Execs cant agree house price

RAS

And perhaps tot up the annual cost of running the property whilst you fail to agree, which is being covered by the estate. Anywhere near paying empty property CT yet?

Mands

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82088884#Comment_82088884

I think you need an extra "x" in your costs. The estimated legal costs for removing an executor usually start at 10k at a minimum.

gm0

In the interests of balance

Time

Which comes at a cost no doubt. A few thousand. Or - what implications of overly aggressive actions

Consider the possibility of grief not greed driving avoidant behaviour / not wanting to "face" it. With three it is close to inevitable they will process a death and be "ready" to let go at different times. A year or two is not "a long time" in such a situation. Whatever the cashflow says.

Depending on sibling relations in general - it is also far from uncommon to be more or less receptive to being hustled (easily misread (or just read) as being unreasonably dominated or bullied (by brother/sister as usual) thus driving even less co-operation and adding to long term alienation. What's that worth in £?.

You and your dad know these people. But have a care to these soft factors. You don't control their grief or personalities or time and attention to pay to it (health, work etc.). You do control your own reactions and actions which can help or hinder and be presented differently - face to face as group or 1:1 to achieve a result or a ratchet. Expecting this to happen trivially on whatsapp with elders is optimistic.

The forum receives a lot of (half) stories about greedy and unreasonable actors in family disputes and goes quickly to present the backstop resolutions i.e. what the law allows to "force the issue". All helpful.

Options existing and understanding them is good. Pulling some handles prematurely - is questionable.

Poisonous - to future relations and should only be attempted - or "threatened" in extremis. It's good you are concerned for this stressing your dad and keen to help. Your dad and the others are quite likely more emotionally invested. If this was this a childhood family home rather than a retirement place they never lived in. Doubly so.

People do suboptimal things about renovation and selling all the time in this situation. Renovations honouring memory - not ease of letting or use/disposal now. Very human and they get over it and realise they made a mistake. Eventually. The key word is eventually.

Spendless

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82089141#Comment_82089141

It wasnt an exact science of exchanging the x in a currency convertor into £s!

But even more so the letter can say this will cost around £s to go down this route or there has been a previous offer of <whatever it was> that we can look to market the property at.

Id at least sound out a solicitor about this possibility.

Mands

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82089249#Comment_82089249

Sorry Spendless, it wasn't intended as a criticism of you. But to highlight that removing an executor is neither easy nor cheap. And a minimum 10k bill on a modest estate probably doesn't make sense.

Alderbank

Have we established that this is definitely a disputed probate case? If it is, I agree that court costs would easily exceed £20K.

However I think that this is simply a case of 3 co-owners of a property as tenants-in-common, each with an equal beneficial interest of a third of the value, and one of the three wants to force the other two to sell.

The only way to force a sale would be with a court order which the dissenter will have to pay the costs of, win or lose. The court is charged with looking at all the individual merits of each claim but in almost every case where there are 3 or more co-owners the court will side with the majority, and in this case the majority are clear that they do not wish to sell.

The court would only find in favour of the dissenting party in exceptional circumstances such as if the property is occupied by a schoolchild who might be harmed by the move or if the dissenting owner is terminally ill.

Are there any such circumstances in this case?

morgmonster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82089174#Comment_82089174

What a thoughtful post. Since my Dad died myself and my brother (in our early 40s) have had a few almost fallings-out which I never ever would have predicted. We always had a lovely relationship, a very stable happy family, and I love him so very much. My Mum is still alive and I never would have thought that our relationship would be so affected by the loss of Dad, I completely underestimated how it would change our family dynamics. I didn't really appreciate Dad's role as the quiet steady one until he was gone, and I guess despite being married with kids of our own, neither of us ever really had to take on a grown up role within our original family of 4 while Dad was around, but now we do with supporting Mum. My husband often has to remind me to take a step back, and give everyone some grace, we are all still grieving. Anyway, just wanted to say what a good post (but also the OP and their dad seem very level headed).