Probate - Buying House off beneficiaty/trustee

Guy1960

Sadly my father who I was living in house with has recently past away
I and my sister are appointed executors and trustees

House has been left in will jointly between us.  I wish to remain and buy sisters half of house off.

Can I do this ?  Have heard that there is a 'self dealing' rule which needs to be applied.

Any advice would be appreciated  

Keep_pedalling

As long as your sister is happy with it there will be no problem. 

jackieblack

The self dealing rule, put simply, is that executors must not take advantage of their position in a transaction and act in their own interests rather than in the interests of the beneficiaries

So basically, as long as you’re acting honestly, your sister is happy to sell to you rather than on the open market and you and your sister agree on a fair price, there’s no problem.
(A modest reduction to balance not having to pay estate agent fees is considered fair) 

Savvy_Sue

From what I've seen on these boards, there can be a tension between the party who wants to buy out at an advantageous to them price, and the party who wants to sell at a generous to them price. 

You can understand why that would be. 

I certainly wouldn't want to proceed without a proper valuation or three. 

There's then a tension between what happens to the value after it's been sold to one party. Of course none of us can predict house prices, but let's say you've got a house which estate agents agree would sell on the open market for c. £500k. It's rarely worth doing a lot of work to a probate property before you sell it: you just price it noting that there's work to be done and let the buyer get on with it. So one sibling buys it from the other for £250k, maybe a small reduction for not needing to pay an estate agent. They rip out the kitchen and bathrooms, redecorate throughout, and really enjoy living there, BUT for some reason after a couple of years they decide to move, so they put it on the market, and estate agents say it's now worth £750k. 

If I'd been the seller, I wouldn't care, because my sibling has done the hard work which I had no interest in doing, and it's now their house. But suppose my sibling had persuaded me to sell my half to them for £100k, I think I might feel quite aggrieved. 

So in the OP's position, I'd want to be generous to my sibling in terms of price to be paid, and if that was unaffordable I'd accept that the best thing would be to sell the house.