Buying sister out of inherited house

mrspurplem

Hi our mother died in march and i and my sister have inherited equal shares of the property.we are both exectors and beneficiaries  of the will.we have grant of probate and have all death certicates.my wife and i have sold our house and are going to buy my sisters half (half of market value) which she is happy with.we have found out that the inherited propert is not registered with land registry my parents bought it as a new build back in 1958 and it has never been sold.my question is do we have to use a soliciter to fill in all the land registry forms we did the probate process without a soliciter,also the same question do we have to use a soloiciter to buy my sisters share of house.many thanks 

Savvy_Sue

Generally it's recommended to use a solicitor for first registration as there are some pitfalls for the unwary. 

mrspurplem

Thanks ,i just wondered how difficult it really is to do ,we managed to do all the probate forms ok .The land registry website is very helpful but didnt know if it had to be done with a soliciter by law

BooJewels

I'm in a similar situation - except we're selling the house to strangers.  My parent's bought the house in 1968.

A few months ago I looked at the forms and just decided that it was way beyond me - and the solicitors are currently doing this process as part of the sale - I think the lion's share is with the buyer, not the seller.

I did Probate with ease and couldn't fathom why, on a simple estate, anyone would pay a solicitor to do it for them, as you have to give them the information to pop in boxes anyway.  Had it been complicated, I would have consulted an accountant, not a solicitor.

But registering a property with the Land Registry for the first time seems a disaster waiting to happen and I'm very, very happy to pay someone else to do it in this instance.  I think the cost of getting it wrong just isn't worth the risk.  I think it might prove to be a false economy.

mrspurplem

Yes i agree about the probate ,we have looked at the land registry forms similar to probate ,filling in boxes with the information ,sending off with deeds etc ,just wondered if anyone had done it themselves .

eddyinfreehold

Two points here:

Firstly I would strongly recommend that you engage a solicitor to lodge the ownership of the property correctly with the Land Registry (assuming you are in England) ... things vary slightly in the other 3 nations of the UK and you should employ local experienced and qualified Legal Advice there too.

My father died a few years ago and things were reasonably simple because we had registered his property with the Land Registry some 20 years earlier. The property has been in the family for at least 5 generations and still is. We have deeds and conveyances back to the 1840s. It isn't any more than a tiny 2 bedroom single storey terrace with a garden but it abuts right onto a minor road. It was possible to do the registration, it was a lot of paperwork, and we successfully achieved it .....but we made a mistake outside the property. The property owns a space along its length of 50 feet of about 10 feet which was used for parking and the minor road was beyond that. A few yards down the road was a chapel.  On Sundays  we had no problem with chapel goers parking in the spare area we owned, everybody knew each other and it was an unspoken agreement. The Land Registry failed to log this on the 'red line of the property boundary' when we registered, and we never checked the logged map after it was registered.

The problem has been resolved now, the parking area has been allocated to our property, the chapel has closed .... but it ensures encroaching development is not allowed to park within 12" of our front door thinking it is County Council parking on the side of the road.

When the Land Registry have completed their job, get a copy of their plan of your site, satisfy yourself it is correct and check it every few years to make sure the Local Authority are up to speed as well. They change their maps all the time but should not encroach on your property. First registration really is for the professionals.

Secondly you say you are arranging the Estate so that the house is transferred at market value and you are happy with that. Technically the whole Estate is valued at the date of death and the house will have been granted a Probate value. That is the sum that you should be using for a transfer of ownership during the distribution of assets to the beneficieries. It might not be a big difference, if any but I'm pretty sure that's the proper way of accounting it.

I hope this doesn't offend and is of value.

sammyjammy

I assume you have the paper deeds?  My grandmothers house was sold last year and nobody could find the deeds anywhere, it was a real nightmare trying to get evidence that they had purchased and owned the house, luckily they had purchased it from the council who still had some records, I'm sure it could have been completed by the family but nobody had the time or the inclination so it was sorted out via solicitor.

mrspurplem

Yes we have the paper deeds and all original paperwork

SevenOfNine

It may have changed over the years (things usually get easier, not harder), but I did my mum's property first registration, she had bought her council house many years earlier. She had everything required (paperwork hoarder), even from when the council had bought the farmland to build the housing estate on! 

I followed registry instructions, numbered & listed it all. Can't recall if it was an 'offer' to encourage first registration or an age thing, but she got a discount. We hand delivered it all to Leicester.  No problems & job done.

mrspurplem

Thankyou thats good to know that it was relatively simple to do 

NeverTooLate

I have just applied for voluntary first registration for a property and did the paperwork myself. I would say that if the property and it's boundaries are easily identifiable on the OS map and you have all the original deeds, then it is doable without a solicitor.

You need to start with sending off the SIM form which double checks that the property isn't registered. Then form K15 which searches the charge register to make sure that there are no charges against the property (I was certain that there wouldn't be any outstanding charges - but there was )

Then you can submit the registration.