As of Monday 17 November 2025, the price or ordering your family history probate documents via the government’s Find A Will service will increase from £1.50 to £16.00. That’s an eye-watering rise of almost 1000%.
The notice for this increase was published on 10 November in The Gazette, meaning for many it has been a mad rush to get those last minute orders in.
The rationale for this price rise, as stated in the Ministry of Justice’s (MOJ) Explanatory Memorandum, reads:
The estimated cost to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) for providing single copies of documents under the Find A Will service equates to £16 per copy. The £1.50 fee therefore significantly under-recovers its cost, despite fees being set with the intention of full cost recovery. This statutory instrument will therefore increase the fee for users to obtain copies of documents within the Principal Registry of the Family Division, district registries and any sub-registries attached, which includes the “Find A Will” service and individual users requesting extra copies of probate grants from £1.50 to £16, to align more closely with costs and ensure that HMCTS can continue to deliver its services effectively.
The £1.50 charge was introduced in 2019, with prior to that the cost being £10, so a review was overdue. But I would love to know how they determined upon a flat rate £16 figure.
It means for many the cost of these documents for family and local history will be now prohibitively expensive, limiting future research. For example, at £16 each, there is no way would I be able to afford ordering all the World War One soldiers’ wills that I have for my Batley St. Mary of the Angels one-place study.
I’ve spent this past week ordering probate documents for clients to beat the rise. It included an order for 12 wills which cost £18. As of 17 November to place that same order will be £196.
Today I finally got round to reviewing my one-place study soldiers’ wills, confirming I’d already got them all.
I also reviewed my direct line ancestors, and placed an order for the six I identified as missing. Four came back instantly via an automated service, having already been digitised. This is akin to the service for World War One soldiers wills.
To my mind this begs the question why did the MOJ not introduce a graded pricing structure for probate records, similar to that in place for General Register Office (GRO) civil registration orders? The GRO’s automated Digital Image service has a lower cost of £3, with PDFs costing £8, and the more labour-intensive full certificates coming in at £12.50.
This seems a much fairer system than the flat rate fee, a system which might avoid pricing out family and local history researchers. For as the fee structure stands, there will be a dramatic cliff-edge drop off for probate orders going forward.
Postscript:
The MoJ does still have a £1.50 bulk access option aimed at some (unspecified) organisations who access every copy of a grant of probate or will issued in England and Wales. By extension this means individual family and local history researchers are being overcharged for their documents, essentially subsidising these organisations. Hardly a fair system!
Past To Present Genealogy 