Inheritance Dispute Statistics UK 2026

In 2025, a record 1,217 disputed probate cases were filed at the High Court in England and Wales, the highest annual total on record and a 12.7% rise on 2024, as rising property values, an ageing population and increasingly complex family structures push inheritance disputes to new levels. Behind this surge is a freeze on inheritance tax thresholds in place since 2021/22 and now extended to 2030/31, pulling more estates into liability and raising the financial stakes of every family disagreement about a will. Probate caveats, the formal applications used to block the granting of an estate, topped 11,300 for the second consecutive year in 2025, while an estimated 10,000 people a year contest a will informally. As the UK's great wealth transfer, put at roughly £7 trillion over the next three decades, gathers pace, more families are prepared to fight for their share in court.

Report Highlights

In 2025, 1,217 disputed probate cases were filed at the High Court, the highest annual total on record.
Probate caveats topped 11,300 for a second straight year in 2025, 55% above 2019 levels.
Inheritance tax receipts hit £8.5 billion in 2025/26, a fifth consecutive annual record.
An estimated 10,000 people in England and Wales contest a will every year.
In 2024, 51,140 estates were administered without a valid will, a five-year high and 17% up on the year.
Inheritance Act 1975 claims jumped 61%, from 76 in 2020/21 to 122 in 2024/25.
982,000 people in the UK live with dementia, projected to exceed 1.4 million by 2040.
68% of estate professionals name blended families as the single biggest source of inheritance conflict.

Scale of Inheritance Disputes

Inheritance disputes are climbing on every available measure, from claims filed at the High Court to formal blocks on the granting of estates. The figures below set out how fast volumes have grown over the past decade and where they now stand.

High Court Filings

Court filings give the clearest read on disputes serious enough to reach litigation. These numbers track annual and quarterly totals against earlier years.

In 2025, 1,217 disputed probate cases were filed at the High Court, up from 1,080 in 2024 and 816 in 2020, a rise of nearly 49% over five years.
The final quarter of 2025 alone saw 342 claims filed at the High Court, the highest quarterly figure in a decade.
In 2025, 126 contested probate cases were heard in the High Court, virtually unchanged from 2024, suggesting volumes are plateauing at an elevated level.
Over the past decade, probate disputes reaching the courts rose 37%, comparing 2023 with 2014, and 22% in the last five years alone.
High Court claims overall rose 7% in 2025, with probate disputes accounting for a disproportionate 13% of that increase.

Probate Caveats

Caveats are an early warning signal, lodged before a dispute reaches court. Their steady rise points to growing friction at the very start of the probate process.

In 2025, 11,328 probate caveats were entered in England and Wales, the second highest annual total on record and just 34 below the all-time record of 11,362 set in 2024.
Over the past five years, caveat applications have grown at an average annual rate of 6.2%, up from a longer-run average of 4.6% since 2010.
Caveat applications stood at just 6,358 in 2010, meaning volumes have grown 79% in 15 years.
2023 was the first year ever to break the 10,000 caveat mark, a threshold exceeded every year since.
In the final quarter of 2024, caveat applications hit an all-time quarterly record of 3,061, the first quarter ever to top 3,000.
In the second half of 2024 alone, 5,940 caveats were entered, 74% higher than the same period in 2019.

Intestacy and Will Preparation

A large share of UK adults still die without a valid will, leaving estates to be shared under fixed legal rules rather than personal wishes. The data below shows how common intestacy has become and how few people have a will in place.

In 2024, 51,140 estates were administered without a valid will, a five-year high and up 17% from 43,600 the year before.
In the final quarter of 2024, grants of letters of administration jumped 27% to 16,090, a five-year quarterly high.
In January 2025, 53% of those aged 50 to 64 and 22% of over-65s had no will in place.
An estimated six in 10 UK adults have no will, leaving the majority of estates exposed to intestacy disputes.
The number of probate cases taking longer than a year has risen 518% in five years, from 377 in 2019 to 2,328 in 2024.

Inheritance Tax Context

Frozen thresholds and rising asset values are pulling more estates into inheritance tax each year, raising both the cost of dying and the stakes in any family dispute. The figures below track the receipts now collected and how exposure rises with estate value.

