What is a property in probate?

[Honey1975]

Does this mean the property's owners have passed away & is trying to be sold by their family?

I've heard that this can be complicated & take a long time to sort out but I'm unclear why.

The people we want to buy from are looking to buy a bungalow which the estate agent tells us in probate.

Probate is the stage between a death and the distribution of the estate by the executor.

If there is a will, and no objections, it can get done 'relatively' quickly, still weeks/months to get together a complete register of all the assets.

If there is no will and / or objections, its much more complicated (need to track down all possible heirs) and takes as long as it takes. Not ideal.

Yes, the person has died and the family or representative is selling the house.

Probate is a technical to meaning proving of a will. Basically, the solicitors are doing there thing to make sure that the person has died, the inheritors are who they say they are and all the rest. Once that has been gone through, then the property can be sold.

This process can take many months. But then so can a chain with people trying to buy a property in order to sell theirs.

The advantage is that the family definitely want to sell and there's no chain. The disadvantage is that the will thing can take a while. You can always ask the estate agent how far along the probate is.

we just bought a house this way. Poor owner died suddenly in March, house advertised in late July when probate had just been granted.

Only issues to consider -find out when probate granted, executors or family may not know the ins and outs of the house so be prepared for information gaps and ask for surveys or tests if they don't know the answers.

also questions can take time to answer as they need to be relayed via solictors to executors and then possibly family.

It worked out in the end for us though!

Just to give you an idea: I was ready to exchange with the buyers of my mum's house (she had gone into a care home) at the end of August. We scheduled the exchange for the first week of Sept but unfortunately, she died suddenly over the bank holiday weekend before we had managed to do so - so then probate had to be dealt with before the sale could proceeed. Just as a guide, it took another ten weeks to sort out her affairs and get the probate - the sale was delayed but eventually went through in mid November. However, I did my own probate and bend over backwards to sign and send off every form I received by return off post and get it all done as soon as humanly possible. Plus I had had power of attorney for several years and so knew exactly her finances, where they were etc - there was no tracking down of life insurance policies or stray bank accounts - I had the information right to hand. Hope that gives you an idea - good luck with the purchase.

If someone has probate it's no more complicated to sell than if it were the original seller. I sold my father's flat last year and the only delays were down the buyer's solicitor being less than efficient, nothing to do with probate. I had already found a buyer before he died, but fortunately like the poster above I had power of attorney so knew where all his assets/bank accounts were and in my case, got probate within 5 weeks.

If probate has already been granted, there should not be any delays, it is the process of getting it that can be delayed.

A dd recently bought a probate house - it took no longer than usual. Of course they often need a lot of modernising, but that can be an advantage since it's likely to put other buyers off, and you're not paying a premium for someone else's idea of a nice kitchen, etc., which will not usually be what you'd choose yourself.

Thanks you, I understand now. It's not the house we are buying but the one our seller's are buying. I think they've been wanting it for quite a while so hopefully things are quite far progressed.