Estate and Probate Contents Inventory

Who this is for

The contents of a house being wound up, listed room by room. Each line carries a valuation, the person it is intended for and what has actually happened to it, so the family and the estate paperwork agree.

Executors, administrators and the relatives who end up clearing a house — anyone who has to account for what was there, what it was worth and where it went.

What this helps you track

• Everything in the property, listed by room, so nothing is discovered late
• A valuation per item and a total for the contents as a whole
• Who each item is intended for under the will or by agreement
• What happened to each line — kept, given, sold, donated or disposed of
• A dated record made before the house is cleared, which is when memories differ

How to use it

1. Fill the header with the name of the person whose estate it is, the property address, who is compiling the list and the date.
2. Work one room at a time and photograph as you go. Write the room in the first column so the sheet can be read in the order you walked it.
3. Describe each item well enough to identify it later — maker's marks, materials, damage. Group low-value items ('contents of airing cupboard') on one line with a quantity.
4. Enter a value per item. Where a valuation is needed for the estate accounts rather than for the family, a professional valuer's figure belongs in this column, not an estimate; the sheet supplies none.
5. Fill the left-to and outcome columns as items are distributed, and have anyone receiving something initial the line on the printed copy.
6. Check what the rules where you are require of an estate inventory and valuation before treating this as the final record.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Is this a legal document?

No. It is a working list to keep the clearance orderly and honest. What an estate must formally record, and who has to value it, differs from country to country — check the rules where you are, or ask the solicitor handling the estate.

What value should I put on ordinary household things?

Most people use what the item would fetch second hand rather than what it cost. The sheet takes whatever figure you enter; write the basis you used in the notes so anyone reading it later knows.

Should items go on before or after they are distributed?

Before. The point of the sheet is a record of what was in the house on a given date. The outcome column is then filled in as things leave, which keeps the original list intact.

What about jewellery and collections?

Give them their own lines here with a value, and keep the detail — hallmarks, certificates, individual pieces — on a jewellery inventory or a collection valuation record, then reference it in the description.