Farra is a death administration assistant for UK families. Get step-by-step guidance for registering a death, applying for probate, notifying banks, and managing bereavement admin. From essential documents to practical checklists, Farra simplifies estate paperwork and funeral-related tasks so you can focus on what matters.
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) holds two very different types of asset, and they are treated differently on death. HL pension and SIPP assets do not usually form part of the estate — a committee decides who receives them, so a grant is not what unlocks them. For everything else, HL publishes a single figure on its bereavement page: you return its estates release forms with an original Grant of Probate, but if the total value of assets held with HL excluding pensions is below £50,000 and probate is not being applied for, HL will instead require a certified copy of the will. Read that the way HL wrote it: it is a ceiling on the no-grant route, not a trigger. If a grant is being obtained anyway, HL wants the original.
One, and it is worded carefully. HL's bereavement page sets out the steps and says of the third of them: “You return the estates release forms included in the application pack along with an original Grant of Probate. If the total value of assets held with HL (excluding pensions) is below £50,000 and probate is not being applied for, we will require a certified copy of the Will.”
HL does not call this a “small estates declaration” and does not publish a separate small-estates form; the route below £50,000 is a certified copy of the will in place of a grant. In Scotland the document is a certificate of confirmation rather than a grant of probate, and in Northern Ireland the process runs through the Probate Office there. For a comparison of probate requirements across UK financial institutions, see our probate threshold guide for 2026–27.
When dealing with an HL account after a death, you will need to provide:
For a full explanation of what documents are needed at this stage, see our guide on what documents are needed for probate. When applying for probate, request enough certified copies of the grant — HL will need the original, which they will copy and return.
HL has a dedicated bereavement support team:
HL freezes the accounts once it is notified. Investments stay invested and keep moving with the market, dividends keep being paid and interest keeps being applied to cash — but an instruction to sell can only come from the person dealing with the estate. Our guide on notifying banks after a death covers notifying all types of financial institution.
No. Hargreaves Lansdown does not appear on the member list published by the Death Notification Service (DNS), which covers banks, building societies and a small number of insurers and share registrars. A DNS notification will not reach HL, so you have to contact HL yourself.
HL does not publish whether it accepts form IHT423, the Direct Payment Scheme form that lets a bank, building society or NS&I pay inheritance tax straight to HMRC before the grant is issued. It does send a probate valuation of the accounts as at the date of death, which is what you need for the IHT return. If you are relying on HL assets to fund the tax, ask its estates team what it will and will not do before you file.
Note that HL's own valuation is as at the date of death, and HL says the figures distributed at the end may differ from it because the investments stay in the market throughout. Our guide on probate delays and IHT interest explains the consequences of delayed IHT payment and what options are available.
HL does not publish a figure, and no official source publishes one either. Any “4 to 6 weeks” or “10 to 15 working days” you see quoted for a platform or a bank is somebody estimating, not a published service standard.
What HL does describe is the order of events: it freezes the accounts, it returns the death certificate with a probate valuation and an estates application pack, you return the estates release forms with either the original grant or a certified copy of the will, and only then can it act on instructions. Where assets are being transferred in specie rather than sold, a receiving platform has to process the transfer too, which adds a step outside HL's control.
Our estate administration checklist covers investment accounts alongside bank accounts.
Two conditions, both of which have to hold: the total value of assets held with HL excluding pensions is below £50,000, and probate is not being applied for. Meet both and HL will take a certified copy of the will instead. Fail either — the non-pension total is £50,000 or more, or a grant is being obtained for the rest of the estate — and HL wants the original grant.
Pension and SIPP assets sit outside that calculation and outside the estate, so they are neither counted towards the £50,000 nor released by a grant. Note HL's own caveat that from 2027, where an estate is valued over the inheritance tax threshold, some pensions may be subject to inheritance tax — the government has confirmed unused pension funds come within the charge from 6 April 2027. Our guide on when you don't need probate explains the general rules that sit behind an institution setting a figure like this one.
For a comprehensive guide to UK probate, visit our complete UK probate guide for 2026. Given the complexity of investment accounts, our DIY probate versus solicitor costs guide sets out what each route involves where a portfolio is part of the estate. For inheritance tax on investment portfolios, read our IHT guide for 2026–27.
Before you assume you need probate
Do you actually need a grant — and what would it cost?
A Hargreaves Lansdown balance is only part of the picture. Whether the estate needs probate at all depends on the whole picture — property, other accounts, and how everything was owned — not a single threshold. It is worth checking before you start filling in forms.
Guide reviewed July 2026. Bank thresholds change and can vary by account type — always confirm the current figure with the provider before relying on it.
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