Wills, inheritance and probate in the UK: who inherits without a will, the £325,000 threshold, 40% tax and a £526 probate fee

It is an unpleasant subject, and putting it off costs more than people think. England and Wales have no automatic “it goes to the family” rule in the way many newcomers assume: with no will, the law decides, and the result often has little to do with what the person wanted. It lands hardest on couples who live together without marrying, and on families whose assets are split across two countries.

Here is how it actually works: who inherits with no will, how to make a will that holds up, what probate costs, when the 40% tax bites, and what changes in April 2027. Every figure comes from GOV.UK, HMRC or the text of the law on legislation.gov.uk. Scotland and Northern Ireland have different rules — this is England and Wales.

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What happens if there is no will?

The intestacy rules kick in, set out in the Administration of Estates Act 1925. The key figure is the fixed net sum (often called the statutory legacy), set by its own statutory instrument: it is currently £322,000 and has applied since 26 July 2023 (The Administration of Estates Act 1925 (Fixed Net Sum) Order 2023, SI 2023/758). It is revisited when CPI rises more than 15% since the previous review.

The shares work out like this:

— Spouse or civil partner, no children. The spouse gets everything.
— Spouse and children. The spouse gets all the personal possessions whatever their value, plus the first £322,000, plus half of what remains. The other half of the remainder is divided equally between the children. If a child has already died, their own children (the grandchildren) inherit in their place.
— No spouse. Everything is split equally between the children. No children: parents; no parents: brothers and sisters (and their children in their place); then grandparents; then aunts and uncles with their children (cousins); then half-siblings and their line.
— Nobody at all. The estate goes to the Crown (bona vacantia).

Who gets nothing under the law?

A partner you have lived with for twenty years but never married or entered a civil partnership with inherits nothing under intestacy. GOV.UK puts it plainly: a surviving partner who was not married or in a civil partnership has no automatic right to inherit. They can bring a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, but that is a court case — money, time, and no guarantee.

Stepchildren you never legally adopted do not count as children for intestacy either. Legally adopted children do.

How do you make a will that is legally valid?

Few requirements, but they are formal, and breaking any one of them voids the document:

— you are 18 or over;
— you make it voluntarily and of sound mind;
— it is in writing;
— you sign it in the presence of two witnesses over 18, and both must have a clear view of you and of the act of signing;
— your witnesses sign the same document in your presence — they do not have to sign at the same time as each other.

One rule catches people out constantly: you cannot leave your witnesses (or their married partners) anything in the will. And another almost nobody knows: getting married cancels any will you made before. Marry, and the old will stops working — you need a new one.

What should the text cover?

GOV.UK lists the minimum: who benefits; who looks after any children under 18; who is your executor — the person who sorts out the estate and carries out your wishes; and what happens if someone you wanted to benefit dies before you. That last point is the one most often skipped, and it is what keeps a will from falling apart.

When do you need a solicitor?

GOV.UK itself names the situations where a will is “not straightforward”: you share a property with someone who is not your husband, wife or civil partner; you want to leave money or property to a dependant who cannot care for themselves; several family members may make a claim (a second spouse, children from another marriage); your permanent home is outside the UK; you have property overseas; you have a business.

For many readers the last two are simply normal life. One thing GOV.UK does not say, but practice does: do not assume a will made in another country automatically disposes of your UK property, or the other way round. If you have wills in two countries, make sure the newer one does not carry a blanket “revokes all previous wills” clause — that single line can wipe out the other one by accident.

How do you change a will?

Once it is signed and witnessed you cannot amend the text. The only lawful route is a formal addition called a codicil, signed and witnessed in exactly the same way; there is no limit on how many you can add. For major changes it is simpler to write a new will stating that it revokes all previous ones, and destroy the old one.

GOV.UK suggests reviewing the will every five years and after any major life change: separation or divorce, marriage, a child, moving house, or the death of the named executor.

Where do you keep it?

