Can my parent force the sale of an inherited house?

[Susuwataris]

Keeping it a bit general as I don't want to be too outing. Parent has two siblings. They lost their parents and there is property worth around £600000.

One sibling living in the house. Likes it there. Parent wants to sell house, third sibling also wanted to. However has since changed their mind due to sibling in house persuading them (possibly financially). They both say they want to wait to sell house to allow the one living there to sort themselves out. Parent wants to sell as soon as due to their age.

Will states estate is to be shared between siblings. Concern my parent has that if they die before the sale that their share then gets shared out between the other two and that this is part of the reason they want to wait.

Can they force the sale of the house? I imagine the relationships between them all won't be in a great shape either way.

basically the answers no

If your parent’s sibling still has the original Will, then probate has t been applied for. This could be VERY messy!!!

I feel like I've inherited a headache

Unfortunately yes. Tell your parent that they MUST check probate has been applied for because things can get tricky with IHT if that is being ignored I think. Probably worth getting proper legal advice, I know there are ways to force the executor to fulfill their responsibilities but it could get messy.

That will be if one dies before the original home owners.

but they can’t dictate where it goes once they die. That can give it to the surviving children and then it’s theirs for them to give to whomever they wish.

The executor has to register the will when going through probate etc so it would be available for a small fee online

That usually means before the parents death, not afterwards. The house now belongs to 3 people and will follow their wills. There is clearly misunderstanding here.

As others have said, this sounds unlikely. In any event, it can only have effect if the house is still owned by the deceased parent's estate. If ownership has passed to your parent and their siblings, your parent owns one third of the house and anything in the deceased parent's will has no effect.

If the house is owned by the three siblings, you parent can take action to force a sale. If it is still owned by the estate, your parent can take action to force the executor to distribute the estate, which would force the executor to sell the house.

Your parent needs to get proper legal advice.

You are misunderstanding this very standard clause: it has been left between the three siblings at the point of devising the will. Should any of those siblings have died between the witnessing of the will and the death of the person writing it, then it was to be split between the two remaining siblings. This was to prevent it being passed onto any grandchildren (the children of any sibling who predeceased the person writing the will).

It is utterly irrelevant to your parent’s position - they are all alive and the house has been left between the three of them.

So, as I said in my previous post, if the siblings will not sell, your parent takes them to court to get a court order to sell. In the circumstances you describe (the sibling who has moved in not being ordinarily resident at the address for any significant time prior to the death of their parent, nor there accordingly being a clause in the will protecting his tenancy), means the court will likely have no issue at all with ordering the sale. The legal costs of this will come out of the estate, before the proceeds are shared. So if the house were to be sold for 600k and the legal fees amount to 15k, they would each get 195k each, rather than the 200k. It is in the interest o all parties to just agree to sell now.

Your parent is rightly miffed at first sibling deciding to move in and second sibling being a wet lettuce and agreeing not to sell - but neither has a legal standing to prevent the sale if it is ordered by the court. So tell your parent to calm down and book an appointment with the solicitor handling the estate on behalf of their parent and get the ball rolling.

Get your parent to call their home insurance's legal helpline to get a basic legal view @Susuwataris . Virtually every home insurer offers a free 24/7 legal helpline, whether or not you have legal cover.

I'm evangelical about informing people about this. I only discovered my legal helpline months after becoming embroiled in a will dispute with the then executor. The solicitor I spoke to at 10:30pm when I discovered the helpline, saved my sanity. I was encouraged to phone as often as I liked, and it doesn't cost me a penny. And once I was in a position to instruct a solicitor, I was able to do so knowing that I was right, understanding the law, and with a bank of legal information behind me (which will have saved me a small fortune)

Assuming the property is in England, the legal remedy is an application for an Order for Sale under Section 14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (TOLATA).
Under English property law, whenever two or more people own land or a property together (such as inherited beneficiaries), a "trust of land" is automatically created. If the co-owners cannot agree on selling the property, any party with a beneficial interest can apply to the County Court or High Court to force a sale.

Your parents need legal advice.

Inheritance tax will be due at the six month mark. Probably 40,000 if it’s being left to direct descendants. Maybe that will drive action.

how have you come to this figure? If the deceased was widowed and their spouse left them everything when they died they will pay no inheritance tax on the first £1 million of their estate. If they were unmarried it is the first £500,000 that is tax free.

