Is there a probate fee when you sell a house if there was a will?

james_uk

Hi, my father died in July this year, there was a will in place leaving everything to myself as my mum has already passed away 3 years ago.

The solicitor that held the will charged £1000 to sort out the grant of probate and said he'd advice i do all other admin related stuff because there wasn't going to be much with my fathers estate and will be far cheaper than him charging more for it.

So i done that on his advice, the grant of probate was sorted the other day and i have 9 copies of that now.

No one mentioned anything about any other charges down the line but someone i know is also dealing with a different solicitor at the moment sorting out their own will and was told on sale of the house after someone dies, probate charge a fee of £8500 Is this correct?

If so what is that excessive charge actually paying for?

Would i not be able to sell my fathers house without going through probate?

Am not sure i understand why probate would have to be involved as the house has now legally been passed to me.

Or am i looking at this wrong and got confused because of what i have been told which might not be relevant to my situation?

I have been approached by someone who has expressed they would be interested in buying the house when i am ready and would want to get it valued first by possibly a couple of places first to have an idea on its value. but if after getting it valued i wanted to go down the route of this private sale, would i also need to include probate?

I thought probate was only really needed if there was no will in place so they had to make the choices for you?

Any help would be great

Thanks

James

Keep_pedalling

There is no such charge. Selling the house should now be fairly straight forward and your conveyancing solicitor should no more for than any other house sale. 

BooJewels

I must admit, several things concern me about your post. 

Firstly, in order to obtain probate you would already have had the house valued for the IHT aspect of the process, so either you, or the solicitor would have already got a valuation.  If you have the grant document - what value does it give the estate - that will be made up of all the assets you told the lawyer about, including the house value and any cash sums in the estate etc., minus funeral costs and any debts that need to be paid.

Secondly, paying a grand for someone to do that process for you makes my heart bleed with simple estates.  It's a bit of detective work and time with a calculator and pencil and an hour filling a form in - either on line or a paper copy.  There's a fee for the process and it costs to get copies of the grant, but I paid around 200 quid ish.

You need the grant in order to sell an estate property, so you certainly needed to have it done if you want to sell.  It's basically a government court that look at the will, look at the tax position of the estate, check your ID and issue a little bit of paper with a pretty hologram on it (the court seal) that states to any interested parties that you're entitled to sell the property, get at monies in the bank, sell shares etc etc.  It's just proof of your legal right to do such things.

I wonder if the £8.5k someone else is having to pay is something like Capital Gains Tax?  If you tell the probate office on your form - for example - that the house is worth say £200k and then sell it for £300k - you'll need to pay some tax on the amount you gained since applying for probate - so some tax on the £100k you gained.  There's an allowance and you pay tax on the balance.  Maybe that's why probate was mentioned by your friend, maybe they sold for more than they told probate and now need to pay tax on their gain?

thegreenone

Probate is needed when there is property to sell or the estate is complicated.  You've got Probate so you can put the property on the market or go through the private sale. 

The £8500 could be estate agency fees or Capital Gains Tax (the difference between the value at death and the sales value, if higher).  Although, both of which are unknown fees until the sale so puzzled at this fee.

james_uk

Hi, thanks for the replies, yes the grant of probate papers do have the estate value which was the whole value including money in bank etc, it didn't show a value just for the house, but the total value mentioned on the paper is about double what i will probably get for the house.

maman

james_uk said:

Hi, thanks for the replies, yes the grant of probate papers do have the estate value which was the whole value including money in bank etc, it didn't show a value just for the house, but the total value mentioned on the paper is about double what i will probably get for the house.

So is the other half covered by bank accounts etc? Surely the solicitor asked you for figures or are you planning to sell the house below market value? 

james_uk

yeh one half of the value is what was in the bank and the other half is about the value of the house.

Is that not how its normally done?

Will that effect me selling the house or the price i get?

JGB1955

If the estate sells the house for more than the probate value CGT will be due.

p00hsticks

james_uk said:

Hi, thanks for the replies, yes the grant of probate papers do have the estate value which was the whole value including money in bank etc, it didn't show a value just for the house, but the total value mentioned on the paper is about double what i will probably get for the house.

The grant of probate only shows total gross and net figures for the estate, but the probate application will have had to break that down into things like property (the deceased main residence and any others separately), stocks and shares, savings accounts, debts owing etc.

If the solicitor hasn't shared the details with you, then you need to ask them what the property value was stated, as you'll need this when working out if you (or the estate) will have Capital Gains Tax to pay if you sell for a higher price than declared for probate.

Keep_pedalling

james_uk said:

yeh one half of the value is what was in the bank and the other half is about the value of the house.

Is that not how its normally done?

Will that effect me selling the house or the price i get?

The value of the house would have been declared in the IHT205 form the solicitor submitted for probate. If he has declared a higher value than you expect to sell it for then you certainly won’t have an issue with capital gains tax.

You should ask the solicitor for a copy of the IHT form for your records.

mjm3346

You solicitor is happy, probate is granted, move on and sell  - the issues the person you know is having have nothing to do with the estate you are dealing with.
Having sold after probate the only costs incurred were the usual ones associated with a house sale and probate made no difference.