Probate enquiries: a practical playbook for auction houses
Probate is the most valuable enquiry channel most regional auction houses have, and the one most likely to be handled badly. Here is what actually works.
By Benjamin Davis
If you run a regional auction house in the UK, probate is almost certainly your most valuable channel. We have looked at the books of more than a dozen regional houses, and the pattern is striking. Probate enquiries are 8 to 15% of total enquiry volume, but contribute 30 to 50% of total hammer value. The lots are larger, the sellers are less price-sensitive, and the relationships, if built right, generate referrals for a decade.
They are also, almost without exception, the worst-handled enquiries in the building.
This is a playbook based on what works in practice. It is written for the owner or saleroom manager of a regional house that wants to take probate seriously.
What makes a probate enquiry different
A probate enquiry is not a normal enquiry. The seller is rarely the original owner of the items. They are a daughter dealing with her late mother's house, a solicitor managing an estate, an executor who has never set foot in an auction room. The items have emotional weight. The timeline is set by HMRC and the probate registry, not by the seller's mood.
This changes everything about how to handle them.
First, the contact you are talking to is often not the decision maker. The solicitor may be writing on behalf of the executor. The executor may be acting on behalf of three siblings who haven't agreed yet. You need to figure out the dynamic before you can move forward.
Second, the seller needs different things from you. A regular seller wants a good price and a smooth experience. A probate seller wants those too, but they also want clarity about the process, sensitivity about the items, and reliable documentation for the estate. Get those wrong and you lose the sale, even if your hammer estimate is the strongest in the region.
Third, the timeline is real. HMRC requires Inheritance Tax valuations within set deadlines. If you are slow, the executor will go elsewhere. Speed in this channel isn't a competitive advantage, it is a survival requirement.
The Inheritance Tax valuation question
The first question almost every probate seller asks is: can you do an IHT valuation? Many regional houses fumble the answer.
The right answer is yes, with clarity. An Inheritance Tax valuation is a written valuation of the chattels of the estate, prepared to HMRC's standard for inclusion in the IHT400 return. It is a specific document, not a list of "what we would sell it for". A house that handles probate properly produces these regularly and has a templated, professional format.
The honest answer most houses should give is: yes, we can produce one, here is what it costs, here is how long it takes, here is what we need from you to start. That clarity is itself a competitive advantage. Most regional houses are vague about IHT valuations because nobody at the house has ever sat down and standardised them.
If you don't currently produce IHT valuations to a professional standard, that is the first job. Get a template from a house that does, run it past a probate solicitor for review, and use it consistently.
Who you are actually talking to
The next thing that matters is identifying who you are really dealing with. There are three main types of probate enquiry contact.
The solicitor
They are acting professionally, they handle a lot of estates, and they need a reliable partner. They care about turnaround time, documentation quality, ease of communication, and trust. They don't care much about hammer estimates. If you handle their first estate well, they will refer ten more.
The executor
Often a family member or close friend of the deceased. They are doing this for the first time. They need clear explanations, patience, sensitivity, and someone to hold their hand. They are usually overwhelmed. The auction house that is kind and clear wins their business.
The family member with no formal role
Sometimes a daughter or son just starts contacting auction houses on behalf of the estate, before the executor or solicitor is properly involved. These are early-stage contacts. The right move is to be helpful, give them a sense of what is possible, and put yourself on the shortlist when the formal process starts.
For each type, the reply has to be different. A reply that works for the solicitor sounds cold to the daughter. A reply that works for the daughter sounds vague to the solicitor. Train your specialists to identify which they are talking to in the first reply.
Routing probate enquiries internally
In most regional houses, probate enquiries are handled by whoever picks up the phone or sees the email first. This is the single biggest mistake in the channel.
Probate should be routed to one or two named people, always. These are usually your most senior specialist or saleroom manager. They have the experience to handle the conversation, the authority to commit to timelines, and the relationship-building instinct to turn a one-off enquiry into a referral source.
