Legality of private property being purchased by executing solicitor?

[Singingstarfish]

Is anyone able to clarify whether it is legal for the executor (firm of solicitors) of a probate property to buy the property themselves, even though this property was advertised on the open market by an estate agent and an offer was made.

Having received the offer and arranged a corresponding valuation of the property, the estate agent who was commissioned to sell the property verbally promised the prospective buyers that they would not show anyone else around and that the buyers would get first refusal. The property was subsequently taken off the market whilst private issues were supposedly dealt with (probate had already been granted) and a few months later the prospective buyer, still eager to complete the sale, was told the property had been sold.

It has since transpired that the property was bought by the Solicitors employed to execute the sale, at a lower purchase price than that offered by the prospective buyer.

Could this matter be taken further?

Thank you.

Report to the SRA

Will the original purchaser make a formal statement?

I'm sure the beneficiaries could sue for loss but this isn't my area of the law.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, happy to make a statement but unfortunately every interaction with the estate agent was verbally over the phone therefore there isn’t any hard evidence of the offer.

I doubt the promise to remove the property from the market would prove enforceable. Quite apart from anything else, it doesn't sound like it would be possible to prove if it was all done verbally.

The prospective buyer will not have standing to make a claim against the executors (the beneficiaries very well may). There is no contract between the executors and the prospective buyers and there is no assumption of responsibility to justify tortious liability for pure economic loss. Short of making sure the beneficiaries are aware that a larger offer existed, I doubt it will be possible for the prospective buyer to pursue this themselves.

The SRA may however be interested in the conduct of the solicitors and informing them is probably the best course of action open to you.

You should of course seek proper legal advice!

Thanks. Yes, lesson learnt about ensuring that there’s an evidential paper trail when dealing with estate agents. Very much suspect the estate agent was was part of the set up due to them continually changing the story of what the hold up was and then blatantly lying!!

It’s encouraging to hear that the SRA may be interested in the solicitor/executor’s dealings regarding this property.

Thank you!

I be honest even if you had it all in writing I wouldn't be advising you to pursue a claim against the EA. There isn't clear consideration and in any event your loss is only loss of a chance.

Without significantly more information it isn't necessarily the case that there has been any wrongdoing by the executor towards the beneficiary. The SRA would have to look into the facts much more closely.

You're clearly very upset not have got the house, and that's understandable, but you don't have any "right" to have your offer accepted.

Probate solicitor here and that would be SO dodgy.

Nothing you can do about the estate agents sadly.

Has it definitely been sold to the solicitors though rather than being transferred into their name to retain long term for the beneficiaries? That would still show a value at the LR, which would be the probate value.

Thanks for your replies.
Obviously we were annoyed and disappointed at having been strung along and ‘promised’ this property for so long and also annoyed that the estate agent then tried to deny every conversation we’d had - and, of course, annoyed at our own naivety! But I’m sure that’s not a first when it comes to house buying and we certainly arent expecting any gain for ourselves out of this.

I guess I was more curious to know whether this is something that solicitors are allowed to do when they are executors of a probate property - market the property, get an offer, have the offer verified as correct market value, then take it off the market and buy it themselves for a cheaper price?!

namechanger I don’t know to be honest - I was told initially that the beneficiaries were lots of different charities and that there was no family involved. Having once been involved in charity legacy admin, I would think it unlikely that they would all agree for the property to be retained. However I could be wrong, and for all I know this was just another estate agent’s lie.

The only information I have is the sold price and that the solicitors details are on a planning application form as the owners. The house was in need of modernisation and the price paid was low for the area. It is occupied and has been done up with new windows etc., since they moved in. Would that happen if it was being retained? Someone would have to pay for that.

Coincidentally now trying to now buy another house in the same street which is how I stumbled across the planning application form and have seen all the renovation work (not stalking it - honest!)

Oh stalk away- I would be!

Yes I totally agree that charitable beneficiaries makes it much less likely that the property would be retained in the trust. I guess they could have got each legacy officer to agree to the property being developed but it’s a long shot I’d have thought.

If the property was still in trust, the executors would show as owners on the paperwork as they’d still hold the legal tithe.

