Mums house

as200963

I have just signed up for some advise on my mums house sorry if its in the wrong section.

When my dad died in 2016, I got a letter of administration to get all his money paid into my mums account and at the time I asked who owns the house she said it was a joint ownership so I looked for the deeds but could not find them anywhere in the house so assumed they had been lost and having called the land registry to find they where never filed with them.

Now unfortunately my mum has had to go into a care home due to her dementia and I have a court order to deal with her affairs  and property she has some saving to tide here over for a while but my brother and I need to sell the house to pay for the care home. We were clearing it out and my brother found an old tin and inside the deeds. But unfortunately they were only in my dads name, so I would like some advice on what to do next, can we sell it as I have a letter of administration for all my dads affairs, or how do i go about getting the property in my mums name so we can deal with it. 

Having read posts on the forum I know this is the best place to seek advice.

p00hsticks

How much is the house worth (approximately) and how much money was in your dads estate ? And which part of th UK are you in ?

As it turns out that the house was owned by your dad and not your mum and dad jointly then a possible complication is that (assuming from the fact that you talk about letters of administration that your father didn't leave a will) that under the intestacy laws some of his estate perhaps should have gone to you and your brother rather than it all going to your mum.

AdrianC

Do you have power of attorney over your mother's affairs?

If the answer is "no", then you can't do a thing without getting the court of protection involved. If she still has capacity, then get things moving on the PoA TODAY...
https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

If you do, then you basically act as your mother. You don't need to go about registering it in her name, and it may well slow things down. When it comes to the legals, solicitors are very used to this kind of situation.

as200963

Thanks for the swift reply Dad had about £150,000 and the house at the time was worth £145,000 I live in the East Midlands.

Mrh1019

Surely if the house is not in your mum’s name you won’t be required to sell it to fund her care? X

Mojisola

Mrh1019 said:

Surely if the house is not in your mum’s name you won’t be required to sell it to fund her care? X

The owner's name wasn't changed when the mother inherited the house but she is the owner.

AdrianC

as200963 said:

Thanks for the swift reply Dad had about £150,000 and the house at the time was worth £145,000 I live in the East Midlands.

https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will/y/england-and-wales/yes/yes/yes

So the Intestacy flowchart says that your mum inherited the first £270k, and half the remainder. Given that you're estimating £295k total, we're talking about £12k... To all intents and purposes, irrelevant.

greatcrested

You could do a voluntary 1st Registration of the property into your mother's name, based on father's death certificate and your Letter of Administration, and then sell as a registered property. Some extra cost in this, plus delay completing the registration before you sell, but on the plus sideitmake seling a bit easier.

Or you sell without registering, and the buyer does a compulsory registration once the sale completes. Makes the sale a bit more complex as the buyer's solicitor has to do all the verification of the paper deeds to ensure the buyer doesn't end up paying for a property that you/mum/dad don't own.