Grant of Probate and Letters of Administration in Hong Kong

What one piece of paper actually does

After a death, a bank will not pay out because you are the child, and the Land Registry will not transfer because you are the spouse. What unlocks those things is a court document — a grant.

The Probate and Administration Ordinance (Cap. 10, consolidated 18 December 2025) draws the distinction in its interpretation section, s. 2:

So: with a will, the executor named in it applies for a grant of probate. Without one — or where the will is invalid, or names no willing and competent executor — a person with priority applies for letters of administration. The practical effect of either is the same: only then do you have authority to collect in, sell, transfer, pay and distribute.

The same section tells you where to go:

("Probate Registry" is not merely the Judiciary's public-facing label: it is the statutory wording. "Registry" is the defined term, and what s. 2 defines it to mean is "the Probate Registry of the court". Both names come out of the same sentence of the Ordinance and denote the same office, at the High Court.)

And there is exactly one route in, under s. 24:

The document at the centre of every application is an oath. Cap. 10A r. 6:

Paragraph (2) is the joint between two things dealt with below. Clearing off means accounting on oath for everyone ahead of you in the order of priority; and the minority or life interest statement is what triggers the floor of two administrators in Cap. 10 s. 25(1). Neither is professional custom — the rule requires both to be sworn to.

Who may apply

Where there is a will: the executor

The person named in the will has priority — but "priority" here is a six-tier order, not a single name. Cap. 10A r. 19:

(The "rule 19(v)" cited in r. 38(1)(a) below is tier (v) of this order — a specific legatee or devisee, or a creditor.)

Two further limits are routinely missed.

Number. Cap. 10 s. 25(1) caps grants at four — but the same sentence contains a mandatory floor:

If a beneficiary is a minor, or the will creates a life interest, administration cannot go to a single individual. Where in practice there is only one, the very next subsection is the cure. Section 25(2):

The procedure is Cap. 10A r. 24: "An application under section 25(2) of the Ordinance to add a personal representative shall be made to the Registrar and shall be supported by an affidavit by the applicant by the consent of the person proposed to be added as personal representative and by such other evidence as the Registrar may require."

Age. "The executor must be at least 21" is stated far more broadly than the Ordinance supports. Cap. 10 s. 39(1) addresses only the sole executor under 21:

Where one of several executors is under 21, the Non-Contentious Probate Rules (Cap. 10A, consolidated 16 January 2020) r. 32(1) do something quite different — the others simply take the grant, with power reserved:

(Note the closing words: the r. 31 grant for the minor's use and benefit is not available at large — it is conditional.)

What cannot be said is that the appointment is good and only the grant is postponed. Section 39(2) is explicit that before probate is granted the appointment does nothing:

So a will may name a person under 21, and that naming is what probate can later be granted upon when he attains 21; but until the grant he is not a personal representative and no interest in the deceased's property passes to him. Nor can the minor's right be renounced for him. For probate, the governing rule is Cap. 10A r. 32(2), and it is absolute — no one may do it:

For administration, r. 31(6) is drafted differently: renunciation is possible, but only by one specific person:

The rest of r. 31 says who the grant for the minor's use and benefit actually goes to. Paragraph (1) sets the default: subject to paragraphs (3) and (5), administration until the minor attains 21 shall be granted "(a) to the parents of the person jointly or to any guardian appointed by the court; or (b) if there is no such guardian able and willing to act and the person has attained the age of 16 years, to any next of kin nominated by the person or, where the person is a married woman, to any such next of kin or to her husband if nominated by her." Paragraph (2) lets a next of kin or husband so nominated represent any other person under 16 whose next of kin he is and who is entitled in the same degree. Paragraph (3) opens a separate route: the Registrar may by order assign a guardian, on the application of the intended guardian, "who shall file an affidavit in support of the application and, if required by the Registrar, an affidavit of fitness sworn by a responsible person." Paragraph (4) answers directly the s. 25(1) floor of two administrators set out above:

Paragraph (5) covers one further case:

An adult who cannot manage his affairs: r. 33. The rule cited in r. 38(1)(e) below is the adult counterpart of r. 31 — the grant goes to someone else, not to the person entitled. Rule 33(1):

Two conditions attach. Paragraph (2): "No grant of administration shall be made under this rule unless all persons entitled in the same degree as the person incapable have been cleared off." Paragraph (3): "In the case of physical incapacity, notice of intended application under this rule shall be given to the person alleged to be incapable."

