Certificate of Confirmation Scotland: What It Is and How Many Copies You Need

You've submitted the paperwork, paid the court fees, waited the weeks it takes for the Commissary office to process everything — and now you've been told you need a "Certificate of Confirmation." What exactly is this document, why do you need it in multiple copies, and what does each copy cost?

This is a question that trips up many first-time executors, largely because the terminology shifts at the end of the Confirmation process in ways that official guidance doesn't always spell out clearly.

The Grant vs the Certificate: What's the Difference?

When the Sheriff Court formally authorises you to administer the estate, it issues what is called the "grant of Confirmation." This is the legal authority itself — the court's decision that you, as executor, have the right to ingather and distribute the estate.

The Certificate of Confirmation is the physical document proving that the grant has been issued. It takes the form of a certified copy of the Confirmation inventory (Form C1) stamped and certified by the court, confirming that the court has granted you authority to deal with the assets listed.

In practical terms, the Certificate of Confirmation is what you hand to a bank, investment platform, or pension provider as evidence of your legal authority. They will not release any funds or assets until they see it. The grant itself stays with the court — what you carry around and present to institutions is the certificate.

How Many Certificates Do You Need?

Each separate financial institution or asset-holder generally requires its own original Certificate of Confirmation. They will not accept a photocopy, a scan, or a screenshot. This is different from England and Wales, where a single Grant of Probate is typically circulated from institution to institution.

In Scotland, the practical convention is that you order one certificate per separate fund or institution you need to deal with. If the estate includes:

• A current account at Bank of Scotland
• A savings account at Nationwide
• A stocks and shares ISA at Hargreaves Lansdown
• A pension with Aviva
• Premium Bonds at NS&I

You would typically need five separate certificates — one to send to each institution. Some institutions will return the certificate to you once they have processed the account closure, in which case you can reuse it, but many retain it permanently. Order enough copies upfront to avoid delays.

A useful rule: count the number of distinct financial institutions holding funds and order that number of certificates, plus one spare. For a typical modest estate with three or four accounts, four or five certificates is usually sufficient.

What Does Each Certificate Cost?

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) charges the following for Certificates of Confirmation as of April 2026:

• First certificate ordered when lodging the inventory: £23 (this includes a mandatory search fee)
• Each subsequent certificate ordered at the same time: £10 each

If you need additional certificates after the initial order — because you discover more assets later, or because an institution loses the copy you sent — you can order more from the Commissary Department. Contact the Sheriff Court where your Confirmation was granted to request additional copies.

The cost difference between ordering at the outset and ordering later is small, but the time difference is significant. Waiting for additional certificates to be issued after the fact introduces delays of weeks. Order more than you think you need when submitting the C1.

What Information the Certificate Contains

The Certificate of Confirmation identifies:

• The deceased's full name, occupation, last address, and date of death
• The executor's full name and address
• Each asset listed in the C1 inventory, with its value at the date of death
• The total gross value of the heritable estate
• The total gross value of the moveable estate
• The court's certification that Confirmation has been granted

This is why the certificate is an institution-by-institution document: it acts simultaneously as proof of authority and as a disclosure of what specific asset is being ingathered. When you present a certificate to Bank of Scotland, they can see the bank account listed in the inventory and verify it matches what they hold.

What Institutions Accept (and What They Don't)

Banks and building societies universally require a Certificate of Confirmation for accounts above their informal release threshold. Major institutions like Bank of Scotland and RBS/NatWest have release thresholds of around £25,000 to £50,000 — below this they may release funds on a simpler indemnity basis, but above it, they will not move without the certificate.

Pension providers and insurers typically accept the certificate in the same way. However, if the life policy or pension was written in trust and has a named beneficiary, it pays out directly to that beneficiary without any need for Confirmation or a certificate at all.

Registers of Scotland (for heritable property transfers) do not use the Certificate of Confirmation in the same way banks do. Transferring a property title requires a Notice of Title signed by the executor and formally registered with the Registers of Scotland — a more complex process that usually requires a solicitor.

HMRC and government departments (for tax refund claims, benefit adjustments) generally accept the certificate as proof of executorship.

NS&I (Premium Bonds and savings) requires the certificate for estates above their informal threshold, which currently sits at £5,000 for Premium Bonds. Below that threshold they typically require only the death certificate and a completed claim form.

What Happens If a Certificate Is Lost or Damaged

If a certificate is lost by an institution or damaged in transit, you can request a replacement from the Commissary Department. The cost is the standard subsequent copy rate (£10 per copy). There is no need to make a new application for Confirmation — the original grant remains in place and additional copies can be issued from it at any time.

If you later discover an asset that was not included in the original inventory, you do not need a new Certificate of Confirmation for the assets already covered. You do need to submit an Eik — an additional inventory — to have the new asset formally included in the Confirmation. The court then issues a certificate covering the new Eik, which you present to the relevant institution.

Timing: When You Receive the Certificates

Certificates are issued at the same time as the grant of Confirmation. Once the Sheriff Court processes your C1 application and issues the grant, the certificates are prepared and sent to you by post. There is no separate application process for the certificates — they are ordered as part of the C1 submission.

Current processing times at major Sheriff Courts average around six weeks from submission to grant, though court backlogs have at times pushed this to twelve weeks. This wait is the key reason not to apply for Confirmation only after discovering you need it — the sooner the C1 is submitted, the sooner the certificates arrive, and the sooner funds can be ingathered.

The Scotland Probate Process Guide includes a full checklist for ordering the correct number of certificates based on the estate's asset profile, along with a step-by-step guide to presenting certificates to specific institutions, tracking which ones have been returned, and managing the ingathering process efficiently from grant through to final distribution.

See more Scotland guides →