Transfer of house deeds after parents died

vegasgo

My father died in 2011. He did not have a will and we did not obtain probate as everything passed over to his wife.

Earlier this year his wife - my mum - died. They are survived by myself and my sister, and mum left us everything in her will. We have obtained probate and there is no inheritance tax to pay as we used dad's share to double the threshold barrier.

My parents house - mortgage free and valued at 300k - was in my dad's name on the deeds, and we did not change it over to my mum's when he died.

We intend to sell the house but are somewhat confused as to whether we need to change the names on the deeds to ourselves, or one of us, as I have read that to sell a property on behalf of the estate does not require this.

I can transfer the title deeds on the land reg website for £80 but the form is somewhat complicated.

One set of solicitors wants to charge us £1200 to change the title deeds.

Can anyone shed any light on the best course of action? Thanks.

Savvy_Sue

Wait for Land Registry Rep to see your post - may be Monday but I'm sure s/he will be able to advise.

Pretty sure you won't need to spend over £1k on this!

antrobus

vegasgo wrote: »

....One set of solicitors wants to charge us £1200 to change the title deeds.

Can anyone shed any light on the best course of action? Thanks.

Get quotes from further sets of solicitors.

missile

£1200 seems extortionate, I would suggest looking for a.n.other solicitor to do the conveyancing when you come to sell.

Mojisola

My Dad was recently charged just over £400 after Mum died but that included registering the house for the first time at the LR.

If the house is already registered, it's easy to change the ownership.

If it needs to be registered, the cost will depend on how old the house is and how much paperwork is actually in the deeds. Dad's is a 1970s house with about five changes of ownership.

Dunroamin

missile wrote: »

£1200 seems extortionate, I would suggest looking for a.n.other solicitor to do the conveyancing when you come to sell.

It's a tiny percentage of £300K.

Mojisola

Dunroamin wrote: »

It's a tiny percentage of £300K.

It is, but if it's also twice or three times what someone else would charge, it doesn't make sense to pay it.

cabbage

Hi

I'm not sure there is a need to change the deeds if you are selling. You will need to produce your dads death certificate and the Will showing that your mum inherited and then her death certificate and will and also grant of probate. This will show how the property has been passed down.

Don't do anything until the land reg rep posts to confirm whether I'm right or not

Mojisola

cabbage wrote: »

Hi

I'm not sure there is a need to change the deeds if you are selling. You will need to produce your dads death certificate and the Will showing that your mum inherited and then her death certificate and will and also grant of probate. This will show how the property has been passed down.

Don't do anything until the land reg rep posts to confirm whether I'm right or not

This is what our solicitor said would be fine to do as well but then the house had to be registered with the LR so that the council could put a charge on it under the deferred payment for care scheme, so obviously the name change went ahead as well.

vegasgo

Thank you to everyone who has replied, what a great forum this is.

Ideally, going with cabbage had to say makes sense and is easiest - hopefully the land reg rep can confirm.

missile

Dunroamin wrote: »

It's a tiny percentage of £300K.

So what?

It is far more than I paid to buy and register my own property, which is worth more than £300K