Mandatory Disabled Facilities Grant advice - selling property

MrBrindle

Hi all,

We are selling, or more accurately have recently sold my grandparents' / uncle's house on auction. It was completed on Thursday 30th.

 Long story short, the house was in my uncles' name after my grandparents passed away in 2019 and 2020. He himself sadly died in June 2021, with his estate being left to my father, who sadly passed away unexpectedly a month later in July 2021. Myself and my brother are executors on my fathers estate and a named solicitor, an executor on my uncles' estate. Probate was granted in October 2024, but we have yet to received any monies yet. The named solicitor on my uncles estate was also in charge of the wills and probates for both my father and uncle, and he has unfortunately been incredibly difficult to work with. But thats another story.

Previous to the house selling on auction, we had a sale fall through in September (personal reasons from the buyers), which had been ongoing since April - much of the delay was down to the executor solicitor who was (is) terrible at communication and completing documents.

We hadn't actually checked the house until this weekend since before summer (its empty with all utilities off), and found a letter dated in August from the local council saying they'd been notified of a land registry search on the property, and to contact them if we planned to sell the property. Now we knew my grandparents applied for the grant but had no idea what the T&C's were. We have now found paper work for the builder of the works, and this says the grant was awarded in June 2015, and further documents saying works to be completed by 20th October 2015. The grant was approx £23,000, and my mother remembers my grandparents had to contribute £4,000.

Having researched Mandatory Disabled Facilities Grants now, I understand they put a land charge for 10 years on properties as well - this will have JUST come to end now. However in the auction pack for the sale of the property, there was no land charge for this showing in the land register documents. 

The named applicant on the grant was my grandfather, but he died in 2019 , however the house was still occupied by my grandmother, and then uncle until their deaths. 

I'm not sure how to proceed now, and I'm concerned this new bit of information is going to have a detrimental effect on the sale. It could look like we've been concealing information, but we've been completely oblivious to this until now. 

Do I contact the council and let them know what's happening, or carry on with the sale, and then we can deal with any issues if they arise? This house is the gift that keeps on giving I;'m telling you!

user1977

If the sale is completing more than 10 years after the 10 year clawback period, I don't see what "issues" are going to arise? I presume the auction is the usual "caveat emptor" one where the buyer is expected to do all their own research anyway (whose search was it in August?).

GDB2222

Did a solicitor draw up the auction pack?

And can I check the date of the auction, ie when the hammer fell?

GDB2222

user1977 said:

If the sale is completing more than 10 years after the 10 year clawback period, I don't see what "issues" are going to arise? I presume the auction is the usual "caveat emptor" one where the buyer is expected to do all their own research anyway (whose search was it in August?).

For this purpose, is the date of sale the completion date or the date the contract was made?  In any case, the Op doesn’t really know what date the works were completed. 

user1977

GDB2222 said:

user1977 said:

If the sale is completing more than 10 years after the 10 year clawback period, I don't see what "issues" are going to arise? I presume the auction is the usual "caveat emptor" one where the buyer is expected to do all their own research anyway (whose search was it in August?).

For this purpose, is the date of sale the completion date or the date the contract was made?  In any case, the Op doesn’t really know what date the works were completed. 

I would fully expect it to be the date of completion. The council has no interest in when the contract was made.

MrBrindle

Thanks for the replies. 

Sorry havent been clear. For clarification, the search back in august was for the previous buyers’ solicitor,  however that was done via traditional estate agents selling, not auction. The sale fell through and we decided to relist via auction method for a quicker sale.

The legal auction pack was done by another solicitor associated with the auction company, and consisted of the usual land registry documents, title, ta6 forms, radon, mining, flooding etc.

The hammer fell on 4pm Thursday 30th. The winning bidder has paid a deposit (4.5% of the final price) on the property, but we havent actually completed, so the house isnt sold yet.

On the council - builder contract in 2015, the date of completion is the 20th of October.

GDB2222

MrBrindle said:

Thanks for the replies. 

Sorry havent been clear. For clarification, the search back in august was for the previous buyers’ solicitor,  however that was done via traditional estate agents selling, not auction. The sale fell through and we decided to relist via auction method for a quicker sale.

The legal auction pack was done by another solicitor associated with the auction company, and consisted of the usual land registry documents, title, ta6 forms, radon, mining, flooding etc.

The hammer fell on 4pm Thursday 30th. The winning bidder has paid a deposit (4.5% of the final price) on the property, but we havent actually completed, so the house isnt sold yet.

On the council - builder contract in 2015, the date of completion is the 20th of October.

So, you sold outside the 10 year period, it seems. 

 Do you want to ask the council what date they have for the actual completion of the work? It might affect what you do about completion of the sale. 

MrBrindle

GDB2222 said:

MrBrindle said:

Thanks for the replies. 

Sorry havent been clear. For clarification, the search back in august was for the previous buyers’ solicitor,  however that was done via traditional estate agents selling, not auction. The sale fell through and we decided to relist via auction method for a quicker sale.

The legal auction pack was done by another solicitor associated with the auction company, and consisted of the usual land registry documents, title, ta6 forms, radon, mining, flooding etc.

The hammer fell on 4pm Thursday 30th. The winning bidder has paid a deposit (4.5% of the final price) on the property, but we havent actually completed, so the house isnt sold yet.

On the council - builder contract in 2015, the date of completion is the 20th of October.

So, you sold outside the 10 year period, it seems. 

 Do you want to ask the council what date they have for the actual completion of the work? It might affect what you do about completion of the sale. 

Yes I may have to, i just hope a prolonged completion date doesn't affect the sale. 

I feel really annoyed I didn't do more research into it prior to selling the house. However myself, nor my brother and mother knew much about the grant to be honest.

MrBrindle

Just thought I'd update. Rang the council and the the land charge for the grant was discharged on October the 23rd, so all good to proceed with the sale as normal. Went ahead of worry.