Complete your Scottish probate application with guided support

Most people have a straightforward situation where getting a Grant of Confirmation is just a formality because a company like a bank has asked for it, or there is a property to sell.

Using a normal lawyer service that costs thousands of pounds to deal with a straightforward situation can often be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. On occasion, things can be complicated and using a lawyer might be necessary, but in our experience, this is unnecessary in the majority of cases.

We created our service to provide an affordable, quick solution to deal with straightforward cases.

Using our method to deal with the estate will result in:

• a faster route to probate and completion (often by months)
• people keeping more of their inheritance (usually by thousands of pounds)
• less stress and frustration by using a service specifically designed to give you a 5-star experience

Get qualified for one of our services now

Aside from helping hundreds of executors to a successful outcome already, our founder, Mike, is a qualified Law Accountant, specialising in probate work. He spent years pouring over and assessing thousands of lawyers’ case files, developing a deep knowledge of how this process works and the various ways it plays out in the real world. 

We also have a team of paralegals who worked in solicitor firms for decades - they've pretty much seen it all. We also have a consultant solicitor and retired Will expert that we run any complicated matters by.

On the rare occasion that your situation becomes too complicated, we would refund our fee so you can continue with a lawyer. This is really unusual, but, for this reason, we only recommend our service if we are confident it is a good fit for your needs.

Get qualified for our service now

It may feel like applying without any help is the most economical thing to do, but the Sheriff Court process has not been set up to help you succeed. It’s a very old-fashioned process that is in dire need of being updated (like the English process was in 2019). The courts are extremely fussy about how you fill out the application.

The instructions do not explain how to meet their exceptionally high standards and the reality is that although you can feel like you’ve followed all the instructions, there is an extremely low chance of success, without any help. Furthermore, if the estate is worth more than £36,000, the court is not permitted to tell you what you’ve done wrong. This can lead to a lot of frustration and time wasted. 

Watch/listen to Paul who applied 6 times himself before coming to us.

100% success rate

Every single one of our checked applications are accepted by the court - over 97% on the first attempt. Different Sheriff Courts have different preferences as to how things should be laid out in the forms. Having helped people to apply to every Sheriff Court in Scotland, we’ve incorporated each court’s preferences into our service.

5-star customer experience 

The primary reason for our existence is to improve people’s experience of dealing with a death in Scotland. We always endeavour to meet you where you are, providing tailored support based on your needs. We prioritise our communication with you - almost always responding within one working day. We also work with a language specialist to make sure our guidance is accessible to all, always choosing plain English over legal jargon.

100% money back guarantee

We take the time to make sure that our service is a great fit for the estate you're dealing with. However, if at any stage a complication arises which means this is no longer the case, we will promptly refund our fee so you can pass everything over to a lawyer (this is extremely rare). For this reason, we will not recommend our service if we aren’t totally confident that it is a good fit for your needs.

The Sheriff Court charges a fee based on the value of the gross estate:

Under £50,000 - no fee

£50,000 to £250,000 - £341

Over £250,000 - £684

Our services are fixed in price, starting from £595 - see our pricing.

If there's no Will, there are additional charges - find out more here.

If you use a solicitor it's likely to cost many thousands of pounds. The average hourly rate for a solicitor in Scotland is around £250/hour (plus VAT!).

You must use the Sheriff Court local to where the deceased person last lived (or Edinburgh if they weren't living in Scotland). Different courts have different timescales. The smallest courts could take a few days, with Edinburgh and Glasgow potentially taking 2-3 months, and the rest lying somewhere in between.

We take 5-10 days to process your application, assuming we have all the information we need from you.

You will also need to wait for various financial organisations to respond to you, which can take weeks everytime you contact them. Follow our free guidance to help cut down the number of times you need to contact them.

Selling a property can often take some time, depending on where it is.

If you are an executor, and have the permission of the other executors, yes you can use the deceased person's money now, perhaps to pay for bills and expenses. 

We recommend opening a separate account and trying to get as much of the deceased person's money paid there as you can. 

Banks will pay funeral bills from a frozen bank account.