Executors selling house - solicitors/conveyancer question

[Soulshine26]

We're Executors using a solicitor to deal with an Estate which includes a house - the house will be sold from the Estate before the administrating of the Estate is finished by this same solicitor and only then will funds be transferred to the Benefiaries (the Executors aren't also Beneficiaries).

Can we use a different solicitor at a different firm for the conveyancing part?

Or do we have to use the same one (or firm) for both?

If we can use a different one, (which we'd rather do) - are there any issues we need to know? Any potential pitfalls? with having 2 solicitors involved at the same time?

Would it slow the selling process/conveyancing ?
Increase costs?

Anything else?

Any help v gratefully received.
Thank you

We had to deal with this last year. To be honest, having the same solicitor do all of it was beneficial for us - not only did they know where all the paperwork was, there weren't any hold-ups whilst documents were requested by one, sent by the other, re-done, signed, etc etc etc. I'm sure it worked out cheaper in the end as well.

Is there a reason why you want to use a different solicitor for conveyancing?

Oh by the way, it does help if the executors live reasonably locally to the solicitor, so that documents can be signed and witnessed more easily and without delay.

Would it slow the process to have two solicitors dealing with it? Would it increase costs?

Yes to both.

Thank you.
That makes sense. That was what I was imagining might be the case.

The solicitor we've got has been v slow so far and just doesn't seem like the pro-active experienced solicitor needed for conveyancing.
We hadn't used them before this so had no experience previously - plus were new to dealing with a will and Estate. In hindsight we'd have chosen someone else for all of it

Thanks. That's another reason, they're not local to us, things need to be posted

Thank you.
This is unfortunately what we feared

You can always change Solicitor to one more convenient to you.

Thank you.

I didn't mention in my OP that we're already a long way into the probate/Estate administration process with grant of probate issued and the house about to be put up for sale.

We can probably work around the distance issue but the other issues are the big worry

Wouldn't changing Solicitor at this point just delay things too - while everything was transferred from current to new solicitor?

Does anyone know?

thank you

If you are the executor (and the existing probate solicitor is only instructed by you, not an executor) then there is nothing to stop you instructing a different conveyancing solicitor and dealing with them directly. Why would you go through the probate solicitor? Just hand them the cheque when the sale completes and have them distribute the funds.

Having just sold my late mum's house the conveyancing was a disaster - it would have cost thousands and added months to the sale if everything had to go via another solicitor!

Unfortunately we had no previous experience of dealing with an Estate and hadn't properly understood the process or thought ahead properly to selling the house when we took on someone to deal with the will and probate

V grateful for any more thoughts or suggestions

thank you lots

Thank you very much for your reply.

That's what we were hoping to do, like you not go through the probate solicitor (they aren't an executor) and instruct a different conveyancing solicitor, deal with them directly and then have the funds transferred to the probate solicitor on completion for them to then distribute.

The other executor and I just weren't sure if the conveyancing solicitor would need info or documents from the probate solicitor during the conveyancing or need to somehow go through them at least at points.
From what you're saying about your experience it sounds as if they probably wouldn't? It's a pretty straight forward estate and we've got paperwork and info about the house

Sorry to hear you had such a bad conveyancing experience

Thanks again

All our estate agent needed was confirmation for f the probate in our names and ID, same for conveyancing solicitor. Our sale was an absolute ballache even doing it directly, I would have lost the plot (and probably the sale) with another solicitor in the mix!

If they are a reasonable sized firm the same person within the firm wouldn’t do the probate and the conveyancing in any event and you should be given a new matter and quote for the conveyancing. How are you choosing your preferred conveyancing solicitor? The cheapest isn’t necessarily the best and will likely use lesser/ non qualified paralegals to do much of the work. A personal recommendation from someone you know who has recently used them and checking for the law society conveyancing quality scheme would be a good start. They will need the grant and you will have to redo the id requirements for the new firm. They should be able to transfer the proceeds directly to the probate firm. Have the probate firm told you what is left to be completed? If not ask for a list together with anticipated time scales. They should keep you up to date. However some delays for example with HMRC and the probate registry will be outside of their control.

Thank you for all these tips and information. All very helpful

We've got a digital copy of the grant, forwarded by the probate solicitor.
Do you know if that's likely to be adequate for a conveyancing solicitor, once we find one? Or would we need an original/paper copy of the grant?

They will need an original sealed copy (it has an embossed stamp on it).