2 executors unable to agree on house price

Fedupbythis

My husband and brother in law are the executors to their late mother's estate, they can't agree on the lowest offer they would accept on their mother's house. What happens now? One party is willing to negotiate, the other has made their mind up and will not budge an inch. When they have discussed this on the phone, via text or email my husband offers suggestions and the replies always start with i will not or I am not considering negative from the get go. I'm trying to stay neutral and support my husband at the same time, but it is becoming hard to do so when his brother is being just so stubborn and uncooperative about it. So what happens now? Can the estate's solicitor make the final judgement call?

Tigsteroonie

How about a sliding scale - start at the brother's desired price but agree to reduce by £5k or £10k after two weeks and weekly thereafter until your husband's desired price is reached? The house will sell for what its worth regardless of what either may want; it could just take time if you want a solution to accommodate both egos.

TonyMMM

If your husband and brother are the executors - why is there an "estate solicitor" ?

If they have employed someone to do the work for them, that would be the best person to ask for advice.

Have they obtained a proper valuation from a RISC surveyor , or is the dispute based on estate agent opinions ?

AnotherJoe

You'll have to wait until the "stubborn" BIL sees sense, or a higher offer comes in that makes your husband look as if he was the unreasonable one :cool:

You could ask BIL if he was open to mediation with a third party to agree a price, or failing that then court or the threat of may be the answer, and maybe BIL will see sense if £20k out of the estate for a court battle to force a sale, is worth being stubborn about not accepting an offer of £10k less. That is the "nuclear option" though :eek:

Has it been pointed out to BIL that with Brexit fears if he delays say 6 months due to holding out for a higher price he could then take a much bigger drop than what an offer would be now?

Marmaduke123

We had similar with my mother's house. One of my sister's was adamant that she wouldn't agree to a sale below a certain price. We had it on the market at that price but it didn't sell.

In the end we let it out for a few years until the prices picked up a bit, then sold it. My other sister and I did look into forcing a sale, but decided family harmony was more important.

There can be a lot of emotion linked with selling a parental home, especially if it's been the family home for years, which ours wasn't in fact.

I'm not clear if your late mother in law's house is actually on the market, and if so if there have been offers? If not, perhaps put it on the market and see what happens.

Mojisola

Fedupbythis wrote: »

My husband and brother in law are the executors to their late mother's estate, they can't agree on the lowest offer they would accept on their mother's house.

One party is willing to negotiate, the other has made their mind up and will not budge an inch.

If the difference isn't too much money, would your husband be willing to pay his brother the difference between what the house sells at and his brother's sticking price in order to get the house sold and the estate sorted?

getmore4less

Until you have offers on the table any I want/will accept price is a speculative guess.

One option is the put up otr shut up the higher person buys out at the lower persons prices and gets the excess.

This needs a time limit to cough up the cash otherwise they forfeit there right to insidt on it sitting there not sold.

the other angle is to insist they pick up the lions share of the running costs if they start refusing offers the other finds aceptable

Mojisola

getmore4less wrote: »

the other angle is to insist they pick up the lions share of the running costs if they start refusing offers the other finds aceptable

It's a good idea to work out how much the house is costing each month each month that it isn't sold and add to that any increase in solicitor's fees resulting from extra work mediating between arguing executors.

martinbuckley

My current property was bought from the family of a deceased lady (5 siblings). One of them was quibbling about my final offer. It took two months for the other 4 to persuade the 5th that the difference between inheriting £29,000 and £30,000 wasn't really worth holding out for!

pollypenny

A peruse of estate agents' websites will give you an idea of what comparable properties have gone for in your area and a wider area.

jackyann

If you get a chance, I would ask each "why?"
The answer may be an emotional one "I feel our childhood home is worth more than £x" or "I need to get this all over with so I can move on".

It may be a "selfish" one "I need / want the money now"

It may be a "clever" one "prices will go up, we'll get more in a year"

Whatever it is, don't argue against it, or even "support" it (however obvious it may be). Just let them talk about it, and encourage other family members to do the same. They are grieving, and this is part of it. You won't get anywhere quicker by arguing, so leave it for awhile anyway.

When things are calmer, you can try one of the sensible approaches suggested above.

The only thing I would add is that assuming the property is unoccupied, someone needs to sort out & pay insurance, and keep an eye on the place.