Probate - Estate Valuations - is RICS necessary?

Daniel987

Hi all,

Quick question. Going through the motions with probate including a property valuation. I've got a handful of local estate agents carrying out a valuation.

One of them mentioned that a solicitor would want a RICS report. Now every chartered surveyor i've spoken to wants £300-400 for a valuation (despite many on here saying that £100 is about right!!). Do I really need a RICS valuation or would three well known estate agents be enough?

We are going through probate on our own as the value of the assets is below IHT threshold and the estate is very simple (no debts, two bank accounts, no shares, no credit cards, etc).

EDIT: Just to add property is valued at around £260k, so not going over the IHT threshold even with all savings and assets.

Thanks

Sues48

I'm going through the same thing myself and have spoken to someone from HMRC today who told me that they don't ask for any proof of the property valuation and we can either use our own estimate, or get a n estate agent to value the property. Like you there will be no IHT to pay as the value of the property and savings are well below the threshold.

Daniel987

Yeah, i'm going forwards without a Chartered Surveyors quote. I'm getting letters from 4 Estate agents. This is a lot but I have quite a few within a 5 minute walk!

I've found the estate agents to be really helpful. They have all come round next day, bang on the agreed time, and had a look around. One came back same day to drop off the valuation letter.

This is a very very common process for them and they are all bending over backwards to help because they know there is a chance the house will go on the sell or rental market after probate.

A few have asked for money for this, anywhere from £90 to £150 but I have no used them (why when the next guy will do it for free?).

If the house was near or over the IHT threshold I would probably think again about a CS simply because you're in 'You owe the govt. money' territory. Given this is well under I'm not that fussed.

troubleinparadise

We were over the IHT threshhold, and had provided a RICs qualified surveyors valuation - at a cost of £100 - but the house was only worth £240K.

This was passed to HMRC's Compliance department for checking via the local District Valuer.... and after 5 months I've heard it has been accepted.

So it does happen - don't know what the trigger is, but of course slightly concerning!

Daniel987

If I could find a RIC qualified surveyor for £100 I would do that!!

However as I said above they all want £300-400!! Maybe it's just London!

LutonGirl

Hi Daniel987, I've applied for probate using just one valuation from a local agent for my Father's house. I didn't need to include anything from the agent to prove it, just typed the value in a box on the form. The paperwork came back OK two days ago with a court date to swear the oath in a few weeks time.

My Father's estate seems about the same value as the one you are dealing with.

Good luck with it all. It's daunting.

Daniel987

LutonGirl wrote: »

Hi Daniel987, I've applied for probate using just one valuation from a local agent for my Father's house. I didn't need to include anything from the agent to prove it, just typed the value in a box on the form. The paperwork came back OK two days ago with a court date to swear the oath in a few weeks time.

My Father's estate seems about the same value as the one you are dealing with.

Good luck with it all. It's daunting.

Thanks, out of interest how long did it take them to approve the probate and invite you for the oath?

Was it a simple estate?

SCAT2012

When we did probate for MIL, we got valuations from two estate agents and used the average figure for the valuation on the forms.

We got an appointment letter about two weeks after we had posted off our application. It depends on how busy the probate office is that you requested how long you have to wait before the appointment. Ours was about 2 and a half weeks, but the office was very busy.

Hermia

My mother died recently and I did the probate myself. I just came up with my own valuation based on selling prices in the last year for similar properties in the area. They were fine about that and the probate went through with no problems.

blossomhill_2

Our experience was similar to Lutongirl but the agent gave us a printout of sales particular for a similar house in the road, so we could provide evidence of the local market if asked, and advised us to clip any similar ads from local property papers too.
We didn't have to provide any evidence and probate went through simply and quickly without a solicitor or any RICS involvement.

After the valuation the EA kept emailing and phoning so we had to remind them that contact details had been given to them for the purpose of the "no obligation" valuation only, and they stopped

I'd ditch 3 of your 4 EAs if you can!

LutonGirl

Hi Daniel - It took about 10 working days to get the paperwork back. (I was sweating a bit as I was so worried about doing the form correctly, I forgot to put my cheque in with the application, but a quick call to the very lovely and helpful man called Ted at the probate office meant I posted it separately with a covering letter).

A fairly simple estate, house, some shares, some savings, premium bonds etc. Luckily my Mum was VERY organised and had all the paperwork up to spec well before she died. Dad followed her filing system more or less so we were able to locate all the necessary information.

Some of it has to be pure guesswork, for example, the value of the home contents. Without knowing the actual price and depreciation of every blessed thing in the home, how can you tell accurately? We worked on the assumption that they would question us if something seemed massively out of kilter.