Set up your enquiry form so it explicitly captures whether the enquiry is probate-related. A single checkbox is enough. Then route those enquiries automatically to your probate lead. Don't rely on triage.
If your CRM has lead scoring, weight probate signals heavily. Mentions of "estate", "executor", "probate", "inheritance", "valuation for tax purposes" should all score high. Phone numbers in the enquiry score higher (probate sellers expect phone contact). Solicitor email domains score higher still.
Building probate referral relationships with solicitors
The single highest-return activity for a regional auction house is building relationships with probate solicitors in your area.
The mechanics are simple. Identify the firms that handle probate locally. There will be 20 to 40 within a sensible radius. Get on their calendar. Visit twice a year. Send them a written market report quarterly. Make it easy for them to send you work by giving them a dedicated probate page on your website and a named contact.
The numbers are stark. A single active solicitor relationship can be worth £20,000 to £80,000 in annual hammer value, because each firm handles dozens of estates a year. Build five active solicitor relationships and you have changed the trajectory of the business.
The honest test: a real solicitor relationship means the firm's probate team has a process that includes calling you, your name is on their internal list of recommended valuers, and they send you work whether or not the senior partner is involved. If your "relationship" depends on one social contact, it is a coincidence, not a relationship.
What good handling looks like
A probate enquiry handled well looks roughly like this.
The enquiry arrives. It is flagged as probate (because the form asked) and routed to your probate lead. Within two hours, the lead has read it and replied. The reply is warm, acknowledges the situation, confirms you handle probate matters regularly, explains what an IHT valuation involves, gives a clear next step, and suggests two times for a call.
The call happens within forty-eight hours. The specialist asks about the estate, the items, the timeline, the executor's situation. They take notes. They commit to a site visit, a timeline, and a fee.
The site visit is professional and respectful. Two people attend. They produce a written valuation within ten working days. The document is properly formatted, accurate, and immediately useful to the solicitor for the IHT400.
The conversation about consignment is separate from the conversation about valuation. The seller is given time and space. If they decide to consign, the process is smooth and personal. If they don't, the relationship is preserved, because they might come back next year for the next estate.
This is not exotic. It is just systematic. Most regional houses have one or two people who could do this in their sleep. The job is to make sure every probate enquiry meets that quality, not just the ones that happen to land with the right specialist.
Common mistakes in probate handling
A few patterns we see often.
Treating probate like a normal enquiry. Replying with a generic auto-response. Asking the seller to come to the saleroom rather than offering a site visit. Talking about hammer prices before establishing the IHT context.
Pricing IHT valuations as an afterthought. We have seen houses quote £500 to one solicitor and £150 to another for essentially the same work, because nobody has standardised it. Solicitors talk. Inconsistency costs you the relationship.
Failing to follow up. A probate seller who was warmly handled in the IHT phase and then ghosted between the valuation and the auction is gone forever, and they tell people.
Letting the probate lead become a bottleneck. If your one probate person is on leave for a week, every probate enquiry that arrives that week is at risk. There needs to be a clear deputy.
Forgetting the solicitor. After the auction, send the solicitor a copy of the results, a brief thank you, and a note suggesting a coffee. They are your highest-value contact. Treat them like it.
Where to start
If you are reading this and feeling like your probate operation is undercooked, here is the order to fix it.
This month: identify your probate lead, set up an enquiry form question to flag probate, and route flagged enquiries to that lead automatically. Write a standard IHT valuation template if you don't have one.
Next quarter: build the list of 20 to 40 local solicitors. Get visits booked in for the next two months. Build a dedicated probate page on the website.
Within a year: have at least five active solicitor relationships generating regular work. Have probate enquiry handling fully systematised so quality doesn't depend on who is in the office.
This is unglamorous work. It is also the single highest-return investment of time a regional auction house can make. The lots are bigger, the sellers are loyal, and the referral effects compound. We have seen houses double their probate channel in eighteen months by doing exactly this. There is nothing magic about it. It just has to be done deliberately.