One estate record that survives the client.
UK wills and probate is a domain with two halves separated by a death. Recensus holds a single durable estate record — built in life, it becomes the administration schedule — so the asset picture is never rebuilt from zero, deadlines never slip, and executors are never left in the dark.
The document-intelligence core is available today on the local-first workbench: reading and reviewing wills, deeds, valuations and IHT papers with cited extraction and tabular review. The asset register, IHT engine, deadline rail and portals below describe where the practice pack is heading.
The pains this removes.
Every one of these is a structural friction in the work today. The practice pack turns each into something the workbench handles for you.
Asset discovery after death — the single biggest cost and stressor.
A maintained asset register that survives the client: months of post-death discovery collapse because the data was captured in life.
The IHT funding chicken-and-egg — pay the tax to get the grant, need the grant to access the money.
Liquidity and funding modelled on the planning side (life cover in trust, the Direct Payment Scheme, instalment elections) against the 6-month clock.
Plans go stale against life events and law changes, and no one prompts a review.
Plan-health flags and review nudges on marriage, divorce, a new child, a house move, or a threshold change.
Zero executor and beneficiary visibility while they grieve.
A guided "pizza-tracker" administration and an honest beneficiary timeline replace the stream of "any update?" calls.
Siloed advisors re-keying the same asset picture three times.
One shared asset register read by the solicitor, the wealth advisor and the accountant — entered once, never re-keyed.
Lost and unfindable wills causing accidental intestacy.
Documents stored, versioned and findable, with the physical-original location and National Will Register status recorded.
The "great wealth transfer" leakage — the advisor loses the assets and the family at death.
A continuity record that keeps the advisor visibly useful through administration and introduces them, with consent, to the inheriting generation.
Manual IHT computation, estate accounts by spreadsheet, and lost lifetime-gift records.
A maintained IHT engine, generated estate accounts and R185s, and a running 7-year gift ledger kept during life.
Better for everyone in the matter.
The work touches many people. Each one gets a surface built around what they actually need to do.
Private-client solicitor (fee earner)
The core workspace spanning planning and administration, organised around deadlines and the asset register.
- A "Today" exceptions rail: IHT due, IHT400 window closing, grant stalled, 1975-Act window open, TRS or 10-year charge looming, review overdue.
- The asset register as the spine — built in planning, it becomes the administration schedule.
- Document assembly for wills, codicils, LPAs, trust deeds, estate accounts and R185s from structured data.
- A grant + HMRC tracker over MyHMCTS, and a dedicated trust-administration queue.
Wealth advisor / financial planner
Ties the financial plan to the estate plan and closes the great-wealth-transfer leak.
- The shared asset register and a live IHT-exposure widget with the liquidity gap highlighted.
- A beneficiary-nomination tracker that fixes drift between pensions, policies and the will.
- Liquidity and IHT-funding planning that pre-solves the death-side chicken-and-egg.
- Consent-based next-generation introductions, with Consumer-Duty evidence built in.
The living client
Makes the plan a living, visible thing — and captures, in life, the data that saves executors months.
- An asset register the client maintains, kept fresh by open-banking and platform connections.
- Findable documents, named people, and a place for funeral wishes and a letter of wishes.
- Plan-health ("Will: current ✓; Health & Welfare LPA missing ⚠") and review nudges.
- Fine-grained consent controls that pre-authorise what executors will see after death.
Executors, PRs & beneficiaries
The post-death portal no incumbent serves well — a map for the largest financial task of a lay person's life.
- A guided worklist generated from the estate type, pre-filled from the deceased's living record.
- One-click asset-holder notifications with a response tracker and IHT funding options laid out.
- A beneficiary view: what I receive, the honest timeline, and a plain-English reason for any wait.
- Estate-accounts approval, R185 delivery, and an attorney/deputy view on capacity loss.
Supervisor / compliance
Firm-wide oversight built for the SRA, STEP, MLR and trustee liability.
