Siblings not agreeing on late mothers property price that has to be sold

Notebook

Hi
My partner's mother has recently died and my partner, who lived with her mother, is to share the sale of the property with her sister.
They are both executors and trustees.
The house has been valued, but her sister won't take advice the estate agents and is asking far in excess of their recommendations.  This has resulted with only 2 people viewing, and now nothing.  She refuses to budge on the unrealistic price.
There is an equity release loan on the property and thus there is 1 years allowance to sell the property.
How can this be resolved?
I believe I read a while back that this can be passed to a court if the status quo remains.  The clock is ticking...

Forget talking to her and reasoning, she is, lets say difficult.

Would really appreciate advice on moving this matter on.

Thanks

theoretica

Could sister afford to buy your partner out at the bargain price your partner thinks is realistic and the sister thinks too low?

user1977

The executors can go to court about it, though once the "difficult” one realises the legal costs will be (at least partly) coming off what they inherit (and the circumstances are only likely to put off buyers) hopefully she will see sense. Court won’t be fast either, especially if it’s defended.

Notebook

theoretica said:

Could sister afford to buy your partner out at the bargain price your partner thinks is realistic and the sister thinks too low?

No, I don't see this as an option - Thanks

Notebook

Thanks..
Could the equity release company take control after 12 months?

MultiFuelBurner

You must find a way to communicate.

user1977

Notebook said:

Thanks..
Could the equity release company take control after 12 months?

In theory they could repossess after that point. In practice I’m not sure how excited they get about such things, as they’re unlikely to be keen to take on the costs and risks of repossession, unless the executors really appear to be doing nothing.

You could certainly point out to SIL the risk of ending up with whatever the equity release company achieves in a repo sale, minus all of their expenses (and obviously an even higher loan balance).

YoungBlueEyes

How about getting a RICS surveyor in to value it? The sister might be more willing to accept their valuation as they're actually qualified, rather than 'just an estate agent'. 

I was in a similar situation - 2 sisters, 1 house, disagreements, legal mumblings - and this is what we did. As it happened one of our local EA's was a RICS surveyor. He had a different tone/attitude with his rics hat on. From memory I think he cost £150 ish, but we'd agreed at the start that whatever valuation he said is what we'd go with. Worked for us. 

I don't know if you'd have to mention the equity release. 

I hope you get sorted. 

trailingspouse

Why is your partner allowing her sister to call the shots? Maybe it's time she became the 'difficult one', tells the estate agent to drop the price, and refuses to budge?