Where there is no will: the statutory order of priority

This order is not in Cap. 10. It is Cap. 10A r. 21, paragraphs (1) and (2):

Two things to notice. The top tier expressly includes the surviving partner or partners of a union of concubinage entered into before 7 October 1971 — and the rule contemplates more than one. And the rule keeps going: r. 21(3) gives the grant to the Official Administrator in default of anyone with a beneficial interest, and r. 21(4) then reaches creditors and any person who "is, by virtue of section 3 of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Ordinance (Cap. 481), entitled to apply to the court for an order under section 4 of that Ordinance" — entitled by virtue of s. 3 to apply for an order under s. 4, not entitled to apply "under s. 3". (r. 21(4) is not automatic either: it opens "If all persons entitled to a grant under the foregoing provisions of this rule have been cleared off", and the verb is "a grant may be made" — may, not must.)

Two further paragraphs of the same rule belong with it. Paragraph (5) deals with representation: subject to r. 25(3), the personal representative of a person in any of the classes in paragraphs (1) and (2), or the personal representative of a creditor, "shall have the same right to a grant as the person whom he represents", with a proviso that the persons in paragraphs (1) and (2) "shall be preferred to the personal representative of a spouse who had died without taking a beneficial interest in the whole estate of the deceased as ascertained at the time of the application for the grant." Paragraph (6): "The provisions of the Adoption Ordinance (Cap. 290) shall apply in determining the entitlement to a grant as they apply to the devolution of property on intestacy."

⚠️ One qualification that governs everything above: domicile. Where the deceased died domiciled outside Hong Kong, the r. 19 and r. 21 orders do not apply at all. Cap. 10A r. 26:

Those cases run under r. 29 instead: the Registrar may order a grant to the person entrusted with the administration by the court of the place of domicile, or to the person entitled to administer by the law of that place, or as the Registrar may direct. A cross-border estate cannot simply be slotted into the r. 21 table.

Guarantees: the default is that none is required

It is commonly said that letters of administration "usually need a bond". Cap. 10A r. 38(1) is drafted the other way round — it forbids the Registrar from requiring a guarantee except in six listed cases or in special circumstances:

r. 38(2) adds an exemption, but it is not unconditional — it carries an "except in special circumstances" reservation, and it is satisfied where any one of several applicants qualifies:

On the mechanics, r. 38(5) opens with words that govern the whole subsection and should not be dropped — everything in it yields to a direction of the Registrar, and paragraphs (a) to (e) are a single set:

(That $7,000 figure has not been uprated in the consolidated text.) The Ordinance itself adds a statutory no-surety rule, s. 47(3): "No sureties shall be required where administration is granted to the Official Administrator or to the consular officer of a State to which section 3 of the Consular Conventions Ordinance (Cap. 267) applies or in such other cases as may be prescribed by probate rules and orders." And s. 47(2) limits enforcement: "No action shall be brought on any such guarantee without the leave of the court" — the procedure for that leave is Cap. 10A r. 41A. Cap. 10A r. 5(4) also requires the Registrar to give the person, or his solicitor, an opportunity of being heard before imposing a guarantee requirement at all. Note paragraph (b): a surety must be resident in Hong Kong, which rules out the common plan of asking an overseas relative to stand behind the administrator. Paragraph (d) is what fixes the surety's exposure, and it does move with the size of the estate — the gross amount sworn on the application.

Timing: the deadlines the statute actually fixes

Probate is often treated as something that has to be done eventually. In fact the Ordinance fixes a clock, and running past it is a criminal matter.

Cap. 10 s. 60J makes intermeddling with an estate a criminal offence. It bites in several distinct ways: s. 60J(2) on a person who, "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse", deals with either estate property or property the deceased held as a trustee or the manager of a Tso or Tong, where it is not set out in the schedule; and ss. 60J(6) and (7) on the executor or the person entitled in priority who administers within, or after the expiry of, the "prescribed period" without filing the application.

