House Revaluation After Probate

newsgroupmonkey_

Help if anyone could....I'm sure this isn't uncommon in the current housing market.

Grandmother passed away back in late 2019.

My Father was her permanent carer for 20 years and lived in her house.

The will said that they were entitled to half of the house each. My Father offered to buy my Uncle's half which was agreed.

The house was valued at the back end of last year and probate was granted in February. My Father is just getting his stuff together to buy out my Uncle.

My Uncle is now saying that because of the housing market he wants 10% more and is saying that it needs new valuations.

So firstly, is there a time limit on probate and valuation?
Also, who should be paying for said valuations? My Uncle says my Father should pay half, even though he's going to be out of pocket if the value is higher.

Keep_pedalling

Although your uncle appears to be being rather greedy here, he is correct in that regardless of the value at the time of death, required for probate & IHT, he is entitled to halve of its current value if that has changed.

Assuming the estate still owns the property and it has not been transferred to the beneficiaries then the executor is responsible for paying this from the residual estate. 

SevenOfNine

Why not just get a couple of different estate agents round first to get an idea of current sale value, see if the additional 10% the uncle wants might be reasonable, before paying out for another formal valuation.  Be mindful of estate agents giving 'asking price' as opposed to actual value of the property.

newsgroupmonkey_

Keep_pedalling said:

Although your uncle appears to be being rather greedy here, he is correct in that regardless of the value at the time of death, required for probate & IHT, he is entitled to halve of its current value if that has changed.

Assuming the estate still owns the property and it has not been transferred to the beneficiaries then the executor is responsible for paying this from the residual estate. 

That's the bit I can't understand. If the executor (in this case my Dad) doesn't want to get it revalued, then can it be forced?

The estate already paid for the initial valuation.

xylophone

Your father is the executor and also a beneficiary.

In this particular case, the his interest as beneficiary and his duty as executor (to maximise the sale price of estate assets) are in conflict because he himself wants to buy an asset at probate value rather than at current market value (which it would appear may be higher).

As executor, he needs to establish current market value - money within the estate should be used to pay for  the valuation (which of course means that there will be less cash for both beneficiaries when the estate comes to be distributed).

Does your Uncle realise that while he may obtain more cash for his share of the property, he may also have a higher CGT bill?

newsgroupmonkey_

That's a really good point there about CGT and thank you.

Theoretically, as there is no IHT involved, the only CGT due would be the difference between the probate value and the current value?