and sheds, made it a less daunting task. I took lots of photos of each room so I could prepare the lists and work out the valuation at my leisure.
When we came to clearing the house, after we had been granted probate, we had to pay to dispose of most of the contents of the house. There is so little value in most used items.
I would suggest keeping that in mind when valuing things, there is an argument that many of them would have a negative value, because they will cost to dispose of them. I don't think it is acceptable to put negative values but many items will have zero value.
House
The implication for probate is that you can value the house yourself, which may be the case, but for inheritance tax, it's clear that it is necessary to get a professional valuation. Three estate agents or a professional RICS Surveyor valuation.
We opted for the professional valuation and it was very close to the figure we had worked out based on previous sales shown at online Estate Agents.
Banks and Finance
This was the easy bit, all of the banks and building societies had a bereavement section and usually required little more than the completion of a simple online form to get the information necessary for probate.
Only a few needed to be posted the death certificate. Many accepted uploading a scan.
Conclusion
The process is not particularly arduous. I only found it frustrating because I didn't know some of the details I've listed above.
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