Grant of Probate Lawyer: How to Apply for a Grant of Probate in Malaysia

The family has the will. It names the eldest son as executor, it says what goes to whom, and it was signed properly in front of witnesses. Then the son walks into the bank with it, and the bank says no.

That surprises people every time. We have the will — why isn’t that enough?

Because a will is only an instruction. It tells the world what the deceased wanted. It does not, by itself, give anybody authority to act. The document that does that is a Grant of Probate, and it comes from the High Court.

What a Grant of Probate actually is

A Grant of Probate is a court order confirming that the will is valid and that the person named in it is the executor. From that point the executor becomes the deceased’s personal representative, with authority to collect in the assets, deal with the banks and EPF, settle debts, and transfer property to the beneficiaries.

Banks, land offices and EPF do not take instructions from a grieving family member holding a piece of paper. They take instructions from someone holding a grant.

If there is no will, this is not the right application. You would be applying for Letters of Administration instead, and the estate is distributed under the Distribution Act 1958 rather than according to anybody’s wishes. Roughly four in five Malaysians die without a will, which is why we see far more administration files than probate ones — and why probate, when there is a will, is the comparatively kind route for the family left behind.

How the application works

In outline: the executor named in the will applies to the High Court, supported by the original will, the death certificate, and a schedule of the deceased’s assets and liabilities. The court examines whether the will is valid on its face and whether the applicant is the right person, and issues the grant.

That is the clean version. What actually determines how long it takes is usually one of these:

• The original will cannot be found. A photocopy is a problem, not a formality. Bring the original if it exists, and tell us early if it does not.
• The asset schedule is incomplete. Every account, every property, every share counted. Families routinely discover a second bank account months in, and that means going back.
• A caveat has been lodged against the estate or against a property in it. Once that happens the matter is contentious, and you are looking at an application to remove the caveat before anything else moves.
• The named executor cannot or will not act — living overseas, unwell, or simply unwilling.

That last one is worth thinking about while you are still writing the will, not after.

Choosing an executor, honestly

People appoint the eldest child by reflex. The better question is who will actually be able to do the job, from here, for the year or two it may take.

The executor is the one who has to:

• locate the will and the assets;
• make the funeral arrangements;
• settle the deceased’s income tax;
• deal with the banks, EPF, PERKESO, LHDN, the unclaimed monies department;
• apply for the grant, or reseal a foreign grant;
• pay off remaining debts;
• distribute what is left to the beneficiaries; and
• account for all of it.

Someone living in Melbourne with a full-time job is a kind choice and a poor appointment.

The kindest thing you can do for your executor

Most of the delay in a probate file is not legal. It is the executor trying to reconstruct a life from paperwork nobody organised.

Leave behind, somewhere findable:

• the original will, and tell one person where it is;
• a list of assets, and a list of bank accounts;
• your income tax number, EPF statement, and the usual personal documents — birth certificate, marriage certificate, passport;
• the property documents — sale and purchase agreements, copies of titles, vehicle registration, share certificates;
• the names and numbers of the people who should be contacted.

It costs an afternoon. It saves your family months.

What it costs

For a straightforward Grant of Probate application, professional fees generally run in the region of RM3,500 to RM7,500. Where the matter is more complicated, or extra work is required, fees are charged on the work actually done.

That is not an arbitrary number. Under paragraph 2(f) of the Sixth Schedule to the Solicitors’ Remuneration Order 2023 [P.U.(A) 207/2023], a solicitor’s fee must be a fair and reasonable sum, having regard to matters including the importance of the matter to the client, the skill and responsibility involved, the complexity or novelty of the questions raised, the value of the property involved, the time spent, the documents prepared, and the circumstances in which the work was done.

So if the court asks for a certified true copy of the will from another High Court registry, or a caveat has to be removed, that is additional work and it is charged as such. And transferring each property to the beneficiaries afterwards attracts its own scale fees under the SRO 2023 — worth budgeting for at the start rather than discovering at the end.

When to call

Call before the family starts making promises to each other about who gets what, and before anybody signs anything on the strength of the will alone.

If you are holding a will and do not know what to do next, send it to us and we will tell you plainly whether it is a probate or an administration file, and what the road looks like from here.

Related reading: applying for probate or letters of administration, the probate mistakes families make, estate administration steps, and our legal fee and stamp duty calculators.