If you are the UK-resident beneficiary of an estate abroad, the UK bank on the sterling side wants a four-document paperwork chain before it releases the money. Prepare the pack before you ask the executor to send.
The four documents the UK bank will want
When a five- or six-figure sterling amount lands in your UK account from abroad, the bank has to check where the money came from. That is a legal duty on the bank (the Money Laundering Regulations 2017), not a suspicion of you. Sometimes it asks before it lets the money through. Sometimes it lets the money in and asks a week later, when you try to move it on. Either way, what the bank wants is a chain of paper: the deceased owned this money, the estate released it, and it reached you.
The first document is the grant of probate, or whatever the country of the estate calls its equivalent. Ask the executor for a sealed original, or a certified copy. If it is not in English, you will need a certified English translation from a recognised translator; the bank does not need a court to do the translation, but the translator must be one it recognises.
The second is a copy of the will, if there was one, certified and translated where needed. If the deceased died without a will, the local court order confirming the heirs stands in its place.
The third is a letter from the executor that names you as the beneficiary and states your share. Ask for it on the estate solicitor’s letterhead, or on the executor’s own paper if the executor is a family member. It should say who the executor is, what your share is, and confirm that the executor has the authority to release the money to you. Families most often forget to ask for this until the money is already on the way; ask for it before, because asking after is awkward.
The fourth is a statement from the estate bank account, showing the payment out to you on the day. It closes the chain: “the deceased owned it”, “the executor released it”, “you received it”. A cash-only estate is where families slip, because there is no property sale document to stand in for the statement. If the estate statement is missing the first time, the bank will ask for it again.
Bring the death certificate too, especially if the executor is not you.
Most UK high-street banks (Halifax, Santander, Barclays all show up in recent MoneySavingExpert threads) let the arrival through without a challenge. The question tends to come when you try to move the money on: into a savings account, a broker, or a property purchase. The pack clears both the arrival and the onward move, and any UK solicitor involved on the UK side will want the same paperwork on their own anti-money-laundering check.
The UK tax question, plainly
Receipt of an inheritance is not income for you, and it is not a chargeable gain. You do not pay UK income tax or UK capital gains tax when the money lands in your account. That is the plain rule, not a “usually”.
UK Inheritance Tax is a charge on the deceased’s estate, not on the beneficiary. Whether IHT applies depends on where the deceased sat for UK tax purposes at death. The rule changed on 6 April 2025: the old “domicile” test was replaced by a long-term UK residence test under the Finance Act 2025. The deceased’s worldwide estate falls inside UK IHT only if the deceased was UK-resident for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years.
For the most common diaspora case, where the deceased lived and died abroad and held no UK bank account, no UK shares and no UK property, the estate is outside UK Inheritance Tax entirely, and there is no UK inheritance-tax filing to do (no IHT return, no IHT400). Only the home-country estate tax applies, and the executor handles that before the money reaches you.
Two things to watch after the money lands. Any interest the money earns in a UK savings account is your income on your Self Assessment; any dividend on shares you now hold is taxable in the ordinary way. If you later sell an inherited asset (a foreign flat, a portfolio of foreign shares), UK capital gains tax runs from the market value at your parent’s death, converted to sterling at the exchange rate on the date of death, up to the sterling proceeds at the exchange rate on the date of sale. Keep the probate valuation, the death-certificate date and a note of the exchange rate on that date. You will want them years later.
If you are recent to the UK (not UK-resident for at least ten consecutive tax years before your first year here), the four-year Foreign Income and Gains regime introduced in April 2025 may shelter post-inheritance foreign income and gains from UK tax while you are inside the four-year window. If that might be you, spend ten minutes with a tax adviser before you move a large inheritance into a UK savings account.
The currency-timing question
Probate drags. Six months for a clean uncontested estate abroad is fast; twelve is normal; longer if there is a dispute. The estate account earns nothing in the wait, and sterling can move five to ten percent against major currencies over that stretch without anything unusual happening in the world. On a 100,000-pound conversion, that is five to ten thousand pounds of difference, in either direction.
The simplest choice is to take the rate on the payout day. Whatever the rate is when the money leaves the estate is the rate you get. That is the least admin, and it puts all the currency risk on your side.
If your executor gives you a firm payout date some months out, you can fix the rate today. A forward contract lets you agree an exchange rate now for a settlement date up to about two years away, through an FCA-authorised currency broker. The forward rate sits a fraction below the day’s rate, and on a large conversion that fraction is smaller than an ordinary week’s rate move. Watch the margin call: if sterling rises sharply before the settlement date, the broker can ask you to top up the deposit to keep the trade in place. Keep some spare sterling on hand, or fix a forward on part of the amount and take the day’s rate on the rest.
You can also let the executor pre-convert on your behalf. The estate solicitor converts into sterling at the estate level and wires sterling to your UK account. Your rate is fixed at the moment of conversion, and no foreign currency has to be handled on the UK side.
The trap is that the estate’s own bank or broker may not give you a competitive rate, and you have no visibility into what you got. A local bank’s auto-conversion margin can run three to five percent; a UK broker will land closer to half of one percent. If the executor offers to do this for you, ask which rate applies, on what amount, on what day, and get it in writing before agreeing.
