Inherited property ownership issue 21 November 2022 at 12:47PM in Deaths, funerals & probate 18 replies 2.1K views

Cleur

My dad passed away just over a year ago and my brother and I are named beneficiaries in his will.

My dad lived in a property that had previously been owned by his father (passed away 1982) and his mother remained in the property until she passed away in 1991. My dad was their only child and there were no other living relatives.

We eventually managed to find the deeds in the house, which are in my grandfather's name as unfortunately, property ownership was never transferred after my grandfather passed away (and of course is not registered with LR). 

We had planned to sell the property but the solicitor who dealt with probate following my dad's death has advised that without a will from my grandad, or grandma we cannot prove ownership and they have never encountered this situation before and cannot advise us how to proceed.

So I'm hoping that someone might have had heard of a similar situation and be able to give us an idea where to start!

Flugelhorn

in the absence of a will then intestacy will come into play - I am sure that this has happened before many times - presume someone has to administer grandad's estate and change the details of the onership to your Dad and then again for you?  maybe the Land Registry advisor can help with what action is needed 

PS I do lots of genealogy and often find grants of admin that are decades after the death, often because they are then needed to transfer the ownership of properties

Cleur

Yeah I'm puzzled as to why Dad's probate solicitor can't advise. 

We have no idea what took place after my grandad died as we were very young.  I doubt he had a will and I assume my grandma just remained in the property without any formal paperwork.  And of course my grandmother's only remaining relative was my Dad so I don't believe she would have had a will instead. 

I'll do some googling on intestacy and take it from there.  Thank you.

RAS

You need the gov.uk advice pages. The situation is unusual but not unknown

Based on the deeds, was grandpa the sole owner, as was common before the 1970s, or were he and grandma joint owners? And if it was held in both names was it as a joint tenancy or tenants in common, as these may affect whether you need to adminster both grandparents' estates?

You may also need to get valuations for 1982 and 1991 to work out if IHT (or it's precursor) need to be paid.

Come back when you have some more information and there may be people able to help.

user1977

Why can't the solicitors advise? It's just a question of working through each step at a time - yes it's extra work but it's not rocket science.

Flugelhorn

Cleur said:

We had planned to sell the property but the solicitor who dealt with probate following my dad's death has advised that without a will from my grandad, or grandma we cannot prove ownership and they have never encountered this situation before and cannot advise us how to proceed.

I can't quite work this out - how did the solicitor do the probate and declare the value of the estate .. if it included a property that the solicitor hadn't got any evidence the the deceased actually owned? 
He must have made that assumption at the time? Did the value of the estate include the property - if it did then solicitor thinks father owned it. Hmm need to go back to them and get them to set out a plan or at least get them to ask someone else

Brie

It may be useful to get all the family documents together to prove the relationships.  Your and your bro's birth certificates to prove who your father was, his will, his birth cert, parent's marriage cert, their birth certs & death certs etc back to the name on the deed.  

Might be some proof if you have old copies of voter's reg, phone books, council tax, whatever to add substance to who was living there when.

And get a new solicitor.

Keep_pedalling

As your GF owned the house outright someone should have applied for letters of administration back in in 1982 but is seems like this was not done. Intestacy rules back then would have seen his wife inherit all of his estate providing it did not exceed £40000. If it did she would have inherited the first £40000 and 50% of the rest. The remainder would have gone to your father.

Assuming his estate was below £40000 the total value of the house would have formed part of her estate and would have passed to your father unless she had a will stating otherwise, but it seems no one administered her estate either hence you are currently in this mess. I think you are going have to get letters of administration for both GPs before you can move forward.

Cleur

Thanks everyone, after being set off on the path of intestacy rules yesterday, I managed to complete successful probate searches on the .gov website for both of my grandparents and just awaiting these.

I have assumed that my GF was sole owner as was usual back then, and as his only family was my GM and Dad, it would have automatically passed to my GM and then my Dad.  My brother had already found GP death certs, but as someone mentioned, my Dad's probate sol was possibly assuming the 'missing' deeds were already in my dad's name?  Who knows, I wasn't impressed with them when we spoke to them to get Dad's will etc so we will instruct a new solicitor when needed.

From what I could see online, the estate was valued at the time both of my grandparents passed, so I'm hoping this is a significant step?  And from here we should be able to prove that the property was right to go to my Dad and we will then just need to sort out the transfer of ownership.

Flugelhorn

Certainly sounds you are on the right track @Cleur if there is probate (or is it admin?)  for the GPs then that should make onward changing of the ownership easier 

Cleur

I've literally just downloaded GFs, still waiting on GMs.  But it is the Grant of Letters of Administration and shows that my GM was sole beneficiary.  Assuming GMs shows my Dad as sole beneficiary, then I am hoping that this it should be fairly straightforward from here. Thanks so much for your help again.