Various things:

1. They need to own the house as tenants in common (I think). Basically, there are two ways of owning houses. One is when you each own a distinct share of the house and then you can will that whoever you want. The other is where you all own, essentially 100% of the house. I would generally expect that you would become tenants in common upon inheriting, but I don't think it's absolutely mandatory.
2. You definitely need to check what's going on with probate. It's very odd that you can't find the will online because that suggests that they potentially haven't applied for probate or certainly haven't executed probate. That's going to make it very difficult to sell the property because I don't think you'll be able to until probate has been granted.
3. One further option might also be to look at the land registry and see what the ownership is under the land registry.
4. You do definitely also need to get a hold of a copy of the will. I think it's relatively unlikely that they will have set up a trust structure and the likelihood is that the way the will was written was that it was shared between the three siblings and if one of the siblings had died before the parent, it was shared between the two siblings that were left. I wouldn't expect to then limit who the siblings could pass their property onto, but it is possible and you can't know that without seeing the will.
5. If your dad wants to sell and the others do not. Once you've got through all of the above steps, you'd then have to apply to the court for an order for sale. They may or may not grant that because ultimately, your dad holds a minority share in the property. The judge would essentially weigh the reasons for selling against the reasons for not selling. It sounds perhaps like that wouldn't be a the biggest catastrophe as long as your dad is content he has ongoing rights to the property.

This sounds like a huge huge headache waiting to happen and I think you'll need to tread very carefully because ending up in court is a sure fire way to spend a massive chunk of whatever you've inherited.

If the death was recent, the executor won’t have applied for probate yet. To do so they need to get the house valued (value at date of death), plus any possessions worth >£50, gather all financial documents, fill in lots of forms (or engage someone to do this for them), calculate any bills and repayments owing, any inheritance or capital gains tax. Then they pay those bills and apply for probate.

Then it is possible to sell the house. They cant complete a sale until they have probate (putting it on the market when probate is applied for is reasonable) as until then, the executor doesn’t officially ‘own’ the property on behalf of the estate.

Your parent must obtain a copy of the will - ask the executor- and MUST see a solicitor. You should go with them. You must both LISTEN to what the solicitor tells you. Write it down, ask questions to check you’ve understood properly.

Decide on a preferred course of action. Check with solicitor that this is reasonable. Solicitors are helpful IME, they don’t try to persuade you to send expensive legal letters when writing one yourself will do for example.

Anger and assumptions can get you into big trouble though. Avoid those. Be calm.

Sorry, capital gains comes later, if the house has gone up in value when sold.

But that error and lots of other errors and guesses in the chat on this thread, only serves to illustrate why you and your parent need to listen carefully to a solicitor.

I think at this time we need to take a step back as my parent is reacting with anger and it has the potential to be very unhelpful. I also feel we may uncover a mess. The death was a while ago (we are taking years rather than months) and there has been nothing mentioned about inheritance tax. I am also concerned that I cannot find the probate online though I may be putting in the wrong details. I feel we need to let the land settle a bit then speak to the executor (one of the siblings) about seeing the will and if probate has been applied for. They must do though as they were putting the house up for sale but then could this be another reason two of them have pulled out. I will see if my parent have legal advice through their house insurance but they are at the cutting their nose off to spite their face stage. However we are talking a life changing sum of money so I will keep pushing.

I'm going to say that if this does go to court it will reduce the amount they get so it's in all their interests to agree. Hopefully we can get mediation sorted

Sounds very sensible OP, anger definitely not the way forward here. Needs cool, calm heads all around I think. Do you know who the solicitors were who drafted the Will? I wonder if they would have any relevant information.

Have you checked Land Registry? If the Will was executed properly, the title of the property will now be owned three ways (or in Trust) and this will be recorded on the Deeds. It's a fast way of finding out as you can download the record after paying the fee.

Their anger will be due to stress. Having a solicitor talk them through it at no cost, could make all the difference, as it did to me.
Simply hearing the facts from a qualified lawyer made me calm right down. Maybe you could put it to then that way? Point out that it's not knowing and all the confusion around that, that's making then stressed?

If the estate has been through probate the will is a public document no need to ask for it from the executor. Check probate records online it’s a few pounds.

If you can’t find the Will online and they died years ago then they probably haven’t applied for probate. Once your parent is in a calm state ask the executor for the Will, if they are reluctant to share it then seek the advice of a solicitor as they may be able to send them a letter encouraging them to deal with probate or renounce so your parent can, but don’t let them do anything in anger, that’s how bills rack up.

You need to ask for a copy of the will and then get proper legal advice. It depends on exact wording of the will. if they moved in temporarily then that is not a reason to not sell the house. However if the will gives wires of residency to x person until their death fur example then it’s a different situation

send an email to the executor asking fur a copy of will so you face something in writing.

before the house can be sold and in any case withinn6 months of death the estate must be registered for a grant of probate. Once registered the will and death certificate are available for anyone to access on the official website. You may have to pay a fee of £3 or something, but either way the will cannot be hidden away leaving everyone to go off the executors say so. Being an executor carries legal responsibility which is worth finding out about. You can look this up online.

Are you sure the will didn't say that the property only went to the children WHO WERE ALIVE AT THE TIME OF THE PARENTS DEATH, not the time of sale of the house?

Someone would have had to have applied for probate after the death and inheritance tax is paid before it's granted. It's easier if it's going to a spouse and the limits are higher but if it going to children you might find it's different. However if you think you already have probate, someone must have applied for it.
I think you mentioned you can find it for your grandmother, that will be there if she died first and the will was followed. The reason you can't find probate for this latest death is likely to be it hasn't been applied for. A 600k house will need probate to be issued.