A family that suspects a will is wrong has two problems in a fixed order: seeing it, and stopping the estate being handed out before the argument is heard. The law’s answers are that the will is private until probate and public after, that a £4 form holds the grant for six months, and that a challenge to the will and a claim by someone left out are different cases with different clocks.
Before the grant
Until probate is granted the will is a private document, and the executors hold it. No GOV.UK guidance gives a beneficiary a right to see it before the grant; that is the general legal position rather than a sourced rule, and this page says so.
A courteous executor shows the beneficiaries their gifts, and a solicitor holding the will follows the executors’ instructions.
What GOV.UK does say is where the original goes. The executor must send the original will with the probate application, not a photocopy, and the probate registry keeps it and it becomes a public record (GOV.UK, Applying for probate: if there’s a will, checked 1 November 2026). Privacy ends at the grant.
After the grant: the public record
GOV.UK’s search service finds a probate record, also called a grant of representation, for anyone who died after 1857 in England and Wales. It says you can check whether probate has been issued and order a copy of the record including the will, and that each copy ordered online costs £16 (GOV.UK, Search probate records for documents and wills (England and Wales), checked 1 November 2026).
A postal search costs £16 too and includes the copy. Where the death was in the last six months and no grant has yet issued, GOV.UK says a standing search costs £4 and reports a grant when it is made. That is the cheap way to learn that probate has been granted without asking the executor.
The caveat
A caveat is the brake. GOV.UK says you can challenge someone else’s probate application by entering a caveat if there is a dispute, for example about who can apply for probate, whether a will exists, or whether the will is legal, and that it costs £4 online or by post (GOV.UK, Stopping a probate application: challenge someone else's probate application, checked 1 November 2026).
GOV.UK says it lasts six months at first, can be extended for another six, and stops all applications for probate on the estate being granted during that time. The rules say the registrar shall not allow a grant to be sealed while an effective caveat is in place, except on the day it is entered (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 44, checked 1 November 2026). A caveat is for a genuine dispute about the will or the applicant. It is not a way to delay an estate you are unhappy with, and the next step makes that expensive.
Warning and appearance
GOV.UK says that if the applicant disagrees with your caveat they might come to an agreement with you and ask you to withdraw it, or issue a formal warning, to which you have 14 days to respond, including weekends (GOV.UK, Stopping a probate application: after you've applied, checked 1 November 2026).
GOV.UK says you respond by entering an appearance or issuing a summons, and that to enter an appearance you must have a contrary interest in the estate. The rules put it formally: any person claiming an interest may issue a warning stating their interest and requiring the caveator, the person who entered the caveat, to give particulars of any contrary interest. A caveator with a contrary interest may then, within 14 days of service, enter an appearance (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 44, checked 1 November 2026). An appearance turns the caveat into a contested matter that only a court order or agreement removes, which is where a solicitor becomes necessary rather than useful.
The grounds
There is no GOV.UK page on contesting a will, and the grounds are set by the courts rather than a statute. A will is challenged on the basis that it was not validly executed, that the person lacked capacity, that they were unduly influenced, that it was forged, or that they did not know and approve its contents.
Each is a court claim, decided on evidence, with a costs risk this page cannot put a figure on.
Execution is the one with a statute behind it: the Wills Act’s requirements of a signature acknowledged before two witnesses present at the same time, who then sign (Wills Act 1837, section 9, checked 1 November 2026). Capacity is the common law test the Mental Capacity Act’s code says sits alongside its own (Mental Capacity Act code of practice, chapter 4, checked 13 September 2026). Being left out, or left less than a sibling, is not a ground. That is the next section.
Being left out: the Inheritance Act
A will can be perfectly valid and still leave someone with a claim. The Inheritance Act lets the court order reasonable financial provision for a list running from the spouse or civil partner to anyone the deceased was maintaining, other than for full payment (Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, section 1, checked 1 November 2026).
Between them are a former spouse who has not remarried, a partner who lived with the deceased as a couple for the two years before the death, a child, and a person treated by the deceased as a child of the family. The clock is the grant. The Act says an application may not be made, except with the court’s permission, after six months from the date representation is first taken out, though it can be made before (section 4, checked 1 November 2026). The standing search above is how a person left out learns the clock has started. Our blended families page covers the wills that avoid the claim.
Costs, and who to ask
GOV.UK gives no figure for the cost of contesting a will, and this page does not either. A contested probate claim is High Court or county court litigation in which the loser can be ordered to pay the winner’s costs, and the estate can be consumed by the fight.
A caveat costs £4 and a standing search £4 (GOV.UK, Search probate records for documents and wills (England and Wales), checked 1 November 2026); everything after that is a solicitor’s letter.
Where the concern is not the will but the executor, our solicitor problems page and executor delays page cover the complaints and court routes. Where the will is valid and the estate large, the Inheritance Tax hub covers what is due before anyone is paid, and our wills hub what a valid will needed in the first place.