Probate- vendors not applied for probate

[zippyswife]

I had an offer accepted on a property over a month ago. I told it was probate. When I spoke to EA this week to check timelines for moving she said they had told her that they haven't submitted papers for probate yet. What does this mean? How long does this take? I had hoped with a no onward chain things would be more straightforward- but it seems not.

We have had a rollercoaster since October of vendors and buyers pulling out. I've wasted so much money and I've had enough.

It can take months. I don't know why people put property up for sale until probate has been granted. Ask your solicitor to get their solicitor to figure it out.

Depends how complicated the probate is.

But I agree, it seems really bad to put it up for sale until the probate has been granted, that's normally the time to do it.

Apparently they hadn't submitted the papers previously due to an issue with inheritance tax .
This is going to be me flushing another few thousand down the toilet isn't it?
I have the survey booked for tomorrow.

Probate normally takes a few months I think, it does seem weird not to have even started the process.

Our mortgage is valid for 5 more months. It's unlikely to to go through in that time is it?

I don't know whether to go back to the drawing board 😭

The probate on the house I am buying just cleared this week it began at the start of March. I am not sure how complex the case was though.

Personally I would postpone the survey until I had a clear answer from the solicitors on where they are in the process. And I would keep looking.

Thanks for the advice. This whole process has been soul destroying. I never could have believed moving house could be so filled with issues.

The house we own now took exactly a year to go through probate and the only reason we snapped it up was the original buyer waited 51 weeks and then lost patience with the sale and pulled out and, luckily for us, we were there at the right time and viewed the house the day after probate was granted. I have no idea why it took so long but I totally understand losing patience after a year of waiting!

The house we had before this was also a probate sale but I remember the probate took 5 months to sort out, but that was a good few years ago.

The first house I ever bought was also a probate sale but the selling family had everything more or less in place and completed and it didn't cause any hold ups for us that I'm aware of.

We are currently trying to sell a probate property, ime it is really difficult to find information about how the process works and it what order. Ours is very simple - savings and a property which will be under IHT threshold (super cheap property still in the NE) and a sole benefactor and yet I seem to be acting very blindly (and that is with a solicitor involved)

OP I hope things get sorted soon for you.

Rules on probate changed a few years ago which resulted in ordinary probates taking much longer to go through - think order of 6 mths min. I'd cancel the survey and pull out of the offer - it will be a nightmare

As an executor I am involved with an estate subject to IHT (though we have engaged a solicitor to deal with it). The IHT issues have to be sorted out to the satisfaction of HMRC (which has taken about three months), but once this has been done the probate application can be submitted and ours has actually only taken three weeks from submission to approval (obviously the forms were completed beforehand while the IHT issues were being dealt with).

So all may not be lost if the application for probate is now being submitted as this may be the final stage of the process, but the respective solicitors should be communicating so you know exactly where you stand.

It doesn't always take a long time. Earlier this year we applied early Feb, it was back by mid March. It was simple with no IHT.

Thanks for all the advice. I will call my solicitors today and the EA and ask for more clarity. It has taken a long time to find this house and if there were other similar houses on the market I would probably pull out but they're hard to come by. Is there any particular questions I should be asking the solicitor?

• is the IHT issue now resolved?
• are the papers complete and being submitted this week?
• is the estate straightforward? One property?
• do they anticipate any issues?

Anything else? This is all new to me.

@MrsFezziwig

As an executor I am involved with an estate subject to IHT (though we have engaged a solicitor to deal with it). The IHT issues have to be sorted out to the satisfaction of HMRC (which has taken about three months), but once this has been done the probate application can be submitted and ours has actually only taken three weeks from submission to approval (obviously the forms were completed beforehand while the IHT issues were being dealt with).

So all may not be lost if the application for probate is now being submitted as this may be the final stage of the process, but the respective solicitors should be communicating so you know exactly where you stand.

This was also my experience this year.

I think the problem is that it is random - some take a few weeks, others months.

Why didn’t they apply for probate earlier? We have recently brought a probate property, took 3 mths for probate to go through, the family had applied for probate before they put the property on the market. And the sale went along side the probate, but obviously it wasn’t theirs legally to sell until the probate was granted. Worked out fine for us, but getting probate granted time frames vary enormously. Good luck OP.

Postpone the survey until they get probate.

Depends on how complicated the probate is. Without any IHT when I submitted mine for my DMs it took only a few weeks to be granted.

@Livingintheclouds

It can take months. I don't know why people put property up for sale until probate has been granted. Ask your solicitor to get their solicitor to figure it out.

Yup, I understand why they might market it but they should be applying for probate concurrently.

It can take months and months. I’d keep looking if I were you OP. Then the conveyancing process takes a fair while (6-8 weeks per stamp duty holiday, currently much longer). I’d be reluctant to outlay anything until probate is granted just in case of family disputes.

Took 3 months in total for my house.

The sellers applied for probate 1 month prior to listing, so I had to wait 2 months.

It depends how complex the estate is. My DF’s probate took under 4 weeks last Christmas and 2 weeks of this was me getting my DF’s divorce date.

@Roselilly36
Why didn’t they apply for probate earlier?

If Inheritance Tax is involved you can’t submit the probate application until the Inheritance Tax form has been submitted to HMRC, accepted by them and any outstanding payment made. Obviously if IHT is not involved then this wouldn’t apply, but seems from what was said in the OP that it may well be a consideration.