ProbatePack vs doing it yourself from scratch.
Personal probate in Ireland is free. You can walk into the Probate Office, pay the court fee, and lodge your own papers. ProbatePack is the preparation layer on top of that process. This page compares the two paths honestly, including when fully DIY is the right call.
What each path asks of you.
| ProbatePack | Fully DIY | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | €79 to €449 plus court fees | Court fees only (roughly €200) |
| Your time | 3 to 5 hours total | 15 to 25 hours |
| SA2 form | Pre-filled with your answers | You work through the blank form on Revenue myAccount |
| Institution letters | 25 pre-personalised for every Irish institution | Write each one yourself |
| Probate affidavit | Drafted for your Grant type | You draft it from the templates on courts.ie |
| CAT calculation | Done per beneficiary (Complete Bundle) | You work through aggregation, thresholds, rates |
| Registry appointment briefing | Specific to your Probate Office | You phone the registry and ask |
| Follow-up queries | Response templates in the pack | You draft responses from scratch |
What €229 actually buys.
Not access to the probate process. The process is free and open to any personal applicant. What the Preparation Pack buys is the translation work: turning your answers into the exact documents, the right Revenue form sections, the right institution addresses, and the right probate affidavit phrasing for your specific Grant type.
A personal applicant working without a pack must learn: the current 2026 CAT thresholds and aggregation rules, the five Section 86 Dwelling House Exemption conditions and the age 65 retention waiver, the Section 67 Succession Act distribution rules for intestacy, the bereavement process at each of the 25 Irish institutions the estate involves, the SA2 form's four sections and common rejection triggers, the registry-specific appointment procedure for their local Probate Office, and the post-Grant administration sequence. All of it is public information, on Revenue.ie, courts.ie, citizensinformation.ie, and the banks' own bereavement pages. It is also about 15 to 25 hours of reading and translating before the first letter gets written.
The pack does the translation once, for your answers. You spend 10 to 30 minutes on the questionnaire, 2 minutes waiting for delivery, then a week of your own time actually lodging and following up.
Fully DIY is the right call if.
You have done probate before
The second time around you already know the registry procedure, the SA2, the institution dance. Buying a pack twice is fair spending; once you have the muscle memory, it is not.
You are a tax or legal professional
Accountants, solicitors handling a family estate, barristers, Revenue staff. The content of the pack is what you already know; the time saved is less.
Very small estate, single institution
A sole bank account under the €25,000 small-estates threshold, no probate needed at all. Skip the pack and go straight to the institution's small-estates declaration.
You genuinely enjoy the work
If working through Revenue.ie and courts.ie and assembling your own application is the kind of task you would take on for its own sake, do it. The experience is not hidden from anyone.
What 15 to 25 hours of fully DIY looks like.
A realistic breakdown for a straightforward estate that the pack condenses:
- Reading courts.ie and citizensinformation.ie probate pages: 2 to 3 hours
- Working out whether probate is needed, what type of Grant applies, and what forms to use: 1 to 2 hours
- Drafting 8 to 15 institution letters (names, addresses, bereavement departments, deceased identifiers): 3 to 5 hours
- Filling in the SA2 on Revenue myAccount and working out CAT per beneficiary: 3 to 6 hours
- Drafting the probate affidavit from the courts.ie template: 1 to 2 hours
- Phoning the Probate Office to book an appointment and asking what they need: 30 to 60 minutes
- Following up with institutions that have not responded in 3 weeks: 2 to 3 hours
- Responding to any queries from the Probate Office on the application: 1 to 2 hours
The pack compresses most of these to a questionnaire plus a signature. The only items you still spend time on with the pack are the institution follow-ups and any registry queries, because those depend on the institution and the registry, not on the pack.
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