Increase in probate fees proposed by UK government

The government is proposing to increase the charges for the granting of probate on larger estates. Probate is the official permission to distribute a dead person’s estate.

Currently, the grant of probate costs either £155 if you use a solicitor or £215 if you do it yourself. It’s free if the estate is worth less than £5,000. Under the proposed new fee structure, the grant of probate will cost nothing if the estate’s assets are less than £50,000 but can cost up to £20,000 for estates worth more than £2 million, according to an article in The Guardian.

The government admits this is not about rebalancing a charge but about straightforward revenue raising. Shailesh Vara, undersecretary at the Ministry of Justice, said it will raise around £250 million which, he says, is vital in the battle to cut the deficit.

But the reality is that it costs the Probate Registry no more to issue grant of probate for an estate of one house in Hull than it does for an estate of one house in Hackney.
The thing is, we already have a perfectly good way to raise tax on estates, with the rich paying more. It’s called inheritance tax. But it has become an article of faith among the Conservatives never to raise it. So, instead, the government is in the absurd situation of capping IHT, while in another department increasing document fees to extraordinary levels.

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