Smart Estate Assessment tool

This tool will help you work out the best way for you to apply for Confirmation (Scottish Probate).

The tool will tell you if:

  • You can get free help: If your circumstances qualify as a ‘small estate’, the Sheriff Court will help you for free.
  • You need to pay for a solicitor: There are a few specific situations where you legally need a solicitor. We’ll still give you advice to keep your costs as low as possible.
  • You can use our fixed price service: For everyone else, we can work with you as an expert guide to help your application meet the strict standard of the Sheriff Court. We have a money back guarantee that you will get your Confirmation application approved, with over 97% of our checked applications succeeding on the first attempt. We can recommend the best package for you based on your answers.

How long does it take?

The number of questions we ask will depend on your circumstances, but it takes most people less than 3 minutes to answer all the questions.

Not everyone needs to apply for Confirmation (Scottish Probate) at all.

Use our Confirmation checker tool to find out if you need Confirmation.

What you need

Before you start, you need to know:

1.  A rough estimate of the total value of the person’s estate.

Our estate valuing help guide can help you make sure you include everything. Some questions might ask you about the estimated value of specific things, like property. 

How to value an estate for probate

2. Whether they had a valid Will

We will ask you if they had a valid Will. If they did, we might ask about the people in the Will. We won’t ask for specific people’s names.

What makes a Will valid for probate in Scotland?

3. The value of anything they gave away in the 7 years before they died

We might ask you about gifts totalling more than £150,000.

Our founder, Mike Davis

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. After seeing how poor a service people were being offered, often for outrageous fees, he knew he had to create a better way.


"I am committed to providing a first-class service to help you to a successful outcome at a fair price, and without delay - exactly how it should be!"

Mike Davis

A blue swirl on a white background.

Getting through the probate process

When using a lawyer, the probate process can be costly and take a very long time. Usually, you’ll have to pay for every hour of their time, which could be as high as £300 per hour, plus VAT. It is not uncommon for a lawyer to take longer than a year to finalise matters, and for it to cost many thousands of pounds - sometimes as high as 3% or 4% of the estate value.


When doing the probate process completely on your own, it can be even more daunting, as the Sheriff Court process is not set up to help you succeed. People who try to do it themselves often become overwhelmed and give up when they run into unexpected challenges or suffer repeated rejections from the court with no explanation whatsoever.

The best of both worlds

Our services work for around 90% of cases and are designed to help you navigate all the challenges and pitfalls of going through the probate process in Scotland. We can give you very similar value in terms of knowledge and experience, for a fraction of the cost of a lawyer. We will help you get your Grant of Confirmation approved the first time, and support you to deal with all the other aspects of closing down someone’s financial and legal affairs.

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Use our Smart Estate Assessment Tool