Is it time for QR-verified probate in the UK? Lessons from Singapore
The UK has moved to an almost entirely digital probate process and more than halved waiting times, thanks to widespread online filing and digital data sharing between HMRC and HMCTS Probate – but key limitations remain. Emma Jones (Forsters) and Yue-En Chong (Bethel Chambers) explore the benefits of the integrated model adopted by Singapore, and ask what the UK can learn from the country’s digital infrastructure.
Singapore’s adoption of QR‑enabled digital death certificates highlights the potential benefits of digitally integrated public services when compared with the UK’s continued reliance on physical paper and PDF documents. By enabling secure, real‑time verification and linking identity management, automatic death registration and elements of the probate process, Singapore demonstrates how a digitally native infrastructure can reduce administrative burden and operational risk across the probate process.
While the Singaporean probate process has yet to be fully digitised end-to-end, it provides a credible comparator for the UK when considering potential digital reform.
UK death certification: Modernised but still missing the digital leap
The UK’s overhaul of its death certification framework in September 2024 marked the most significant reform in more than 50 years. Mandatory electronic certification and the introduction of statutory medical examiners fundamentally reshaped the former GP‑led model, ensuring that all non‑coronial deaths are subject to independent scrutiny before registration.
However, the UK still does not issue QR‑coded digital death certificates. There is no instant verification mechanism or single national portal through which institutions can confirm validity. While recent reforms have modernised the certification process itself, the continued reliance on paper death certificates at the point of registration and use highlights how far full end‑to‑end digitisation has to go.
Singapore: A fully digital death certificate system built for verification and speed
In Singapore, since May 2022 all death certificates are issued in a digital only format and are accessed through the MyLegacy@LifeSG platform. Every certificate carries a QR code linking directly to the immigration authority’s official records, enabling immediate, secure verification by institutions, government bodies and solicitors, including those requiring sight of the death certificate overseas.
The impact is significant: there are no paper certificates to issue, store or replace; there is instant, authoritative verification; the risk of fraud has been significantly reduced.
Probate: Strong progress, but a hybrid system remains
While death certification remains only partly digitised, probate has emerged as one of the UK’s digital front-runner services. Since its phased rollout in 2018, the online probate platform has transformed the application process. By late 2024 most applications were being made digitally. This has been supported by automated data sharing between HMCTS and HMRC as part of the inheritance tax and probate workflow.
However, not all grant applications can be lodged online, including applications relating to individuals who died domiciled outside the UK.
Grants continue to be issued as physical paper documents, even where the application itself is made digitally. Since March 2019, grants have incorporated several enhanced security features, including a digital seal in place of an embossed seal, a digital signature rather than a wet signature, a high‑security hologram, and a validation telephone number for fraud checking purposes. A corresponding record of the grant typically appears on the official GOV.UK Probate Search register within around 14 days of the grant issuing, providing a secondary means of verification.
Despite these developments, the grant is not issued as a verified electronic or digitally certified document. It continues to be printed centrally and sent in paper form.
Centuries-old requirements at odds with a digital system
Under the non‑contentious probate rules, the Probate Registry is still required to inspect the original will, including the wet‑ink signatures and physical evidence of due execution. The rules continue to mandate the submission and exhibition of the physical will itself, together with any affidavits or witness statements needed to prove its validity.
Even within an increasingly digital probate system, the original paper will remains central to the grant making process. The Wills Act 1837 continues to require a valid will to be in writing and executed with wet in signatures.
Nevertheless, the question of whether the law should recognise electronic wills has moved steadily up the reform agenda in recent years. The Law Commission published a supplementary consultation in October 2023 reflecting changing social expectations, technological developments and the experience of remote execution during the pandemic. This culminated in the Law Commission publishing its final report and draft bill in May 2025, with the government issuing its initial response the same day.
While the Law Commission’s review was welcomed, a bill to reform the Wills Act 1837 has not yet been introduced to Parliament. The government has indicated that it will give the report detailed consideration, with further announcements expected later this spring.
Although HMCTS has moved towards digital grant applications, a government consultation launched in December 2023 on whether historic wills should be digitised and the paper originals destroyed was abandoned by the Ministry of Justice in January 2025. Ministers confirmed that all original wills would continue to be preserved indefinitely.
Singapore’s probate system: Digital foundation, paper where legally necessary
Singapore’s probate process is not yet fully digitised end-to-end and continues to rely on paper processes at key points, including the inspection of original wills and the issuing of certified true copies of grants. However, unlike the UK, original wills are returned once examined, removing the need for long‑term court storage.
All probate cases are filed digitally, including complex, high‑value and multi‑executor estates. A simplified e‑probate platform is available for straightforward cases. Where an estate does not qualify for the simplified e‑probate process, the application is still filed digitally albeit through the eLitigation system. It is important to note that the absence of inheritance tax removes an administrative step.
National digital identity frameworks, automatic retrieval of death information and close integration across government platforms substantially reduce friction even where paper-based steps remain. With this digital infrastructure in place, there is scope for further reform in Singapore, including the future recognition of digitally lodged ‘original’ wills and the development of secure, template‑based wills supported by verified identity data and biometric safeguards. While such innovations may reduce administrative burden and litigation risk, their effectiveness in protecting vulnerable individuals remains an open question.
The UK’s digital pathway: Future considerations
Looking to Singapore, the UK could explore the use of digitally verifiable death certificates and grants, such as QR‑enabled credentials, to support secure, real‑time authentication and reduce reliance on static paper documents. There may also be scope to consider a more unified digital verification mechanism, accessible across courts, government and regulated private‑sector bodies, to reduce duplication, delay and fraud risk in the estate administration process.
Statutory and procedural requirements could be reviewed to ensure that digitally native records are able to meet evidential standards without routine conversion into physical form, except where additional safeguards are clearly justified. Building on existing reforms, digital probate services might also be extended beyond straightforward cases, while retaining appropriate judicial oversight and maintaining strong protections for vulnerable testators and beneficiaries.
Takeaways
Future reform is likely to be most effective where it combines the UK’s emphasis on legal certainty and protection with the efficiencies enabled by digitally integrated infrastructure. Singapore’s experience demonstrates that meaningful reductions in friction and risk are achievable even where elements of traditional process remain, provided that trust, verification and interoperability are designed into the system from the outset.
Published in Today’s Wills and Probate on 21 April 2026. Click here to read.
