While the public and legal community face a 967% fee jump to £16 for a copy Will, a specific clause in the Statutory Instrument appears to keep commercial bulk data access at the nominal £1.50 rate.
This isn’t an anomaly—it re-establishes a dramatic pricing disparity, raising serious questions about equitable access to public records.
The Precedent: The 2019 Fee Tumble
The impending £16 fee marks a full circle moment following the last major change. Before July 2019, the statutory fee for a copy Will or Grant was £10.00. That month, the government slashed the fee to £1.50 for all users. This dramatic reduction was a direct consequence of a decision to end a private, bulk-access arrangement with commercial data providers (like Smee & Ford), forcing them to pay the public statutory fee per document. The £1.50 was intended to cushion that change.
The £10 fee that was in place since 2017 this was double the previous change of £5 and was introduced in at the same time as the localized probate registries were closed. Had the £10 charge simply been adjusted for the RPI up to the current date (November 2025), it would be approximately £14.60.
The new £16 fee, therefore, not only exceeds the inflation-adjusted value of the old £10 fee but implements a two-tier system that severely punishes targeted public/solicitor access.
The Statutory Breakdown: Two Fees, Two Users
The key lies in the language used to define how the request is made:
Fee Type
- Fee 6(1)(a) General Public / Solicitors (Specific Orders)
- For a copy of a document of a named individual in the request.£16.00
- Fee 6(1)(b) Commercial Data Suppliers (Bulk Feed)
- Copies of documents of individuals not named in the request, made available in electronic form. £1.50
The £1.50 Loophole for Bulk Data
The £1.50 clause (Fee 6(1)(b)) is crucial. Firms like Smee & Ford, which receive an electronic feed of all Wills and Grants as they pass through probate (i.e., they are not asking for a “named individual”), appear to fall under this significantly reduced fee.
The Net Result:
- Public/Solicitor: Price increased 967% (from £1.50 to £16.00).
- Commercial Bulk Buyer: Price remains virtually unchanged at £1.50.
The 2019 change successfully forced all users to pay a per-document fee (correcting the pre-2019 policy), but has simultaneously created a disparity between those accessing a specific record and those accessing the entire data stream.
The Ethical and Commercial Debate
This two-tier structure demands discussion in the legal community:
- Transparency: Does this arrangement undermine the principle that public records should be equally accessible to all users, regardless of commercial status?
- Cost Recovery: If the true cost of search and archival is £16, why is the electronic bulk transfer fee kept at a nominal £1.50? Is this an indirect subsidy for the charity sector that relies on legacy notification services?
- Advocacy: Should legal societies and professional bodies lobby HMCTS for clearer justification of this price gap, or advocate for a fairer, single-tier fee for all digital access?
Neil Fraser is a partner at Fraser and Fraser
3 responses
i) the increase was not highlighted when I paid the other day- it should be made very obvious that it has been vastly increased at least for the next 6 months.
ii) I agree with “If the true cost of search and archival is £16, why is the electronic bulk transfer fee kept at a nominal £1.50?”
iii) the more recent documents are held electronically and no extra staff activity is required to provide the documents to the customer/requestor. Older records may require more.
iv) this appears to be a cynical revenue raising exercise.
I was just about to order a copy of a will and was absolutely appalled to see the staggering price increase from £1.50 to £16. I cancelled my order and cannot see myself making any more if kept at that price.
I agree that this is excessive. The copy is provided in digital format as pdf, so no real cost would be incurred like postage, paper, etc. Given that all details need to be provided anyway before a copy can be made available, it should, especially in the digital age, take very little effort and time to retrieve these documents.