Wills and probate: how the process works
When someone dies, their estate has to be gathered in, debts and tax paid, and what remains passed on. How probate authorises that, what changes when there is no will, and where solicitors fit in.
When a person dies, someone has to take charge of what they leave behind: collect the money and property, settle the debts and any tax, and pass the rest to the people entitled to it. Probate is the legal process that authorises that work. In everyday use the word covers the whole business of administering an estate, but strictly it refers to the court’s confirmation that the right person has authority to act, and that confirmation is what banks, registrars and buyers will usually demand before they will release assets or accept a sale.
The route depends on whether there is a valid will. If there is, it names one or more executors, the people the deceased chose to carry out their wishes, and they apply for a grant of probate. The grant is the official document that proves their authority to deal with the estate. If there is no will, or no one able to act under it, the estate is dealt with under the rules of intestacy, and a close relative applies instead for letters of administration, which serve the same authorising function. Executors and administrators are together known as personal representatives, and they owe legal duties to the estate and its beneficiaries.
Intestacy is where a lot of people are surprised. When there is no will, the law, not the family’s wishes or the deceased’s assumed intentions, decides who inherits, through a fixed order of priority. A surviving spouse or civil partner comes first and, depending on the size of the estate and whether there are children, may share it with them rather than take everything. Unmarried partners, however long together, are not recognised by the intestacy rules at all, which is one of the strongest practical arguments for making a will. Only if there is no spouse, civil partner or children does the estate pass down the line to parents, siblings and more distant relatives.
The administration itself follows a fairly settled sequence. The personal representatives establish what the estate consists of and what it owes, deal with inheritance tax where the estate is large enough to be liable, apply to the Probate Registry for the grant, and then, once it is issued, gather in the assets, pay the debts and distribute what is left according to the will or the intestacy rules. Straightforward estates can be wound up in a matter of months, but complications, such as disputes, property to sell, missing beneficiaries or tax questions, can stretch that considerably.
None of this legally requires a solicitor, and many simple estates are administered by families themselves. But probate work is a staple of high-street and private-client firms because the responsibilities are real and the pitfalls costly. A personal representative can be held personally liable for getting it wrong, whether by distributing too early, missing a creditor or mishandling tax, and the emotional weight of doing it while grieving is not to be underestimated. That combination of legal risk and personal strain is why a great many people, faced with administering an estate, decide it is worth paying for a steady hand.