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Selling house after death of parents

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Jagnew
Jagnew Posts: 2 Newbie
in House buying, renting & selling
My mum died recently and my dad died 8 yrs ago. The house passed to my mum when he died and now that my mum has passed, the house has passed to myself and 3 brothers through her will. It was agreed by us that I would handle closing bank accounts etc which I have done but I'm not sure how to handle the sale of the house. I have the deeds, all mortgage free. Can we sell the house with my mums will as proof of ownership and signed agreements from my brothers or do we need to get the house ownership re registered?

Thanks
John

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  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,557 Forumite
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    Jagnew wrote: »
    My mum died recently and my dad died 8 yrs ago. The house passed to my mum when he died and now that my mum has passed, the house has passed to myself and 3 brothers through her will. It was agreed by us that I would handle closing bank accounts etc which I have done but I'm not sure how to handle the sale of the house. I have the deeds, all mortgage free. Can we sell the house with my mums will as proof of ownership and signed agreements from my brothers or do we need to get the house ownership re registered?

    You will need probate or letters of administration if she didn't leave a will.
  • 00ec25
    00ec25 Posts: 9,123 Forumite
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    you MUST apply for probate, until you get that no purchaser will be able to complete the purchase of the house as their solicitor will not allow them. Only probate gives you the legal power to sell the property.

    with probate you are then selling it as what is technically called your mother's executor (given she had a will and the will presumably names you as executor. if the will names someone else as executor they they must apply for probate, not you. if the will does not appoint an executor at all the validity of the will may be suspect and you are then in a position of "intestacy" in which case you still need to get probate but would do so as what is technically called a personal representative. In both cases there is no need to re-register the property in anyone else's name, it remains in your mother's

    https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance
  • G_M
    G_M Posts: 51,977 Forumite
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    edited 18 June 2017 at 8:53PM
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    You need to appy for Probate, and receive a "Grant of Probate" before you can sell.

    You cannot get a Grant of Probate till you have

    * valued the entire Estate and completed the relevant Inheritance Tax forms, and

    * paid the Inheritance Tax due (though there are dispensations where a property needs selling in order to pay the tax).

    See

    https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/overview

    and

    https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax

    This forum is also useful:

    http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=217


    I found this very useful. It was free at my local library:
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Probate-obtaining-probate-administering-estate/dp/1845284097/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,557 Forumite
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    Jagnew wrote: »
    I have the deeds, all mortgage free.

    It sounds as if the house hasn't been registered with the Land Registry so that's another job that will need doing.
  • teddysmum
    teddysmum Posts: 9,471 Forumite
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    Mojisola wrote: »
    It sounds as if the house hasn't been registered with the Land Registry so that's another job that will need doing.


    When my father died ,he left a diy will and his house had deeds. My parents bought it in 1976 and I don't remember having to contact the Land Registry.


    My sister and I sold without a solicitor and the only paperwork, other than asking for probate to be granted (you need a rough idea of the house's value for this ; freebie quotes from a couple of estate agents) I recall, was the paperwork I sent to the buyers' solicitor. He was very helpful and just requested that I rewrite with a couple of word changes to make things clear.
  • G_M
    G_M Posts: 51,977 Forumite
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    Mojisola wrote: »
    It sounds as if the house hasn't been registered with the Land Registry so that's another job that will need doing.
    Why?

    The buyer will register the property.

    Provided the OP has

    * a Grant of Probate, to satisfy the Land Registry and seller he is entitled to sell his mum's house, and

    * the Deeds, to satisfy the buyer the house actually belonged to his mum,

    there is no problem.
  • Ithaca
    Ithaca Posts: 269 Forumite
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    Sorry for your loss.

    We bought a probate sale a couple of years ago and our vendors were in a very similar position to you (a couple of siblings selling their late parents' home). The house was owned from new in 1964 and had never been registered but our solicitor dealt with the first registration at the Land Registry as part of the purchase process.

    As others have noted our vendors had to apply for probate but as it was a straight-forward case (which yours sounds like it should be too) they were able to run the probate process alongside the sale process. I think the probate took around 8-10 weeks and the house sale (from first going on the market to completion) took around four months, so probate was finalised well before we needed to exchange contracts. As buyers we had to accept a risk of delays if there were any complications in the probate process but it all went very smoothly.

    Because the deeds had never been through the registration process our solicitor spent a fair amount of time checking there were no hidden covenants or other mistakes in the title but that was all covered under our conveyancing costs as buyers.
  • martindow
    martindow Posts: 10,218 Forumite
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    Jagnew wrote: »
    I would handle closing bank accounts etc which I have done
    Maybe probate has already been obtained? Or possibly banks have been informed and frozen the accounts rather than releasing the money.
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