Before the Probate Office sees any application, the estate passes through Revenue: the Statement of Affairs (Probate), Form SA.2, filed online, generates the acknowledgement the probate application requires. The SA.2 is where the estate is first assembled as a complete picture, and the quality of that assembly governs the speed and safety of everything that follows. This article deals with the process; the tax consequences of what the form discloses are matters on which specialist tax advice should be obtained.
What has to be gathered
The SA.2 wants the whole estate at date-of-death values: every account with its closing balance, land and buildings professionally valued, farm stock, machinery and entitlements, shares and funds at market, policies with proceeds payable, debts owed to and by the deceased, and joint assets with the survivorship position stated. It also wants the beneficiaries: who takes what, with identifying details. Gathering this is the real work of the early administration, and the discipline of doing it completely, writing to every institution, valuing rather than estimating, surfaces the estate's problems while they are still cheap.
Why accuracy compounds
The figures returned in the SA.2 echo through the administration: they frame beneficiaries' expectations, set the baseline for any section 117 or legal right share arithmetic, feed the vouching of the estate accounts, and stand as the personal representative's sworn-adjacent statement of what existed. Corrections are possible when assets surface later, but a pattern of casual figures invites queries, delay and, in contested families, suspicion. The valuation habit that serves land in the SA.2, professional, dated, retained, serves every later stage too.
Sequencing the stage
In a well-run estate the SA.2 stage overlaps the paper-gathering for the grant itself: institutional letters go out in week one, valuations are commissioned early, and the form is filed once the picture is complete rather than in optimistic instalments. The recurring causes of delay are missing valuations, unresolved joint asset questions and beneficiary details never collected, all preventable by an organised start. For personal representatives who want a map of the information required, the probate checklist tool on this site mirrors the categories the SA.2 will demand.
This article is general information, not legal advice. For the full practice area, see Probate in Ireland: Grants and the Process, or contact the practice to discuss a matter in confidence.