IHT Receipts

Receipts have set fresh records year after year as the nil-rate band stays fixed. These figures show the scale of the tax take and how quickly it is building.

IHT receipts reached £8.5 billion in the 2025/26 tax year, a fifth consecutive annual record, up from £8.0 billion in 2024/25.
In the first nine months of 2025/26, IHT receipts totalled £6.6 billion, £0.2 billion higher than the same period a year earlier.
IHT is charged at 40% above the nil-rate band of £325,000, a threshold frozen since 2021/22 and now extended to 2030/31.
In 2025/26, 32,000 estates were liable for IHT at death, up 5,000 since the nil-rate bands were last changed in 2020/21.
In 2024-25, 4,200 new investigations into suspected underpaid IHT were opened, a 33% rise in three years from 3,163 in 2022-23.
IHT receipts have risen in 13 of the last 15 years, with only two exceptions during the Covid period.

Estate Values and Fiscal Drag

Where an estate sits, and how much of its value is tied up in property, increasingly decides whether it faces a tax bill. The numbers below show how far fiscal drag now reaches.

Kensington and Chelsea is the UK's most exposed area, with an average property value of £1.18 million and an estimated average IHT liability of £344,000 per estate.
In 2022-23, 31,500 estates were subject to IHT, 4.6% of all UK deaths and a 13% increase year on year.
In the most recent full tax year, around 5,070 estates received IHT refunds after properties sold below their probate valuation, with an average refund of over £52,000.
In many areas the family home alone can push an otherwise modest estate above the £500,000 mark and into IHT territory.

Causes and Grounds for Disputes

Most contested estates trace back to a handful of recurring triggers: complex family make-ups, questions over mental capacity, and wills that were never drafted properly. The subsections below break down each of the main causes.

Family Structure and Blended Families

Second marriages and stepchildren create competing claims that wills often fail to anticipate. These figures show how central blended families have become to inheritance conflict.

Blended families and stepchildren are cited by 68% of estate professionals as the most common source of inheritance conflict.
Around 41% of estate professionals report more inheritance disagreements over the past year, linked to rising blended family complexity.
Almost 30% of UK marriages are now second or subsequent marriages, a structural cause of contested estates.
In 2022, 11,612 men aged 60 and over remarried, a 49% rise over ten years, while remarriage among women in the same age group rose 74%.

Testamentary Capacity and Dementia

Challenges to a will-maker's mental capacity are rising as dementia becomes more common. The data below links prevalence today to the projected demand for capacity-related challenges.

Around 982,000 people in the UK currently live with dementia, the condition most often behind testamentary capacity challenges, with numbers rising by roughly 50,000 a year.
Dementia prevalence is projected to exceed 1.4 million by 2040, pointing to rising capacity-related challenges for at least two decades.
Around 1 in 11 people over the age of 65 in the UK have dementia.

DIY and Poorly Prepared Wills

Badly drafted or missing paperwork is a quiet but growing cause of stalled estates. These figures show the volume of cases held up by avoidable errors.

In 2024, around 15,000 probate cases were stopped due to missing or incorrect executor information, a direct result of poorly prepared documentation.
An average of 992 probate disputes a month were recorded between January and September 2024, up from 867 a month in 2023.

Who Disputes Wills

Willingness to challenge a will is widespread and skews towards younger adults and men. The figures below show who says they would go to court and who already has.

Nearly 4 in 10 UK adults (38%) say they would dispute a will and potentially go to court if they believed their inheritance was unfair.
Among 25 to 34-year-olds, 60% say they would dispute a will, the highest of any age group.
Men are more likely to dispute a will than women, at 44% versus 34%.
Around 7% of those who said they would dispute an inheritance have already taken the matter to court.
A further 22% said they might take an inheritance matter to court, depending on the circumstances.

Inheritance Act 1975 Claims

Claims under the Inheritance Act 1975, brought by dependants who feel they were left without reasonable provision, have grown sharply over the past decade. The figures below track filings, court orders and how often these claims settle.