At home, with your solicitor, at your bank, with a will storage company, or at the national probate registry in Newcastle. The important part is telling your executor or a close relative where it is. Probate needs the original — a photocopy will not do, and the registry keeps the original, which becomes a public record.

What is probate, and is it always needed?

Probate is the legal right to deal with the estate. Until it is granted you should not put property on the market or make financial plans: the bank will not release funds and the house cannot be sold.

But probate is not always required. GOV.UK lists the cases where you may not need it: the person only had savings; shares or money were owned with others and pass automatically to the surviving owners; property was held as joint tenants, which also passes automatically to the surviving owner outside the will. Note the flip side: a share held as tenants in common does form part of the estate. The only way to be certain is to ask each bank or lender — every organisation has its own rules.

What does probate cost?

The application fee is £526 if the estate is worth over £5,000. If it is £5,000 or less, there is no fee. Extra copies of the probate document cost £2 each if ordered with the application and £16 each afterwards. A second application once probate has been granted costs £22 — payable even on an estate of £5,000 or less.

On a low income or on certain benefits you may not have to pay: the Help with Fees scheme, online or form EX160. Applying online, you pay the full fee first and get a refund later if the application succeeds. The discount does not cover extra copies.

Timing: probate usually arrives within 12 weeks of submitting the application, longer if more information is requested.

Who applies?

If there is a will, the executors named in it; up to four can be named on the application. Where there are several, they must agree who applies. You can step back in two ways: reserve the right to apply later (“power reserved”, confirmed in writing) or give it up permanently on form PA15. To appoint someone to apply for you, form PA11. If the original will is lost, form PA13.

With no will, the closest living relative applies and becomes administrator: normally the husband, wife or civil partner (even if you were separated), then children 18 or over, including adopted children but not stepchildren. An unmarried partner cannot apply. Form PA12 hands the job to someone else; form PA16 gives it up in favour of the children.

How much tax is due?

Inheritance Tax is charged on the estate. The tax-free threshold is £325,000; anything above it is taxed at 40%. The GOV.UK example: an estate worth £500,000 against a £325,000 threshold means 40% of £175,000 — £70,000 of tax.

There is normally no tax at all if the estate is below the threshold or if everything above it goes to a spouse, civil partner, a charity or a community amateur sports club. You may still need to report the estate’s value even when no tax is due.

Three things change the picture substantially:

— Leaving your home to children. If you leave your home (or a share of it) to children, including adopted, foster and stepchildren, or to grandchildren, and the estate is worth less than £2 million, the threshold rises to £500,000.
— A spouse’s unused threshold. If you are married or in a civil partnership and your estate is below your threshold, the unused part is added to your partner’s threshold when they die.
— 10% to charity. Leave 10% or more of the net value of the estate to charity and the rate on some assets drops from 40% to 36%.

And note: beneficiaries do not normally pay tax on what they inherit — the tax comes out of the estate. Other taxes can follow later, for example if an inherited house is then rented out.

What about gifts made during your lifetime?

This is the fiddliest part. The 7 year rule applies: live seven years after making a gift and no tax is due on it. Die sooner and the gift may be taxed. Gifts given in the three years before death are taxed at 40%; after that taper relief applies on a sliding scale — 3 to 4 years 32%, 4 to 5 years 24%, 5 to 6 years 16%, 6 to 7 years 8%, seven or more 0%. Important caveat: taper relief only applies if the total value of gifts in the seven years before death is over the £325,000 threshold.

What you can give away freely each tax year (6 April to 5 April):

— £3,000 in total (the annual exemption), to one person or split between several; any unused part carries forward, but only for one year;
— £250 to as many different people as you like, as long as you have not used another allowance on the same person;
— wedding or civil partnership gifts: £5,000 to a child, £2,500 to a grandchild or great-grandchild, £1,000 to anyone else;
— regular payments out of income (“normal expenditure out of income”) — no limit, provided you can afford them after your usual living costs.

