How to contest a will

The two claims, validity and financial provision

A will challenge in England and Wales is one of two applications. A probate claim says the will is not valid and asks the court to pronounce against it. A claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 accepts the will and says its provision is not reasonable.

	Validity challenge	1975 Act claim
What it argues	The will is not valid	The provision is not reasonable
Procedure	Part 7 claim, CPR 57.3	Part 8 claim form, CPR 57.16(1)
Deadline	A caveat before the grant is sealed	6 months from representation
Outcome	The court pronounces on the will	Money or property, the will standing

A surviving spouse or civil partner is judged by what is reasonable to receive whether or not needed for maintenance, every other applicant by maintenance alone. The Act reaches only where the deceased died domiciled in England and Wales.

The grounds for challenging a will’s validity

Ground	What it turns on	Where it comes from
Due execution	Writing, signature, two witnesses at the same time	Wills Act 1837 section 9
Capacity	The common law test and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 test	Law Commission
Knowledge and approval	Whether the testator knew of and approved the contents	CPR 57.7(3)
Undue influence or fraud	Particulars of the facts relied on, pleaded specifically	CPR 57.7(4)
Revocation	A later will, a signed writing, destruction, or marriage	Wills Act 1837 sections 18 and 20
Rectification	A clerical error or a failure to understand instructions	AJA 1982 section 20

Section 9 needs writing, a signature by the testator or at his direction, an intention that the signature give effect to the will, and two or more witnesses present at the same time who then attest and sign. No form of attestation is necessary, and a will made under 18 is not valid.

Revocation is narrow, running to another will or codicil, a writing executed like a will, destruction with that intention, and marriage unless the will shows the testator expected to marry that person.

Two of these grounds may not stand. The Law Commission’s Modernising Wills Law report of 16 May 2025 would apply the Mental Capacity Act 2005 test alone, let courts infer undue influence rather than keep today’s high evidential burden, and end revocation by marriage. No Bill has been enacted.

The £4 caveat, the warning and the 14 day appearance

A caveat is the emergency brake. Under rule 44 of the Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987 anyone wishing to show cause against the sealing of a grant may enter one, and no grant is sealed while the registrar knows of an effective caveat. It costs £4 on form PA8A, runs 6 months, and costs £4 again to extend on form PA8B in the last month before expiry.

The stop takes effect one working day after the caveat arrives, and none can be entered after probate is granted. A person claiming an interest can then issue a warning in Form 4, served on the caveator and never by email, and the caveator has 14 days from service, counting the day of service itself, to enter an appearance in Form 5.

An appearance changes things for good. The caveat can no longer be withdrawn, only removed by order of a District Probate Registrar, a High Court Judge or a District Judge, and it holds until a probate action begins. The will itself becomes a public record only once the grant issues, and a copy of the record and the will then costs £16 on form PA1S.

Time limits, and the 6 months that runs from the grant

The 6 month limit belongs to the 1975 Act, and it runs from the date representation is first taken out, not from the death. Since 1 October 2014 a claim can also be issued before representation is taken out.

Route	The limit	It runs from
Caveat	6 months, extendable by 6	The caveat being entered
Appearance after a warning	14 days, including the day of service	Service of the warning
1975 Act claim	6 months, then court permission	Representation first taken out
Rectification of a will	6 months, then court permission	Representation first taken out
Share of the personal estate	12 years	The right to the share accruing

The 12 years is section 22 of the Limitation Act 1980, while section 21(1) sets no period at all for a beneficiary’s claim founded on fraud. An executor is not bound to distribute inside the year from the death, and section 20(3) of the 1982 Act protects a personal representative only where the payment out came after the 6 months for a rectification claim had run.

Court fees for a contested estate

Step	England and Wales	Northern Ireland
Enter a caveat	£4	£123
Extend a caveat	£4	£81, extension or warning
Grant of probate	£526 above £5,000	£326 above £10,000
Issue a claim other than for money	£663 High Court, £387 County Court	£326 to seal a writ
Hearing fee	£1,334 multi-track	£488 to set down for trial

The grant fee is £526 above £5,000 and nothing at or below it, and the Northern Irish schedule from 1 April 2026 sets its own at every line. An application on notice is £321 and £126 by consent. No probate claim reaches the £619 fast track fee, because CPR 57.2 sends all of them to the multi-track.