In 2023, there were 182 Inheritance Act 1975 claims in the High Court, up from 128 in 2018 and 80 in 2012, a 128% rise over the decade.
In 2024/25, 122 claims were filed under the Inheritance Act, a 61% rise from 76 in 2020/21.
In 2024, 559 court orders were issued under the Inheritance Act 1975, the highest in at least five years and 38% above 2019 levels.
Around 72% of Inheritance Act 1975 claims settle before reaching trial, avoiding the highest legal costs.

Legal Costs and Financial Exposure

The cost of administering or contesting an estate ranges from a modest fixed fee to six-figure litigation bills. The figures below set out what families typically pay at each stage.

The government probate application fee in England and Wales is £273 (2025) for estates valued above £5,000, plus £1.50 per additional copy of the grant.
Solicitor fees for basic probate administration range from around £750 to £2,500 plus VAT for simple estates, rising to 1% to 5% of estate value for complex matters.
For a £500,000 estate, solicitor probate fees typically run £7,000 to £12,500, up to 2.5% of estate value.
Contested probate litigation in 2024/25 costs £12,000 to £52,000 plus VAT for mid-level disputes, and £40,000 to £175,000 for fully contested High Court trials.
Hourly rates for inheritance dispute solicitors run from £175 to £575 plus VAT in 2024/25.
70% of inheritance mediations settle on the day, with up to 87% resolved shortly after.
Around 21,000 civil and commercial cases were mediated in the year to September 2024, a record, up from about 17,000 in 2022.

Probate System and Administration

The probate service has moved sharply towards digital processing, cutting waiting times from their pandemic-era peak. The figures below show how application volumes and turnaround have shifted.

In April 2025, the average time between probate application and grant was 6.3 weeks, down from a peak of 15.8 weeks in November 2023, a 60% reduction.
In Q4 2025, digital applications made up 92% of all probate submissions, up from 88% in Q3 2025 and just 17% in 2019.
Digital applications take an average of 4.9 weeks to process, against 12.8 weeks for paper, a 62% time saving.
The open probate caseload fell 49% in 2024/25, from over 69,000 cases to under 35,500.
More than 1.2 million people have now used the online probate service in England and Wales.
From October to December 2024, there were 70,359 probate applications and 73,941 grants issued, with grants exceeding applications for the 18th consecutive month.

Power of Attorney and Capacity Disputes

Lasting Powers of Attorney are a key safeguard against later capacity disputes, though registrations swing quarter to quarter. The figures below cover recent registrations and the reforms aimed at capacity challenges.

In April to June 2025, 292,608 Lasting Powers of Attorney were registered, down 23% on the same quarter in 2024.
Around 56% of powers of attorney registered in the second quarter of 2025 came from female donors, and 47% of donors were aged 75 or over.
A May 2025 wills law report recommends replacing the long-standing Banks v Goodfellow test with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 standard, a change aimed at reducing capacity disputes reaching court.

Regional and Demographic Distribution

Inheritance tax exposure is heavily concentrated in London and the South East, though the freeze is spreading liability across the country. The figures below map where bills are largest and rising fastest.

In 2026, 136 local authorities in England and Wales are already exposed to IHT on average property values, with estimated liabilities of £150,000 to £340,000 per estate.
Greater London could have 9,400 IHT-liable estates in 2026/27, a 43% rise on 2021/22.
IHT collected in Greater London is forecast to grow 54% between 2022 and 2027, reaching £2.6 billion a year.
The average IHT bill in Greater London is expected to reach £275,000 by 2026/27, rising to £340,000 in Inner London.
Nine in 10 UK postcodes are forecast to have more IHT-liable estates in 2026/27 than in 2021/22.
Most IHT is paid by estates of people aged 75 or over (79%), with slightly more women (51%) than men.
Ten UK postcodes are expected to see their number of IHT-liable estates double between 2021/22 and 2026/27.

Law Reform and Future Legal Changes

A wave of legislative change is set to reshape both how wills are made and how estates are taxed. The figures below cover the main reforms now in train and when they take effect.

A May 2025 report on modernising wills law set out 31 recommendations and a draft Wills Bill, including provision for electronic wills, the first full review of wills law since the Wills Act 1837.
The draft Bill proposes cutting the minimum age to make a will from 18 to 16, with courts able to authorise younger children in exceptional cases.
IHT reliefs on business and agricultural assets are capped from April 2026 at £1 million for 100% relief, with a 50% rate above that, expected to affect around 1,440 estates.
From April 2027, unspent pension pots will fall within the scope of IHT for the first time, expected to generate an additional £200 million in 2026/27.
The number of IHT-liable estates is projected to jump by a further 10,500 in 2027/28 as the threshold freeze and pension reforms take effect together.

