What to do when someone dies, and what each step costs
Ten steps in the order they have to happen, what each one costs, and which ones you can do yourself for nothing. Two are far cheaper done in this order.
Nothing on this page is a deadline we invented. Where a period is fixed by law it is named as such, and where it is a convention rather than a rule it says so. The costs are described rather than quoted, because a figure without the date it was checked is the thing this site exists to correct. Where firms are required to publish a price for the work, the step links to what they actually published.
01Within five days
Register the death
Nothing else can start until the death is registered, and the certified copies ordered on the day are the ones every bank will ask for.
A death in England and Wales has to be registered within five days, at a register office, and the appointment is free. What is not free is the certified copies of the entry, which are charged per copy.
Order more than feels reasonable. Every bank, pension provider, insurer and share registrar wants to see an original rather than a photocopy, and they want it at the same time as each other. Copies ordered at the appointment cost the same as copies ordered six weeks later and arrive immediately rather than by post.
- What it costs
- The registration is free. Certified copies are charged per copy at a fee the government sets, and the number you need is driven by how many organisations held an asset.
- Doing it yourself
- Entirely. Nobody needs a solicitor to register a death, and the Tell Us Once service will notify most government departments in the same appointment.
02The first week or two
Arrange the funeral
The largest single discretionary cost of the whole estate is chosen in the week the family is least able to compare anything.
Every funeral director in the UK has had to display a standardised price list since 2021, showing the same items in the same order, because the Competition and Markets Authority found that people were not comparing prices and were being charged very differently for the same thing. The list is on their website and it has to be given to you before you commit.
Two decisions carry most of the cost. The first is whether the funeral is attended, with a service and a ceremony, or unattended, sometimes sold as direct cremation. The second is burial or cremation, because a burial plot is a separate purchase from the funeral itself and is usually the more expensive of the two by a wide margin.
The estate normally pays. Most banks will release money from the deceased's account to settle a funeral invoice before probate is granted, on sight of the invoice, so an executor does not usually have to fund it personally and should ask before they do.
Why the order matters
This is the one large cost decided before anybody has looked at the estate, and it is the hardest to revisit. Comparing three standardised price lists takes about twenty minutes and is the highest value twenty minutes in the whole sequence.
- What it costs
- Priced as a funeral director's own fee plus third party costs they pay on your behalf, such as the cremation or burial fee and the officiant. The two are listed separately on the standardised price list, and only the first is theirs to set.
What a funeral costs, and how to compareFuneral cost calculator
03Before anything is dealt with
Find the will and confirm who has authority
The will names the executors, and only an executor has authority to deal with the estate. Without one, the law decides who can.
Check for a will with the deceased's solicitor, their bank, the National Will Register and the house itself. Acting on an out of date will, or on a copy when a later original exists, is the mistake that turns an ordinary estate into a disputed one.
If there is no will the estate is intestate, the rules of intestacy decide who inherits regardless of what anybody understood the intention to be, and a different set of rules decides who may apply to administer it. The job is much the same. The authority to do it comes from a different document.
- What it costs
- Free to search in the obvious places. A search of the National Will Register is charged, and a firm asked to search on your behalf will charge for the time.
- Doing it yourself
- Entirely, and it should be done before anybody is instructed, because the answer changes who is allowed to instruct them.
04Before anything is sold, cleared or given away
Value the estate at the date of death
Every later figure is built on this one, and it is the step that cannot be redone once the house has been emptied.
The estate is valued as at the day the person died, not as at the day you get round to it. That figure sets the inheritance tax position and it sets the base cost for any capital gains tax when an asset is later sold, so an inaccurate valuation costs the estate money in one direction or the other.
For property, the figure HMRC will accept is a formal written valuation by a RICS registered valuer, prepared for probate. An estate agent's appraisal is a marketing view of what a house might fetch and it is not the same document. For contents, a written valuation is only needed where there is something genuinely worth valuing, but deciding that is easier with the contents still in the house.
Why the order matters
Do this before the clearance, not after. Once the contents have gone there is no way to establish what they were worth, and an estate that has already been cleared cannot evidence the figure it reported.
- What it costs
- A RICS probate valuation of a house is a fixed professional fee. Contents valuations are priced by what is being looked at rather than by the size of the estate.
Probate property valuation, and what it costsEstate value calculator
05As soon as the valuations are in
Work out whether inheritance tax is due
The tax has to be paid before the grant is issued, which is the timing that catches executors out rather than the rate.
Most estates pay no inheritance tax at all, because the allowances are larger than people expect and one of them can be inherited from a spouse who died years earlier. Working out which allowances apply is the whole of the exercise.
Where tax is due, it is payable by the end of the sixth month after the month of death, and the account has to be delivered within twelve months. The grant will not be issued until the tax has been paid, which produces the problem every executor of a taxable estate meets: the money is inside an estate they cannot yet access. HMRC operates an instalment option for property and a direct payment scheme through the deceased's bank, and both are worth knowing about before the deadline rather than after it.
Why the order matters
Interest runs from the six month point whether or not the account has been delivered, so a late valuation becomes a cost rather than only a delay.
- What it costs
- Nothing to work out, if you do it yourself. Firms price inheritance tax estates well above ordinary ones because the account is longer and the liability is larger.
06Once the tax position is settled
Apply for the grant of probate
This is the moment the estate either pays a court fee, or pays a firm, and it is the one decision on this list where prices are published and comparable.
