Probate: People not using lawyers for small estates
Private client law firms could see client numbers fall as the court digitisation programme is helping more people submit probate applications themselves, new figures have indicated.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said the data suggested that people “feel able to apply without necessarily needing help or support from potentially expensive legal representation”.
A new report [1] evaluating the impact of the HM Courts & Tribunals Service digital reform programme on probate since 2019 said: “There has been swift adoption of the digital application channel introduced as part of Reform.
“Between April and June 2025, 81% of all probate applications from unrepresented applicants and almost all ‘grant of probate’ applications submitted by legal representatives (95%) were submitted digitally.
“An indication of increasing access to justice following Reform within the probate service is the increase in the proportion of applications with relatively low estate values being submitted by unrepresented applicants.
“This suggests that these people feel able to apply without necessarily needing help or support from potentially expensive legal representation.”
In small estates, where the net value of the assets was below £10,000, the number of people making applications online with no legal representation increased by nearly a fifth, from 62% to 74%, between 2019 and 2025.
The MoJ conceded that an alternative explanation could be changes to excepted estates, which reduced the number of probate cases which need to pay inheritance tax.
For larger estates, where the net value of the assets was £500,000 or more, the rise was more modest, from 25% to 29%.
Overall, the MoJ said there had been only a “small” increase in the number of unpresented applicants over the six years – from 39% of applications in 2019 to 44% in 2025.”
Solicitor Ian Bond, director at Dignity Legal Services and a member of the Law Society wills & equity committee – who represents the Law Society on the HMCTS probate professionals user group – said use of the word “small” revealed the MoJ knew it still had work to do to encourage more people to apply for probate themselves.
Mr Bond said: “If you are a high street firm, you want to serve your local community and provide legal services such as probate to local families. So now more and more of those families are applying for probate online, it could be devastating for smaller firms.”
While 60% of unrepresented applicants submitted their probate applications within 90 days of the death, only 27% of represented applicants did.
“The drivers of short or long times to initially apply for probate are not currently understood,” researchers said.
“The differences by application representation could be affected by the time taken to instruct a legal representative to act on behalf of the applicant, the time taken to collect all the case’s required documentation, especially for more complex cases where applicants may be more likely to instruct legal representation, and the time taken to ensure everything with the application is correct, to reduce the likelihood of encountering issues, based on advice from legal representatives.”
The MoJ research found a mixed response to digitalisation, with the “swift adoption” of the new digital application channels not always being driven by consumer demand, but by probate lawyers, who have had no choice but to use the online platforms since November 2020.
It said: “The largest increase in digital uptake was prompted by the mandate for legal professionals to use the digital application form for all but the most complex grant of probate applications in late 2020.
“Without this mandate, it is possible that digital uptake would be lower than it is now.”
“The increase in digital uptake for unrepresented applicants has been more gradual over time.”
The level of legal representation varies for different types of cases, researchers said.
“For example, 75% of applications for letters of administration with the will annexed were made with legal representation compared with 51% of applications for letters of administration (intestacy) and 59% of grant of probate applications.
“The exact reasons for this are unclear, but may relate to the availability of digital application channels for these case types, or the perceived complexity of some case types necessitating legal representation.”
Mr Bond said medium-sized firms were still seeing families with complex estates turn to lawyers, rather than trying to navigate probate via an online platform.
In recent years, the Probate Service has been criticised for long waiting times – and when digitalisation was introduced this situation got worse.
Between 2020 and 2023, cases taking over a year to process increased by 134%. In 2024, more than 39,000 applications were still incomplete six months after had been submitted.
The latest figures show waiting times have now fallen, with simple applications taking between four and six weeks to process.