Section 60J(3) catches a person who is neither the executor nor the person entitled in priority. It is usually summarised as "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse" — but the section is drafted with two co-ordinate limbs:

Limb (d) is a prior-filing requirement, and it specifies that the application must be supported by an affidavit exhibiting a schedule — the s. 24A schedule. But (c) and (d) are joined by "or", not "and": lawful authority or a reasonable excuse under limb (c) is, on its own, enough to avoid the offence, even without having filed under limb (d). A person with neither excuse can still avoid the offence by having first filed under limb (d). Only a person with neither is caught.

The prescribed period is defined in s. 60J(8) — but read the opening words, which confine the definition to two subsections:

That clock runs on ss. 60J(6) and (7) only. Subsections (2) and (3) carry no prescribed period whatever: the offence is complete when the act is done, and there is no "you have 12 months" answer for it. A person outside the executor-and-priority class — a sibling, a tenant, a business partner facing a s. 60J(3) allegation — has no period at all.

The penalty, in s. 60J(9), has two limbs:

The second limb is uncapped: it tracks the value of what was dealt with. Section 60J(1) confines the section to persons dying on or after 11 February 2006, and to estate or property situated in Hong Kong when the deceased dies.

"The only exemption is s. 60K(9)" would be wrong, in three ways. First, subsection (2) builds "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse" into the offence itself — lawful authority or a reasonable excuse means no offence at all; subsection (3) carries the same limb (c), and because (c) and (d) are alternatives, satisfying (c) alone is enough — there is no need also to have filed under limb (d). Second, ss. 60J(4) and (5) expressly deem a bank and its employee to have acted with lawful authority:

Subsection (5) does the same where a bank allows a surviving renter of a jointly rented safe deposit box with survivorship arrangement to exercise the contractual right of access. Third, s. 60K(9) itself is narrower than it is usually described: it displaces only s. 60J(3), (6) and (7), not s. 60J(2), and only in relation to the scheduled property (see the $50,000 route below).

So for ss. 60J(6) and (7) the penalty presupposes the prescribed period: 12 months from death for an ordinary application, 18 months for a resealing. That is the main clock for an executor or the person entitled in priority. Subsections (2) and (3) are not governed by it, and 12/18 months is not the only fixed period in the statute book. How long the Registry then takes to issue the grant is not addressed by the Ordinance, the Rules or the Fees Rules — though note that not every fixed period runs against the applicant: Cap. 10A r. 5(3) runs against the Registry.

The other periods written into the statute book are set out below. Two of them also bear on the representative's side, though not as a deadline the representative must personally meet: the 6 months in Cap. 10A r. 46(3) is when a citation may first be issued against an intermeddling executor, and the 12 months in Cap. 10 s. 37(1) is when a creditor or interested person may first apply for special administration against a representative residing outside Hong Kong — each is a gateway that lets someone else act once the period has run, not a clock the representative himself is racing. The 6-month life of a caveat in Cap. 10A r. 44(4) runs against the caveator — the stranger blocking the grant — and so runs in the applicant's favour, not against him.

Cap. 10A r. 5(3) reads:

What a caveat is. Four rows of the fee table below turn on it (entry, warning, service of warning, removal), but it is a procedure, not just a charge. Cap. 10A r. 44(1):

So the caveator is a third party blocking a grant, not the representative. The Registrar searches the caveat index on receiving an application and again before allowing any grant to be sealed (rr. 44(5)–(6)); any person interested may warn the caveat (r. 44(7)); the caveator has 8 days from service to enter an appearance (rr. 44(9)–(10)), failing which the person warning may file an affidavit of service and the caveat ceases to have effect (r. 44(11)); and the caveator may withdraw at any time before appearance (r. 44(8)). A citor must enter a caveat before issuing a citation (r. 45(3)).

Nor can r. 44(4) be given as a bare six months. Both its opening and its closing words are operative:

So a caveator whose caveat lapses may simply enter another; and "otherwise provided by this rule" takes in r. 44(8) (withdrawal), rr. 44(11) and (12) (cessation or continuation once a warning has been answered or proceedings begun) and r. 44(13) (the Registrar's leave is needed for a further caveat after cessation under (11) or (12)). Note too the proviso to r. 44(6):

Cap. 10A r. 46(3) reads:

Cost: the fee to file is flat, not tiered

This is worth setting out item by item, because it is widely misstated as a scale tiered by the value of the estate.