- A firm-wide deadline-risk board: IHT, filing, 1975-Act, TRS and 10-year charges.
- An AML dashboard with CDD/EDD status and source-of-wealth evidence.
- A capacity & undue-influence register — the evidence that defends a future validity challenge.
- A TRS and trust-charge register, with breach alerts on distribution before the 1975-Act window.
Accountant / tax advisor
The natural owner of the tax computations, working from the same record.
- A shared tax view: income tax to date of death and estate-period income tax and CGT.
- The 60-day CGT clock on UK residential property surfaced on the same board.
- R185 and estate-accounts handoff without re-entry.
- The trust tax cycle: annual returns, 10-year-charge IHT100s and exit charges.
Everything in the practice pack.
The complete surface, from the document-intelligence core available today to the wider platform vision.
A durable estate-over-time record
- An asset register built in life that survives the client.
- It becomes the administration schedule — continuity across the death is the moat.
- Each asset carries ownership basis, planning value → date-of-death value.
- Nomination status and a passes-under-will flag on every asset.
Clocks & exceptions
- IHT 6-month payment and IHT400 12-month filing.
- 1975-Act 6-month window and the executor's year.
- s.27 2-month ads, TRS 90-day, trust 10-year charge.
- Deed-of-variation 2-year, LPA registration, 60-day CGT.
IHT engine
- NRB / RNRB with transferable bands and the over-£2m taper.
- Spouse and charity exemptions; BR / APR; the 36% charity rate.
- IHT400 / IHT100 generation and excepted-estate determination.
- Instalment and funding modelling, and a lifetime gift ledger with 7-year taper.
Document assembly
- Wills and codicils from structured instructions.
- LPAs — both types — with an OPG-registration tracker.
- Trust deeds with TRS registration data prefilled.
- Estate accounts and R185s — generated, never a blank page.
Asset discovery & administration
- An asset-holder notification engine with tracked responses.
- Valuation coordination on a date-of-death basis.
- s.27 advertisement and bankruptcy-search tracking.
- A grant + HMRC tracker over MyHMCTS, and a trust-administration queue.
Capacity, AML & conflict
- Banks v Goodfellow capacity prompts.
- Golden-rule medical-evidence capture.
- Vulnerability flags and contemporaneous attendance notes.
- CDD, source-of-wealth and conflict checks at onboarding.
Living-client portal
- Maintain the asset register, documents, people and wishes.
- Plan-health and life-event review nudges.
- Fact-find smart forms and secure messaging.
- E-signing where the law allows, and consent controls.
Executor / beneficiary portal
- A guided "pizza-tracker" administration worklist.
- Pre-filled from the living record.
- A beneficiary view: what I get and an honest timeline.
- Estate-accounts approval, R185 delivery, and an attorney/deputy view.
Wealth-advisor surface
- The shared asset register and an IHT-exposure widget.
- Cashflow, nomination tracker, and liquidity/funding planning.
- Intergenerational continuity and next-gen introductions.
- Consumer-Duty evidence from the joined-up picture.
Accountant & supervisor views
- An accountant tax view across the estate and any trusts.
- A supervisor deadline-risk board firm-wide.
- An AML dashboard and a capacity register.
- A TRS / trust-charge register with breach alerts.
Why it's built this way.
The unit of value is the estate over time.
A will engagement, a financial plan, and a probate matter are three views of one durable record. Model the estate once; let each engagement read and write to it. The asset register built in planning is the starting schedule for administration.
Deadline- and continuity-driven.
Surface the estates with IHT due, grants stalled, TRS deadlines looming or 1975-Act windows open — not a list of files. And the single most valuable thing the product does is survive the client: the plan becomes the administration.
Trust and continuity features are adoption features.
Continuity across the death is the product. "Your will and LPAs are current, your register is complete, your executors know where everything is" is why a client engages — and the record that survives is what keeps the advisor's relationship with the next generation.