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Executor not valueing property?
dutchcloggie
Posts: 239 Forumite
Hi,
When my wife died, I paid a company to sort out the will for me as I was the sole executor and had no idea about probate and stuff like that. I paid a fair bit of cash for the luxury of not having to think about it at all.
They asked me to give them the value of all my wife's assets which I did. It also included a 50% share in a house, a share which I inherited.
The solicitors asked me how much the house was worth. I had no idea and said: I don't know, I think about £100,000.
The solicitor never had the house valued as part of the estate and I had no idea this might be a requirement.
I have now sold my share of the house for £50,000, based on the presumption that the solicitors agreed with my entirely random valuation of the house 2 years ago. I did not have the house valued when I sold my share as I thought: if it was worth £100,000 2 years ago, being given £50,000 for it now is a good deal for me.
Friends of mine however told me recently that the house is likely to be worth much more than £100,000 and that the solicitor should have had it valued legally to obtain the correct value of the entire estate.
Is this true? Should they legally have had it valued? I have never owned a house so I based my valuation of £100,000 on the estate agent who rented the house out on my wife's behalf. He said it might roughly be worth between £75-95,000 but this was just in a phone call to me and no official valuation was done.
Unless the house turns out to be worth £250,00, I am not really looking to take action against the solicitors but I am wondering if they acted unlawfully by just accepting my word for the value of the house. I mean, I could have said anything.
Just seems they were not very precise in their dealings.
When my wife died, I paid a company to sort out the will for me as I was the sole executor and had no idea about probate and stuff like that. I paid a fair bit of cash for the luxury of not having to think about it at all.
They asked me to give them the value of all my wife's assets which I did. It also included a 50% share in a house, a share which I inherited.
The solicitors asked me how much the house was worth. I had no idea and said: I don't know, I think about £100,000.
The solicitor never had the house valued as part of the estate and I had no idea this might be a requirement.
I have now sold my share of the house for £50,000, based on the presumption that the solicitors agreed with my entirely random valuation of the house 2 years ago. I did not have the house valued when I sold my share as I thought: if it was worth £100,000 2 years ago, being given £50,000 for it now is a good deal for me.
Friends of mine however told me recently that the house is likely to be worth much more than £100,000 and that the solicitor should have had it valued legally to obtain the correct value of the entire estate.
Is this true? Should they legally have had it valued? I have never owned a house so I based my valuation of £100,000 on the estate agent who rented the house out on my wife's behalf. He said it might roughly be worth between £75-95,000 but this was just in a phone call to me and no official valuation was done.
Unless the house turns out to be worth £250,00, I am not really looking to take action against the solicitors but I am wondering if they acted unlawfully by just accepting my word for the value of the house. I mean, I could have said anything.
Just seems they were not very precise in their dealings.
0
Comments
-
Find out what the house is worth.
Remember 1/2 house is often not worth the same as 1/2 a full house as there is usualy only one buyer the one that allready owns the other 1/2.0 -
Valuation is not an exact science - whilst the solicitor may not have paid for a formal valuation he may have used his own knowledge of the area or rung an estate agent mate.
AFAIK there's no legal requirement for a formal valuation - it makes dealings with HMRC easier should they take an interest but that's it0
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