Should I transfer an inherited house into my name before selling?

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I am the beneficiary of a property. Solicitors are the executors. Probate has been granted and I can now either have the house transferred into my ownership or I can allow the executors to sell it. My preference would be to have the house transferred into my ownership and then sell it myself. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t do this ?

No reason at all, go for it!

The capital gains tax/loss position is the decider.

Will there be CGT to pay on sale? If so do you pay tax at the basic rate? Exors pay at 24% on gains.

Have you used your annual exemption? Exors may already have used theirs or may not be available if more than three years from death. Or they may have capital losses that can be offsets against any gain.

Absolutely DO NOT do this.
Transferring ownership takes time and money. There is no logical reason to do it.
If it belongs to you and a sale takes a long time you could be hit with CGT, you only get 9 months grace now when it used to be two years.
If it belongs to you and you die, it could push your estate into IHT.

Even if the house isn’t in your name you will have already lost your first time buyer status for future stamp duty land tax or lifetime ISA’s.
So that’s not relevant.
As a buyer I would not care if the house was a probate sale or a normal sale but maybe some buyers might have a preference.
I don’t really see the advantage of switching it to your name unless your solicetors are charging a lot.

What do they recommend?

I expect OP that as the (sole?) beneficiary you could still organise the sale yourself even if the ownership hasn’t transferred to you formally on the deeds. I don’t imagine the solicitors have to manage the actual sale process if you’re happy to do it.

Since probate is already granted, it shouldn’t deter any buyers (as the worry for the buyer is there will be a delay on that front and the sale falls through).

If the property is not OPs primary residence there is no grace period where CGT is not payable.

At one point, transfer of ownership was taking many months, not sure if the backlog is now cleared.
You don’t lose FTB status as the house belongs to the estate up until the point of transfer.

It is much of a muchness really.

There will likely be additional cost and time to transfer the property to you first.

The base cost of the property for both the Executors and yourself will be the value at date of death.

If CGT is due then you would have an annual exempt amount of £3k, and so would the Executors for the year of death and following two years.

If there is a loss then the Executors could potentially claim back overpaid IHT, whereas you couldn’t. But you’d have the loss available to offset against future gains.

My husband has just inherited his father's house. It's not been transferred into his name officially but has had a docquet transfer. This is Scotland though where rules are different. Not sure if there is a similar system in England.

After inheriting a house it took more than 18 months to get house into my name, the backlog is horrendous. I wouldn’t bother tbh.

Goodness, that’s very worrying. Can I ask why? I want to sell the house in question myself because it’s taken sixteen months to get to this point- the distribution of the estate- and I think I could sell the house more quickly than the executors.