Advice about house after father has died to put it in my name.

james_uk

Hi, my dad has recently died, i am an only child and there was a will which states that everything is to go to myself.

His house was bought although the house was in his and my mum’s name and my mum passed away a few years ago but i don't think my dad ever actually informed anyone, so is likely to still be in both their names.

I am not sure if it would be relevant at all as both are now sadly gone but i did have power of attorney for my dad’s finance.

With their being a will i have already been in contact with the solicitor it was done with but i have ended up feeling a little bamboozled regarding what i do with the house as i think he was trying to help me by saying because my dad didn't have a lot of places that would need contacting that he would leave that to me if i am happy as it would save me a lot of money and he will just sort out the legal will part and gather the grant of probate i think it was. Which i said that sounds great as he said it would cost me a lot more for his to do the rest and i could easily do it.

The rest of the things that need doing i am fine with but i just feel unsure about how i would be best getting the house in my name, would i be best off contacting the land registry first or would i actually need a solicitor for this anyway? or only at the point of when i come to sell it?

Will it cause an issue if my mum is also listed as still there or will that be easily fixed by just supplying whoever with her death certificate?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

James

p00hsticks

Sorry for your loss.

I imagine that the first thing that will need to be done is to sort out what happened to your mothers estate if that hasn't already happened.

Did they own the property as joint tenants or as tenants in common, do you know ?

If the former, then on your mothers death the property will have automatically gone to your father, but if the latter then your mothers share will have gone to whoever was listed in her will or if she had no will then according the intestacy laws.

Flugelhorn

I was in a similar position to you - father died 20 years before mother but the house was still in both names, I sold the house after mother's death. On sight of the death cert for father  and the probate for mother the solicitor sorted it all out - I didn't get the feeling it took them long as was all part of the standard conveyancing process .  (they were jt tenants though)

Browntoa

Your can do this yourself using forms from the land registry . They ask for sight of both death certificates and probably a certified copy of the will 

Mojisola

Was the solicitor named as the executor in the will?

Land_Registry

The key here is probate for your late Father. As it was in their joint names when Mum passed away the legal ownership passed to your Father. When he died it then became part of his estate so probate is required. 

Once you have that you can legally deal with the property so it could be sold or if you decide to keep it, transferred (assented) into your name as the sole beneficiary. 

Our online assisted guidance shows you what’s needed from a purely registration perspective so have a read re both transferring it to someone else or to yourself as the beneficiary. 

As you haven’t checked yet I’d also suggest checking if it’s registered and what the register states . If it refers to anything more than just their joint names, say a restriction, then post again to confirm and also what you plan to do, namely sell or keep it.

We never need to see the will as that deals with the beneficial ownership which we don’t register.

peb

Check how the house is held, get a copy of the title from the land registry -go direct and it will cost £3.  You are looking for a Form A restriction.  If it's not there then your father will have inherited your mum's share - if it is it's more complicated and you will need your mum's probate/letters of administration.  If these aren't available you definitely need a solicitor

You can do the forms yourself but tbh I'd recommend using a solicitor, you can't do it until your dad's probate is granted.  It's reasonably straight forward if you know what you are doing - however the identity form you need if you are not using a solicitor is awkward

I think what your solicitor is saying is that it will save money if you do the grunt work and go through the paperwork passing over the necessary documents needed for the probate to be granted.  Once it's granted the transfer of ownership is a separate thing.

RAS

Take things one at a time. You probably can do all or most yourself but you need the right information.

Download the deeds from the Land Registry - £3, not one of the on-sellers who 10 times as much.

Unless there's a form A restriction it will be a joint tenancy and your father became the sole tenant when your mother died.

Do you know who the executors are? Unless the solicitor is an executor, you can do probate yourself, with a bit of help from folks on here.

Do you intend to live in the house? Or selling it?

james_uk

Hi, Thanks for everyones replies up to now, i had just been a little busy to reply sorry.

Up to now the solicitor said is only instructed by me to get the grant of probate, he has emailed me today saying that the probate papers have been filed with the PRFD.

I will be intending to sell the house once its all sorted.

I am the only executor, the solicitor got involved because he was dealing with my dads will and once i let him know dad had died he went over my options and after chatting it sounded like a good idea to let him do the above and him saying it should be pretty easy for me to do the rest so he doesn't have to charge me any more.

For what he is doing has been invoiced for about £1000.

xylophone

Even if the property had been held as tenants-in-common, the survivor becomes the sole legal (although not  necessarily beneficial) owner of the property on the death of his fellow t-i-c and therefore it  is the legal right of the survivor's exor (s) to take any action with regard to the property.

See

https://www.land-registry-documents.co.uk/information/joint-ownership-tennants/

james_uk

Land_Registry said:

The key here is probate for your late Father. As it was in their joint names when Mum passed away the legal ownership passed to your Father. When he died it then became part of his estate so probate is required. 

Once you have that you can legally deal with the property so it could be sold or if you decide to keep it, transferred (assented) into your name as the sole beneficiary. 

Our online assisted guidance shows you what’s needed from a purely registration perspective so have a read re both transferring it to someone else or to yourself as the beneficiary. 

As you haven’t checked yet I’d also suggest checking if it’s registered and what the register states . If it refers to anything more than just their joint names, say a restriction, then post again to confirm and also what you plan to do, namely sell or keep it.

We never need to see the will as that deals with the beneficial ownership which we don’t register.

Hi, i paid £3 to look at the register state and it did just show both my mum and dad. When you say it would just go to my dad, does it not matter if he hasn't informed them etc? or when i fill in the forms to get it in my name will it have a part where i put that both have now passed away?