Letters of administration and house purchase

[SisterForEsme]

We have had an offer accepted on a house - but now it turns out the supposed vendor can't sell the house until he goes through the 'letters of administration' process because he cannot find his father's will to prove he has inherited the property.

Any idea how long it is likely to take for this to be resolved? Our solicitor says it could be 6+ months, but I wanted some other opinions/experiences of the process ... apparently there's a backlog of cases at the moment.

Just very stressed at how much this could disrupt our hoped-for move.

walk away.
it could be ages and be very stressfull.

Can’t he just download a copy of the will form the government website? Otherwise
I would walk away, it could be months due to backlog.

If there's no will then he will have to apply for letters of administration. There is no database of wills until probate is granted, no will =letters of administration. (iirc)

I'd walk away op. Sorry. If it's a simple estate it can be wrapped up in weeks but it sounds like your vendor is utterly clueless (as is the estate agent who should have picked this up upon instruction) so could take months and months.

Also, you'd be astonished how many folk (including the so-called professionals) assume that just because someone is named in a will/LOA the house immediately transfers to them by magic - this simply isn't true.

As others said - walk away. It could take months and as a PP stated - the seller sounds clueless

You can only download a will when its been put there by Probate Office. If there is no will there is nothing to download.....I have been through this recently. Probate is taking 13-16 weeks and if this seller thinks he can just sell the house just imagine how he will manage if he has to apply for LOA

@BloodyAdultDC ah I missed the not having a will bit, just assumed he had binned it/ lost it.
yes agreed he may not even have inherited it, so may have zero rights to sell. It will take ages to resolve either way.

maybe not walk away - just run!

Aw nuts 😔
Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply - really appreciate it. Back to the RightMove drawing board....