Inherited 1/3 of a house

GavB79

Sorry for your loss

DVardysShadow

Asianchick wrote: »

The beneficiaries arent brewing for a fight and there have been no squabbles about the will. Just that we havent spoken to one of the siblings for a while. Dont think he'll make trouble at all as we all want the house sold. Still coming to terms with the death of a parent and dont want to reopen old wounds.

Not trying to get anyone to drink from a poison chalice. The executor is happy to do it but the solicitor is saying no.

The solicitor will have seen it more times than the executor has.

hbklea

wills cause so many problems, just do what the solicitor says. 10 years ago my grandad passed away, the house was left to my older brother with a gentlemans agreement between them that the house would be sold and split between me, my sis and bro. however he kept it, did it up, rented it for years taking all the profit, then got caught having an affair so his ex wife now lives there with her new family. yes 10 years on i'm still rather angry, but this is why u do what the solicitor says. when money and family are involved things can turn nasty quite easily.

g_attrill

I think the solicitor can do a "deed of variation" where a will can be altered if all the beneficiaries agree, but presumably it isn't possible or feasible in this case, or the solicitor can't be bothered.

henpecked1

funny how the relatives move on from a loss and get down to the money making...

be grateful you have a share of the house. it will be little work for big reward selling it.

Asianchick

henpecked1 wrote: »

funny how the relatives move on from a loss and get down to the money making...

be grateful you have a share of the house. it will be little work for big reward selling it.

I hope you're not referring to me here. The death of my dad is far from funny. I would rather he was still here than any material object so please watch what you're insinuating here.

Doozergirl

That was below the belt. The practical things do have to be dealt with still and the OP is asking for advice.

Think it might be simpler to bite the bullet OP and put it up for sale yourselves. If you don't really speak then hopefully your brother will agree to it being sold rather than prolonging the agony. Try to be realistic about pricing as setting sights high initially could be a source of disagreement down the line if one of you insists it's worth more than the others do.

Sorry you have to go through this. Makes you think about what is the appropriate amount of detail to put into a will. Not sure that people will be happy whether it has to be sold or simply transferred. My friend was upset that her mum's house had to be sold during the downturn. She'd have preferred to be able to wait.

julieq

Sorry for your loss, and ignore the petty comments. It's your business what you would like to do, and you don't have to put the whys and wherefores on the internet.

I'd be pretty sure you could get a deed of variation. To do that all three beneficiaries need to agree and then the solicitor draws up an agreement. The problem is it costs money and everyone needs to be in agreement. If you're in agreement then there's no real need to have a deed of variation, one of you can just handle the sale and you can agree what offer to accept as and when. Thats what I did with my siblings on my father's death, then we had a lot more difficulty on my (divorced) mother's death because of an estrangement and the fact one of the siblings believed he had more of a moral claim than another, that took a solicitor and a lot of talking to get through.

If there are problems getting to an agreement, remember that strong emotions are very prevalant around the death of a parent or close loved one, and these emotions can often pop up in surprising ways, including through disputes between beneficiaries. Often this is about feelings of relative closeness to a parent, they can be about feelings that one sibling didn;t have something the others had, and so on. And you've often just lost the higher authority to which you'd previously have referred these feelings to for resolution, the parent, so it can get very fraught indeed.

If this happens, take a step back before threatening legal action or getting into a row. Just say that the house will still be there in a couple of months so let's give time to let tempers cool and decide what to do.

Sometimes a house needs to be sold anyway to pay inheritance tax, and that's the estate's problem because the IR are not very accomodating.

Asianchick

Thanks JulieQ and Doozergirl.

I think we'll try to sell it ourselves. I dont want to go down any legal route with any of my relatives.

I'm probably just being a coward and avoiding any confrontation with him. Not that he'll be confrontational. I'm just assuming.

Maybe this was my dad's way of trying to get us to get along. lol