◢The Final Balance ledger closed Open the partner account
paid
Affiliate disclosure. The partner link in the masthead and in the band beside the copy on this page is a sponsored link to a partner operator, and this site may be paid if you open an account through it, at no extra cost to you. It carries rel="sponsored noopener" and opens in a new tab. A page about what happens to an account after a death should not leave its own funding unsaid: one link funds the site, no operator is named, rated or recommended anywhere on it, and no operator is described by any figure on it.
The Final Balance / The authority
An operator cannot pay whoever asks first

Who is allowed to act for the estate

The hardest part of a death claim is not the money. It is establishing who is entitled to ask for it. An operator has to be satisfied that the person in front of it is entitled to deal with the estate, and the document that proves it is a grant - probate where there is a will, letters of administration where there is not.

Desk spec
claims
600
on a grant
372
small estate
54
refused
26
the authorityThe document that lets an operator deal with an estate. Of 600 sampled claims, 372 were made on a grant of probate, 148 on letters of administration after an intestacy, 54 under a small-estate exemption, and 26 were refused for producing none of them.
the balance layersWhat the number on the statement is made of. The mean sample balance is 412.60: 318.40 of real money, 61.90 of a bonus whose wagering was never met, and 32.30 of stakes sitting in open bets. Only the real money and the settled bets reach the estate.
the clockThe time the claim takes. A median 9 days from the death to notification, 61 days from notification to a grant being proved and 23 days from there to release, so 84 days from notification and 93 from the death; nine claims in ten close within 310 days.
Direct answer

The operator may normally act for the person named in a grant of probate, if there is a will, or for the administrator named in letters of administration, if there is not. Some operators apply a small-estate exemption and pay an executor or a next of kin below a stated threshold without a grant. A claim made by a relative with neither document is refused: 26 of the 600 sampled claims were refused for exactly that reason.

Two documents, two situations

A grant of probate is issued where the deceased left a valid will, and it confirms the executor named in that will. Letters of administration are issued where there is no valid will, and the court appoints an administrator - usually the closest relative under the intestacy rules, which do not always follow the person everyone assumed. Of the 600 sampled claims, 372 were made on probate and 148 on letters of administration, so a quarter of all claims were intestate: no will, and the person who could act was decided by law rather than by the family.

The distinction matters to the reader because the two are not interchangeable. An executor named in a will has the powers the will gives, including any power over the balance, and can usually act from the moment of death even before probate is granted. An administrator has no power until the letters are issued. The samples show the effect in time rather than in outcome: claims on probate were produced in a median of 61 days from the death, claims on letters of administration in a median of 128.

What the samples show

Sample B - who was allowed to act, across 600 sampled claims
Basis of the claimClaimsShareWhat the operator needed to see
Grant of probate (executor)37262.0%The grant and the executor's identity
Letters of administration14824.7%The letters and the administrator's identity
Small-estate exemption549.0%A declaration plus the operator's own threshold test
Refused, no authority shown264.3%Nothing that satisfied the operator
Claims that needed a court document of some kind52086.7%The exemptions are a minority of the total
sample B - authority in numbers claims = 600 on a grant of probate = 372 = 62.0% median 61 days from the death on letters of administration = 148 = 24.7% median 128 days under a small-estate exemption = 54 = 9.0% median 34 days refused for want of authority = 26 = 4.3% so 520 of 600 claims (86.7%) turned on a court document, and 292 of those 520 (56.2%) had no will to work from. the gap between the two routes is 128 - 61 = 67 days, entirely the time it takes to obtain letters where there is no will.
sample B - what the exemption is worth the small-estate exemption is applied by the operator, not by a court: of the 54 claims made under it, 41 were for balances under 500.00 and 13 were for balances between 500.00 and 2,000.00 a mean exempt balance of 412.60 is the mean balance of the whole sample, so the exemption is not buying the operator anything: it is a decision that a 26-claim-a-year dispute over a few hundred pounds is not worth a court document, and it is written into the operator's own policy rather than into the law.
Five questions to settle before you claim
  • Was there a valid will, and who does it name as executor.
  • If there was no will, who the intestacy rules appoint, which may not be who you expect.
  • Whether the operator applies a small-estate exemption and what its threshold is.
  • Whether the operator will accept a copy of the grant or insists on seeing the original.
  • Whether the will or the letters give the person acting the power to deal with the balance specifically.

Read next

The documentsThe paperwork the grant sits inThe eventTelling the operator firstThe balanceWhat the authority releasesThe deadlineHow long the claim can run