Professional time sits on top, at the rates firms publish by the hour. A probate grant that was stopped during January to March 2026 took 14 weeks on average to be issued, against 2 weeks for one that was not stopped. A stop covers a dispute about who may apply, a problem with the will, and a request for further information after an error.

How a probate claim runs under CPR Part 57

A probate claim is commenced under Part 7, assigned in the High Court to the Chancery Division and allocated to the multi-track.

• Longer to respond. The acknowledgment of service period is 28 days, not the usual 14.
• Documents go in first. Every testamentary document a party holds is lodged at court, and nobody inspects another party’s until they have lodged their own.
• Pleading is specific. Due execution, capacity, undue influence, fraud and knowledge and approval each need particulars of the facts relied on.

Who pays the costs, and the CPR 57.7(5) protection

Under CPR 44.2(2)(a) the unsuccessful party pays the successful party’s costs, though the court may order otherwise. That general rule does not apply in the Court of Appeal on appeals from probate proceedings.

Part 57 carries a protection alongside it. A defendant who gives notice in his defence that he raises no positive case, but insists on the will being proved in solemn form and that he will cross-examine the attesting witnesses, escapes a costs order unless the court considers there was no reasonable ground for opposing the will.

What happens if the will is set aside

The estate passes under the last valid will before the one struck down, and where there is none it passes on intestacy, with a surviving spouse or civil partner taking a fixed net sum of £322,000 charged on the residue where the deceased left issue and the rest worked out from that figure.

A 1975 Act claim leaves the will standing and changes who gets what. The orders available run from periodical payments and a lump sum to a transfer or settlement of property. The court weighs the factors in section 3, from the applicant’s resources and needs to the size of the net estate, any disability and any conduct. A joint tenancy is reachable, because the deceased’s severable share counts as part of the net estate.

Reduction and legal rights in Scotland

Scotland answers differently, since a spouse, civil partner or child cannot be cut out of the moveable estate. A surviving spouse or civil partner takes one third of the moveable estate where the deceased left children and one half where there were none, and the children take one third between them where a spouse survives and one half where none does. Land and buildings sit outside it.

Under section 13 of the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964 a provision for a spouse or issue satisfies legal rights unless the will says otherwise, so the beneficiary elects between the two.

The remedy is an action of reduction under Chapter 53 of the Rules of the Court of Session, a summons concluding for production of the document and ending in a decree of reduction, or stated by way of exception in an existing action under rule 53.8. Since 1 April 2015 the sheriff has had competence in reduction too, and the 1975 Act does not reach Scotland.

Reduce a will and the estate passes under any earlier valid will, and on intestacy where there is none. Prior rights have stood there since 1 February 2012 at £473,000 for the dwellinghouse, £29,000 for furniture and plenishings and £50,000 in cash where there is issue or £89,000 where there is none. Confirmation is sought through the sheriff court commissary department, where fees from 1 April 2026 are nothing up to £50,000, £351 up to £250,000 and £705 above. Firms here answer to the Law Society of Scotland, the regulator on every card in the Glasgow list, with complaints to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

The 1994 Order and the £123 caveat in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland runs the same two routes from its own statutes. Wills are governed by the Wills and Administration Proceedings (Northern Ireland) Order 1994, not the Wills Act 1837. Article 5 mirrors section 9 on formalities, Article 12 revokes a will on marriage, and Article 29 allows rectification on the same two grounds with the same 6 month limit.

Article 4(1) lets a person under 18 make a valid will if they are or have been a spouse or civil partner, which England and Wales does not. Family provision runs under the 1979 Order, which requires domicile in Northern Ireland, and Article 6 gives the same 6 months from representation without the 2014 wording that permits a claim before the grant.

A caveat lasts 6 months and is renewable within one month of expiry, the applicant must be 18 or over with a Northern Irish address, on form NIPF3. Section 7 of the Administration of Estates Act (Northern Ireland) 1955 gives a surviving spouse the personal chattels plus £250,000 where there is issue and £450,000 where there is none but parents or siblings survive. Applications go to the Probate Office in Belfast, which has a branch at Londonderry, and the firms on the Belfast list answer to the Law Society of Northern Ireland rather than to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.