What an Accountant Can and Cannot Do on Probate
Written and reviewed by the Trust Tax Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 22 August 2026.
We do not do probate, and we would rather say so on its own page than let you find out three emails into an enquiry. Applying for a grant is a reserved legal activity, and this practice is not authorised for it.
That distinction is worth understanding whoever you end up instructing, because a lot of estate work is not reserved at all, and paying a solicitor's rate for it is a choice rather than a requirement.
What Is Actually Reserved
Schedule 2 of the Legal Services Act 2007 lists six reserved legal activities. One of them is probate activities, defined as preparing any probate papers for the purposes of the law of England and Wales. Probate papers means the documents supporting an application for a grant of probate or for letters of administration.
Section 12 of the same Act makes it a criminal offence to carry on a reserved legal activity unless you are entitled to. This is not a professional courtesy or a matter of good practice. You can read the Schedule itself, which is short and readable.
Note how narrow that is. What is reserved is preparing the papers for the grant. It is not valuing the estate, not computing the inheritance tax, not filing returns, and not administering the assets afterwards.
Who Can Authorise It
The approved regulators for probate are the SRA, the Bar Standards Board, CILEx Regulation, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Master of the Faculties, and ICAEW.
ICAEW being on that list is the reason some accountancy firms do offer probate: they hold a licence for it, and an authorised firm may state that it is authorised by ICAEW to carry out the reserved legal activity of non-contentious probate in England and Wales. If you want an accountant to handle the grant, that is the wording to look for, and the ICAEW keeps a searchable public register of accredited firms.
This practice is regulated by the ACCA, which is not on that list. ACCA ceased authorising probate work on 31 December 2021 and was formally removed as an approved regulator on 29 February 2024. So we cannot do it, and no arrangement of words changes that.
What We Can Do on an Estate
Most of the tax work, which is most of the work. Income tax and capital gains tax for the administration period, the SA900 return for the estate, estate accounts, inheritance tax computations and valuation support, and the R185 certificates beneficiaries need.
Where a will trust comes out of the estate, everything on the trust side as well: registration, the annual return and the relevant property charges. And where pension assets are involved, the 2027 inheritance tax change that puts the reporting obligation on you personally.
A common and sensible arrangement is a solicitor or licensed firm for the grant and an accountant for the tax, which usually costs less than one firm doing both at legal rates.
Why We Publish This
Because the alternative is worse for you. A firm that is vague about the boundary is either not clear on it themselves or is hoping you will not ask, and neither is what you want from the person holding your late parent's tax affairs.
If what you need is the grant, the ICAEW register above and the Legal Services Board's list of approved regulators will point you at someone who can. If what you need is the tax, that is what we do.