If you have arrived here after a death, you have probably already read three or four pages about applying for probate, and none of them were written for Scotland. That is not your mistake. It is the predictable result of a United Kingdom-wide internet describing an English procedure, and it matters, because following English guidance in a Scottish estate will send you to the wrong office with the wrong form.

This page explains what the Scottish process actually is, and where the English version you have been reading diverges from it.

The word you want is confirmation

Confirmation is the court document that gives an executor authority to deal with a dead person’s estate. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service describes it as a legal document from the court giving the executor authority to uplift any money or other property belonging to the deceased from whoever is holding it — a bank, a pension provider, a registered social landlord — and to administer and distribute it according to law.

That is the same function that a grant of probate performs in England and Wales. The two are equivalents, not translations. Confirmation is granted under Scottish statute by a Scottish court, and the estate is then distributed under Scottish rules of succession, which differ from the English rules in ways that catch families out.

Where you apply, and to whom

Applications go to the commissary department of the sheriff court for the sheriff court district in which the deceased was domiciled. There is no single national probate registry of the English kind and no centralised Scottish equivalent. If the deceased lived in Paisley, the application goes to Paisley.

There is one residual jurisdiction. Where the deceased had no fixed or known domicile in the United Kingdom, or was domiciled outside the United Kingdom altogether, the application goes to the Commissary Office at Edinburgh Sheriff Court. That is a fallback for cases the general rule cannot place, not a national hub, and most estates never touch it. Somebody who lived in Edinburgh simply applies to Edinburgh under the ordinary rule, like everyone else.

Executor-nominate and executor-dative

Before an executor can apply, they have to be one. Scots law recognises two routes, and the distinction governs how much work is involved.

An executor-nominate is somebody appointed by the will. If there is a valid will naming an executor who is willing to act, that person applies for confirmation directly.

An executor-dative is somebody appointed by the court where the will does not appoint one, or where there is no will at all. That requires a petition to the sheriff, which is an extra step, an extra fee and an extra delay. An executor-dative will also normally have to find caution — an insurance bond guaranteeing their proper administration of the estate — which an executor-nominate does not. Caution is bought from a small number of providers and it is a real cost. This single difference is often the strongest practical argument for making a will.

Small estates: a Scottish advantage England does not have

Where the total value of the deceased’s money and property is £36,000 or less, the estate is a small estate, and the sheriff clerk will help you prepare the inventory and complete the paperwork. It has no English equivalent, and there is no statutory court fee for issuing confirmation in a small estate.

There is a limit to it, and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service states it plainly: court staff are not legally qualified and cannot give you legal advice. They will help you complete the form. They will not tell you who is entitled to what, whether a legal rights claim exists, or whether you should be doing this at all.

The threshold has stood at £36,000 since 1st February 2012, when it was raised from £30,000 by the Confirmation to Small Estates (Scotland) Order 2011. Above that figure the estate is a large estate, and the sheriff clerk is not permitted to assist with it. That is not unhelpfulness; it is a limit on what court staff may lawfully do.

The forms

The application is made on form C1, the inventory of the estate. For deaths on or after 1st January 2022 the reporting requirements were simplified: where the estate is an excepted estate, the executor now needs only form C1, and the old forms C5, C5(SE) and IHT217 are no longer required. Where inheritance tax is actually payable, or the estate is not excepted, form IHT400 and its schedules go to HM Revenue and Customs first, and the C1 then goes to the sheriff clerk.

Form C1 remains current as at August 2026 — HM Revenue and Customs’ own IHT400 notes, revised in April 2026, still direct Scottish executors to it. Two supplementary forms come up often enough to name: C2 is the continuation sheet where the estate does not fit on the C1, and C4(S) is the corrective inventory used when something is discovered after confirmation has been granted.

There is no Scottish equivalent of the online probate service that operates in England and Wales. The Scottish application is a paper application.

What confirmation costs

Court fees are set by the Sheriff Court Fees Order 2026, in force from 1st April 2026. For receiving and examining the inventory of an estate:

Note what that first line means. An estate worth up to £50,000 attracts no court fee at all. Additional and corrective inventories are charged on the same bands. Smaller ancillary fees apply for extras: £10 for a certificate ordered with the inventory, £15 for a duplicate confirmation, £33 for a certified extract of the confirmation and will, and £23 to petition for the appointment of an executor-dative.

These are court fees only. They are not the solicitor’s fee, and they are not the cost of caution where an executor-dative needs it.

How long does probate take in Scotland?

