What to do when someone dies: the admin, step by step
Registering the death, telling the right people, applying for probate and settling the estate: what actually happens, in what order, and roughly how long each part takes. Written for England and Wales.
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The short version
- Register the death within 5 days and order several copies of the death certificate; you'll need one for nearly every organisation.
- Use Tell Us Once to notify government in one go, then tell banks, pension providers, insurers and utilities yourself.
- Work out what the estate is worth: everything owned and owed on the date of death.
- Apply for probate if you need it. Roughly half of deaths do; it costs £526 and takes several weeks.
- Pay any debts and tax, then distribute what's left. Most estates take 6–12 months from start to finish.
When someone dies, two very different things happen at once. There is the grief, and there is a surprising amount of paperwork, most of it arriving from organisations that have no idea you are grieving.
This guide covers the second part: the admin. It sets out what has to be done, in what order, so you can see the whole shape of it rather than discovering each step as it lands. If you'd rather have Solace handle it for you, our team covers every step below.
Who has to deal with all this?
One person takes legal responsibility for sorting out the estate. They're called the personal representative.
- If there's a will naming them, they're an executor.
- If there's no valid will, a close relative applies to become the administrator, following the intestacy rules that decide who inherits.
It's the same job either way. It's also a real legal responsibility: you're accountable to the beneficiaries and to anyone the estate owes money to, and you can be personally liable if you get it badly wrong. That's worth knowing at the start, not halfway through.
You don't have to accept the role. If you'd rather not act, there's a formal way to step aside, but do it before you start dealing with the estate, not after.
Three questions that decide how hard it will be
The size of the job is set almost entirely by three things. Answer them early.
1. Is there a valid will?
A will tells you who's in charge and who inherits. Without one, intestacy rules decide both, which is slower, and occasionally produces an outcome the family didn't expect. Look for the original signed document, not a photocopy.
2. Is probate actually needed?
Probate is the court's confirmation that you have authority to deal with the estate (we cover this in detail in our guide to probate). Roughly half of deaths in England and Wales lead to a probate application. You generally won't need it if everything was jointly owned and passes automatically to the survivor, or if the accounts are small enough that each bank will release the money on sight of a death certificate. You generally will need it if there's a property in the deceased's sole name, or accounts above the bank's release threshold.
Each bank sets its own release threshold, typically somewhere between £5,000 and £50,000. Ask each one directly; the answer decides whether you need probate at all.
3. Is there inheritance tax to pay?
Most estates don't pay it. Fewer than one in twenty do. But you still have to work out the value of the estate and report it, even when the answer is nil.
The first five days
Get the medical certificate. A doctor issues the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death. Since September 2024, every death in England and Wales is also reviewed by an independent medical examiner before the certificate is released. This normally adds a day or two. If a coroner is involved, everything pauses until they're finished.
Register the death. You must register within five days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; eight days in Scotland. It's done at a register office, usually by appointment.
Order several death certificates. This is the single most useful thing you'll do in week one. Almost every bank, pension provider and insurer wants to see an original (not a photocopy) and they don't all give them back quickly. Most people need somewhere between five and ten. They're much cheaper to order at registration than to request later.
Use Tell Us Once. The registrar gives you a reference for the Tell Us Once service, which notifies HMRC, DWP, the DVLA, the Passport Office and the local council in one go. It's free, and the reference expires after 28 days, so use it promptly. For the full list of who else to tell, and what each one asks for, see our notification checklist.
Tell Us Once doesn't always stop State Pension payments immediately. If payments continue after the death, they'll be reclaimed from the estate later, so it's worth ringing the DWP directly as well.
Find the will and check it's the most recent one. Look in the house, ask their solicitor, and check whether they registered it with a will register.
The first few weeks
This stage is about stopping money going out, securing anything vulnerable, and telling the organisations government doesn't cover.
- Secure the property. If a home is now empty, tell the insurer. Standard home insurance often lapses or restricts cover once a property is unoccupied, and an uninsured empty house is a genuine risk to the estate.
- Redirect the post. Practical, but also the best asset-finding tool you have. Annual statements and policy renewals arrive on their own schedule and will reveal accounts you didn't know existed.
- Notify the banks. Sole accounts are frozen; joint accounts usually pass to the survivor. Frozen accounts can still normally pay the funeral bill, inheritance tax and the probate fee.
- Watch the direct debits. Freezing an account stops everything leaving it, including a mortgage payment. A missed payment can start a default process on an otherwise perfectly solvent estate.
- Stop the income and the outgoings. Pensions, employer payroll and rent coming in; utilities, subscriptions, council tax and cards going out.
- Claim what's owed. Life insurance, death-in-service benefits and bereavement support payments won't arrive unless someone asks.
Working out what's in the estate
Before you can apply for probate or report anything to HMRC, you need a complete picture of what the person owned and owed on the day they died. Our guide to finding assets and debts goes through this source by source.
Start with the paper trail. Request twelve months of bank statements (twenty-four if you suspect complexity) and read them line by line. Regular payments in and out point to policies, pensions and accounts nobody remembered.
Then work through the categories: bank and savings accounts, private and workplace pensions, shares and investments, property, life insurance, business interests, vehicles, and anything digital. The Pension Tracing Service and the dormant-asset search services are free and worth using; people accumulate pensions across a working life and rarely keep track of all of them.
Value everything as at the date of death, and list the debts too: mortgage, cards, loans, outstanding bills and the funeral account.