Wise, Revolut and UK high-street banks do not offer forward contracts. Wise holds a “guaranteed rate” for two to forty-eight hours at most. For a settlement date months out, a broker is the answer.
When the money finally does move
For a five- or six-figure lump crossing into sterling, a transfer app is a poor fit. The per-transfer caps trip at exactly this size, and the per-transfer fee grows with the amount. At this size, most people use an FCA-authorised currency broker instead.
A broker holds an FCA authorisation to keep your money in a segregated client account, quotes you a rate on the phone that is closer to the real interbank rate than any UK high-street bank will give you, and can fix the rate today for a payout date months away. On a large personal transfer that margin is measured in a fraction of one percent, rather than the two to four percent a UK high-street bank quietly takes on the same day.
You will pick from a small shortlist of established UK brokers. What to check on each: an FCA firm reference number published on their site (verify it on the FCA register at register.fca.org.uk), a UK phone number that answers during business hours, and a trading history of at least fifteen years. Expect a phone call from the broker’s dealing desk the day after you sign up; that is how brokers work. The rate the broker quotes you on the phone is the rate that binds. The number on the website is an indication. Ask for the executable quote in writing (a screenshot, a confirmation email) before you send.
Nigeria: one worked example
The paperwork looks different in every country, but the questions you take back to a family lawyer are the same. Nigeria is the one worth walking through in detail here, because it is the country this guide sits closest to.
Your Nigerian executor is dealing with a state High Court, not a federal one; probate in Nigeria is a state matter. Lagos is the busiest registry, and the online commencement portal at probate.lagosjudiciary.gov.ng has cut some of the queueing. Ask your executor whether they have the sealed grant back yet; an uncontested Lagos matter runs three to six months from the bank certificate to the grant, and a contested one goes to a probate action and stretches to a year or more.
When the money is ready to send, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Foreign Exchange Manual (Fourth Edition, in force from 1 June 2026) is what the dealer bank works from. The dealer will ask the executor for the sealed grant, the death certificate, proof of your relationship to the deceased, your UK account details, and a KYC file. The pre-2026 Form A stamp is no longer required where the source is a self-funded domiciliary account. If the executor’s bank routes through one of the new non-resident Nigerian accounts (NRNOA, NRNIA), that is a paperwork choice on their side, not a problem on yours.
Nigeria has no federal inheritance tax. The estate does pay a state-level probate fee, which in Lagos runs about five percent of the assessed estate value; other states quote five to ten percent. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 leaves that pattern in place. On the UK side, none of it changes anything for you.
If the deceased held UK assets
The four documents cover the case this guide is about: the estate is abroad, the money lands as sterling in your UK account. If the deceased also held assets in the UK (a UK bank account still in their name, UK-registered shares, a UK flat), someone needs a UK grant of probate to release those. That is a separate job from the money crossing, and a UK probate solicitor handles it. In some countries the sealed foreign grant can be resealed at the UK Probate Registry under the Colonial Probates Act 1892, and no fresh UK grant is needed; in others a fresh one is. Your family lawyer will know which applies.
Traps worth naming
Do not let the UK bank auto-convert the wire on arrival. If the money arrives in a foreign currency and your UK bank does the conversion, the bank takes its own margin (typically two to four percent above the real rate). Ask the executor to send the money to a multi-currency account you have opened (Wise, Starling foreign-currency account, or a broker’s segregated client account), and convert on your side.
Do not accept a rate the executor gives you without asking what the rate is. A polite email (“what exchange rate will apply to the sterling amount you send me, and on what date will you set it?”) is normal. If the answer is “the rate our bank gives us on the day”, you may prefer to receive the money in the source currency and convert on your own side.
Do not throw the estate paperwork away after the money lands. The probate valuation is the base cost for any future UK capital gains tax on inherited assets you later sell; the date-of-death exchange rate is the sterling side of that base cost. Keep the folder.
And do not send anything to a wallet or account you have not verified by phone, on a number you looked up yourself. Real-estate wire fraud is the dominant pattern in cross-border money movement now, and inheritance transactions have started to see the same shape: a spoofed email from “the executor” with revised wiring instructions the day before the wire. Verify verbally.
The order to do it in
- Ask the executor for the pack: the sealed grant, the will, the executor’s letter naming you and stating your share, the estate bank statement showing the debit, and the death certificate. Include a certified English translation for anything not in English.
- Decide on the tool. Under about 20,000 pounds and no forward needed: Wise. Above that, or a completion date months out: open an FCA-authorised currency broker account, get the phone call, get the phone rate quote in writing.
- Decide on the shape. The day’s rate at payout; a forward locking the rate to a settlement date; or the executor pre-converting on your behalf. Ask which rate applies and on what amount before agreeing.
- Verify the wiring instructions on a phone call to a number you looked up separately.
- Receive. If your UK bank asks the source-of-funds question after the money lands, reply the same day with the pack.
- Keep the folder. Probate valuation, date of death, the sterling equivalent on that date. You will want it if you later sell an inherited asset.
The rest of the pieces on money crossing from one banking system to another, from moving your savings to the UK to a large family gift that has been paused for a source-of-funds check, sit under between systems.