The High Court Fees Rules (Cap. 4, sub. leg. D, consolidated 14 May 2026), Second Schedule, headed "Probate Jurisdiction", is the source of probate court fees. Nothing on the filing line is geared to the value of the estate. Item 1:

And the item that once charged by reference to the value of the estate is gone:

with the editorial note:

In other words, the ad valorem probate court fee was repealed alongside estate duty in 2005. The Second Schedule now reads in full:

(The table above splits each entry into a Matter column and a Fee column; item 21 is a single continuous sentence in the Schedule itself:)

But "every item is a fixed sum" would be saying too much. Items 1 to 17 are indeed fixed sums, and items 2 and 18–20 are repealed. Item 21, however, is an importing provision, and what it imports is not uniformly flat. First Schedule item 19 (taxation of costs) is a banded ad valorem scale:

First Schedule items 17(b) and 18 are not fixed sums either: "Actual expenditure" and "Actual expenditure plus 20% thereof being administrative charges". Nor is item 19a, which is "10% of the taxing fee which would be payable if the bill was to be allowed in full or $1,000 whichever is the less"; nor item 20, which charges "for every $1,500 or part thereof of the price $15.00" on the sale of a ship or goods in an admiralty case. So the accurate statement is narrower: the filing item is a flat $265.00, and every amount the Second Schedule itself specifies is a fixed sum; but a matter that falls through item 21 into the First Schedule need not be.

(The charging provision itself is r. 2(1): "The fees respectively specified in the First and Second Schedules shall be payable in respect of all proceedings in any action or matter whatsoever in the High Court, whenever commenced." Rule 3 gives the method: "Unless otherwise in the Schedules provided, the said fees shall be payable by means of adhesive stamps, or by causing the relevant documents to be franked with the amount of fees." The Second Schedule's own head-note reads "[rr. 2 & 3]".)

Three further variables sit on top of the tables. First, Cap. 4D r. 1A:

Second, r. 2(2) lets the Registrar depart from the tables case by case:

Third, electronic filing is discounted. The Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (High Court) (Electronic Fees) Rules (Cap. 638 sub. leg. K, in operation from 30 June 2025; the version relied on here is the consolidation in force 7 May 2026), r. 4(3):

The term "concessionary period" is defined in r. 2 as "the period of 3 years beginning on the earliest date specified under section 32(2) of the Ordinance in relation to the High Court". Part 2 of that Schedule lists only two probate matters — "Every search within the High Court’s probate jurisdiction" (Second Schedule item 7) and "Filing inventory" (Second Schedule item 17). The $265.00 filing fee is not in that Part.

But 80% is not where the calculation stops: rounding is mandatory. Rule 6 is headed "Rounding rule for e-fees payable during concessionary period", and r. 6(8) expressly brings in the fee payable under r. 4(3)(b):

So the two probate e-fees actually payable are: a search, $18 × 80% = $14.40, rounded to $14; filing an inventory, $36 × 80% = $28.80, rounded to $29. The $14.40 and $28.80 that the 80% figure produces on its own are not payable sums.

And r. 4(4) is a bridge that is easy to miss. Item 21 of the Second Schedule was described above as an importing provision; r. 4(4) deals with exactly that class of matter:

A probate matter that falls through item 21 into the First Schedule is therefore not outside the e-fee scheme: it is charged through subrule (1) and Part 1 of the Schedule, at 80% during the concessionary period, and rounded under r. 6 in the same way.

(Rule 8(1) is the e-fee counterpart of Cap. 4D r. 2(2): the Registrar may reduce, remit or defer payment of an e-fee as the Registrar considers appropriate in a particular case.)

Estate duty. Hong Kong abolished estate duty for deaths on or after 11 February 2006 — a date that recurs throughout Cap. 10 (ss. 15A(2), 24A(2), 24B, 49AA(2), 49AB, 60B(1)(a)(i), 60J(1)(a), 60K(1)(a)). Two qualifications survive it. The Estate Duty Ordinance (Cap. 111) remains in force and still governs earlier deaths; and Cap. 10 s. 50 still makes payment of estate duty a precondition of resealing (below).

