Buying a probate house

sulphate

We are looking at 2 houses tomorrow which I suspect may be probate sales due to the decor and them both being chain free (could be wrong of course).

I understand that such sales can take a little longer and would be grateful if someone could explain in simple layman's terms why this might be and what needs to happen for the house sale to go through, so we can pose any relevant questions to the estate agents.

penguingirl

Not got much experience of this, but ask if the probate has been granted. If it has, it will be much quicker.

moneyistooshorttomention

Mine was a probate house. That was quite obvious from the decor/etc.

I confess to not having even asked whether all the "legalities" had been tied-up before it was put on the market for sale:o. I just assumed it was.

That was one thing that worked out okay - if a lot of the rest didnt:(. That being - as far as I can make out the "legalities" had indeed been finalised.

So - worth asking if they have been and the houses are "ready" to be on the market okay - just in case they arent. But that, at least, wasnt a problem in my case.

da_rule

It won't necessarily take any longer as long as the other side are ready to go. As long as they have the relevant probate documents then it won't be too different to a normal transaction.

The biggest problem will be, if there is more than one executor, and they have to act jointly, there may be a delay in getting them to sign the documents as they may not live anywhere near each other etc.

The other thing to bear in mind is that they may not be able to answer many of the pre-purchase questions regarding the property as they may not know the answers. Some extra investigation may therefore be needed.

moneyistooshorttomention

A valid point re the pre-purchase questions - as in the executor may not be aware of all the answers.

There is a plus side to that though - ie anything they cant/wont answer is free to you to interpret in the most "positive" (from your point of view) way possible. That may be an advantage possibly...

Hoploz

The main issue is whether probate has been granted before marketing. Probate can take months to sort out so if the sellers haven't tied it up first you could find yourself in for a long delay. Normally the EA would flag this to the sellers but I'm personally aware of a couple of occasions where houses have been vacated by the owner as they've gone into a care home. Then house goes on market and the sale is going through. Owner then dies in the middle of the procedure and the buyer just has to twiddle their thumbs while probate gets dealt with.

sulphate

Thanks for all your quick replies. We are keen to move by the end of the summer as our house is under offer by a keen FTB and we are expecting our second child in early October so ideally i would like to avoid renting/moving/uprooting 2 young kids multiple times. I guess it's just asking how long a piece of string is though!

moneyistooshorttomention

Hoploz wrote: »

The main issue is whether probate has been granted before marketing. Probate can take months to sort out so if the sellers haven't tied it up first you could find yourself in for a long delay. Normally the EA would flag this to the sellers but I'm personally aware of a couple of occasions where houses have been vacated by the owner as they've gone into a care home. Then house goes on market and the sale is going through. Owner then dies in the middle of the procedure and the buyer just has to twiddle their thumbs while probate gets dealt with.

But then those houses wouldnt be probate houses.

A probate house is one where the owner has died - rather than being on the "downward trajectory towards dying" iyswim.

I would be somewhat wary of buying a house from someone in their 80s or older that was still alive - as you never know whether they would stay alive long enough for the process to conclude okay.
Admitted that factor is a risk with anyone of any age (eg a 20 something year old could fall under the proverbial bus tomorrow). But at 80 plus agegroup - then death starts becoming imminent and the odds of it interrupting/delaying proceedings visibly increases.

steeeb

My current and soon to be new houses were both 'probate houses' we never actually thought to enquire about whether probate was granted before offering or anything.

(They both were, though, before marketing - I assumed it could only be marketed when probate was granted but I guess not).

missprice

sulphate wrote: »

Thanks for all your quick replies. We are keen to move by the end of the summer as our house is under offer by a keen FTB and we are expecting our second child in early October so ideally i would like to avoid renting/moving/uprooting 2 young kids multiple times. I guess it's just asking how long a piece of string is though!

Umm yes a bit length of string, the house I sit in right now was probate, it was all signed over to beneficiary/s before being put on the market. Still took 7 months to complete. A previous house took over a year to complete, not a probate sale. And a different house entirely took 3 months. So they are all bits of string assumptions and best guesses.

Richard_Webster

I don't think you can expect the average estate agent to ask if probate has been granted when he puts a place on the market.

Sadly too many families clear the house a couple of weeks after the person has died and go straight to the estate agents without realising they need a grant of probate, which, depending on the complexity of the estate, can take months.

So the moral is to ask the estate agents very firmly when probate was granted and not accept any vague answers. The seller's solicitor should have a copy of the grant which they can easily c scan across to the agents.