Buying a probate house

Slinky

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.

Ooerr, we've just offered on one in this situation, owner is in care home, good job we're not in any hurry......

Surrey_EA

Richard_Webster wrote: »

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.

In my experience, it is becoming common to get the procedure for obtaining probate underway, then list the house for sale, whilst the solicitor is still waiting for the grant to come through. The hope being, by the time a buyer has been found and the conveyancing process reached a stage where exchange of contracts is imminent, probate will have been granted.

Obviously this depends on the complexities of the estate, and each situation will be slightly different.

However, I don't think that it is unrealistic for an EA to establish if probate has been granted, or is not whether it has been applied for and receive some sort of indication from the solicitor when they are expecting the grant. Bearing in mind, the solicitor handling the conveyancing may well be someone different to the one handling probate.

As the saying goes "Where there is a will.......There will be greedy relatives!"

Surrey_EA

Slinky wrote: »

Ooerr, we've just offered on one in this situation, owner is in care home, good job we're not in any hurry......

Or maybe you should be hurrying!

In all seriousness, you may wish to consider having as short a period as possible between exchanging and completing. The vendor dying between exchange and completion can cause complications.

gingercordial

Slinky wrote: »

Ooerr, we've just offered on one in this situation, owner is in care home, good job we're not in any hurry......

You might want to get on with this... Aside from the danger of the owner dying mid-process, what you definitely don't want is the owner deteriorating either physically or mentally such that they are unable to sign the sale documentation, especially if they have no-one lined up with power of attorney (or someone who does have PoA but no knowledge of/interest in/an active desire not to do the sale). What if they exchange, lose capacity and can't complete, and you have to sue them in the care home?

HHarry

I've just sold a probate house - as others say once probate is granted it really isn't any more difficult than a normal sale.

I was advised by both Agents who valued the house that I should put it up for sale before probate was granted - in fact they were valuing it for the purposes of probate, so it was a way off. Their reasoning was that it would take 8 weeks to complete and probate 'should' be through in that time.

I resisted until I had the paperwork in my hand, as I didn't feel comfortable about delaying anyone. Make sure you know exactly how far along the probate process is, so that any delay isn't a surprise.

Again as others have said, a lot of the responses on my Property Info form were 'unknown' - in those circumstances it is the most honest answer.

Slinky

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Or maybe you should be hurrying!

In all seriousness, you may wish to consider having as short a period as possible between exchanging and completing. The vendor dying between exchange and completion can cause complications.

Haven't had our offer accepted yet..... going to best and final later in the week.

We'd love to be able to push things along, but have to wait on the vendors (owner and children as joint).