Nobody official publishes an answer, and it is worth being straightforward about that rather than repeating a figure invented by somebody selling a service.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service does not publish a target turnaround for commissary applications, and neither gov.scot nor mygov.scot gives one. The nearest thing to a published indication is an article in the Law Society of Scotland’s journal in September 2021, which advised solicitors to chase the sheriff clerk’s office if they had heard nothing after roughly five to six weeks in Edinburgh or around three weeks in Glasgow. Those are chase-up points rather than measured turnaround times, and they are five years old. The same article recorded something more durable: an average return rate of between twenty-four and thirty per cent of confirmation applications across the Edinburgh and Glasgow sheriff courts.

That last figure is the one to take seriously. The delay in most estates is not the court. It is the application going back and forth because something in it was wrong. Gathering the values properly before submitting is worth more than any amount of chasing afterwards.

It is also worth separating two things that are often run together. Obtaining confirmation is one stage, and it is the stage the court controls. Winding up the estate afterwards, which means ingathering the assets, settling the debts and the tax, satisfying legal rights and distributing what is left, is a separate and usually longer job in which the court plays no part. For the stages in detail, and for what actually causes the delay, see how long confirmation takes in Scotland.

When confirmation is not needed at all

Not every estate requires it. Where the whole estate passes automatically — a house held in joint names with a survivorship destination, a jointly held bank account, a pension or life policy written in trust or payable at the provider’s discretion — there may be nothing left that requires a grant.

Individual institutions also have discretion to release modest balances without confirmation, and many banks will do so on production of a death certificate and an indemnity. There is no statutory threshold for this. Each provider sets its own limit and they vary widely, so ask the institution rather than assuming.

Where Scottish succession genuinely differs

This is the part that English guidance cannot help you with, and it matters more than the paperwork.

A will cannot disinherit a spouse or a child. Legal rights give a surviving spouse or civil partner, and children, an indefeasible claim on the deceased’s net moveable estate — everything except land and buildings. Where there is a surviving spouse and children, the spouse may claim one-third of the net moveable estate and the children one-third between them. Where there is one but not the other, the fraction is one-half. No will can defeat this, and there is nothing in Scots law resembling the English discretionary claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.

Where there is no will, prior rights come first. A surviving spouse or civil partner is entitled, before anything else is distributed, to the dwellinghouse up to £473,000, furniture and plenishings up to £29,000, and a cash sum of £50,000 where the deceased left children or £89,000 where there were none. Only after prior rights and then legal rights are satisfied does the remaining free estate pass down the statutory order. These figures were set in February 2012 and have not been changed since.

The full order of distribution where there is no will, and what each relative actually receives, is set out in our guide to what happens if someone dies without a will in Scotland.

“Next of kin” does not determine who inherits. The phrase carries no weight in Scottish succession. It survives as a descriptor of who may petition to be appointed executor-dative, and it is used in hospitals and elsewhere for quite different purposes, but it confers no automatic entitlement to a penny of the estate.

A cohabitant has six months and no more. Section 29 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 allows a surviving cohabitant to apply to the court for a discretionary share where their partner died without a will. The application must be made within six months of the date of death. Section 78 of the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024 would extend that to twelve months, but it has not been commenced and the period remains six months as at August 2026. This is a short, unforgiving deadline and it is missed regularly.

Scotland against England, side by side

Do you need a solicitor

Not necessarily. An executor-nominate dealing with a straightforward estate below the small estate threshold can reasonably do it themselves with the sheriff clerk’s help, and many do.

The point at which the calculation changes is usually one of four things: the estate is over £36,000 so the sheriff clerk cannot assist; there is no will, so an executor-dative has to be appointed and caution found; inheritance tax is in play; or somebody is entitled to legal rights and has not been told. That last one carries personal exposure — an executor who distributes an estate without accounting for legal rights may be liable to the person whose claim was ignored, and the claim does not prescribe for twenty years.

A fifth complication is a dispute about the will itself. Where somebody says that the will is invalid, or that it does not say what the deceased intended, that is contesting a will in Scotland, and it is not something an executor should attempt to resolve alone.

If you would rather have a solicitor do it, tell us what the estate involves. We will pass your details to one of our member firms, who will be in touch, and you can check any Scottish solicitor on the Law Society of Scotland’s public roll yourself.

Sources

• Guide to dealing with a deceased’s estate in Scotland, Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
• Small estates, Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
• Confirmation to Small Estates (Scotland) Order 2011, legislation.gov.uk
• Sheriff Court Fees Order 2026, Schedule 1, legislation.gov.uk
• Inheritance Tax: confirmation (form C1), HM Revenue and Customs
• Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, legislation.gov.uk
• Prior Rights of Surviving Spouse and Civil Partner (Scotland) Order 2011, legislation.gov.uk
• Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, section 29, legislation.gov.uk

This page is general information about the law of Scotland and is not advice on your circumstances. Figures and court fees change. Where a deadline applies to you — and in succession they are strict — take advice on your own case.