Form C1 Scotland: How to Complete the Confirmation Inventory
When you apply for Confirmation in Scotland, the document that makes or breaks the entire process is Form C1 — the Confirmation Inventory. Get it right and the Sheriff Court issues your grant in a matter of weeks. Get it wrong and the application comes back by post, unprocessed, with no explanation beyond a list of deficiencies. You start again from scratch.
Legal commentary and data from commissary offices suggest the return rate for Confirmation applications at major hubs like Glasgow and Edinburgh Sheriff Courts fluctuates between 24% and 30%. Nearly one in three DIY applications is rejected — not because of complex legal issues, but because of preventable formatting errors. This guide tells you what those errors are and how to avoid them.
What Form C1 Actually Is
Form C1 is the Confirmation Inventory — the document you submit to the Commissary Department of the local Sheriff Court to obtain legal authority to administer the deceased's estate. It lists all the assets the deceased owned at the date of death, categorised as either heritable estate (land, buildings, real property) or moveable estate (bank accounts, cash, shares, pensions, personal possessions, and everything else).
The form you need is the 2022 version. Since January 1, 2022, HMRC overhauled excepted estate reporting, abolishing the old Form C5 for most estates. If you're reading an older guide that tells you to complete a C5 alongside C1, that advice is now outdated for deaths occurring on or after January 1, 2022. The C1 (2022) incorporates the excepted estate declaration directly.
You can download the current Form C1 from the HMRC website (search "Confirmation C1 Scotland HMRC"). The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) also holds copies at Sheriff Court offices.
The Two Most Important Sections
Section 1: Domicile Declaration
The Sheriff Court is highly specific about how you describe the deceased's domicile — the legal jurisdiction where they lived. Writing "Glasgow" or "Edinburgh" is not sufficient and will trigger rejection. You must state the formal sheriffdom.
Scotland is divided into six sheriffdoms:
- Sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin — Glasgow city
- Sheriffdom of North Strathclyde — Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, Argyll and Bute, etc.
- Sheriffdom of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway — Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Dumfries
- Sheriffdom of Lothian and Borders — Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scottish Borders
- Sheriffdom of Tayside, Central and Fife — Dundee, Perth, Stirling, Fife
- Sheriffdom of Grampian, Highland and Islands — Aberdeen, Inverness, Highland, Islands
The declaration should read, for example: "domiciled in the Sheriffdom of Lothian and Borders in Scotland at the date of death." If you're uncertain which sheriffdom applies, the Sheriff Court Locator on the SCTS website will identify the correct court for any postcode.
Section 2: Heritable vs Moveable Asset Inventory
Every asset must be classified correctly. The C1 inventory requires you to list heritable and moveable estate in separate columns with distinct valuations.
Heritable estate includes:
- Houses, flats, and land (including the deceased's primary residence)
- Commercial property
- Any property held in the deceased's sole name (not affected by a survivorship destination)
Moveable estate includes:
- Bank and building society accounts (balance at date of death, including accrued interest)
- Cash held at home
- Shares, ISAs, bonds, and investment accounts
- Life insurance policies payable to the estate (not to a named beneficiary)
- Pension lump sums payable to the estate
- Vehicles, jewellery, and household contents
- Money owed to the deceased (including tax refunds)
If the property has a survivorship destination clause — a common clause in Scottish title deeds stating the property passes automatically to the surviving co-owner — it does not need to be listed in the C1 at all. It transfers outside the executry process. Check the title deed before including any property.
Common Reasons C1 Applications Are Rejected
The commissary offices identify the same recurring errors. Check each one before submission:
Wrong court fee enclosed. The court fee depends on the gross value of the estate before any deductions. For 2026, the fee schedule is: no fee for estates under £50,000; £351 for £50,001 to £250,000; £705 for estates exceeding £250,000. If the cheque or postal order does not match the tier precisely, the application is bounced immediately.
Address discrepancy for the executor. If the will names you as executor but lists an old address, you must explicitly acknowledge the change in the C1 declaration. Write something like: "My address at the date of this inventory differs from that stated in the will of the deceased; my current address is [address]." Without this declaration, the mismatch triggers rejection.
Blank boxes left empty. Where a section does not apply, write "nil" or "none" — never leave it blank. An empty field reads as an oversight, not as zero.
Missing postcodes. Every address in the form must include a full postcode, including the deceased's final address and the executor's address.
Incorrect or missing occupation. The deceased's occupation on the C1 must exactly match the occupation stated on the death certificate. If the death certificate says "retired teacher" the C1 must say "retired teacher," not "teacher" or "retired."
Bank account interest not included. Bank balances must be stated as at the exact date of death, including any interest accrued but not yet credited. Contact each bank to request the balance as at the date of death — most bereavement teams will provide this figure in writing.
Errors in the Eik. If you discover additional assets after the original Confirmation is granted, you must submit an Eik (an additional inventory). The amended gross total for the estate must appear clearly at the foot of the Eik document, not just the new asset value.
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Small Estate vs Large Estate: Different C1 Processes
If the gross value of all assets is £36,000 or less, the estate qualifies as a "small estate." In that case, you do not need to complete the C1 form on your own. Take your information to the Sheriff Clerk's office and staff are statutorily required to help you prepare the inventory at no extra cost. This assistance also waives the Bond of Caution requirement in intestate small estates.
If the gross estate exceeds £36,000, it is a large estate. The Sheriff Clerk cannot assist you. You complete the C1 yourself, include the original will (if one exists) and the official extract of the death certificate, attach the correct court fee, and submit to the Commissary Department of the Sheriff Court in the sheriffdom where the deceased was domiciled.
An important point: the £36,000 threshold is the gross value — before deducting mortgages, debts, funeral expenses, or any other liabilities. An estate with a house worth £200,000 and a mortgage of £180,000 has a gross value of £200,000 and is a large estate, even though the net equity is only £20,000.
The Excepted Estate Declaration in the 2022 C1
Most Scottish estates do not owe Inheritance Tax. An estate is "excepted" from full IHT reporting if:
- The gross estate is £325,000 or less (or up to £650,000 if transferring a unused nil-rate band from a previously deceased spouse)
- Or the entire estate passes to a surviving spouse or registered charity (in which case the threshold rises to £3,000,000)
For deaths on or after January 1, 2022, you declare the excepted estate status directly in the C1 form. There is no separate form to complete. The C1 has a specific section asking you to confirm that the estate falls within the relevant threshold. HMRC retains a 60-day window from the issue of Confirmation to request a full IHT return if it has reason to doubt the declaration, but for a straightforward estate this query is rare.
After Submission
Once the completed C1 is submitted, you wait. Current processing times at major courts average around six weeks, though backlogs can push this to twelve weeks during busy periods. If the application is returned, the error notice will identify the specific deficiency. Correct it and resubmit — there is no additional fee for a corrected resubmission, though the clock resets on processing time.
When Confirmation is granted, you will receive a Certificate of Confirmation. Order one certified copy for each separate asset you need to deal with — banks, investment platforms, and pension providers each typically require their own original copy.
If you want a field-by-field walkthrough of every section of Form C1, including exact wording templates for the domicile declaration, the asset inventory, and the excepted estate declaration, the Scotland Probate Process Guide covers the complete process from initial valuation through to final distribution.
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