Which banks. Which pensions. Where the will is. Whether your late husband or wife's allowances were ever claimed. All of it is easy to answer now and very hard to answer afterwards. The Executor Kit gets it onto paper while you can still answer the questions — and tells whoever ends up doing it exactly what happens next.
The kit does two jobs. Most people need one of them urgently and the other eventually.
You're organising things so the people you leave behind aren't left guessing. Start with Part 1.
Somebody has died and it has fallen to you. Start with Part 2, then the calculator.
Inheritance tax is due six months after the end of the month of death. The account that works out how much is due isn't required until twelve months. Most people meet the second deadline and miss the first, and HMRC charges interest from the six-month point whether or not anyone has told you the figure yet.
Worse, the money usually can't be reached. Banks won't release funds without a grant of probate, and the grant can't be issued until the tax is paid or arrangements are made. That circle is the single most common reason estates run into trouble, and it is entirely avoidable if somebody knows about it in week one rather than month seven.
An executor who pays money out before the tax position is settled is personally liable for the shortfall. Not the estate — the executor. It is the thing that turns an administrative job into a financial one, and almost nobody is told about it before they agree to the role.
For years, a pension sat outside the estate. The Finance Act 2026 ended that.
It brings in estates that were never near the threshold. It also means executors have to find and value pensions they may not know exist, chase scheme administrators who are not used to being chased, and understand how the inheritance tax and the income tax on the same pot fit together — because paid in the wrong order, a higher-rate family loses sixteen pence in every pound for no reason at all.
That is what Parts 4, 5 and 7 are for.
Eight parts in all. Four are in both kits; the other four are the inheritance tax parts.
Three extracts, as they appear in the kit.
Do not distribute anything to anyone, however small and however much they ask, until the tax position is settled. As executor you are personally liable. A grieving family member who expects £5,000 straight away is asking you to take a risk that is entirely yours and not theirs, and the kindest answer is a date rather than a cheque.
Note what it does not ask for: no account number, no policy number, no password. This page can sit in a drawer for fifteen years without being worth anything to anybody who shouldn't have it.
A word on how this works for tax, because the common belief is wrong. You do not have one estate between you. You each have your own. What happens is that anything passing to the survivor is exempt, so there is usually no inheritance tax on the first death, and the tax falls on the second.
The allowances can then be transferred — but as a proportion of what the first of you did not use, and only if somebody claims them. That is the most commonly missed claim in the whole of inheritance tax.
The most common objection to a document like this is the obvious one: if you put everything in one place, you have made a very useful document for the wrong person.
So the record never asks for the things that would make it dangerous. No account numbers. No policy numbers. No PINs, passwords or memorable words. It records where something is and who holds it, not how to get into it — because that is all an executor actually needs to begin, and the rest they will be given properly, against a death certificate, by the institution itself.
The digital section works the same way. It asks where your passwords are kept, in one line, rather than what they are. Write it, print it, keep it with the will, and tell one person it exists. That is the whole system, and it does not require you to be good with computers.
This is not a finished subject. The pension rules take effect on 6 April 2027, and the detail is still moving: HMRC's final guidance on them has not been published, and further changes are going through Parliament.
Buy the Inheritance Tax Edition and you get the updated files free each time it's revised for those changes, for at least twenty-four months from the day you buy. If an update affects a spreadsheet you have already filled in, we tell you plainly how to carry your entries across — you will not be asked to start again. The full wording is in the terms of sale.
This section was last reviewed on 10 November 2026.
Only about one estate in twenty pays inheritance tax. If this one doesn't, the calculator and the pension material are no use to you and you shouldn't be paying for them.
If you're not certain which applies, the estate check asks six questions and tells you whether there's inheritance tax to pay, roughly how much, and which kit that means you need.
Both come with a 14-day money-back guarantee and download instantly after payment. If you start with the £45 kit and it turns out there is a tax position after all, you add the four tax parts for the £84 difference — not the full price.
They do opposite halves of the same job. The Gifting Kit reduces what the estate is worth while you're alive, by documenting gifts out of surplus income properly. The Executor Kit records what's left and tells someone how to deal with it. People who are serious about this end up wanting both.
Already bought The Gifting Kit? Email hello@thegivingledger.co.uk and we'll send you the upgrade price rather than charging you twice.
Four parts. The £45 kit has the estate record, the executor's guide and the estate letters — everything you need to administer an estate properly. The £129 Inheritance Tax Edition adds the calculator, the Pensions Guide, the pension letters and the April 2027 Briefing, which you only need if there's actually tax to work out. The estate check tells you which applies in about two minutes. Both kits include Part 8 on transferring the property. If you buy the cheaper one and your position changes, you add the tax parts for the £84 difference.
It would be, if the record held account numbers and passwords. It doesn't ask for any. It records where things are and who holds them, which is what an executor needs to start, and nothing that would let anyone take anything. Print it, keep it with the will, and tell one person where it is.
No. Applying for a grant of probate is a reserved legal activity and we don't do it. This is information and record-keeping tools so you can do the parts that don't need a solicitor, and recognise the parts that do. The Executor's Guide is explicit about where that line falls.
Yes, and it's the more urgent of the two cases. Start with Part 2, which tells you what to do in what order, then the letter templates so the first fortnight's post goes out, then the calculator. The parts about recording your own estate you can ignore for now.
Yes. It asks for the date of death and applies the rules in force on that date, so it's correct either side of 6 April 2027 rather than only for today. It also handles the income tax that falls on an inherited pension where death was at 75 or over, which is existing law and applies now.
No. Part 1 is built for one record between two people — most of what matters is shared, and the tables that aren't have a column for whose it is. There's a section explaining how allowances actually transfer between spouses, which is the thing most couples have wrong.
No. It's educational information and record-keeping tools. It isn't personalised advice and doesn't make us your adviser. If the estate is large, contested, or complicated, take professional advice alongside it — the guides say where.
Yes — a 14-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked, whether or not you've downloaded the files.