Free probate checker for England & Wales
Free probate check. We do the hard part.
Enter a name and year to check the England and Wales probate records in seconds: see whether probate has been granted and whether a will is on file. Searching is free. If you would rather not deal with government records at a difficult time, we obtain the grant and the will and explain them, for £29 all in.
Prefer to do it yourself? Read the step-by-step probate search guide, how to check if probate has been granted, or how to find a will and order the £16 copy from GOV.UK. Comparing options? See our £29 service against GOV.UK and other firms.
What we do, so you do not have to
One flat price, everything included, and a real person reading the result rather than a search box handing you a blank.
Tell us who has passed away
A name and a year is enough to begin. Add a place or a former name and we search wider automatically.
We run the search properly
Every name variation, the right index years, and the judgement to tell a genuine blank from a missed record.
We obtain the documents
The grant and the will, sent to you as soon as they can be retrieved, or a standing search lodged if no grant exists yet.
We explain it plainly
What the grant means, what the will does and does not tell you, and what usually makes sense next.
Why a will gets missed
The search is free and public. The reason people pay for it done properly is that three quiet pitfalls turn a real record into a false dead end.
The grant-year trap
Records are indexed by the year the grant was issued, not the year they passed away. Probate takes months, so the record often sits under the following year. Search one year and you can wrongly conclude there is no will.
Name variations
Maiden names, a middle name used as a first name, and small spelling differences all return a blank on an exact-name search. That blank looks exactly like no will exists.
Reading an empty result
Sometimes probate was never needed, for example where assets were jointly owned or below bank thresholds. Knowing which situation you are in is the whole point.
Losing someone is enough to deal with. Finding their will should not become another project you have to learn.
That is the whole reason ProbateCheck exists.
Questions people ask
Is this the official GOV.UK probate search?+
No. ProbateCheck is an independent service, not part of GOV.UK or HMCTS. For deaths from 1996 onwards our free check searches the same public England and Wales probate index that GOV.UK's Find a will service uses, and shows each match with whether a will is on file. Searching is free either way. The difference is what happens next: on GOV.UK you order and read the £16 copy yourself; for £29 we search the name variations, obtain the grant and the will, lodge a standing search if nothing has been granted yet, and explain it all in plain English.
How do I find out if someone left a will?+
Once probate has been granted in England or Wales, the will becomes a public document. The difficulty is rarely the search itself; it is that records are filed under the year the grant was issued rather than the year they passed away, and exact-name matching misses maiden names, middle names and spelling variants. An empty result is very often a wrong result. We search every variation across the right index years and read the outcome correctly.
What does the £29 include?+
Everything. We run the search across name variations and multiple index years, obtain the grant of probate and the will where one was proved, lodge and monitor an official standing search if no grant exists yet, and send you a plain-English explanation of what the documents mean and sensible next steps. All government fees are included in the price.
Can I not just do this myself?+
You can. Probate records are public and can be ordered directly from the official GOV.UK service. Most people come to us because they are dealing with a bereavement and would rather not learn a records system, chase the grant-year quirk, or guess whether a blank result means there is genuinely no will. We handle all of it and explain the result.
What if probate has not been granted yet?+
If someone passed away recently, a grant may still be weeks or months away, so nothing shows online yet. The correct tool is a standing search lodged with the Probate Registry: if a grant is issued within the next six months, the documents are released automatically. We lodge it and monitor it for you, then obtain and explain the documents the moment they appear.
How long does it take and what do I receive?+
We start your search as soon as you order, and send the documents as soon as they can be retrieved. You receive the grant of probate (or letters of administration) and the will where one was proved, by email, with a plain-English note explaining what they mean. New records typically become available around two weeks after a grant is issued; postal responses arrive within about four weeks.
Does this cover Scotland and Northern Ireland?+
The England and Wales probate records are what we search. Scotland uses a separate system called Confirmation, searchable through ScotlandsPeople, and Northern Ireland records are held by its own Probate Office. If you are not sure which applies, run the free check and we will tell you.
Start with a free check
See where the record should sit in seconds. Hand us the rest whenever you are ready.
Check for free