2026 Outlook

Every major trend points the same way for 2026 and beyond: more estates taxed, more capacity challenges, and a record sum passing between generations. The figures below set out what the year ahead is likely to hold.

IHT receipts are forecast to reach £9 billion by 2026/27, a 64% rise from £5.5 billion in 2021/22, as frozen thresholds and rising values pull more estates into liability.
By 2029-30, 9.5% of all UK deaths are forecast to trigger an IHT bill, more than double the 4.6% rate recorded in 2022-23.
If caveat applications hold their five-year average growth of 6.2%, the annual total could exceed 12,000 as early as 2027.
The great wealth transfer is projected to see around £7 trillion pass between UK generations over the next three decades.
Around 37,000 estates are forecast to be liable for IHT by the end of 2026/27, up from 32,000 in 2025/26, each one a potential source of family dispute.

Sources

Solomonic (litigation data platform) - Annual Review of Commercial Litigation, 2025 probate claims data, cited in Legal Futures and Financial Times, 2026
Irwin Mitchell - Freedom of Information data from HM Courts & Tribunals Service, contested probate cases and caveat applications, 2026
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) - Family Court Statistics Quarterly, probate applications and grants data, 2025-26
Ministry of Justice (MoJ) - Probate disputes and contested probate statistics, 2014-2024, cited by Level Group, TWM Solicitors and Taylor Rose under FOI
Taylor Rose - Freedom of Information request to HMCTS on probate caveat applications, 2024
Birketts LLP - Freedom of Information request to Probate Registry on caveat applications 2010-2025, published 2026
TWM Solicitors - Freedom of Information request, Ministry of Justice, probate disputes and intestacy data, 2025
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) - Tax & NIC Receipts Bulletin, inheritance tax receipts monthly data, 2025-26
Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) - Economic and Fiscal Outlook, IHT forecasts and taxpaying estates projections, March 2025
Irwin Mitchell Private Client Advisory - UK IHT Report, forecasts to 2026/27, based on HMRC FOI data, 2025
BDO - Analysis of HMRC IHT statistics 2022-23, published July 2025
AJ Bell - Analysis of HMRC data, IHT-liable estates 2025/26, published May 2026
NFU Mutual - Freedom of Information request to HMRC, IHT investigations data 2022-25, published 2026
GOV.UK - Inheritance Tax Thresholds, nil-rate band freeze policy, updated November 2025
Law Commission - Modernising Wills Law Report (Volumes 1 and 2) and draft Wills Bill, 16 May 2025
Level Group - UK Inheritance Expectations Report 2025, consumer survey on will disputes and inheritance expectations, May 2025
STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) - Report on blended families and inheritance disputes, cited 2025-26
Money and Pensions Service - Research on will ownership among adults aged 50+, January 2025
HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 - Probate caseload and backlog reduction data, July 2025
HMCTS Inside Blog - Online probate service usage statistics, December 2025
Willetts Solicitors - HMCTS grant of probate waiting times data, April 2025, published June 2026
ICAEW - HMCTS Updates for Probate Practitioners, January 2025 data, April 2025
Office for National Statistics (ONS) - Marriage statistics, second and subsequent marriages, cited 2025
Alzheimer's Society / NHS - Dementia prevalence statistics UK, cited 2025-26
The Telegraph - Ministry of Justice FOI data, Inheritance Act 1975 court orders, September 2024
The Guardian - Inheritance disputes in England and Wales, estimate of 10,000 annual disputes, February 2024
Coldwell Banker - Global Luxury 2026 Trend Report, great wealth transfer estimate, published February 2026
Resolution Foundation - Intergenerational wealth transfer projections, 2022
CEDR (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution) - 11th Mediation Audit, mediation statistics year to September 2024, August 2025
Farra / withfarra.co.uk - UK IHT Receipts 2026 analysis and digital probate applications Q4 2025 data, 2026