House valuation as administrator

[probatesnowbate]

NC for this one.

The person who died, died intestate. There is a property that is jointly owned with their ex-spouse. There are 3 dc but not all are the ex-spouses. The ex spouse has changed the locks (they don't live there) and the dc who has applied for probate cannot access the house. The letters of administration should be granted in the next couple of weeks. The ex spouse has had the house valued and is saying it is worth around £100k less than others in the same street. Can the dc who will have the letters of administration get the house valued independently of the ex-spouse? How can they gain access? The house is possibly going to be sold.

How was the house owned?

Joint tenants or tenants in common?

Joint tenants. There's talk of an application for financial provision under section 9 for the youngest dc who is not the ex-spouses.

The administrator dealing with the estate could presumably get the locks changed in order to gain access, and then ask two separate estate agents for a probate valuation.

If they were joint tenants, the house now belongs to the ex outright and does not form part of the deceased's estate. There is, therefore, no need to get a valuation for probate.

I think the house will be sold due to the proposed section 9 application. There are no other assets, only the property.

As pp says, if they were joint tenants, the house now belongs to the ex outright and is not part of the estate. As the owner of the house, the ex may sell for whatever price they like.

If there really are no other assets besides the house, making an application to the court for financial provision seems pointless.

Section 9 of the 1975 Act states that joint property can be considered part of the net estate. I'm not sure what's going on there but there is a strong case for financial provision due to the child's age it seems.

It may seem pointless, but if the applicant (ie DC3) was financially dependent on the deceased, the courts can award them some or all of their DFs share of the property. Until that point, the ex wife is deemed to be the sole owner of the property.
If there were no other assets apart from the property, it’s pointless applying for probate as the net worth of the estate will be Nil.

Actually, an application for financial provision can still succeed in this situation. Section 9 of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act allows the court to treat the property as if part of it was included in the deceased's estate. In effect, they treat it as if the joint tenancy was severed immediately before the deceased's death.

How old is the child and who do they live with currently?

They are 10 and live with their mother.

Just to be clear, as far as the probate application is concerned the house does not form part of the deceased's estate so no valuation is needed. However, if the section 9 application succeeds, the courts will work on the basis that part of the house was part of the deceased's estate and will make an award to the child on that basis.

So did their father support them financially already and is their mother not able to support them? Who is funding the legal challenge? It is actually quite rare for such a legal challenge to succeed.

@Soontobe60 I don't know. My query was more to do with accessing the house as administrator if they don't have a key. Access will be required to get all the financial paperwork and also to distribute belongings I expect.

They will need to talk to the deceased's ex about gaining access in order to get the deceased's paperwork and personal effects.

Have they not already got this? They would have needed all financial paperwork to apply for letters of administration.
It sounds like a bit of a mess!

No, they don't need all the financial paperwork. If the value of the estate is below the IHT threshold (which is quite likely as the house is not part of the estate) and certain other conditions apply (again, quite likely in this case), all the executor needs is enough information to estimate the gross and net value of the estate.

Ok. Thank you.

@Soontobe60 why is provision under section 9 a rare thing? They've been told there's a strong case.

There was a case a couple of years ago "R deceased" where two sons aged 15 and 16 when their father died were awarded £118k and £68k from an estate worth approx £600k after they had been excluded from his will.

Although, of course, that wasn't an intestate situation.

Re R Deceased [2021] EWHC 936 (Ch)

So they would need the financial paperwork, such as bank statements and pensions in order to estimate this then.

The critical word here is "estimate". An estimate is not required to be accurate. There are likely to be debts that are not known about when applying for probate. The cost of administering the estate is also not known. There may well be other things you don't know about at the time of applying for probate. So no, you do not need access to the financial paperwork to put together an estimate. If you don't know how much is in the deceased's bank account, you make a guess based on the information to hand.

The executor's estimate only needs to be accurate enough to know whether the estate owes any tax. In this case, it seems likely that the estate is a long way short of the IHT threshold, so it really doesn't matter whether there is £100 or £100k in the deceased's bank account when estimating the value of the estate.