A separate trap is the gift with reservation: you give something away but keep using it. The classic is signing the house over to the children and carrying on living in it. That does not work — the house goes back into the value of the estate. For the gift to count you must move out and live another seven years, or pay the new owners the going rent plus your share of the bills. One exception: if you give away only part of the property and the new owners live there with you.

Practical point: keep records. What you gave, to whom, how much and when — your executor will have to reconstruct all of it, and without records they will be guessing.

When is the tax due?

The deadline is hard: by the end of the sixth month after the person died. Died in January, pay by 31 July. After that HMRC charges interest. Yet you usually have to pay some of the tax before probate is granted — a circle you get out of through payments on account (paying before the exact figure is known) or by asking to postpone if the money genuinely cannot be released from the estate.

If full details of the estate must be reported, that is form IHT400, within 12 months of the death and before applying for probate. If full details are not needed and no tax is due, the estate is an “excepted estate” and you can apply for probate straight away. Ask HMRC for a payment reference number at least 3 weeks before you pay.

What changes on 6 April 2027?

A big one worth planning for: from 6 April 2027 most unused pension funds and death benefits come into the scope of Inheritance Tax. Today a pension normally sits outside the tax; from that date it will not.

The detail from HMRC’s publication: all death in service benefits payable from a registered pension scheme are excluded from the value of the estate. Personal representatives will be liable for reporting and paying any tax on unused pension funds. If they reasonably expect tax to be due, they can direct the scheme administrator to withhold 50% of the taxable benefits for up to 15 months from the date of death and pay HMRC first. It does not apply to exempt benefits, funds under £1,000, or continuing annuities.

If a pension is a large part of what you plan to leave, it is worth revisiting the arrangement before April 2027. The wider pension picture is in our guide to the UK state pension, and thresholds and rates are traditionally revisited at the Budget — the next one is 28 October 2026.

What if assets are in another country?

Here is the rule that matters most to people who arrived recently. If someone is based abroad, Inheritance Tax is only paid on their UK assets — property or bank accounts in the UK, for example. HMRC treats you as based abroad if you have lived in the UK for less than 10 years in the last 20.

So in your first years here, overseas assets are outside UK Inheritance Tax — and then they are not. That is something to plan around rather than discover afterwards.

Excluded assets include foreign currency accounts with a bank or the Post Office, overseas pensions, and holdings in authorised unit trusts and open-ended investment companies. For deaths on or before 5 April 2025 the old domicile rules applied: a person was treated as UK-based if their permanent home was in the UK, or they had lived here for 15 of the last 20 years, or their permanent home was in the UK at any time in the last three years of their life.

If the same asset is taxed by two countries, the executor may be able to reclaim tax through a double-taxation treaty. On moving money between countries we have a separate piece on transfers and currency exchange.

What do you do in the first days after a death?

The practical sequence from GOV.UK: the doctor confirms the death and contacts a medical examiner; the examiner checks the cause of death and contacts the family. Once the examiner’s office confirms you can proceed, the death must be registered within 5 days (8 in Scotland), weekends and bank holidays included; if you need longer, tell the register office immediately.

Registration produces the certificate for burial or cremation (the “green form”) — the funeral cannot go ahead without it. Through Tell Us Once the registrar can report the death to several government organisations at once instead of you writing to each. If the death is referred to a coroner the paperwork differs, and you can ask the coroner for an interim death certificate — it works both for a probate application and for Tell Us Once.

What should you do this week?

If there is no will, work out who the law would give the estate to and whether that matches your intentions. If you live with a partner and are not married, the answer will almost certainly not suit you. If there is a will, check its date: has there been a marriage, divorce, child or property purchase since? Make sure your executor knows where the original is. And do the rough sum: is your estate, with the home and the pension, worth more than £325,000 — because from April 2027 the pension will count too.

One last thing: this is not legal advice. We are setting out the official rules and figures; in complicated cases — property abroad, a business, a second marriage, children from different marriages — you need a professional.