House in our chain gone to probate

helenamari

We are FTB and had our offer accepted on a house in August 2020. We got our mortgage offer, searches, enquiries and signed contracts end of Nov. We are in a chain of 3, ourselves, the vendors and the property they are purchasing which is a Power of Attorney Sale. There have been significant delays with the property our vendors are purchasing - we have had no update/real reason given other than they are behind, until yesterday. Yesterday we were advised that the owner of the property the vendors are purchasing has now sadly passed away and therefore the property has to go through probate. We have already had significant delays and this is estimated to take a further 12 weeks once the probate app is in. Unfortunately our vendors mortgage offer expires in 7 weeks and ours in 12 weeks. We feel like we have had no answers and are now likely to lose the property if the chain falls through. What would you do? What are our options now. I’d love to speak to the vendors directly, but am unsure this is appropriate. 

manc_doc

I would ask the vendors if they will break the chain and move with family/into rented to allow your purchase complete. Probate can take a very long time ( I have friends who have been waiting nearly 6 months for the property they are buying to get probate, no sign of it yet). If they won't break the chain, I would be keeping an eye out for other properties to proceed with.

helenamari

Thank you that’s really helpful! We will ask our vendors whether they’re willing to break the chain and keep our fingers crossed.

davidmcn

Bear in mind that although probate might take a long time (and in practice you can't do much more than guess), many estates are quite straightforward. If the deceased's affairs have been run by their attorney for a while then it's quite likely that everything is "in order" compared with a more unexpected death.

helenamari

Thank you this is helpful. I’m still hoping there is a chance we will be able to complete but am not optimistic! 

brianposter

Do your vendors need a mortgage ?

Thrugelmir

Be prepared to start searching for another property.  

helenamari

brianposter said:

Do your vendors need a mortgage ?

Our vendors mortgage offer on the house they are purchasing has 7 weeks remaining. I guess it all depends on whether they could extend this? And whether we could extend ours...

parcival

I just sold my mothers probate flat. Now she did die last May but her estate was very straightforward. IHT and probate all done online and grant of probate returned after about 10 days. Think it is still quick for straightforward cases.

nyermen

parcival said:

I just sold my mothers probate flat. Now she did die last May but her estate was very straightforward. IHT and probate all done online and grant of probate returned after about 10 days. Think it is still quick for straightforward cases.

For note - go with recent experience like from parcival.  It is much better now.  If you google timescales you may find results from 2019- early 2020, where a new system (among some other things) caused massive delays (impacted my purchase which took over 6 months for probate to be granted on a simple estate consisting of a house that was left 50/50 to the two children...),

p00hsticks

nyermen said:

parcival said:

I just sold my mothers probate flat. Now she did die last May but her estate was very straightforward. IHT and probate all done online and grant of probate returned after about 10 days. Think it is still quick for straightforward cases.

For note - go with recent experience like from parcival.  It is much better now.  If you google timescales you may find results from 2019- early 2020, where a new system (among some other things) caused massive delays (impacted my purchase which took over 6 months for probate to be granted on a simple estate consisting of a house that was left 50/50 to the two children...),

Speaking as someone currently in the process of administering an estate, you also need to bear in mind that it can take a while after someone has died to get to a position where a probate applicaion can actually be made, as the entire value of the estate needs to be valued first. The fact that the house was already in the process of being sold for an agreed price would presumably provide a value for that, but there could potentially be a big difference in timescales before a probate application is ready to be made depending on whether the rest of the estate simply consists of  a few simple items such as high street bank current or savings accounts, a car,  and general household goods or more esoteric items such as private company shareholdings, antiques or rare items that need to be valued etc...