The grant is the legal authority to deal with the estate, and almost every asset holder wants to see it before releasing anything. An executor can apply directly and pay only the court fee, or instruct a firm to do it, and the gap between those two is the largest single choice about cost an executor makes.
Firms sell it two ways. A grant only service prepares and submits the application and hands you the grant, leaving the administration to you. Full estate administration does the lot. They are different products at very different prices, and comparing a quote for one against a quote for the other is the most common way an executor concludes that a firm is expensive when it is not.
- What it costs
- A fixed court fee, which small estates below the threshold do not pay at all, plus whatever a firm charges if you instruct one. Every firm that offers probate has to publish that second figure, which is what this site is built on.
What probate costs in England and WalesProbate application fee calculator
07After the valuation, before the sale
Clear and secure the property
An empty house is a cost from the day it becomes empty, and most home insurance stops covering one after a few weeks.
Clearance is priced by the volume removed, the access to the property and how much of the contents can be resold rather than sent to landfill. A firm that can sell what it takes away will quote differently from one that cannot, which is why quotes for the same house vary so widely.
Tell the insurer that the property is unoccupied as soon as it is. Most ordinary home policies restrict or withdraw cover once a property has been empty for a set period, commonly thirty to sixty days, and an executor who has not told them is personally exposed for a loss the estate then cannot recover.
Why the order matters
Nothing here can be undone. Everything that leaves the house has left it, so the valuation in step four has to be finished first.
- What it costs
- Quoted per job rather than per hour, and reduced by anything of value the firm can resell. Ask whether the quote is net of what they take.
08Once the grant is issued
Sell or transfer the property
Selling costs the estate an agent's commission and a conveyancer's fee, and both are usually settled from the proceeds rather than up front.
A property cannot usually be sold until the grant is issued, though it can be marketed before then and most agents will. Where the property passes to a beneficiary rather than being sold, it is transferred instead, which is cheaper and is a job for a conveyancer rather than an agent.
Conveyancing is one of the areas where law firms have to publish their prices under the same transparency rules that cover probate, so the figures are public in the same way. If the property is sold for meaningfully more than the date of death valuation, the difference may be a capital gain for the estate, which is the second reason step four matters.
- What it costs
- An estate agent's commission, usually a percentage of the sale price, plus a conveyancing fee and the searches and Land Registry fees that sit on top of it.
09Before anything is distributed
Pay the debts, and protect yourself
An executor is personally liable to a creditor who turns up after the money has gone out, unless they took two specific steps first.
Debts are paid before beneficiaries, in an order the law sets. Getting that order wrong, or paying a beneficiary while a creditor is still owed, makes the executor personally liable for the shortfall rather than the estate.
Two steps limit that exposure and are routinely skipped by people administering an estate alone. Placing statutory notices, in the London Gazette and in a local newspaper, gives unknown creditors two months to come forward and protects the executor against claims made after that. Bankruptcy searches against every beneficiary protect the executor against paying money to someone whose share should have gone to their trustee in bankruptcy.
Why the order matters
These protect the executor personally rather than the estate, so they are the steps most worth paying for and the ones most often left out of a cheap quote. Check whether they are included.
- What it costs
- Statutory notices are charged at a published rate by the Gazette and by the newspaper. Bankruptcy searches are a small fee per beneficiary. Both are disbursements rather than professional fees, and a firm passes them on at cost.
10Usually not before ten months have passed
Distribute the estate and produce the accounts
The last step is the one with a waiting period built into it, and distributing early is the risk an executor takes personally.
Once the debts and tax are settled, the executor distributes what remains and produces estate accounts showing what came in, what went out and what each beneficiary received. Beneficiaries are entitled to see them, and a clear set of accounts is what closes an estate without an argument.
The reason for the wait is that certain family members and dependants can bring a claim against the estate for six months from the date of the grant, and a claim can be served for a further four months after that. An executor who has distributed everything by month seven and then meets a valid claim is the one who has to find the money.
Why the order matters
Ten months from the grant is the conventional wait, not a legal deadline. Distributing sooner is a judgement about risk, and it is the executor's risk rather than the estate's.
- What it costs
- Nothing beyond the time it takes, unless a firm is doing it. This is the part of a full administration that a grant only service leaves with you.
Common questions
- Do I have to use a solicitor for any of this?
- No. An executor can register the death, value the estate, apply for the grant and administer the whole estate themselves, and many do. The steps where a firm earns its fee are the ones carrying personal liability: the tax account, the statutory notices, and the distribution.
- Which step costs the most?
- For most estates it is the funeral, which is also the one decided first and compared least. Where a firm is instructed to administer the whole estate, that fee is usually the larger of the two, and it is the one with published prices you can compare before instructing anyone.
- What is the most expensive mistake at this stage?
- Clearing or selling the contents of a property before it has been valued. The estate is valued as at the date of death, and once the contents have gone there is no way to evidence what they were worth, which can cost the estate money on both inheritance tax and capital gains tax.
- How long does the whole thing take?
- A straightforward estate is commonly nine to twelve months from death to distribution. The parts that cannot be hurried are the probate registry, the sale of any property, and the conventional wait of ten months from the grant before the estate is distributed.
The one step with published prices
Of everything on this page, the grant of probate is the step where the law already requires every firm to publish what it charges. We read those pages so the figures can be compared before anybody is instructed, which is the only point in this sequence where comparing is easy and almost nobody does it.
Or let firms come to you with a price
If you would rather not read a table of 1,436 firms, describe the estate once and firms that publish a price for the work come back with one for yours. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.