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Household and personal goods are often the most subjective part of an IHT400 submission. The key principle is straightforward — use realistic second-hand values, not insurance replacement values — but knowing when to call in a professional valuer can save significant time and cost if HMRC later challenges your figures.
IHT407 is the supplementary schedule to the IHT400 that captures all tangible personal property owned by the deceased. It does not cover financial assets (bank accounts, shares, pensions) or real property (houses and land) — those have their own schedules. IHT407 covers the physical possessions.
The form is four numbered value boxes and two questions. Box 1 is for individual items of jewellery worth £1,500 or more; box 2 for vehicles, boats and aircraft; box 3 for antiques, works of art and collections; box 4 is a single total for everything else — furniture, domestic items and jewellery worth less than £1,500 — which you do not have to list. Box 5 asks whether any of the items in box 4 were individually listed on the deceased’s household insurance policy, and box 6 is the total of boxes 1 to 4, which you copy to box 55 of the IHT400.
Jointly owned goods do not go on this form at all. IHT407 opens by saying so: goods the deceased owned jointly with someone else belong on form IHT404, ‘Jointly owned assets’.
The following categories of personal property should all be included:
The column the form asks you to fill in is headed “Open market value at date of death”. That phrase has a statutory meaning: section 160 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 defines the value of any property as “the price which the property might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold in the open market” at that time. For ordinary contents, that is the second-hand price — what the item would fetch at a house clearance, a saleroom, or on an online marketplace. GOV.UK puts it the same way: “For things like cars, jewellery, and paintings, work out how much you would have got if you’d sold them. You can search for similar items on online marketplaces for this” — and adds that you can estimate cheaper assets such as electrical items and ordinary household goods, and “can also get a professional valuation for anything worth over £1,500”.
This is not:
Low figures are not, in themselves, a problem: open market value for used furniture and domestic effects is genuinely low, and the form recognises that by letting you put the whole lot in one box 4 total without listing it. What the form does not let you do is bury the things it wants named — jewellery at £1,500 or more, vehicles, and antiques, art and collections each have their own box.
HMRC does not publish a value at which a professional valuation becomes compulsory. What the form does say, under each of boxes 1, 2 and 3, is: “If you have a professional valuation, enclose a copy.” The only figure on the form is the £1,500 jewellery threshold, and that governs whether an item has to be listed separately, not whether it has to be professionally valued. In practice a valuation is worth getting for:
There is no published scale of fees for this work, and HMRC does not publish one — valuers price it themselves, so ask for a quote before instructing anyone.
Motor vehicles must be declared at their market value at the date of death. The most straightforward approach is to use a published guide price from one of the main valuation services:
Enter the vehicle's registration number, and use the private sale value for a vehicle in the condition it was in at the date of death (not the trade-in value, which will be lower). Note the mileage and any relevant condition factors.
For vehicles that had significant mechanical issues or cosmetic damage at the time of death, you can adjust the valuation downwards — but keep a note of the reasons in case HMRC asks.
Classic cars, motorcycles, and rare vehicles should be valued by a specialist. The value of certain classic cars can be highly variable and market-dependent.
The instruction at the top of IHT407 is explicit: “Do not include details of household or personal goods owned jointly. You should include details of jointly owned assets on form IHT404, ‘Jointly owned assets’ and not on this form.”
So, in a household shared with a surviving spouse:
HMRC publishes no tolerance, threshold or safe figure for household goods — there is no value below which a figure is automatically accepted, and anyone quoting one is guessing. What the form does ask for is evidence: it tells you to enclose a copy of any professional valuation you hold, and box 5 asks whether items in the box 4 total were individually listed on the deceased’s household insurance policy (if they were, you have to send the policy).
If HMRC queries a figure, they may ask for the valuation or for evidence of how you arrived at it, so keep the working. GOV.UK is specific about how long: HMRC can ask to see your records up to 20 years after the inheritance tax is paid, and those records include anything showing how you worked out the value of an asset.
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