Documents for an Irish Grant of Probate When You Live Abroad

An Irish grant for an executor abroad is a documents exercise before it is a legal one. Almost every delay on a cross-border file traces back to a document that was ordered late, arrived in the wrong form, or did not exist. This page is the list we send to clients in England, the United States, Australia and elsewhere at the start of every file. It is organised in the order the documents are needed, with notes on the form each must take, because the Irish Probate Office is particular about form and an application that fails on it goes back to the end of the queue.

1. The Death Certificate

A civil death certificate from the country where the death occurred. For the Irish application a certified copy is needed, and if the certificate is not in English it needs a certified translation. US certificates vary by state and county; the long-form certificate with cause of death is preferred. Order two or three copies at the outset, because Irish institutions will each want to see one and the Probate Office keeps the one lodged with the application.

2. The Will, or the Foreign Grant With the Will Annexed

This is the document whose form matters most. If a grant has already issued in the country where the deceased was domiciled, the Irish application is normally founded on a sealed and certified copy of that grant with the will annexed, issued by the court that made the grant. In England and Wales that means a sealed copy from the Probate Registry, not a plain office copy. In the United States it means an exemplified copy from the surrogate’s or probate court, sometimes with an apostille. In Australia and Canada it means a certified copy of the grant from the state or provincial court. See probate in Ireland from England and US letters testamentary and Irish assets for the two biggest corridors.

If no grant has issued anywhere, the original will is lodged with the Irish application, with a certified translation if needed, and usually with an affidavit of law from a lawyer in the country of domicile confirming the will is valid there. The question of whether a foreign will works in Ireland at all is covered in is a foreign will valid in Ireland? If there is no will, we need instead the documents that prove who the next of kin are, which usually means birth and marriage certificates.

3. The Irish Asset Schedule

Every Irish asset with the institution’s name, the account, policy or folio number, and the value at the date of death. The schedule decides whether a grant is needed at all, which grant, what the Probate Office fee will be and what goes on the Revenue form. Send what you have, however incomplete: bank statements, share certificates, dividend counterfoils, a Land Registry folio number, an old letter from a credit union. Where you have nothing but a family memory that “there was an account in Tralee”, we write to the institutions and search the registries. Old money is often recoverable, as explained in closing an Irish bank account from abroad.

4. The Beneficiaries

The full name, address, date of birth and relationship to the deceased of every person who takes under the will or on intestacy, and what each is to receive. The Revenue Statement of Affairs (Form SA.2) requires this before the grant can issue, and it requires an Irish PPS number for each beneficiary and for the deceased. People who never lived in Ireland do not have one, and obtaining a PPS number from abroad is a documentary process that is almost always the slowest item on the file. We start it on day one. The explanation is in the PPS number bottleneck, and the form itself in the SA.2 explained.

5. Identification

Irish solicitors must verify the identity and address of the client they act for. For the executor or administrator we need a certified copy of a passport or national identity card and a recent utility bill or bank statement showing the home address. Certification can be done by a solicitor, notary or similar professional where you live.

6. The Sworn Probate Papers

These we prepare. The executor’s or administrator’s papers are drafted in Dublin in the form the Probate Office requires, sent to you with instructions, sworn or affirmed before a solicitor, notary public or other authorised person where you live, and returned to us by courier. The details of who can take the oath in each country, and the jurat wording that Dublin expects, are in swearing Irish probate papers abroad.

When Something Is Missing

Documents go missing in cross-border estates more than in domestic ones, because the people who knew where things were have died. A will that cannot be found, a share certificate that was lost in a house move, a bank that no longer exists under its old name. Most gaps have a procedure: lost wills can sometimes be proved from a copy, as described in lost wills and copies; lost share certificates are replaced by the registrar on an indemnity; old accounts are traced through the Dormant Accounts process. Tell us what is missing at the start and it goes into the plan rather than becoming the surprise at lodgement.