Solicitors' fees. These are regulated — what is missing is a price, not a rule. The instrument is the Solicitors (General) Costs Rules (Cap. 159 sub. leg. G, version in force 12 November 2015), made under the Legal Practitioners Ordinance (Cap. 159) s. 74. Rule 2: "These rules apply to all solicitors’ non-contentious business except for any such business which is provided for or regulated by any other rules made under section 74(3) of the Ordinance." What Cap. 10A governs is, on the face of Cap. 10 s. 2, "non-contentious or common form probate business", which "means the business of obtaining probate and administration where there is no contention as to the right thereto".

The scales in Schedules 1 and 2 to those Rules price conveyancing documents — assignments, mortgages, debentures, leases and tenancy agreements, agreements for sale and purchase, reassignments and releases, deeds of mutual covenant. None of them prices the conduct of a probate application; Schedule 1 Part 1 paragraph 5(e) points the other way, sending "all assents and assignments by personal representatives or by trustees for which there is no consideration" to rule 5. Rule 5 is therefore what applies: "In the case of any non-contentious business to which neither Schedule 1 or 2 nor any other rules apply or in the event of a solicitor making an election under rule 3(5), costs shall be such sum as may be fair and reasonable, having regard to all the circumstances of the case and, in particular, to—(a) the complexity of the matter or the difficulty or novelty of the questions raised; (b) the skill, labour, specialized knowledge and responsibility involved on the part of the solicitor; (c) the number and importance of the documents prepared or perused without regard to length; (d) the place where and circumstances in which the business or any part thereof is transacted; (e) the time expended by the solicitor; (f) where money or property is involved, its amount or value; and (g) the importance of the matter to the client." That is a standard, not an amount.

Several steps a probate application cannot avoid do carry fixed amounts, under rule 4 and Schedule 3: $50.00 for administering and receiving any oath, affidavit or affirmation (item 4); $5.00 for marking each exhibit referred to in it (item 5); $50.00 for each certification of a copy document (item 2); $300.00 as a production fee for producing deeds (item 3); and, for copies, $3.00 a page in black and $8.00 a page in colour for the first 100 pages (item 1).

The bill is not beyond review. Cap. 159 s. 74(5): "So long as any rules made under this section are in operation, taxation of bills of costs of solicitors in respect of non-contentious business shall, subject to the provisions of section 5, be regulated by such rules." The Rules themselves are made by the Costs Committee under s. 74(3)(a) — rules "providing for the remuneration of solicitors in respect of non-contentious business" — and s. 74(4) requires the Chief Justice's prior approval for every one of them.

The schedule of assets: list them, but you need not value them

It is commonly said that each item must be valued at market value as at the date of death. The Ordinance says close to the opposite.

Cap. 10 s. 24A requires the application to be supported by an affidavit exhibiting a schedule. Section 24A(3):

The verb is "setting out", not "valuing". Read the section to its end and s. 24A(13) removes any doubt:

Subsection (14) adds the verification duty: an affidavit or corrective affidavit referred to in s. 24A(2), (4), (8) or (12) must verify the truthfulness and correctness of the schedule or additional schedule it exhibits, to the best of the deponent's knowledge, information and belief — the same obligation that s. 60K(3)(b) imposes on the $50,000 route below.

The qualifier sits in the immediately preceding subsection — the court or the Registrar may still require more:

Section 56 is a separate, later obligation, and it is triggered only on lawful requirement:

If the schedule turns out to be wrong, there is a statutory correction route, not a shrug. Sections 24A(4)–(5) cover inaccuracies discovered before the grant, and ss. 24A(8)–(9) after it — in the latter case the grant itself must be delivered to the Registry with the corrective affidavit (s. 24A(8)(b)), and the court may amend and return it (s. 24A(11)).

What the Inland Revenue Department actually does. Section 24B is narrow, one-directional, and time-limited:

That is a statutory transfer of information. It is not a scrutiny of the schedule by the IRD.

Money that can lawfully be released before the grant

There are four separate routes, with different thresholds. They are often conflated.

1. Funeral expenses and dependants' maintenance: the s. 60B certificate (a legal right)

Cap. 10 s. 2 defines who issues it:

Section 60B lets the Secretary issue a Certificate for Necessity of Release of Money against a bank account held by the deceased in his sole name. Section 60B(3) fixes the permitted purposes:

The operative words are at the end of s. 60B(4) — on presentation, the bank "shall" pay, not "may":

There is a further practical point in s. 60B(2). For funeral expenses alone, the applicant need not be someone intending to apply for a grant:

So "whether the bank releases funeral money is its own policy" is wrong as a statement of the law. The Ordinance provides a route: apply to the Secretary, present the certificate, and the bank shall pay.

