After a death: what happens next

Very little of it is legal, and none of it has to be done today. If you are reading this the week it happened, the list below is the whole of the urgent part.

The death has to be certified before it can be registered. Where a doctor is able to certify it, the paperwork now goes to an NHS medical examiner first, and the medical examiner will usually speak to the next of kin before it is sent on to the register office. If the death was sudden, unexplained or happened in an accident, it is referred to the coroner instead and registration waits until the coroner releases it.

Then you register the death. In England and Wales that must be done within five days, at a register office, usually by a relative. You will be asked for the deceased's full name, date and place of birth, last address, occupation, and details of a surviving husband, wife or civil partner. Order several copies of the death certificate while you are there. Banks, insurers and pension schemes each want to see one, and buying extras at the time is much cheaper than going back for them.

At the register office you will be offered the Tell Us Once service. Use it. It notifies HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, the DVLA, the Passport Office and the local council in one go, and it saves you making the same call a dozen times.

The funeral can go ahead as soon as the death is registered, or as soon as the coroner allows. Check whether there is a funeral plan, and check the will for funeral wishes, although those wishes are not legally binding on anybody. Most banks will pay a funeral director's invoice directly out of the deceased's account before any grant of probate has been issued, so you should not need to fund it yourself.

Probate is the court's confirmation that a particular person has the legal authority to deal with the estate of somebody who has died. The document itself is called a grant of probate where there is a will, and letters of administration where there is not. Between them they are known as a grant of representation.

Its purpose is protective. A bank holding forty thousand pounds needs to know it is handing that money to the right person, and a buyer of the house needs to know the seller can actually sell it. The grant is the proof.

You do not always need one. Whether you do turns on what the person owned and how they owned it.

Property owned in the deceased's sole name almost always needs a grant. So does property owned with somebody else as tenants in common, because the deceased's share passes under the will rather than to the other owner. Property owned as joint tenants does not, because it passes automatically to the survivor.

Bank and building society accounts depend on the balance. Each institution sets its own limit for releasing funds without a grant, and those limits vary widely, commonly somewhere between a few thousand pounds and fifty thousand. Ring each one, tell them the balance, and ask what they need. Some will release the money on a form and a death certificate.

Jointly held bank accounts pass to the surviving holder and need no grant. Life policies written in trust are paid straight to the named beneficiary and sit outside the estate entirely. Pension death benefits are usually paid at the scheme's discretion and also sit outside it, although that is changing for inheritance tax purposes from April 2027.

If there is a will, the people named in it as executors. Their authority comes from the will itself, from the moment of death, and the grant of probate confirms it rather than creates it. Up to four executors can take out the grant. An executor who does not want the job can renounce it, provided they have not already started dealing with the estate, or they can reserve their position and let the others get on with it.

If there is no will, or the will names no executor who is able and willing to act, somebody applies for letters of administration instead. There is a strict order of priority. The husband, wife or civil partner comes first, then the children, then the parents, then brothers and sisters, and so on outwards. An administrator has no authority at all until the grant is actually issued, which is an important difference from an executor.

Finding the will is the first practical step. Look in the house, ask the deceased's solicitor and bank, and check any papers from a will writing firm. If nothing turns up, a search of the National Will Register may find one lodged elsewhere. If the will names a firm as executor, that firm's authority is set out in the will and the family should speak to them early about what it means.

Before the grant is issued, keep the estate safe rather than deal with it. Tell the insurer that a property is unoccupied, because most household policies restrict cover after a few weeks empty. Cancel subscriptions and direct debits. Redirect the post. Do not pay debts out of your own pocket and do not distribute anything to anyone yet.

The job breaks down into five stages, and it is more admin than law.

Value the estate

Write to every bank, building society, insurer, pension provider and share registrar for a balance as at the date of death. Get the house valued. List the debts, including the mortgage, credit cards, utilities and any income tax owed. You are producing a picture of exactly what was owned and owed on the day the person died.

Deal with inheritance tax

Report the estate to HM Revenue and Customs and pay any tax due. This has to happen before the grant is issued, which is the part that surprises people most.

Apply for the grant

The application goes to the Probate Registry with the original will, if there is one, and a statement of truth. The grant comes back some weeks later.

Collect in and pay out

Send the grant to each institution, close the accounts, sell or transfer the property, and settle the debts. Debts are paid before beneficiaries, in a set order if the estate cannot cover everything.

Account and distribute

Prepare estate accounts showing everything that came in, everything that went out and what each beneficiary receives. Get the residuary beneficiaries to approve them, then pay out.

Along the way there is often income tax and capital gains tax to deal with for the administration period itself, because an estate that holds shares or a rented property keeps earning while it is being wound up.

Most estates pay no inheritance tax at all. The tax is charged at 40 per cent, but only on the value above the available allowances.

Everyone has a nil rate band of £325,000. On top of that there is a residence nil rate band of up to £175,000, available where a home is left to children, stepchildren, grandchildren or other direct descendants, and reduced where the estate is worth more than £2 million. Anything passing to a husband, wife or civil partner is exempt, as is anything passing to charity.

Unused allowances transfer between spouses and civil partners. That is why a married couple can often pass on up to £1 million between them without inheritance tax, and why claiming the transferable bands from a first death that happened years ago is one of the most valuable things an executor can get right.

