Advice needed re inheritence

carly1976

My family member passed away 7 years ago leaving her property worth 290,000 between her 5 siblings, as some of them have now passed away the house will now be shared between 15 parties. Someone has offered 280,000 for the house and 4 members of the party have refused to sell at this price, do all parties have to agree with the sale in order for it to sell and would that change if the full asking price was offered.

carly1976

I should say it stated in the will that the property had to be sold but a family member is living there at the moment and refusing to budge.

Keep_pedalling

Was this offer based on there being a sitting tenant in place?

Has the occupier been paying rent to the other owners all these years?

carly1976

No, there was nothing mentioned about a tenant and the council tax, water rates etc have been coming out the money left in the estate for lawyers, advertising etc.

carly1976

no rent has been paid to any other members, he is claiming he is looking after the house in case of break ins etc whilst renting out his own property in the meantime

Keep_pedalling

You probably need to take legal advise here, or the original executors do if they are still around. I assume this offer has been made without the property actually being put on the open market.

What ought to happen is that the house should be put up for sale properly so that the full market value can be realised and distributed. The occupant should get there fair share less 7 years of rent they owe the estate. I don't think everyone has to agree here as the will did not give joint ownership of the house, so as far as I can see it is still owned by the estate, because the executor(s) failed to carry out the wishes of the deceased 7 years ago.

This is going to be messy and is likely to involve some serious legal costs after all this time has elapsed.

carly1976

It has been advertised and the offer is through the estate agents, the occupier is one of the 2 named executers of the will, does that make a difference

getmore4less

If the house is still in the estate and the executors won't sell then one course of action is to remove them or put some pressure on them.

google troublesome executors
this is the usual link people get pointed at
http://www.step.org/tackling-troublesome-executors

If still in the estate then I don't think the beneficiaries have a say other than to challenge that this is not the best price and they are losing out.

If there is an offer on the table then the executors need to justify why that is not acceptable.

Another option is to look at a "put up or shut up"(forget the legal term for this) effectively if they believe it is worth more then they should buy it.

Keep_pedalling

Well it could, because you could take legal action against him for failing his resposabilities as an executor, although you may not want to do that now that things are moving. It sounds like the original valuation was too high if is now attracting lower prices, and providing it is sold for the market value none of the other beneficiaries can stop the sale because they don't think the price is high enough.

I would not let him get away with the fact that he has had 7 years rent free years from the estate at the expense of the other beneficiaries and I would make it clear that unless they pay that back voluntary, then I would be taking legal action to recover it .

Keep_pedalling

It also sounds like the money in the estate has not been distributed either, and has been diminished in paying for the upkeep and service charges on the house, which is another thing the executors should be coughing up for.

getmore4less

The occupancy of the property might come under "self dealing" as they are benifiting at the expense of the others.

Also looks like they are failing in their Fiduciary duties as they are making a profit