(Safe deposit boxes have a parallel set: s. 60C, a Certificate for Necessity of Inspection of Bank Deposit Box; s. 60E, an Authorization for Removal from Bank Deposit Box — both issued by the Secretary. Between them sits s. 60D, which imposes the bank's obligation to allow inspection on presentation of the certificate and the inventory duty in s. 60D(3); the s. 60J(4) quotation above refers to "section 60B(4), 60D(1), (4) or (6) or 60E(4)".)

2. An estate of money not exceeding $50,000: the s. 60K confirmation notice

Section 60K(2) lets the Secretary, on the application of the executor or the person entitled in priority, issue a confirmation notice once satisfied by affidavit that:

Three conditions on this route are routinely skipped. First, its reach: s. 60K(1)(a) confines the whole section to deaths on or after 11 February 2006 (the same date that gates s. 60J(1)), and s. 60K(1)(b) confines it further to "any property situated in Hong Kong when the deceased concerned dies". Second, the form of the affidavit, s. 60K(3):

Third, a continuing duty to speak up after the notice issues, s. 60K(5):

Its effect is in s. 60K(9), and the effect is bounded — while the notice is in force, s. 60J(3), (6) and (7) do not apply to the holder's taking possession or administration of the scheduled property, and to nothing else:

Property outside the schedule is therefore not covered, and s. 60J(2) — dealing with estate property, or property held by the deceased as a trustee or the manager of a Tso or Tong, not set out in the schedule — is not displaced at all. Note also the constraint that the estate must consist of money — a flat or a share portfolio takes the estate outside it. Subsection (3)(a) requires the schedule "in duplicate" because s. 60K(4) requires a duplicate of it to be attached to the confirmation notice itself. If the Secretary later becomes satisfied on reasonable ground that the conditions were not met, the notice may be cancelled (s. 60K(6)); the holder must surrender it (s. 60K(7)); failing to do so is itself an offence at level 1 (s. 60K(8)). As to forms, s. 60K(10) works like Cap. 10A r. 2A: an application, affidavit, schedule or notice under the section "shall be in such form as the Secretary may determine".

3. A whole estate not exceeding $150,000: summary administration under s. 15

This is not a "small estate affirmation" filed with the court. It is the Official Administrator acting:

Cap. 10A r. 4(10) is how a family gets in:

Section 15A separately requires such an application to be supported by an affidavit exhibiting a schedule of assets and liabilities, for deaths on or after 11 February 2006.

⚠️ This route is not free, and what it charges is geared to the value of the estate. Section 19:

Note the base: the commission is charged on the gross value of property "received or taken possession of, or realized or otherwise dealt with, by the Official Administrator", not on the value of the estate as such. So "without any legal formality" in s. 15 means without a grant, not without cost. Where the Official Administrator deals with the whole of a $150,000 estate the scale produces $50 + $100 + $1,450 = $1,600, unless the court approves a lower rate on his application. The court fee for filing an ordinary application, by contrast, is a flat $265.00.

The same scale caps what an executor or administrator may be allowed for their own trouble. Section 60(2)(b):

Section 60(1) makes any such remuneration a matter for the court to allow in the first place, and s. 60(2)(a) denies it altogether to a representative who neglects to pass accounts when probate rules and orders require.

4. None of the above

Then the ordinary grant procedure applies — and the s. 60J clock has been running since the date of death.

Acting in person: what the Rules say

Acting without a solicitor is permitted, but Cap. 10A r. 4 draws some firm lines around a personal applicant that are worth reading in the original:

r. 4(3) adds three situations in which a personal application will not be received or proceeded with: where the matter must be brought before the court on motion or by action; where a solicitor has already applied on the applicant's behalf and has not withdrawn; or where the Registrar otherwise directs. r. 4(6) lets a personal applicant prepare the papers and lodge them unsworn — but the second half is not a free alternative:

Preparation in the Registry is triggered by a direction of the Registrar, and once directed the applicant "shall" supply the information. It is not a route the applicant chooses. Three neighbouring paragraphs matter too: r. 4(5) requires a certificate of death or such other evidence of the death as the Registrar may approve; r. 4(7) requires every oath, affidavit or guarantee on a personal application to be sworn or executed by all the deponents or obligors before an authorized officer, unless the Registrar otherwise directs; and r. 4(4) provides that a will once deposited by a personal applicant may not be delivered back except on the Registrar's direction in special circumstances.

