About to exchange on a house thats now part of a contested estate in a will. Help!

DS1101

Good afternoon,

Not sure if anyone is going to be able to shed some light on this for me but worth a go!

Me and my partner have been going through the process of buying a house, a little bit of background on the people were buying from is.... The lady who owned the house has passed away unexpectedly and left the house or atleast a majority of it to her daughter. She had a partner who lived with her at the house but from my gathering, on limited information i've have, is that they weren't married and been together around 12 years. This man is the one who was there through viewing, we've had 2 surveys done, our own and the banks too and had a heating engineer round there at our expense to check on the heating system as that didn't seem to work.

We've raised numerous queries to this mans situation and been told his getting a considerable cut from the house sale and that it was all ok. We were just at the stage of discussing exchange dates and i've gotten a phone call informing me that the man living in the house (the partner to the deceased) is now contesting the will and wants to keep the house to himself.

It all sounds like pure greed, the whole family doesn't seem to have much money. So i think the entire estate is this house, so he would have to buy the house share off the daughter and from the looks of it he wont have anything other than his share in the house himself and wont get a mortgage for the rest at his age. Grant of probate has been issued which has taken the family around 6-7 months to sort and completed a few weeks ago.

Can he do this basically at such a late stage in the sale? Once everything has been agreed between them til now? Is there anything to stop the daughter from continuing with the sale too? Has he left it too late to spit his dummy out?

Any info would be greatly appreciated. Were not sure if we desperately need to start looking for another place or if this is just a slight delay and should be ok. We have a 1 year old daughter to think of, we're living between 2 sets of parents as we moved out of my studio flat, so were seperated from each other til we move, its not healthy for our little girl!

Thank you!

cattie

Whatever happens, completion won't happen unless whoever owns the house can guarantee vacant possession & from what you've outlined, this won't happen. The daughter can't just turf him out if it's been his home for the past 12 years.

Your solicitor is the one you should be speaking to about this.

cloo

I'm afraid you may have to walk away from this one if you need to move soon... my suspicion is this sort of thing will take years of legal wrangling to come to a conclusion, so I suspect it's best to leave it. But do speak to your solicitor first - they might think this guy doesn't have a good case, although even whether he has a case will take a long time to decide.

Sorry this has happened and best of luck for the future.

sparky130a

Never get involved in someone else's legal stuff. You can't control any of it...

Start looking elsewhere.

xylophone

The executor of the will has to carry out the wishes of the deceased.
Does the will leave the house to the daughter and the partner?

Does it leave the partner a life interest?

Does it instruct the executor to sell the property and share the proceeds in certain proportions between beneficiaries?

On the face of it, it would seem unlikely that a claim for the whole of the house would be likely to succeed, but the executor will probably need to take legal advice - in the end, a court order for sale may be needed.

DS1101

As i thought really but the the daughter isn't just turfing him out. It was an agreement that the house be sold from the beginning, he now seems to have changed his mind and wants more.

He cant claim the entire estate to himself though can he? The estate agent has advised that he doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on and the daughter is willing to renegotiate how much he gets to move on. But she shouldn't have to forfeit her entire inheritance should she?

G_M

Irrespective of the legal rights and obligations of the various parties involved, a dispute over probate, inheritance and property rights can take a long time to resolve.

Either relax, sit back, and be prepared for 3, 6, 9 months to pass before you can buy or

walk away.

DoaM

DS1101 wrote: »

He cant claim the entire estate to himself though can he? The estate agent has advised that he doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on and the daughter is willing to renegotiate how much he gets to move on. But she shouldn't have to forfeit her entire inheritance should she?

Since none of us have seen the contents of the will, it's impossible to say.

But ultimately it's not your problem ... other than you should walk away now and chalk up the lost costs to experience.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

DS1101 wrote: »

As i thought really but the the daughter isn't just turfing him out. It was an agreement that the house be sold from the beginning, he now seems to have changed his mind and wants more.

He cant claim the entire estate to himself though can he? The estate agent has advised that he doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on and the daughter is willing to renegotiate how much he gets to move on. But she shouldn't have to forfeit her entire inheritance should she?

Neither you nor anybody else not involved can possibly have enough information to say whether she should have to forfeit her entire inheritance.

Regardless, that is nothing to do with you. All that concerns you is whether they can provide vacant possession, not the moral or even the legal arguments between them. If they can't promise vacant possession, you need to look for something else.

gettingtheresometime

OP


We know of a situation whereby the partner (of 5 years) had a life interest in the house, as well as part of the proceeds when she decided she didn't want to live there any more.


She decided that she didn't want to live there and the house was put on the market but after a few months changed her mind and as such the house was taken off. To make matters worse, she did this not once but twice.


To give you some idea we're talking 10 years ago and the person is still in the property with nothing that the other beneficiaries can do about it.


Personally I would start looking again but would take care not to totally pull out of this sale whilst at the same time not just buying something for the sake of buying something

DS1101

Ok, thanks for the reponses, were both of the opinion its not going to end well now! We thought we'd covered all bases by asking all the right questions from the start but obviously not factored in the sheer greed and inconciderate nature of some people.

I've had a look at other properties on the market now and really there is nothing available to buy within a 10miles radius of this property that we can afford to buy. So only thing we can do is wait and see if this pans out and hope that something else pops up in the coming weeks. Our mortgage offer is valid til end of september. We may still be able to use it if we find somewhere in time i guess!

I'll post again an outcome incase anyone else is interested how this pans out.