Buying a house from an onwards chain waiting for probate - Advice please

User9943

We are currently in the middle of purchasing a property which is ready to complete but the onwards chain is buying a property going through probate.

We have broken the chain by renting somewhere short-term month on month as we didn't want to lose our buyer. It's been approximately 10 weeks since we moved out and we were told it would be 3-4 weeks until we would be in our new house but the probate still hasn't been granted on the property our sellers are buying.

We have been told probate can be chased at 16 weeks but our mortgage offer runs out at the end of October and with the increasing rates we do not want to start looking for another mortgage offer.

Am I being unreasonable for wanting our seller to break the chain and allow us to move in whilst they wait for their property to have probate granted?

My worry is that they pull out which leaves us with no house at all and having to start the process again!!

Grizebeck

No i think you should tell them to break the chain
We are waiting on a probate sale but our situation is different to yours , but if it was the same id be doing exactly the same thing
Probate delays are like many things getting worse
But there is no logic some cases are dealt within 8 weeks and some take 16 when they are not complicated etc

chanz4

probate is min norm 6 months

propertyrental

Probate will take as long as it takes.

You can ask anyone i the chain to break the chain. They can agree or not.

Grizebeck

chanz4 said:

probate is min norm 6 months

Where did you get that figure from?

RAS

Check over on the other forum. Some people it's 10 weeks, some less and others it's six months. 

Do ask if they submitted the forms electronically or on paper. Paper takes a lot longer. Apana check they a) sent the original will, b) haven't had to respond to any queries from the Probate office. 

User9943

Thanks for your comments, really appreciate them!

It's hard because I don't want the seller to then decide to back out of moving for the sake of a couple more weeks of waiting. We have spoken to our solicitor and he said obviously starting the process again with a new house will take longer than the wait for probate.

It's coming up 16 weeks next week so I think once it hits that milestone and we still haven't had any notification of it being grated we will speak to the estate agent and ask them to break the chain.

RAS

You do realise that the executor can only chase up the probate after 16 weeks? I'd give them a week to do that.

User9943

RAS said:

You do realise that the executor can only chase up the probate after 16 weeks? I'd give them a week to do that.

Yeah, that's what they have said so I'm happy to wait until it's been chased and see if there is any movement from that. If we get to 16 weeks, they chase it and they say it will granted within 2/3 weeks then that's fine! My worry is I have been reading up on similar cases that have been straightforward and taken around 30 weeks.

Grizebeck

RAS said:

You do realise that the executor can only chase up the probate after 16 weeks? I'd give them a week to do that.

When I did my dads. And it was 8 weeks I chased after 6 and there was no issue chasing.  I used live chat much easier 

km1500

My neice bought a probate house recently - probate took 7 months