Forms. You will see references to "NCP" and "NC" forms. Those designations appear nowhere in the Ordinance or the Rules. What Cap. 10A r. 2A says is:

Cap. 10 ss. 15A(7) and 24A(15) say the same of affidavits and schedules — in a form specified by the Registrar by general notice published in the Gazette. The right question is therefore "which forms does the current Gazette notice specify", not which form code to memorise.

Declining the job: renunciation, retraction, removal

Express renunciation, s. 29:

Constructive renunciation, s. 30, lets any person with (or claiming) an interest in the estate cite the executors to accept or renounce; default in appearance is deemed renunciation. The citation machinery is Cap. 10A r. 46: paragraph (1) is a citation to accept or refuse a grant, issued at the instance of a person who would himself be entitled if the person cited renounced; paragraph (2) is the citation to an executor for whom power to make a grant has been reserved — the very step that r. 32(1) above refers to as "on being cited to accept or refuse a grant". Every citation is settled by the Registrar before issue, verified by the citor's affidavit, preceded by a caveat and by lodging the will, and the person cited has 8 days to appear (r. 45). What happens next is in rr. 46(4)–(7). A person cited who is willing to accept or take the grant may apply ex parte to the Registrar for an order for a grant, on an affidavit showing that he has entered an appearance and has not been served with notice of any application for a grant to the citor (r. 46(4)). If the time for appearance expires with no appearance entered, the citor may apply for the order appropriate to the kind of citation (r. 46(5)), supported by an affidavit "showing that the citation was duly served and that the person cited has not entered an appearance" (r. 46(6)). If the person cited has appeared but has not applied for a grant, or "has failed to prosecute his application with reasonable diligence", the citor proceeds by summons (r. 46(7)). Two neighbouring rules complete the machinery: r. 47, the citation to propound a will, under which — if no person cited appears, or no person who has appeared "proceeds with reasonable diligence to propound the will" — "the citor may apply on motion for an order for a grant as if the will were invalid"; and r. 48: "All caveats, citations, warnings and appearances shall contain an address for service within the jurisdiction."

Where the executors fail. Section 35(1) lists six triggers — no executor appointed by the will; all executors legally incapable of acting or having renounced; no executor surviving the testator; all executors dying before obtaining probate or before administering the whole estate; executors failing to appear to a citation to prove or renounce; executors not applying for probate — on any of which "letters of administration with the will annexed may be granted to such person or persons as the court thinks fit". Section 35(2) then provides that the will is performed and exercised as if probate had been granted.

Renunciation can be retracted. It is often said that withdrawal after acting is difficult to reverse. Section 31 is more generous than that:

What follows retraction is s. 32:

(The asterisk points to the section's editorial note: commencement date 7 October 1971.)

Cap. 10A r. 35 has to be read as a pair. Paragraph (1) is permissive: renouncing probate as executor does not by itself renounce a right to a grant of administration in another capacity, unless expressly renounced. Paragraph (2) cuts the other way:

Removal, s. 33(3):

⚠️ But note the ordering problem. Under s. 60J, an executor who administers within the 12-month prescribed period without filing an application may commit an offence. So "I don't want to do this" is not a decision that can be left open indefinitely — renounce early rather than half-acting.

Overseas assets: resealing recognises five places, and only five

Hong Kong's resealing regime is Cap. 10 Part IV (ss. 48–52), headed "Sealing of Grants by Courts in Designated Countries etc." (Part V is a different subject — "Powers, Rights, Duties and Obligations of Personal Representatives".) Section 3(3) says the same thing:

So does Cap. 10A r. 41, headed "Sureties on resealing", which opens "On an application for the resealing of a grant of administration under Part IV of the Ordinance—".