The deadlines are strict and they are not the same as the probate deadline. Inheritance tax is due by the end of the sixth month after the month in which the person died, and HM Revenue and Customs charges interest after that. The full account has to be delivered within twelve months. Because the grant will not be issued until the tax is paid, executors regularly face the problem of needing money from the estate to pay a tax bill they must settle before they can reach the money. There are ways around it, including paying directly from the deceased's bank under the direct payment scheme, borrowing, and paying tax on land and certain business assets in ten annual instalments.

Smaller and simpler estates are treated as excepted estates. They do not need a full inheritance tax account, and the figures are reported as part of the probate application instead.

One change is coming that executors should know about now. From 6 April 2027, unused pension funds and death benefits are due to be brought into the estate for inheritance tax. Pensions have sat outside inheritance tax for years, and a great many estates that pay nothing today will pay something after that date.

Longer than people expect, and the delay is rarely anybody's fault.

Gathering the valuations takes a month or two, because you are waiting on a dozen organisations who each have their own timetable. Where inheritance tax is payable, HM Revenue and Customs has to be dealt with before the application can even be made. The Probate Registry then takes its own time to issue the grant. After that, selling a house takes as long as selling a house ever does.

A simple estate with no property and no tax to pay might be finished in six months. An estate with a house to sell and inheritance tax to settle commonly takes a year or more. Anything with a business, land, assets abroad or a family dispute takes longer again.

There is one date worth holding on to. A claim against the estate under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 must normally be brought within six months of the grant being issued. Careful executors wait until that six months has passed before distributing the residue, because paying everything out and then facing a claim is a problem the executor personally has to solve.

Tell the beneficiaries what the timetable looks like early and update them as it moves. Most of the friction in an estate is not about money. It is about people being kept in the dark.

Then the intestacy rules decide who inherits, and nobody has any discretion to change it.

If the person was married or in a civil partnership and had children, the husband, wife or civil partner takes the personal possessions, the first £322,000, and half of what is left. The children share the other half, and take their share at 18. If there were no children, the husband, wife or civil partner takes the whole estate.

If the person was not married, the estate passes to the children, and if there are none, to the parents, then to brothers and sisters, then outwards through the family. If there is nobody at all, it goes to the Crown.

An unmarried partner inherits nothing under these rules, no matter how long they lived together and no matter whose name is on the front door. Where that is unjust, and it often is, the route is a claim under the 1975 Act, and it needs advice quickly because of the six month deadline.

Practically, an intestacy is slower and more paperwork. There is no executor with authority from day one, so nothing can be dealt with until the letters of administration arrive. Family trees have to be evidenced. Where a beneficiary is under 18, their share has to be held on trust until they are old enough to take it.

Executors are personally liable. That is the sentence most people are never told when they agree to it.

If you distribute an estate and a creditor turns up afterwards, you can be required to pay that debt yourself. If the inheritance tax was understated because an asset was missed or a lifetime gift was not disclosed, HM Revenue and Customs looks to the executor. If you pay a beneficiary who was not entitled, the beneficiary who was entitled can pursue you.

There are protections, and they work if you use them. Placing statutory notices in the London Gazette and in a newspaper local to the deceased, and then waiting the required two months, protects you against creditors you did not know about. Asking every beneficiary to confirm the lifetime gifts they received protects the tax position. Running a bankruptcy search against each beneficiary before you pay them stops money going to somebody whose share belongs to their trustee in bankruptcy. Keeping the six month window after the grant before distributing the residue guards against a family provision claim.

Keep every receipt and every letter, keep the estate money in a separate account, and never mix it with your own. If beneficiaries later question what you did, the file is your answer.

If the estate is insolvent, meaning the debts are larger than the assets, stop and take advice before you pay anybody. There is a legal order in which debts must be paid, and paying the wrong creditor first makes an executor personally responsible for the shortfall.

Within limits, yes. A beneficiary can redirect what they were left to somebody else using a deed of variation, and if it is done properly the redirection is treated for inheritance tax as though the person who died had written it that way.

It has to be in writing, it has to be signed within two years of the death, and everybody whose entitlement is being reduced has to agree and be an adult with capacity. If the variation increases the inheritance tax due, the personal representatives have to join in and tell HM Revenue and Customs.

People use it for good reasons. A widow who does not need the money passes her share straight to the children. A family redirects a legacy to a grandchild. A gift goes to charity, which can bring the whole estate under the reduced 36 per cent rate of inheritance tax where at least a tenth of the net estate goes to charity. Or an old will that ignores the residence nil rate band is reshaped so that the home passes to direct descendants and the allowance is not wasted.

The two year window is a hard deadline and it goes quickly when a family is grieving. If there is any chance a variation would help, look at it in the first year, not the second.

What a deed of variation cannot do is cut somebody out or overturn a will you disagree with. Disputes about the validity of a will, and claims for reasonable financial provision, are a different route entirely.

Almost always, and it is the reason a great many people finally sit down and do it.

If the person who died was named in your will as a beneficiary, an executor or a guardian, your will now has a hole in it. If it named no substitute, that part of it may fail. If your husband, wife or civil partner has died, everything you own may now pass on the second death rather than the first, and the plan you made together no longer describes what will happen.

There is a tax point too. When the first of a married couple dies, any unused nil rate band and residence nil rate band can be claimed on the second death, but only if somebody claims it. Keeping the paperwork from this estate safe now is what makes that claim possible later, sometimes decades later.

And you have just watched, close up, what happens when the paperwork is not in order. If there was no will, or the will was out of date, or nobody could find it, you already know the cost of that better than any page on a website can tell you.

Making or updating a will is a short piece of work. A consultation call, then a draft for you to approve. It is the one thing on this page that is entirely within your control.