Getting valuations before selling a house

wannalot

Hi

I'm looking for some advice please!

My mum died two years ago, and since then I have continued to live in her house. However according to her Will the house is to be split between me and my siblings. I need to get it valued and either buy my siblings' shares and stay here, or sell up and move on.

In order to decide what to do, I need to get the house valued. I've never done anything like this before and I'm wondering how to go about it. Is that something that estate agents do for free if I tell them that I'm considering putting it on the market or do I have to pay a fee? What's the best Way to go about this?

I'd appreciate any advice!

tom9980

Most will do it for free hoping to impress you enough that the property will be sold with them in the future. Many will do it even knowing you will never sell it with them in the hope circumstances may change in the future.

G_M

Surely it was valued for probate at the time your mum died?

Who is/was the Executor or Administrator of her estate?

Has Probate been granted?

But to answer your question, you can either

* ask ideally 3 different estate agents to come and value the property. Bear in mind EAs often over-value, as they will be trying to pursuade you to use their services to sell the property. So always ask for a price at which they would market the property, AND a realistic actual sale price.

It's worth sanity checking by comparing against other similar localproperties (their sale prices, NOT the prices they are being advertised at).

* or pay an RICS surveyor for a written Valuation.


This isn't your sibling here is it?......:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5614998

Hoploz

Just get some agents in and take it from there. For probate you will need a valuation backdated to the date she died, so when the EA values it you can ask them for the value it would have been then.

We have this going on at the moment - we have had two agents in for a current valuation (essentially for distribution of the proceeds) and they've also given backdated valuations for 18 months ago for the probate / tax forms. You can also use online calculations for the backdated values - nationwide house price calculator for example calculates it according to your area of the country. We've compared these online figures to what the agents have said

Grant_Urismo

EAs have an incentive to over-value. If you get 3 valuations, 340, 340 and 370, obviously you'd pick the one who says they can get you an extra 30 grand, 6 weeks later when you have no offers, that AE might tell you to drop it to 340, but by then you're locked in to using them.

My advice would be to get an RICS valuer to give an independent valuation (and not to tell them if you're buying or selling, so they have no incentive to go over or under) which should already have been done at the probate stage!