Probate Fees Have Risen to £526: What Executors Need to Know

From 13 July 2026, the fee for applying for a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration in England and Wales rose from £300 to £526. The increase applies to estates valued at more than £5,000, which in practice means almost every estate that requires probate at all. Estates of £5,000 or less remain exempt.

It is a substantial rise. The fee stood at £273 until May 2024, moved to £300, and now sits at £526, an increase of almost 93 per cent in a little over two years. The Ministry of Justice says the new fee recovers the cost of running and improving the probate service. The Law Society has written to the Ministry asking for further detail on how the figure was reached.

One genuine saving worth knowing about

Alongside the increase, the fee for official copies of the grant has fallen from £16 to £2, provided the copies are ordered at the same time as the application. Executors typically need a sealed copy for each bank, investment platform, insurer and other asset holder, so it is worth counting the institutions involved and ordering enough copies at the outset. Ordering them later costs considerably more.

The fee is only half the story. The real cost is a stopped application

The probate service itself is currently running faster than it has for years. HMCTS figures for May 2026 show an average of six weeks from application to grant, falling to 4.1 weeks for digital applications.

Those headline figures conceal an important distinction. Applications that are stopped for further checks, because of missing documentation, inconsistencies in the paperwork, or figures the Registry or HMRC cannot reconcile, took an average of 13.7 weeks. In other words, an application that is queried takes more than three times as long as one that is accepted first time. During that period the property cannot be sold and the estate cannot be distributed.

What this means for executors

Budget for the fee early. The application fee is payable when the application is submitted, which is usually before the executor has access to estate funds. Where the estate holds little cash, executors sometimes pay the fee personally and reimburse themselves once funds are released. It is sensible to establish at the outset how the fee will be met.

Get the valuation right first time. The value of everything in the estate, including the property, its contents, jewellery, watches, silver, pictures and collections, must be established as at the date of death before the application is made. Section 160 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 requires open market value, the price the items might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold at that time. Figures that are guessed, or lifted from insurance schedules, are a common reason for HMRC queries, and HMRC has been referring noticeably more valuations to the Valuation Office Agency for checking.

Keep the paperwork consistent. The figures in the inheritance tax forms and the probate application need to agree with one another and with any supporting valuations. A professional written valuation report gives executors and their solicitors a single, defensible set of figures to work from.

How a professional contents valuation protects the estate

A formal probate valuation of the house contents and personal effects, carried out by a qualified valuer and presented as a written report to the Section 160 standard, serves three purposes. It gives the executor accurate figures for the inheritance tax forms, it reduces the risk of the application being stopped for checks, and it identifies items of genuine value that deserve proper handling rather than disposal.

Aubreys provides fixed fee probate valuations across Surrey, London and the South East, with home visits, specialist expertise in jewellery, watches, silver, fine art and antiques, and a written report accepted by solicitors and HMRC. If you are administering an estate and would like to discuss what is involved, we are happy to help.