When can executors safely distribute the estate? The section 27 notice, the six-month 1975 Act date, and one grant worked through

A beneficiary rings the week after the grant arrives and asks when they will be paid. The estate is solvent, the house is under offer, and the executor wants to finish. There are two dates a private client team should have in the diary before any final distribution, and both come from statute.

Protection one: the section 27 notice

Section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925 lets personal representatives advertise for creditors and claimants. The notice goes in the Gazette and in a newspaper circulating in the district where any land in the estate is situated. It must require anyone with a claim to send details within a stated time, "not being less than two months".

Once that time has passed, section 27(2) lets the personal representatives distribute the estate to the people entitled, having regard only to the claims they then know about. They are not liable to anyone whose claim they had not had notice of at the time of distribution. The protection does not stop a late creditor following the money into a beneficiary's hands, but it keeps the executor's own pocket out of it.

The notice protects against unknown creditors and claimants under the will or intestacy. It does not deal with claims for reasonable provision from the estate. That is the second date.

Protection two: six months from the grant

Under section 4 of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, a claim for provision should not be made more than six months after the date representation is first taken out, except with the court's permission. Since 2014 the section also says a claim can be made before the grant.

The court can let a claim in late, so the six months is not a hard wall for claimants. Section 20(1) is what protects the executor: the Act does not make personal representatives liable for having distributed any part of the estate after the end of the six months, on the ground that they ought to have allowed for the court letting a late claim in. A late claimant can still pursue what has been distributed, but not the executor personally.

One grant worked through

Take a grant of probate issued on Wednesday 14 October 2026.

From grant to the end of the six months is 182 days. The section 27 date, even set at its earliest, arrives 112 days before that. So for most estates the 1975 Act date, not the notice, decides when residue can safely go out.

Interim payments before the dates

Executors often want to pay something earlier. Two common positions, both judgement calls for the supervising solicitor and the executor:

• Pecuniary legacies to people who are unlikely to bring or face a claim can sometimes be paid once the section 27 date has passed, with enough kept back to cover any realistic claim and the costs of defending it.
• Residue is usually held until the six months have passed, unless every person who could bring a claim has confirmed in writing that they will not, after taking advice.

If a possible claimant is known, for example a cohabitant or an adult child left out of the will, the six-month date is only the start of the risk assessment, not the end of it.

Put the dates on the file at grant

The day the grant arrives, the file should carry four diary entries: the notice publication, the claims date, the end of the six months and a review of interim payments. Our probate timeline calculator generates the main dates from the date of death and grant, and the estate accounts template shows where retentions sit in the distribution account. If a caveat has delayed the grant, the caveat guide explains the timings that come first.

Overlyft builds AI staff who join a private client team and draft these diary entries, the section 27 notice wording and the beneficiary update letter from the grant details, for the supervising solicitor to review and sign off. The decision to distribute stays with the solicitor and the executors.

This is general information for England and Wales, not legal advice on any estate.