Tenants in common, one has died

[GemmaTellerMorrow]

Hi, any general advice greatly appreciated.

About a decade ago my parents made mirror wills, using a local solicitor. He spoke to them about making their property tenants in common, they agreed it sounded like a good idea, and went ahead.

Fast-forward to last month, my dad passed away. Apart from his 50% of the property he hasn't left anything, just a very small amount of cash.
I'm an executor and have found the probate stuff very straight forward but I can't figure out the TIC issue.

Local solicitor is going to charge upwards of £700 to deal with the Land Registry.
Basically it's to notify that my dad has died and that his 50% of the property is now "owned" by his four children. My mum has lifetime interest.

While I try and save up this money I wondered if anyone could tell me : is there a time limit by which I need to get this sorted? Would I be able to bypass the solicitor and do it myself or is it too complicated?

I'm not a lawyer.

Have a look on the Land registry site, particularly at:
www.gov.uk/joint-property-ownership
www.gov.uk/update-property-records-someone-dies
...and other links on those pages.

It seems to me that the solicitor is proposing to transfer the title deeds into your name ahead of either your mother dying or the house being sold.

My gut feel is that you don't actually have to do anything about this unless and until the beneficiaries want to sell the property, which will be after your mother dies.

Also, if you have received probate and are therefore entitled to, and in a position to sell, you will find that you can jump directly from deeds in your father's name to the transfer to the buyer, with one lot of transfer fees. This is what happened when my mother died and I sold the house.

What you do need to do now is to arrange for probate. For this you will need a valuation of the property, but I think the valuation will be lower than the full value of the house as your mother is effectively a sitting tenant paying no rent. A reputable estate agent should know what to do and it shouldn't cost much. You need 2 or 3 valuations.

I'm just a bit perplexed when you say your mother has a lifetime interest. I'd guess what you mean is that she is the tenant in common for the other 50%, then leaves her part to the 4 children in her will. At that time, they can sell the whole house.

Good luck.

Thanks for your reply. Yes my mother owns the other 50%. At the time they arranged the TIC from joint owners, the solicitor said 'lifetime interest' meant that she will be entitled to stay in the house until her own death, and that none of us can insist she sells the house to release dad's 50%.
At the moment she has no plans to move, please God she stays fit and well for a long time. So in reality nothing has changed, hopefully won't change, in the near future. Just that we wanted to know if we had an obligation to inform Land Registry that one of the TIC is now deceased.

I remember that when I sold my mother's house in 2016 the buyers asked for a copy of my father's death certificate. He died in 1977 so I suspect that the issue was that the deeds were still in his name, not my mother's name. All handled by the solicitor that handled the sale of the property as that was the only time it actually mattered.

When my mother died I believe we didn’t have to change who her half of the house was registered to but my solicitor placed a charge on the title deeds to state that her estate has an interest. It took a further 5 years for the transfer of assets to occur (3 years after probate granted).

I've done this when my mum died. After several phone calls to land registry and watching a YouTube video I completed the firms myself and £40 later I officially own half of my dads house. I would do it asap as otherwise you may be storing up admin issues later on. To be honest it was quite easy it was the land registry helpline people that made it complicated. The YouTube video makes it very clear and easy.

I’m a solicitor (although not in probate/conveyancing). You should be able to do this yourself and just pay the land registry fees. Take a look at: www.gov.uk/update-property-records-someone-dies

You need to record yours and your siblings interest under the life interest trust (that arose from your Dad’s Will) with the land registry. As it is a trust, you should be named on the title as owner (in your capacity as executor/trustee of your dad’s estate) on with your mum.
It shouldn’t cost £700 get some other quotes

I’m a solicitor, that seems a very high fee for relatively simple work, going by the facts as you’ve stated them. I would go and see another firm and get a quote or two to compare.

Also, you aren’t obliged to do this unless and until the property is sold. And no, there is no time limit on doing this sort of thing.

Thank you very much for all your replies, much appreciated.

I’m just in the process of doing this
I think I’m paying around £300 for a solicitor to do this work
I did do all the probate myself but I didn’t want to mess up the rest of it

I

Sorry for your loss.

You don't have to inform Land Registry now. However, it would be free to simply update the register to remove your Dad's name. You just need to complete form DJP and send it in with evidence of his death, eg probate, death certificate. You don't need to deal with the trust issues until you want to sell it.

My parents were TIC and when my Dad died his 50% was shared between my sister and l. So the house is now owned 50%Mum 25%sister 25%me.

Difficultly l had was when l got divorced and because l owned 25% I had to declare it on my financial disclosure form.

My XH also used it against me saying that if l didn't give him what he wanted cash wise, he'd go after his share of my 25% which would have meant I'd have had to sell the family home leaving me and the 2 DC homeless.

It was all sorted in the end but was very stressful. Just wanted you and your siblings to bear this situation in mind. Not sure if there is anyway you can protect it from your spouse's though