Section 49:

Section 48 defines "designated country or place" as one specified in Schedule 2. Schedule 2, whose head reads "Designated Country or Place", has five entries in full:

This is a closed list. There is no Canada, no United States, no Mainland China, and no other Australian State. There is exactly one mechanism for changing it, s. 49A, and it turns on reciprocity:

Resealing is more than producing the foreign grant. Part IV runs to eight sections — ss. 48, 49, 49AA, 49AB, 49A, 50, 51 and 52 — and two of them mirror ss. 24A and 24B exactly.

Affidavit and schedule: s. 49AA. For deaths on or after 11 February 2006, s. 49AA(2):

The schedule required by subsection (3) is of the deceased's Hong Kong assets and liabilities — s. 49AA(1) defines "assets" as real or personal property situated in Hong Kong, and "liabilities" as liabilities contracted in Hong Kong to persons ordinarily resident here, or otherwise charged on the deceased's Hong Kong property. Correction before sealing is in subsections (4)–(5), correction after sealing in subsections (8)–(11), which require the grant and the sealing instrument to be delivered to the Registry. Subsection (7) requires the duplicate schedule to be annexed to the instrument effecting the sealing — and that is the schedule s. 60J(2) means when it speaks of estate property "not set out in the schedule". Subsection (13) matches the ordinary route: the value of assets other than cash need not be stated.

Inland Revenue: s. 49AB, the exact counterpart of s. 24B — within 1 month of receiving an application for sealing, the Registrar provides the Commissioner of Inland Revenue with the information he requires.

Estate duty: s. 50. (Note that s. 48 gives "estate duty" a wider meaning for the purposes of this Part than s. 2 does: it "includes any duty payable on the value of the estate and effects for which probate or letters of administration is or are granted".)

(That remains live for deaths before 11 February 2006, because Cap. 111 has not been repealed.) Its procedural half is Cap. 10A r. 43:

Sureties: s. 51 — and note its reach. It applies to letters of administration only, not to probate:

Cap. 10A r. 41 is drawn the same way: it opens with words limited to letters of administration: "On an application for the resealing of a grant of administration under Part IV of the Ordinance—". And r. 41(a) sets the same default as for an ordinary administration — no sureties:

So a person resealing a foreign probate is outside s. 51 and r. 41 altogether; and even for letters of administration the default is that no surety is required. Rule 41(b) applies rr. 5(4) and 38(2), (4), (5) and (6) with any necessary modifications.

Part IV closes with s. 52, "Duplicate or copy admissible":

Get the direction right. Schedule 2 governs bringing a foreign grant into Hong Kong for sealing. Whether a Hong Kong grant is usable in some other place is a question for that place's own law.

Guarding against unknown claims: Cap. 10A r. 60A

The standard executor's fear is distributing and then meeting a creditor. There is a formal mechanism for it, and it is more than "put an advertisement in the paper":

The content of the notices and the time limit are specified by the Registrar's order.

A second protection sits outside Cap. 10A. Cap. 481 s. 22(1) provides that a personal representative who distributes any part of the estate after the end of 6 months from the date on which representation was first taken out is not liable on the ground that he ought to have taken into account the possibility that the court might permit a late s. 4 application, or might exercise its s. 8 powers — without prejudice to recovery of the distributed property. That is the answer to the Cap. 481 s. 6 row in the period table above. Cap. 481 s. 21(3) also requires a copy of every order under that Ordinance (other than an order under s. 17(1)) to be sent to the Probate Registry of the High Court for entry and filing, with a memorandum of the order endorsed on, or permanently annexed to, the grant.

How much passes on intestacy: the two statutory net sums

A grant of letters of administration settles who may deal with the estate; how much each person takes is fixed separately by section 4 of the Intestates' Estates Ordinance (Cap. 73). The section charges the residuary estate with a net sum for the surviving spouse first: $500,000 where the intestate leaves a spouse and issue (s. 4(3)), and $1,000,000 where the intestate leaves a spouse but no issue and a parent, a whole-blood sibling or the issue of one survives (s. 4(4)). Neither figure is a cap — it is a sum taken off the top, charged on the residuary estate excluding the personal chattels rather than on the gross estate, with the balance then divided in half under the section. Section 4(13) lets the Legislative Council vary either sum by resolution, so both are variable and should be checked against the provision in force. The full distribution table is in the intestacy rules ; the intestate succession calculator works out each class's statutory share from the surviving relatives.

Quick reference