About ProbateCheck

What we do

Once probate is granted in England and Wales, a will becomes a public document. Searching the records is free, but the process trips a lot of people up: records are filed under the year the grant was issued rather than the year of death, and an exact-name search misses maiden names and spelling variants. We run the search properly, obtain the grant and the will, lodge a standing search if no grant exists yet, and send everything back with a plain-English explanation. Our fee is £29 all in, and every government fee is included.

You are always free to do it yourself. Probate records can be ordered directly from the official GOV.UK service. Our fee covers the work and the interpretation, not the record itself.

Our accuracy policy

This is a sensitive, high-stakes area, so being current matters. Every fee and factual claim on this site is checked against GOV.UK and dated so you can see when it was last verified. As an example, the cost of a copy of a probate record rose from £1.50 to £16 on 17 November 2025; a lot of published guidance still quotes the old figure, and we do not. We review our guides against GOV.UK on a regular schedule and update the verification date when we do. Our guides are written and reviewed by experienced researchers before they go live.

What we are not

ProbateCheck is a document search and retrieval service. We are not solicitors, we are not a law firm, and nothing on this site is legal advice. For legal advice about an estate, a dispute, or your own position, consult a qualified solicitor. We cover England and Wales only; Scotland and Northern Ireland use separate systems.

Contact

Email hello@probatecheck.co.uk. See also our terms and privacy policy, or browse the guides.