probate house & selling

meercat1

Hello all,
can anyone tell me if you can sell a house after death before you have a probate licence, or gone through probate?
My grandfather past away and had a will, the executors have put the house up and excepted an offer, but i'm not sure they can as they are still going through probate??

Ian_W

They can put it up for sale and accept an offer but can't, afaik, complete the sale until probate has been granted. It need only take a few months for probate to be granted to the executors, when my late MIL passed away last year probate was granted within about 4 months.

G_M

presumably the property is in your grandfather's name? If so, although the executers can 'accept an offer' they will be unable to sell until a grant of probate is issued. See here.

sonastin

My friend's father passed away suddenly while he was in the middle of selling his house. The executors of his estate were able to get an emergency grant of probate to finish off the sale, while the rest of the probate stuff took a few more months to come through. I don't know how this was done or if it is an option in this situation but it might be worth looking into...

timmyt

meercat1 wrote: »

Hello all,
can anyone tell me if you can sell a house after death before you have a probate licence, or gone through probate?
My grandfather past away and had a will, the executors have put the house up and excepted an offer, but i'm not sure they can as they are still going through probate??

i can sell your house and contract to do so...up to the point of completion where I must at that point procure a transfer from you to the buyer. the executor can sign it, as their power derives from the will, but who is to say they are dealing with the latest will....so the land registry will reject as they wont probate. probate is legal recognition that the will produced to the probate regiustry is the most up to date, and validly prepared.

bandofbrothers

When my father passed i instructed my solicitors to deal with the grant of probate etc.
This was a little more expensive to do but to be honest at the time i didnt want to be running around dealing with it.
I put the house up for ale and the solicitors dealt with changing all the paperwork over etc and provided me with a copy of the grant of probate which really just shows legally that you can sell.

martindow

bandofbrothers wrote: »

When my father passed i instructed my solicitors to deal with the grant of probate etc.
This was a little more expensive to do but to be honest at the time i didnt want to be running around dealing with it.
I put the house up for ale and the solicitors dealt with changing all the paperwork over etc and provided me with a copy of the grant of probate which really just shows legally that you can sell.

You don't need to use a solicitor as it is just form filling. In fact there are horror stories on solicitors taking many months and charging many thousands.

If you use a solicitor you will still have to find all of the information needed which will be the bulk of the work. The probate telephone helpline is very good.

timmyt

martindow wrote: »

You don't need to use a solicitor as it is just form filling. In fact there are horror stories on solicitors taking many months and charging many thousands.

If you use a solicitor you will still have to find all of the information needed which will be the bulk of the work. The probate telephone helpline is very good.

as an ex-probate solicitor, my advice - use a solicitor (and make sure it is a 'solicitor' you get for you fee, as no other professional is good enough).

I am even worrried about doing my parents, as the potential for errors is massive. that future knock on the door by:

1. someone who holds a more up to date will - dear god that is the worst to happen
2. the Inland REvenue for not delcaring tax during life and during admin period
3. by a creditor that you had not discovered
4. ...........

How many clients did I take over their probate admin because they started to mess up, or they got that knock on the door,

Be very very careful!

GavB79

bandofbrothers wrote: »

I put the house up for ale

Unusual approach :beer: