Transfer property according to a will

carl916

Hi all,

My father recently passed away and left a will which states that my sister and I are the only 2 executors of the will and are both entitled to an equal share of the entire estate.

The estate includes a flat with a £30k mortgage. We plan to pay off the mortgage once we have probate and are considering letting the flat.

My question is, will we need to have a solicitor transfer the property into both of our names and how much is this likely to cost?

Thanks

Carl

clutton_2

once you have probate and the mortgage is paid off, you can ask your local land registry for help to do it yourself.... its very easy filling in a form .. but probate has to come first.. and if dad's estate is quite simple then you can do Probate yourself.. its simply a matter of adding up his assets, adding up his debts, filling in the form, taking it to your local office, paying the fee.. and hey presto job done


it is my understanding that once your father has passed away, then all payments from his accounts cease.. but the mortgage interest continues to rack up.. i would see if you can pay the monthly mortgage in the meantime, it cant be a huge monthly sum, in order to prevent further Building Society fees racking up....

carl916

Thanks clutton. We have already applied for probate as the estate is quite simple. Once we have probate we are going to claim on a policy designed to pay off the mortgage so this may take a while to come through. We are also trying to cancel as many other incomes/expenditures as possible as we are aware that the account will be/has been frozen.

I'm a bit unclear as to the impact of the account being frozen. Will this mean that any mortgage payments will not be made? The mortgage is interest only. Should we inform the bank the mortgage is with that payment may fail?
Do you think we need to arrange to pay the mortgage ourselves until we are able to pay it off or until an executors account has been set up?

Carl

DVardysShadow

Knowing nothing about probate, common courtesy suggests you inform the lender ASAP. If the account goes into arrears you may end up dealing with one of the less pleasant customer facing departments. Or worse.

As for the mortgage policy, inform the insurer too, ASAP and take advice. If you do not inform the insurer, they may just cancel the policy when the payment does not arrive and then you have another totally unwanted interaction with the wrong customer facing department. I cannot see the need to wait for probate - the Insured is deceased, so the claim can be processed on Death Cert, I would think - probate is only required for the payout to be made. But check it out. I know nothing about this.