Offering on a probate property - Better deal?

fackers_2

Hello! 

Seen a property recently and after thinking over the festive period we’ve decided to make an offer. However, doing research it seems the average time to complete is 6 months. Fine, that’s ok, potential to help negotiations.

What I’m here for though is to understand making an offer on such a property, who’s bought a probate property and how much under did you offer? Is there scope that a lower offer tends to be accepted since there is no onward chain? Any good ‘deals’ done on these? Be curious to hear from sellers and buyers. 

Property needs a lot of work and still in the 70’s, well over valued it seems so a lower than asking is more than likely. 

Thanks in advance. 

user1977

Depends on the competition for the property, I don't see why the fact it's probate is necessarily going to make a difference to the price. You could have multiple beneficiaries with their own (possibly ambitious) ideas about what price they ought to be getting.

thegreenone

I sold my late Mum's flat for asking price, after Probate was granted.  I had three asking price offers and many viewers lined up.  

The Executor's have to get the best price possible for the estate beneficiaries.  You can try but many executors are in no hurry. 

Good luck with your train of thought.

propertyrental

Being a probate property has no bearing on its desirability or market value.

Being chain-free might make it slightly more attractive to buyers, but not to the extent of reducing the market value.

its condition ("needs a lot of work and still in the 70’s") will reduce its value a bit (depends if it's cosmetic or structural work needed, but that's nothing to do with being sold by Executors of a deceased.

Ksw3

we bought a probate property. Offered over as we wanted the house and had a lot of competition. I'm not sure probate really affects the price as long as the condition of the house is good.

jonnydeppiwish!

Sold STC at £430k, sale was stalling, we offered £385k and offer was accepted. 2017

Noneforit999

It being a probate property doesn't mean you are going to get it cheap.

If it needs lots of money putting into it, I would assume they will price it accordingly anyway.

I would be offering what I feel its worth based on how much work I feel it needed.

Is it going to be your forever home or were you hoping to get it cheap, get some work done on it and sell it for a profit later? If its the latter and it needs lots of work (kitchen, bathroom, flooring, plumbing etc) and you have to pay trades to do it all, you may find you end up losing money on it considering house price rises seem to have slowed/stalled. 

Cedartree123

We are going through a purchase of a probate house at the minute. When we put our bid in we didn’t know it was going through probate, so it didn’t affect our offer.

Each sale is different, you might find that the executors want shot of it, and are worried about prices falling in the future, or they might be in no rush to sell, because they don’t need to - which is much the same as any other property. 

Your other issue is that the grant of probate may take 5 weeks, it may take 8 - 12 weeks, or it may take 6+ months, and there is no way of telling. 

UnderOffer

Does it have grant of probate? Or is that still going through, if already GoP received you may find competition is high as property is ready to sell and other buyers are not put off. 

Friends paid full value for probate property 2 years ago, seemed popular. 

MobileSaver

fackers_2 said:

Is there scope that a lower offer tends to be accepted since there is no onward chain?

All other things being equal, you are less likely to get a lower offer accepted on a probate property than on a normal owner-occupier property.

Firstly it's more likely the asking price was determined by a professional RICS surveyor rather than a vested-interest estate agent and/or emotionally invested home-owner.

Secondly the executor or administrator has a legal obligation to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries so it's more likely they'll be looking for the fair market value as determined by the aforementioned RICS surveyor.

Thirdly the "no onward chain" makes it more attractive to buyers so more likely there will be competitive offers pushing the price up.

Of course, more or less likely doesn't mean you won't get lucky so just offer what it's worth to you. If your main criteria is a "good deal" then your best bet is a run-down property in a less-than-ideal location being sold by a private motivated seller...

user1977

MobileSaver said:

fackers_2 said:

Is there scope that a lower offer tends to be accepted since there is no onward chain?

Secondly the executor or administrator has a legal obligation to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries so it's more likely they'll be looking for the fair market value as determined by the aforementioned RICS surveyor.

Though I would say this obligation tends to get overstated around here - in reality they don't need to behave differently from any other normal seller who is trying to sell a (presumably empty) property reasonably quickly. The executor doesn't e.g. need to keep the property on the market for months on end just because a beneficiary is convinced a higher offer will come one day.

And in a huge proportion of cases the executors and the residuary beneficiaries are one and the same, so they can do what they like.