How to File Form SA.2 for Probate in Ireland

What Is Form SA.2 and Why Does It Matter?

Form SA.2 — the Statement of Affairs (Probate) — is the mandatory Revenue filing that every executor in Ireland must complete before applying for a Grant of Probate. It replaced the old paper-based Inland Revenue Affidavit (Form CA24), and there is no way around it: the Probate Office will reject any application that does not include the printed Notice of Acknowledgement generated after a successful SA.2 submission.

The form requires a complete accounting of the deceased person's sole, joint, and nominated assets, their liabilities, and the PPS numbers and lifetime gift history of every named beneficiary. Getting even one figure wrong — or leaving a PPS number blank — can stall the entire estate for weeks.

Before You Start: Documents You Need

Gather everything before logging in. The portal does not let you save partial entries reliably, and hunting for figures mid-filing is where most errors creep in.

• Date-of-death balance certificates from every bank, building society, and credit union
• Professional property valuations (not estate agent estimates — Revenue can challenge informal valuations)
• PPS numbers for all beneficiaries, including children and any person who received a lifetime gift from the deceased
• Details of prior lifetime gifts received by each beneficiary since 5 December 1991, broken down by CAT group threshold (A, B, or C)
• Life insurance policy details, including any Section 72 policies
• Details of joint assets and how they were held (joint tenancy vs. tenants in common)

Filing Step by Step via ROS or myAccount

You file Form SA.2 online through either Revenue's ROS portal (if you have a ROS account) or through myAccount (the personal portal). Paper filing is only permitted if you specifically request a physical filing exemption from the National CAT Unit based on age, mental capacity, or physical constraints.

Step 1: Log in and navigate to the form. On ROS, go to "My Services" and search for "Probate." On myAccount, look under "Other Services." Select "Statement of Affairs (Probate) — Form SA.2."

Step 2: Enter the deceased's details. You will need their PPS number, date of death, marital status, and domicile at death. The SA.2 also asks for foreign assets and debts where relevant; follow Revenue's asset-detail guidance for those entries.

Step 3: List all assets at date-of-death values. The form breaks assets into categories: property, bank accounts, stocks and shares, insurance policies, household contents, and other assets. Enter the exact figures from your balance certificates and valuations — Revenue cross-checks against returns filed by financial institutions.

Step 4: Declare liabilities. Mortgage balances, outstanding loans, credit card debts, funeral expenses (actual or estimated), and any unpaid tax liabilities all reduce the net estate value.

Step 5: Beneficiary schedule. For every person named in the will (or entitled under intestacy), enter their PPS number, their relationship to the deceased (which determines their CAT group), the value of their inheritance, and the total of any prior gifts within the same group threshold since 1991.

Step 6: Submit and print the Notice of Acknowledgement. After submission, the portal generates a Notice of Acknowledgement (Probate). Print this immediately — you must sign it and include it in your Probate Office application pack. The names on the Notice must match the executor names on Form S1 exactly, or the Probate Office will reject your application.

Common Mistakes That Cause Rejection

The most frequent problems are not technical — they are data errors:

• Missing or mismatched PPS numbers. Every beneficiary needs a valid PPS number entered.
• Omitting lifetime gifts. Revenue aggregates all gifts within a group threshold since 1991. If a parent gave a child €50,000 towards a house deposit in 2015, that must be declared — it reduces the child's remaining Group A threshold.
• Understating property values. Revenue regularly challenges declared property values. Get a written valuation from a qualified surveyor or valuer, not an informal estate agent opinion.
• Forgetting joint assets. Only the deceased's share of joint assets passes through the estate. For joint tenants, the deceased's share passes automatically by survivorship and may not need to go through probate — but it still needs to be declared on SA.2 for CAT purposes.

What Happens After Filing

Once you have the printed, signed Notice of Acknowledgement, you can prepare the rest of your Probate Office application: Form S1, the Executor's Oath (sworn before a Commissioner for Oaths), and the original will.

Processing times at the Probate Office vary significantly by registry. Dublin currently runs 10–12 weeks for personal applicant appointments, while Cavan and Waterford can be as fast as 2–4 weeks. Planning your filing around the fastest registry within your jurisdiction can save months.

For a complete walkthrough of the probate process — from gathering documents through to final distribution — the Ireland End-of-Life Planning Guide includes a pre-filing worksheet designed to organise your SA.2 data before you touch the portal.

See more Ireland guides →