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What is missing from
the estate accounts?
Four starting questions. Then identify the information still needed and what the response may mean.
Check the request and the response
The interactive check is unavailable until its script loads. You can still use the beneficiary accounts guide.
Establish your interest, whether a Grant has issued, what financial information you requested and what remains unanswered. Keep the written request and any explanation or promised date.
Start with four facts
No names, account numbers or documents are needed. This check provides general guidance from your selections.
Pinpoint the information gap
Choose what best describes the position. An unexplained entry is not automatically an improper one.
Your assessment
Based on unverified selections. Documents have not been reviewed; this is not individual legal advice.
Review your selections
If you would like individual advice on the documents and next steps, Stage 01 offers a fixed-fee review and Action Plan for £400 + VAT (£480). Scope and fee are agreed before work begins. Any further work requires your prior written approval.
Why section 25 matters
Personal representatives have duties to collect and administer the estate according to law. Section 25(b) addresses providing both an inventory and an account to the court when required. Rule 61(2) specifies the summons procedure for an inventory-and-account application.
The scope of a beneficiary’s information request and the appropriate response depend on their interest and the circumstances. A disagreement over the correctness of an account may need assessment beyond obtaining the account itself.
Fourteen days is used here to organise the request history. It is not a statutory response period under section 25 or Rule 61, and does not automatically establish that an application should succeed.
Case authority: the duty to account
In Ali v Taj [2020] EWHC 213 (Fam), paragraph 51, the court emphasised the executor’s duty to provide an inventory and account. This supports the importance of accounting; it does not decide the outcome of your particular request.
The beneficiary accounts guide discusses procedure, exceptions and enforcement separately.
Accounts concerns and possible executor replacement
Missing information, disputed transactions and an administration that cannot progress can overlap. Obtaining information and replacing a personal representative seek different outcomes; neither is an automatic answer to every accounts dispute.
Record the conduct, its effect on administration, the explanation given and each party’s cooperation. Wider concerns may warrant separate advice about replacement and the practical arrangements that would follow.
Executor facing a removal threat: read the guide · Beneficiary seeking accounts: read the guide
Estate accounts: a beneficiary’s starting point
Justin’s existing introduction to options for beneficiaries. The check above helps organise the particular information gap.
Read the video transcript
One of the key decisions that you have to make as a beneficiary is whether you're going to accept the information given to you or whether you're going to do something about that. Before you do anything, one has to set out your position clearly in writing. A solicitor can help because they can help you identify where your points of strength are and where you have to let go. When I look at a matter, what I will do is I will assess the information given to me by you as the beneficiary and then decide what is the next step forward. Typically, that will involve us writing to the executor, setting out your position. If we are not satisfied with the information, we can consider our next step. Now, that will include making a possible application for inventory and account. Also, there is the potential to seek to recover legal costs on your behalf. And again, that is linked with what information is there, what information you put forward to the executor.
Your information stays with you
This check runs in your browser. Your answers are not submitted or saved automatically, and are not placed in a URL. Downloaded or printed assessments stay under your control. Following the optional Stage 01 link does not carry your answers into an enquiry. Reloading or closing this page clears the current selections, although your browser may restore form fields through its own history features.