Can someone explain how this is right?

Ames

Caroline

I know that the estate is separate. But there's no money in the estate, and as I said the mortgage company have a suspended possession order. So if the mortgage doesn't get paid the house will be repossessed and no-one will get anything. At that point I will be in legal trouble as administrator as I had the chance to sell (to sister) and refused. Fred can't afford to pay the mortgage, so I have to help Fred out or the house gets taken away from him and he wont be able to give me any inheritance.

Fred will pay the solicitor - if Fred has any money. I assume that if the house gets repossessed and Fred has no money then they wont just say 'oh, ok, forget our bill'. As the one who engaged them, I'll have to pay. And ditto above about me being in trouble for being irresponsible by turning down sister's offer.

Yes, the other debts will be written off if Fred can't cover them, but again I suspect they could chase me for maladministration of the estate if I turn down this offer and then the house is repossessed and doesn't raise enough to cover debts.

If sister takes over the estate and makes a mess of it we'd both pay as the cost would fall on the estate.


Dancingfairy

I've taken the first steps. I've emailed dad to say no way to the house being rented out before the sale goes through. I think he had this crazy idea that it would all be done under sister's name and the little fact of her not owning the house for the first few days/weeks wouldn't matter if we didn't tell anyone (ie, the bank, taxman, solicitors, insurance firms, letting agents....)

I've also unplugged the phone.

Next step is to get an appointment with the contention solicitor and then see what he has to say. I suspect it'll be 'yes they've acted wrongly, there's no legal reason to reimburse dad all his supposed costs, sister should be covering her share of costs etc etc, but it'll cost so much to sort it out it's not worth it'. Actually, he probably won't say the last bit, cos he'll want to make money out of it all, but it'll be pretty easy to do the sums.

Caroline_a

Ah but there IS money in the estate. Fred owns a house. If he puts it up for sale but cannot pay the mortgage then as you have done there will be a hold-off on repossession. However, if you pay Fred's bills then Fred owes you... And if you pay (amounts for ease of calculation) £5000, and the house is sold for £100k then fredhas to pay you before any other monies are paid out (same as any other debts to the estate). If sister pays £100k to Fred for the house, then her share of the assets have to be reduced by £2.5k.

Personally I would let it go through, then sue her for the amount owing - half of anything you have paid out plus half of the car.

Ames

Ah, sorry I got confused. I'm talking about if I turn down sister's offer, I'll have to cover Fred's bills for who knows how long until the house sells. I just can't afford to do that any longer.

jojo1974

Ames, I've been reading through your through your thread over the last couple of days and I am hoping I can offer a little clarity.

I have recently been an executor and employed a solicitor to do a lot of the work for me, this has helped a lot in my understanding of the process.

As an executor you are legally obliged to get the best outcome from beneficiaries (I believe this also applies to administrators)

This would therefore mean that if you accepted your sisters offer at lower than market value (as prices have gone up) then you are not fulfilling your obligation.

If the property was repossessed then this would be sold and any money would pay off the mortgage and the remainder goes to the estate. Therefore all creditors would get paid out of the left over amount and then the remainder split equally between you and your sister.

Although I can't see how the mortgage is still payable as I thought it was law to have insurance policies in place that paid off mortgages on death? I'm sure someone can clarify this

It feels to me that this has become far more complicated than it needs to be.

If I were in your position I would stand back and look at things from a distance. It seems to me that the way this is going you are running up debt each day on the estate. Maybe it's time to start from scratch otherwise there is a strong chance you will end up with nothing.

Jo x

nom_de_plume

Given the issues with cash flow, is it too late in the day to hand the whole lot over to a different specialist probate solicitor and let them deal with finalising the estate in it's entirety? They would have the funds to make the property secure and deal with any maintenance issues and the clout to deal with lenders and local authorities and, importantly, troublesome family members.

This additional expense would reduce the final value of the estate to be distributed but, I suspect, it will be your sister and father who suffer the bulk of that reduction.

Savvy_Sue

jojo1974 wrote: »

Although I can't see how the mortgage is still payable as I thought it was law to have insurance policies in place that paid off mortgages on death? I'm sure someone can clarify this.

You thought wrong. We have a joint mortgage: DH has life insurance which will pay it off if he pops his clogs, I do not. I wouldn't say I was uninsurable, but some people pretty much are, and we struggled to get a quote for me so gave up.

(When we come to get travel insurance, it's usually the other way round: I'm easy to get quotes for, he's a nightmare. Go figure.)

Ames

Thanks everyone.

Jojo - as Savvy_Sue said, it's not the law that you have to have insurance to pay off a mortgage on death. Probably because it would be unenforcable - you can't really take a dead person to court for not having it! Mum didn't have insurance, she said she couldn't afford the premiums.

I was concerned that selling below market value would mean I was failing in my duty to the estate, but my solicitor said otherwise. As I've said before though, it's not below market value. Especially since prices aren't going up in Scarborough, for a lot of the time they were still falling (not entirely sure what theyr'e doing now). My main issue around value is that it's fallen due to the actions of dad and sister. Again though, I raised this with the solicitor and all she did was remind me that I'd be in trouble if I didn't accept the offer.

nom de plume - it's far too late to up sticks and move to another solicitor. Mainly because I have no way of paying the current firm's bill, which is already due and will start accruing interest in a couple of weeks. And I don't think a solicitor's firm would pay for maintenance etc on the property, especially as I'd have a track record of running up legal fees and jumping ship. The current solicitor certainly wont pay maintenance or other costs that fall on the estate, so I doubt any would.


Not much new to report. Dad's confirmed with their solicitor that stamp duty won't be due as the purchase price is £100k, not the value of £145k.

Still waiting for an appointment with the contention guy.

g6jns_2

Ames wrote: »

Thanks everyone.

Jojo - as Savvy_Sue said, it's not the law that you have to have insurance to pay off a mortgage on death. Probably because it would be unenforcable - you can't really take a dead person to court for not having it! Mum didn't have insurance, she said she couldn't afford the premiums.

I was concerned that selling below market value would mean I was failing in my duty to the estate, but my solicitor said otherwise. As I've said before though, it's not below market value. Especially since prices aren't going up in Scarborough, for a lot of the time they were still falling (not entirely sure what theyr'e doing now). My main issue around value is that it's fallen due to the actions of dad and sister. Again though, I raised this with the solicitor and all she did was remind me that I'd be in trouble if I didn't accept the offer.

nom de plume - it's far too late to up sticks and move to another solicitor. Mainly because I have no way of paying the current firm's bill, which is already due and will start accruing interest in a couple of weeks. And I don't think a solicitor's firm would pay for maintenance etc on the property, especially as I'd have a track record of running up legal fees and jumping ship. The current solicitor certainly wont pay maintenance or other costs that fall on the estate, so I doubt any would.


Not much new to report. Dad's confirmed with their solicitor that stamp duty won't be due as the purchase price is £100k, not the value of £145k.

Still waiting for an appointment with the contention guy.

Why don't you put the property up for auction?

Ames

I had a look at auction results for the area and the prices for much bigger better houses were so low that it would be lucky to get enough to pay off the mortgage let alone the rest of the debts. IIRC five bedroom four storey townhouses were going for five figure sums. Who'd go for a bog standard semi instead at the same price?

g6jns_2

Ames wrote: »

I had a look at auction results for the area and the prices for much bigger better houses were so low that it would be lucky to get enough to pay off the mortgage let alone the rest of the debts. IIRC five bedroom four storey townhouses were going for five figure sums. Who'd go for a bog standard semi instead at the same price?

Surely you have to compare auction results for similar types of properties not ones that are quite different.