Right to Buy home owner deceased- advice please

CheltKat

Hi All,

My mother purchased her council house almost 4 years ago under the right to buy scheme. There is no mortgage on the property as she was able to buy with some inheritance left to her.

Unfortunately, she has now passed away, she was in Nursing care for the last 18 months of her life and we are waiting for final bills for that to be finalized.

Myself and my 2 brothers are 3 equal beneficiaries of her will, my question is do we need to hand the property back to the council or will ownership transfer to us (or maybe there is a totally different outcome).

I have tried to search online and read all the documents we have and I don’t see any advice for this scenario.

If anyone has any experience of this or knows of any resources I can refer to I would be grateful so we can start to unravel what is needed from us.

Thanks in advance

Bogalot

You'll need to check the terms under which she gained the right to buy. As she only purchased it four years ago the estate may be liable to repay a proportion of the discount to the council.

Nnenne1

Keep it for another year before selling or else you'll lose part of the discount she got.

marvin

The rules were, when I bought mine just over 10 years ago.
Under 5 years if sold then a proportion of the discount would need to be repaid.
Within the first 10 years it has to be offered back to the council who have to turn it down before it can be sold on the open market.

I had a charge on my property for the council for 10 years so it could not be sold till they removed this charge.

Don't sell it just yet would be my advice but the executors would need to contact the local council and inform them of the death of the person who bought the house.

finallyretired

Condolences.

See HTTPS www


.taxation.co.uk/Articles/2006/02/23/215881/exercising-right-buy

(Sorry not enough posts to put proper link)

The key paragraph is:

The clawback charge is, however, not triggered by an exempt disposal (as defined in Housing Act 1985, s 160). If the former tenant dies, the beneficiaries under his will or intestacy do not, therefore, have to refund the money until and unless they sell the property within the unexpired part of the statutory period.

This was in 2006 but probably hasn't changed.

Oops, just noticed original post was back in March!

gemstars

Hello!

I'm looking around on the internet and came across this post, as i'm dealing with a similar situation.

I'm hoping that a reply may trigger a notification for the OP and they might report back on what the outcome was in their case.

Thank you.

Yorkshireman99

You can't infer the answer. The only way is check the terms under which the deceased purchased the property.

CheltKat

Thanks all for the input...apologies for the extremely late reply. I have just received the grant of administration so still waiting for the care bills to be finalised so there have been no decisions on the property. I will post an update once I have any other info on my specific case

konark

Your problem is that the care bills may be so large as to force you to sell the house to pay them , thus triggering the clawback.

You say she bought it 4 years ago so you should be ok if you delay sale (i.e exchange of contracts) until the 5 years is up, don't let the LA bully you into repaying early, they know they can't legally force any repayment until over a year after death. They'll probably have a charge on the house anyway so know they will get the money sooner or later.

Yorkshireman99

Please tell us what law prevents the LA from recovering any debt until at least a year after the death? What really puzzles me is why it is taking such a ridiculous time for the care home fees to be finalised. Did you put an estimate in on the grant?