What Is a Probate Valuation and Do You Need One?
A probate valuation puts an open market value on everything someone owned at the date they died. Here is when you need one and when you can do it yourself.
A probate valuation is a record of what everything someone owned was worth on the day they died. Not what it cost, not what it would cost to replace, and not what it means to the family. What it would have fetched if it had been sold on the open market that day.
Most people meet the phrase for the first time in a solicitor's letter or on a form, at a point when they have quite enough to think about. So this is the plain version: what it is, who actually needs one, what you can reasonably do yourself, and where it is worth paying somebody.
This is general information rather than advice on your particular estate, and if anything here looks close to your situation it is worth putting the question to the solicitor or accountant handling it.
What a probate valuation is actually for
It does two jobs, and it helps to keep them separate in your head.
The first is tax. HM Revenue and Customs needs a figure for the estate to work out whether inheritance tax is due. There is normally nothing to pay where an estate falls below the £325,000 threshold, but somebody still has to establish that it does.
The second is fairness. If a will splits an estate three ways, somebody has to say what the house contents were worth before anyone can be given an equal share of them. A valuation is what stops that conversation from being an argument, which matters more than people expect. Disagreements between beneficiaries are far more often about a sideboard than about a bank account.
The standard everything is measured against
There is a single legal test, set out in section 160 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984, and everything else follows from it. An asset is valued at the price it might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold on the open market at that time.
Two words in there do a lot of work. "Open market" means the price a willing buyer would actually pay, not a family price and not a favour. And "at that time" means the date of death, not the date you got round to looking. If the market has moved since, that is not your problem, and neither is it your opportunity.
The practical consequence catches almost everyone out. Household contents are valued second hand, at what they would fetch, and secondhand furniture is worth a fraction of what it cost. A dining suite that cost four thousand pounds new is worth what somebody would pay for a used dining suite, which is a very different number. We go into the mechanics of that properly in what HMRC actually requires for house contents.
Do you actually need a professional valuation?
Often, no. There is a widespread assumption that probate automatically requires a paid valuer to walk round the house, and for a great many ordinary estates that is simply not the case. What matters is the size of the estate and what is in it, not the fact that probate is happening.
| Your situation | What is usually proportionate |
|---|---|
| Estate comfortably below the threshold, ordinary household contents, no unusual items | A careful room by room list with your own reasoned figures, and the evidence kept |
| Estate near the threshold, where the contents figure could tip it either way | A professional valuation, because the figure now has tax consequences |
| Jewellery, art, antiques, a collection, a classic car, or anything you cannot confidently price | A professional opinion on those specific items, not necessarily the whole house |
| Beneficiaries who do not agree, or who are not all in the room | An independent valuation, for everybody's protection including yours |
| Any estate where inheritance tax will be paid | A professional valuation, and keep every scrap of the working |
Notice the third row. You very rarely need to pay somebody to price a washing machine. What you may need is a specialist opinion on the four things in the house that could be worth real money, with everything else handled sensibly by you. That is a much smaller job and a much smaller bill than a full valuation of the whole property.
What a valuation has to cover
Everything the person owned, which is broader than people first assume. The property itself, any money and investments, and then the whole of the contents: furniture, jewellery, vehicles, tools, books, china, the contents of the loft and the shed.
House contents are reported separately from the rest of the estate, and the form that does it treats different categories differently. Individual pieces of jewellery worth £1,500 or more get listed one by one. So do vehicles, boats and aircraft, and so do antiques, works of art and collections. Everything else, the ordinary furniture and domestic goods that make up most of a house, goes in as a single total.
That structure tells you where to spend your effort. HMRC is not asking you to price the teaspoons individually. It is asking you to identify the things that might genuinely be worth something and deal with them properly.
Who can do one
For a straightforward estate, you can. An executor is entitled to value the contents themselves, provided the figures are honest and reasoned. Reasoned is the operative word. A number you can explain, based on what similar items are actually selling for, is a valuation. A number you thought sounded about right is a guess, and it will not survive a query.
Where you want a professional, you are generally looking at auctioneers and valuers who offer probate valuations as a service, or at surveyors for the property itself. Ask what basis they are valuing on before they start, because it should be open market value at the date of death, and it is worth hearing them say so. Our piece on probate valuation against insurance valuation explains why that question matters so much.
One thing worth knowing about the trade: a firm that values the contents and would also like to sell them has an interest in the number. That is not a reason to avoid them, most are entirely straightforward about it, but it is a reason to ask the question openly and to be comfortable with the answer.
What it costs, and what else you will pay
Valuers price their own work and it varies with the size of the house and the complexity of what is in it, so there is no single figure worth quoting. Separately from the valuation, the probate application itself carries a court fee: £526 where the estate is worth more than £5,000, and nothing at all where it is £5,000 or less. Extra copies of the grant are £2 each if you order them with the application and £16 each afterwards, which is a small saving worth taking, since you will need more copies than you think.
What happens after the valuation
This is the part nobody warns you about. Once the estate is valued and probate is granted, you still have a house full of belongings and a decision about what to do with them. The valuation answers "what was this worth", not "what happens to it now", and those are genuinely different questions with different answers.
The routes are clearance, selling items individually, consigning to auction, or running a contents sale in the house itself. Each suits a different kind of house and a different family. We have set them out side by side, honestly including the cases where a sale is the wrong answer, in selling house contents after probate, with the options compared. If your reason for asking is mostly about cost, what actually drives a house clearance quote is the more useful starting point.
If you are reading this on behalf of a client rather than a family member, whether as a solicitor, an executor acting professionally, or a clearance operator advising somebody, the arrangement for professionals is set out in listing sales as a professional partner.
And if you have the valuation done and are now looking at a full house with no idea where to start, you can talk it through with us first, with no obligation to do anything afterwards. We will tell you plainly if a sale is not the right answer for that house.
Common questions
Is a probate valuation the same as an estate agent's valuation?
No. An estate agent is telling you what a property might achieve now, often with an eye on winning the instruction. A probate valuation is a formal open market figure as at the date of death. For the property itself in a taxable estate, a surveyor's valuation carries more weight than an agent's appraisal.
Can I use what the contents actually sold for?
A genuine open market sale shortly after death is strong evidence of value, and it is far better support for your figures than an estimate. It is not automatically the answer for tax purposes, particularly if the sale was rushed or restricted, but it is exactly the kind of reasoning a valuation is supposed to rest on.
How long does it take?
A professional contents valuation is usually a visit of a few hours and a written report within a week or two. Doing it yourself takes longer in calendar time but is mostly one long careful day in the house with a notebook and a phone.
What if I find something valuable afterwards?
It happens, usually at the back of a wardrobe. Tell whoever is handling the estate as soon as you find it. A corrected figure volunteered early is an administrative matter. The same figure discovered later by somebody else is a different conversation entirely.
Do I need a valuation if there is definitely no inheritance tax?
You still need honest figures, both for the estate account and for dividing things between beneficiaries. What you probably do not need is a paid professional to produce them. The mistakes executors most often make are worth reading either way, because several of them cause trouble in estates with no tax to pay at all.
