Waiting for probate

CLJP72

Should also say there was a will but also Inheritance tax for the family to deal with too. My own father's estate took from mid July 2019 until the end of January 2020 to be finalised and I was the only beneficiary. 

SDLT_Geek

SDLT_Geek said:

With apologies for the legalease: Generally speaking, where there are joint owners, on the death of one, the other is able to sell.  The legal estate in the land passes by survivorship to the other.  Sometimes a second trustee is appointed within the transfer on sale so as to overreach any beneficial interests.

Point is confirmed here https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2018/02/13/property-owner-dies/ that probate is not usually required for a sale where one of joint owners dies.

Pennylane

My neighbour had to go to probate  for his late mother and it all went through in 8 weeks. That was last autumn.

Thrugelmir

CLJP72 said:

Should also say there was a will but also Inheritance tax for the family to deal with too. My own father's estate took from mid July 2019 until the end of January 2020 to be finalised and I was the only beneficiary. 

If there's liquid assets in the estate then the HMRC will expect these to be used to settle as much of the IHT liability as possible. Before agreeing to probate being granted. All of which takes time to organise and have processed. 

GDB2222

Can’t they opt to pay IHT on the property in instalments?

Rae626

GDB2222 said:

Can’t they opt to pay IHT on the property in instalments?

I don’t think IHT is an issue with this case, the house I’m purchasing is no where near the threshold. 

getmore4less

Rae626 said:

I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this.. 
I’m a first time buyer and had an offer on a house accepted back to October 2020, all was going smoothly (valuation done, mortgage accepted after 4 weeks, searches done), then unfortunately one of the vendors sadly passed away so a probate application needed to be made. I love the house so I was and still am happy to wait. I was told there are delays in applications due to COVID, however, I’m not sure how long the delays are. 

I see everywhere it can take years, but from what I’ve been told the vendor had plans in place in case this happened so paperwork should be straight forward. 

Has anyone had any recent dealings with probate, and if so, how long was the process from application to you getting your keys? Starting to get anxious that it’ll never happen... 

Any advice (or reassurance) is welcome! 

As already said on this thread

if they were joint owners probate is not required. 

GDB2222

It's difficult to be pushy in these circumstances, as you don't want to intrude on the family's grief. However, considering that this all started in October, it's reasonable to want some proof of progress with the Probate Registry. Otherwise, you really have no idea of timescales. I'm not sure that there's a very tactful way of asking this, though.

Maybe the practical course is simply not to do anything about this purchase until they have probate (and I think you can check on the register, which is public). Otherwise, you are risking spending money on legal fees and mortgage applications only to find this all wasted. 

Personally, I'd keep this on the back burner and keep looking around the market. 

Rae626

GDB2222 said:

It's difficult to be pushy in these circumstances, as you don't want to intrude on the family's grief. However, considering that this all started in October, it's reasonable to want some proof of progress with the Probate Registry. Otherwise, you really have no idea of timescales. I'm not sure that there's a very tactful way of asking this, though.

Maybe the practical course is simply not to do anything about this purchase until they have probate (and I think you can check on the register, which is public). Otherwise, you are risking spending money on legal fees and mortgage applications only to find this all wasted. 

Personally, I'd keep this on the back burner and keep looking around the market. 

Everything was complete before the bereavement, apart from last bits of paper work via solicitors. 

I love the house and the family are genuine so I believe them and have had confirmation from their solicitors that it’s just the grant of probate we’re waiting on. There is nothing out there in my price range (been looking since March last year), so I’m willing to wait.

I just wanted to see how other people are finding timescales to get a better picture of how much of a delay Covid is having. 

SDLT_Geek

getmore4less said:

Rae626 said:

I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this.. 
I’m a first time buyer and had an offer on a house accepted back to October 2020, all was going smoothly (valuation done, mortgage accepted after 4 weeks, searches done), then unfortunately one of the vendors sadly passed away so a probate application needed to be made. I love the house so I was and still am happy to wait. I was told there are delays in applications due to COVID, however, I’m not sure how long the delays are. 

I see everywhere it can take years, but from what I’ve been told the vendor had plans in place in case this happened so paperwork should be straight forward. 

Has anyone had any recent dealings with probate, and if so, how long was the process from application to you getting your keys? Starting to get anxious that it’ll never happen... 

Any advice (or reassurance) is welcome! 

As already said on this thread

if they were joint owners probate is not required. 

Perhaps OP is not reading the relevant posts?  No reaction has been given to them.