You're expected to take reasonable steps to find everything. You aren't expected to be omniscient, but "I didn't think to look" is a weaker position than "I searched, and here's the record of it".
Inheritance tax
Every estate has to be assessed. Most owe nothing.
The tax-free threshold (the nil-rate band) is £325,000, and it's frozen at that level until April 2031. There's an additional residence nil-rate band, currently £175,000, where a home passes to children or grandchildren. Anything unused from a spouse or civil partner who died earlier can often be transferred, which is why many couples' estates pass tax-free well above the headline figure. Above the threshold, the rate is 40%.
Two deadlines matter, and they're not the same (see every executor deadline in one place):
- Payment is due by the end of the sixth month after the month of death. Interest starts running after that.
- The full account (form IHT400), where one is needed, is due within twelve months.
The awkward part is that inheritance tax generally has to be paid before probate is granted, and probate is what unlocks the money. Banks will usually pay HMRC directly from the deceased's frozen account under a specific scheme, and there are instalment options for property. Check current thresholds and rules on GOV.UK before relying on any figure, including the ones here.
Applying for probate
If you need a grant, you apply to HM Courts & Tribunals Service, online or by post, once the inheritance tax position is settled.
The application fee rose to £526 on 13 July 2026, up from £300. Estates valued at £5,000 or less pay nothing. Extra sealed copies of the grant cost £2 each when ordered with the application; order plenty, because every institution wants its own.
Timescales move around. Straightforward online applications are often processed in a few weeks; anything that needs to be reviewed by hand takes considerably longer. Check the current published waiting time rather than planning around a number you read somewhere.
Paying debts and distributing
Once the grant arrives, you send certified copies to every bank, provider and registrar, and they release what they hold. From there:
- Consider placing a statutory notice for creditors in The Gazette and a local paper. It gives unknown creditors at least two months and one day to come forward, and it protects you personally if a debt surfaces after you've paid everyone out.
- Open a separate executor's account so estate money never mixes with your own.
- Pay in the right order: funeral and administration costs, then debts, then legacies, then whatever's left to the residuary beneficiaries.
- Wait before distributing. Certain claims against an estate can be brought within six months of the grant. Most professionals wait about ten months before paying out the residue.
- Prepare estate accounts showing what came in, what went out and who got what, and have the beneficiaries approve them.
How long does it take?
| Situation | Typical time |
|---|---|
| No probate needed: small estate, everything jointly owned | Weeks to about 3 months |
| Probate needed, no inheritance tax to pay | 6–12 months |
| Probate needed and inheritance tax due | 12–24 months |
| Disputed, insolvent, or with foreign assets or a business | 2 years or more |
The single biggest variable is property. Selling one adds months regardless of how organised you are.
Where it usually goes wrong
- Ordering too few death certificates, then waiting weeks for more while everything stalls.
- Letting the empty house become uninsured: the most expensive avoidable mistake on this list.
- Missing the six-month tax deadline because it's assumed to be the same as the twelve-month filing one.
- Distributing too early, then finding a debt or a claim afterwards. The money is very hard to get back, and the shortfall can land on you.
- Not searching properly for assets, so a pension or policy is missed entirely and the beneficiaries never receive it.
- Assuming a small estate means no work. The number of organisations to notify barely changes with the size of the estate.
Common questions
How long do you have to register a death in the UK?
Five days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and eight days in Scotland. The clock pauses if a coroner is involved.
Do you always need probate when someone dies?
No. Roughly half of deaths in England and Wales lead to a probate application. You usually won't need it where everything was jointly owned and passes to the surviving owner, or where the accounts fall below each bank's release threshold. You usually will need it where there's property in the sole name of the person who died.
How much does probate cost in 2026?
The application fee in England and Wales is £526 from 13 July 2026, up from £300. Estates valued at £5,000 or less pay no fee. Additional sealed copies of the grant are £2 each when ordered with the application. Solicitors' fees, if you use one, are separate and usually far larger.
Do I need a solicitor to deal with an estate?
Not always. Many estates are administered by the executor without one. Estates involving a disputed or unclear will, trusts, significant inheritance tax, overseas assets, a business or family disagreement are the ones where professional advice tends to earn its cost. It's a decision worth taking advice on.
What happens if there's no will?
The intestacy rules decide who inherits and who can apply to administer the estate, usually the closest surviving relative in a set order. It's the same underlying process, but it takes longer and the outcome is fixed by law rather than by the person's wishes.
Can you access the deceased's bank account before probate?
Sole accounts are frozen, but banks will normally release funds directly to pay the funeral bill, inheritance tax and the probate fee before the grant is issued. Joint accounts usually pass to the surviving holder automatically.
How long does an executor have to settle an estate?
There's no absolute deadline, but executors are generally expected to settle within about a year, often called the "executor's year". Beneficiaries can ask for an explanation of delays after that point. Tax deadlines are firm regardless.
Related guides
Important
Solace is not a firm of solicitors and does not provide legal, tax or financial advice. We are an estate administration service and we are not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority or any equivalent body. Nothing in this guide constitutes legal, tax or financial advice, and no solicitor–client relationship is created by reading it.
This article is general information only. It reflects the position in England and Wales at the date shown above; the law and the figures change, and Scotland and Northern Ireland differ in important respects. It may not apply to your circumstances. Administering an estate carries personal legal responsibility, and you should obtain advice from a qualified solicitor, accountant or other regulated professional where appropriate. Always check current rates, fees and deadlines against GOV.UK before acting.