As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly distribute personal possessions from an estate.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the original will, any codicil, the grant of probate or letters of administration, and estate correspondence, then copy the relevant wording into a separate working document.
   2. Make an inventory of each possession with an item ID, description, location, condition, photographs if useful, known owner and any person who claims it.
   3. Record the beneficiaries, specific gifts and any agreements already made, separating confirmed facts from family views or assumptions.
   4. Paste the documents and inventory into a chatbot using the supplied prompt, asking it to produce the allocation table, withheld-items list, beneficiary message and handover record.
   5. Compare every proposed allocation with the exact will wording, ownership evidence and recorded beneficiary agreements, and remove any allocation based only on an AI inference.
   6. Send the neutral proposal to the relevant beneficiaries, keep their replies with the estate records, and ask a solicitor about any disputed item or unclear authority before handing it over.
   7. For each agreed handover, complete the item ID, recipient, date, condition and confirmation fields, then retain the signed or written acknowledgement with the estate records.

   Prompt

   Help me organise the distribution of personal possessions from a UK estate. This is not professional advice. Do not decide legal ownership, interpret the will conclusively, or tell me that a disputed item can safely be given away. Use only the information I provide and mark missing, contradictory or uncertain facts clearly.
   
   Estate information:
   - Person who died: [name or identifier]
   - My role and authority: [executor, administrator, beneficiary or other]
   - Relevant wording from the will or other documents: [paste exact wording]
   - Known beneficiaries and any specific gifts: [list]
   - Possessions inventory, including condition and approximate location: [paste table or list]
   - Known ownership claims, loans, sentimental importance or disputes: [list]
   - Preferences already agreed by beneficiaries: [list]
   
   Produce:
   1. A clean inventory with an ID for each item, description, evidence of ownership, condition, location, possible recipient and uncertainty.
   2. A separate list of items that should not be distributed yet because the information is missing, ownership is disputed, the will may be relevant, or professional advice may be needed.
   3. A proposed allocation table based only on clear instructions and recorded agreements. Do not make a legal decision where the documents are unclear.
   4. A neutral message to beneficiaries explaining the proposed process and asking them to confirm or raise specific objections by [date].
   5. A handover record with item ID, recipient, date, condition, confirmation and signature fields.
   6. A short list of questions to take to a UK solicitor, especially about disputed ownership, specific gifts, jointly owned items, minors, creditors or beneficiaries who cannot be found.
   
   Do not invent facts, values, beneficiaries, deadlines or legal rules. Quote the exact document wording when relying on it, and label every inference as an inference.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.