Good luck with the house hunt. It’s so stressful and frustrating.

what was your mortgage / finance position? even though this looks dodgy as hell from a solicitor's conduct perspective, it is always possible that they put in a formal offer quite properly and the decision was taken by a group of executors (not including that one, so conflict avoided) and they elected to take the lower offer for reasons of speed etc. (i doubt it though!)

Haha - ok, stalking a bit!

If it was retained in trust, would it show up as sold?

The final word from the estate agent was “I got the impression you were no longer interested so it was sold internally”. She then denied all knowledge of who the executors and beneficiaries were, despite previously telling me and saying what a great relationship she had developed with the solicitor...

It would have had to be transferred to the executors at the LR which would look like a sale

Hmm.. we had sold and were renting and our mortgage offer was in place... we were ready to go!

I think, to be honest, the house was an absolute bargain with great potential and once they realised that, they wanted it for themselves

I wouldn't necessarily rely on the EA to have correctly characterised the nature of the transfer to be honest.

Was the property transferred into the name of the firm or of an individual lawyer?

In the politest way, and I totally recognise how upsetting and inconvenient this has been for you, I don't think continuing to give headspace to this is going to bring you any joy.

RCohle you are right, of course! And I will get over it... one day

WRITE to the SRA there are so many legals doing dodgy stuff these days and getting away with it because people chose just to “get over it”.

It requires time and headspace from you - I get this but people myself included are getting shafted by legals and UNless we pursue it as far as we can they will continue to think they are untouchable

From what you've said, only the beneficiaries of the will would have any kind of claim against the executor for not maximising the estate - sorry to say that you as the thwarted buyer have no comeback as the property can be sold to anyone.

I can see why it is annoying, but I think you should really let this go!

The SRA would still be interested as prima facie the solicitor has acted where there is a clear conflict of interest. It might be that OP has misunderstood what has gone on, but on the face of it there are questions to be answered.

Thanks, yes I guess that was my question really - is it legal for solicitors who act as executors for a probate property to buy it themselves at a knocked down price?

I understand that I wouldn’t benefit in any way by reporting it, but if it does breach a code of conduct I would be willing to as a matter of principle.

I went to the SRA because a solicitor who was an executor ignored a will . divided estate between self and one other ,denied existence of land abroad .

After many months - nearly 2 years - of providing all details to SRA they decided not to persue because most of estate recovered by beneficiaries - at the cost of hundreds in legal fees .

SRA not interested that a registered slcr had lied ,broken probate oath etc .

SRA not interested that a registered slcr had lied ,broken probate oath etc

Are you sure it wasn't simply the case that there was not enough evidence to back up your claims?

I really don't think so Collaborate ,we had emails
from slcr where it was stated that a deathbed will had overridden the written will -nothing to back up deathbedwill claim ,

emails saying "land ,what land?" which were dated after the copies of resealed probate relating to said land .

we privided copies of probate applications saying that no minors existed plus birth cert copies showing that they did

copies showing declaration that no assets owned overseas

copies of the relevant country's docs relating to the land

bank details showing the UK estate divided btwn the 2 executors rather than the 6 equal shares to 6 named beneficiaries that the will stipulated

Probably more that I can't recall off hand .

the SRA wouldn't allow the recorded voice mails in which the dodgy executor who is also a reg slcr made false ,incriminating claims because they said they would require validation by an expert ( fair enough I suppose )

Obviously the cost of using a slcr to recover the UK estate and the amount of time and effort rankles .Not to mention the destruction of family relationships and our good name on the island where the land is situated.

But we made it clear to the SRA that we were aware that financial recompense was not a consideration from their POV and that we had brought the matter to their attention because we felt a solicitor - altho in their private life - had broken the law and brought the profession into disrepute .

That’s so useless of them. The SRA have gone ahead with disciplinary action in those circumstances so many times. Seems like there’s no consistency.

The SRA were v unhelpful throughout eg they asked us to resend voice mails in different formats ,and then said they wouldn't consider .
They would say "doesn't meet evidential burden " with an explanation of what would only being revealed under close questioning and phone calls from us .Then we would provide the evidence .

Huge months delays ,promised deadlines never met ,lots of slcr/formal lang .

It sounds very unusual.
Was the price achieved higher? If so the heirs did better than with you however and presumably no third party offers came up and you were not able to better the solicitors' offer so perhaps the bottom line is that the heirs got more than they otherwise would? Or may be not.