What does an executor do?

What an executor is, and when the job starts

An executor is named in the will. Where there is none, or nobody named can act, the closest living relative applies instead and the document is letters of administration rather than a grant of probate. Both make the holder a personal representative, and the work is the same.

Responsibility starts before the paperwork does. A personal representative is legally responsible for the estate’s assets from the date of death until everything is passed on, a stretch called the administration period that covers debts, asset sales, income tax and reporting to HMRC. Until the grant arrives gov.uk warns against making financial plans or marketing property, though no grant is needed where the person only had savings or owned property as joint tenants.

The stages of administering an estate

Stage	What the executor does	The number that governs it
Register the death	Registers it locally and starts Tell Us Once	5 days, 8 in Scotland
Find the will and the assets	Lists accounts, property, shares and debts	The original will, never a photocopy
Value the estate	Values everything at the date of death	The £325,000 inheritance tax threshold
Report to HMRC	Files IHT400 where tax is due	12 months from the death
Apply for the grant	Applies online or by post	£526 above £5,000
Advertise for creditors	Places the deceased estates notice	2 months and 1 day to claim
Pay the debts and the tax	Settles liabilities before anyone inherits	Tax by the end of the sixth month
Distribute and account	Transfers what is left, prepares final accounts	The executor’s year

Tell Us Once cannot be used where the person lived in Northern Ireland or permanently abroad, so every department is told separately.

Applying for the grant, and the £526 fee

Three documents come out of the same registry. A grant of probate where an executor named in the will can act, letters of administration with will annexed where they cannot, and letters of administration where there is no will.

Only 4 executors can be named on an application, the cap set by section 114 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, and a group application stalls until everyone has signed the declaration.

The fee is £526 where the estate is above £5,000 and nothing at or below it, extra copies of the grant are £2 each with the application and £16 each afterwards, and a second grant is £22 whatever the estate is worth. Help with fees is available on a low income or certain benefits, though an online applicant pays in full and is refunded later. That court fee is one line on a bill that also carries the solicitor’s charges, the notice and the copies.

An executor can apply without a firm, and 46% of the grants issued in January to March 2026 were personal applications.

How long the grant takes in England and Wales

gov.uk says a grant usually arrives within 12 weeks. Ministry of Justice figures separate the routine application from the one that goes wrong, and the real wait for a grant is shorter for most estates.

Application	Time to the grant, January to March 2026
All probate grants, mean	5 weeks
All probate grants, median	1 week
Digital application not stopped, 70% of grants	2 weeks
Application stopped	14 weeks
Letters of administration with a will	20 weeks
Letters of administration without a will	11 weeks

A case is stopped by a dispute about who can apply, an issue with the will or an error needing further information. The gap between 2 weeks and 14 is the argument for getting the paperwork right first time.

Inheritance tax, the £325,000 threshold and the six-month deadline

There is normally no inheritance tax where the estate is below the £325,000 threshold, or where everything above it passes to a spouse, civil partner or charity. The rate above the threshold is 40%, falling to 36% on some assets where 10% or more of the net value goes to charity, and any unused threshold transfers to a surviving spouse. The threshold can rise to £500,000 where a home passes to children or grandchildren and the estate is worth less than £2 million.

The tax is due by the end of the sixth month after the death and HMRC charges interest after that, but a payment is usually needed before the grant is issued, which means finding money from an estate the executor cannot yet touch. Where tax is owed the estate must be reported on form IHT400 within a year, before probate can be applied for.

The Gazette notice and the two-month claim window

Section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925 lets a personal representative advertise in the Gazette and a local newspaper, requiring claims within not less than two months. After that they may distribute having regard only to the claims they knew about, and are not liable to a creditor they had no notice of.

That protection is why the notice is placed. The Gazette gives creditors 2 months and 1 day from publication, and it costs £96.55 excluding VAT electronically against £131.70 by other methods, with newspaper placement at £240.00 and a £66.45 forwarding service that keeps the executor’s address out of the public record.

