Named owners of deceased property?

blobbyrob

Sister recently passed away. Her husband passed away almost 5 years ago. They had mirror wills and everything was automatically passed down to my sister when her husband died including their home which they owned mortgage free. As executor I will eventually be tasked with selling the house. Out of curiosity I paid £3 for a Land Registry search to check who's names were listed as registered owners.

Although my sister's husband passed away almost 5 years ago he is still named along with my sister as registered owners. Will this have any bearing on my ability to sell the property? Or would I need to get the record updated (if possible) to reflect my sister's sole ownership?

Also how would I go about finding the deeds?

Hope that makes sense and thanks for any help.

xylophone

Also how would I go about finding the deeds?

They may be in your sister's home/held by her bank/solicitor but at all events, as the property is registered at the LR, you won't need them to sell the house.

If your late sister was joint tenant of the property, the house became hers by survivorship when her spouse died.

Otherwise, it became hers under the terms of her husband's will.

Either way, she did not bother with removing her husband's name from the register after he died.

You are your sister's executor and can advise the LR of both deaths - you are likely to need a death certificate for both parties/ copy of the will of both parties.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/devolution-on-the-death-of-a-registered-proprietor/practice-guide-6-devolution-on-the-death-of-a-registered-proprietor

blobbyrob

xylophone said:

Also how would I go about finding the deeds?

They may be in your sister's home/held by her bank/solicitor but at all events, as the property is registered at the LR, you won't need them to sell the house.

If your late sister was joint tenant of the property, the house became hers by survivorship when her spouse died.

Otherwise, it became hers under the terms of her husband's will.

Either way, she did not bother with removing her husband's name from the register after he died.

You are your sister's executor and can advise the LR of both deaths - you are likely to need a death certificate for both parties/ copy of the will of both parties.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/devolution-on-the-death-of-a-registered-proprietor/practice-guide-6-devolution-on-the-death-of-a-registered-proprietor

Many thanks xylophone. That's very useful.

One last Q. Would I need to advise the LR of both deaths to be able to sell the property or can it just be left as is?

unforeseen

Probably not LR but conveyancing solicitor would probably want to see them. 

xylophone

You will probably want to instruct a conveyancing solicitor to deal with the sale - you can pass the necessary documents to him and he will deal.

Flugelhorn

I had this - just gave solicitor  death certs for both parents and the grant of probate for the parent who died last (20 years after the first parent, the LR had had both names all that time) and she did all the necessary changes at the time of the property sale. 

AnotherJoe

As said ,no need to change if you are selling, my mums flat was sold nearly two years after her death, left to me and brother, LR never updated so it was in her name all that time,  and the work was all handled by the conveyancer.

badmemory

Don't worry about it still being in "dead" peoples names.  My parents house was sold a couple of years before my mother died but over 10 years after my father died.  Absolutely no problem for the conveyancing solicitors.  Not even that the death cert was in Portuguese as he died abroad on holiday.  It seems to be common that people deal with bank accounts etc & completely forget about how the house is owned.  I wonder if that is something that is missing from the "what to do when someone dies" list?

blobbyrob

That's one less thing I need to worry about. Thanks everyone for your help.

macman

Of course, the conveyancer is likely to charge you for this process, which is free if you do it yourself, and a very simple form.