What to do if you cannot sell a house of a decease

louise1595

Please help!
My uncle died 5 years ago. He left a property of a substantial amount however there is a high interest only mortgage on it. I have been trying to sell the house for 3 years unsuccessfully. The house needs a lot of TLC and people are not willing to pay the asking price plus the work that needs doing on it (approx £100,000). I have contacted the Halifax many times asking for help and advice but all they want to do is keep extending the mortgage. We cannot keep paying this high mortgage as it is and the house is getting in a worse state of repair everyday. The estate cannot be closed down until this house is sold. At present the house is on sale for £5000 less than the current mortgage which puts us in negative equity. There is no money in the estate either.
Can anyone help please? Halifax will not give me a straight answer and are happy with us just paying the excessive mortgage monthly. Can I hand the keys back? Will they chase us for any money?
Thank you

marliepanda

If the property is not going to cover the mortgage shortfall then it may be best to reuse to administer the estate as insolvent. Unless there were substantial other assets which have been distributed already?

theartfullodger

5 years and you've not worked out what to do?

What is your role in this matter - "beneficiary", executor, tenant, solicitor..???

parking_question_chap

Can you send us a link?

Might be able to help more if we know the details.

betsie

The house hasnt sold because it isn!!!8217;t priced right. Did your uncle not have a life insurance policy to pay off the mortgage if he died. I thought it was compulsory to have a life policy in place to cover the mortgage.
It is not your responsibility to keep paying his mortgage.
You need to contact the bank again and get a specific person to deal with your case. Explain the situation and tell them the estate can not cover the mortgage. There can!!!8217;t keep robbing you off.

marliepanda

betsie wrote: »

The house hasnt sold because it isn!!!8217;t priced right. Did your uncle not have a life insurance policy to pay off the mortgage if he died. I thought it was compulsory to have a life policy in place to cover the mortgage.
It is not your responsibility to keep paying his mortgage.
You need to contact the bank again and get a specific person to deal with your case. Explain the situation and tell them the estate can not cover the mortgage. There can!!!8217;t keep robbing you off.

Not compulsory.

They wont reduce it because otherwise it wont cover the mortgage. They need to refuse to administer UNLESS theyve already distributed other major assets/cash.

No one is fobbing anyone off. They either A) wipe their hands of it IF possible or continue paying the mortgage and try to sell it.

B isnt sensible unless, as I said, theyve already distributed assets. The bank cant really do anything BUT remortgage unless they refuse to administer... getting repetitive yet? They should have a legal representative helping them, not a specific person at the bank!!

Thrugelmir

louise1595 wrote: »

There is no money in the estate either.

Was there money in the estate 5 years ago?

Why did you only start selling the property 3 years ago?

greendoor665

I don't understand how it has got to this point. Surely if the estate couldn't cover the gap between the property valuation and the mortgage then this would have been clear 4-5 years ago at which point the action necessary is clear - the estate is insolvent, the house is sold and the bank eats the loss for whatever can't be recovered. If the house won't sell then it's not priced right.

It's not in the family's interest to keep paying the mortgage and it's not the family's responsibility either. I'm not surprised the bank isn't doing anything to help - at the moment they're still getting a steady stream of interest payments and they're delaying the realisation of their loss.

You talk about 'us' as if the family now owns the house but it sounds like they don't, it's still part of the estate and the executors are just managing that in trust for the beneficiaries. The executors should not be paying out of their own pocket.

Have you had any recent advice from solicitors etc on how to proceed?