The three points where an executor becomes personally liable

Three moments turn a personal representative into a personal debtor, all about paying out too early.

• Distributing before the notice period is up. gov.uk is explicit that where the estate then cannot afford a debt, the executor may have to pay it personally.
• Distributing without holding enough back. The same exposure applies to remaining debts and tax bills where not enough is kept in the estate to meet them.
• Distributing inside the family provision window. A claim under section 4 of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 has six months from the date representation is first taken out.

The executor’s year, final accounts and form DJP

Section 44 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925 says a personal representative is not bound to distribute before one year from the death. Beneficiaries pressing for money in month three are asking for something the law does not require.

Once the estate is distributed, final estate accounts are prepared and signed off by the personal representative and the main beneficiaries. Where a property was held as joint tenants the legal estate vests in the survivor, so personal representatives have no power over it and the name comes off the register on form DJP with no fee.

Reserving power, renouncing and removal

An executor named alongside others can decline to apply now and keep the right to apply later, which is having power reserved, notified to the applicant in writing. Form PA15 gives the right up permanently, form PA11 lets someone else apply on an executor’s behalf, and form PA14 is completed by a medical professional where a mental health condition prevents an executor applying.

Removal is a court matter. Under section 50 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 the High Court can substitute a personal representative or, where there are two or more, end the appointment of one but not all. A will can name a substitute executor to take over where the first cannot act, which is one of the things a properly drafted will settles in advance.

What an executor can be paid

Expenses and time are treated differently. Section 31 of the Trustee Act 2000 entitles a trustee to be reimbursed from the fund for expenses properly incurred, and section 35 applies the Act to personal representatives.

Charging for the work is narrower. Section 29 gives a professional trustee who is not a trust corporation, a charity trustee or a sole trustee reasonable remuneration only where every other trustee agrees in writing.

Confirmation in Scotland, and the executor-dative

Scotland is a separate system with its own document. Confirmation is granted by the sheriff court in its commissary capacity on an inventory lodged on form C1, and it vests the whole estate, heritable and moveable, in the executor under section 14 of the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964.

One number decides whether the court does the paperwork. At or below £36,000 the estate is a small estate, the sheriff clerk prepares the inventory by appointment, there is no statutory court fee for confirmation, and no bond of caution is needed where the clerk does that work rather than a solicitor. Above that line the estate is large, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is prohibited from assisting, and it points applicants to the Law Society of Scotland, which regulates every firm on the Edinburgh list.

Where there is no will the applicant is appointed executor-dative by dative petition, which costs £23, and a bond of caution may be required, insuring against an executor failing to distribute according to law. Commissary fees from 1 April 2026 are nothing up to £50,000, £351 up to £250,000 and £705 above that, so a £45,000 Edinburgh estate pays the court nothing where the same estate in England pays £526. Executors here also usually wait 6 months before distributing rather than a year.

Probate in Northern Ireland, and the Belfast Gazette notice

Northern Ireland keeps the English vocabulary and almost none of the English numbers. The grant comes from the High Court through the Probate Office, and it is almost always needed where the person left around £20,000 in any one account, stocks or shares, or property in their own name or as tenants in common.

The fee floor is £10,000 rather than £5,000, and under the Department of Justice schedule from 1 April 2026 there is no fee at or below it and £326 above. A personal applicant pays a further £81, the only UK court fee that rises for an applicant without a solicitor.

Reserve power is automatic here rather than claimed in writing, and every executor who applies must initial the original will before lodging it. The protective advertisement is heavier too, because section 28 of the Trustee Act (Northern Ireland) 1958 requires publication once in the Belfast Gazette and twice in each of two daily Northern Irish newspapers. Against that, section 41 of the Administration of Estates Act (Northern Ireland) 1955 puts personal representatives under a positive duty to distribute as soon after the death as is reasonably practicable, barring proceedings for failing to do so, without leave of the court, before one year from the death. Probate Office staff cannot give legal advice, and the regulator there is the Law Society of Northern Ireland.