How the guides are written

Who writes it

The guides are written in-house, from published sources. They are not written or reviewed by solicitors, accountants or any other regulated adviser — which is the part worth knowing, because it sets the limit on what any page here can settle for you.

Where the information comes from

Guides are written from primary sources: GOV.UK, HMRC and HMCTS guidance, the published fee schedules, legislation on legislation.gov.uk, and the banks' and registrars' own bereavement pages. Where a guide states a figure — a threshold, a fee, a deadline — it names where that figure comes from, so you can check it yourself. That matters more than anything else on this page: a guide you can verify is worth more than one you have to trust.

How figures are kept current

The figures that change most — the probate application fee, the cost of sealed copies — are held in one place in the code and switch over on the date the change takes effect, so the guides move with them rather than waiting for someone to notice. Automated checks fail the build if a guide contradicts them, or contradicts the inheritance tax thresholds.

The tax figures were last checked against source on 3 September 2026. Where a page is more than six months past its check date, it says so at the top.

Where this falls short

This section exists because the honest version is more useful than a list of standards.

• No regulated adviser checks these guides. They are researched from published rules. For anything contested, unusual or expensive, that is not enough on its own — take advice.
• Pages do go out of date. When the probate fee rose in July 2026, guides carried the old figure for weeks before it was caught. The automated checks described above exist because of that, not instead of it.
• Some source links are broken. Government pages move. A recent check found a substantial number of outbound links no longer resolving. If a citation is dead, search GOV.UK for the page title rather than assuming the guide is wrong — and please report it.
• England and Wales, mostly. Scotland and Northern Ireland have genuinely different law — confirmation rather than probate, different intestacy rules, different figures. Guides that cover them say so; assume anything that doesn't is England and Wales.

What this site is not

It is information, not advice. It is not a substitute for a solicitor, an accountant, or the Probate Registry itself. Nothing here creates a professional relationship, and no page should be the only thing you rely on for a decision that has money or a deadline attached to it.

There is also nothing being sold, and no money changes hands over what appears here: no adverts, no affiliate links, no paid placements, and no referral fees to solicitors or funeral directors. Where a guide recommends going elsewhere — to GOV.UK, to Citizens Advice, to a solicitor — that is not a commercial arrangement.

Corrections

If a figure no longer matches its source, or a link is dead, email hello@withfarra.co.uk. No turnaround is promised, because promising one would be another claim this page cannot keep — but corrections are read, and they are the most useful thing anyone sends.