Update furniture on PIL's house to sell or leave rooms empty?

[islest]

We have just inherited properly parent in law's house after six months faffing about with probate etc.

We have spent the last few months emptying it out, carting away tons of books, random tat and throwing away broken/worn out furniture. All of the beds have gone for example and various wardrobes so bedrooms in particular are empty

What is left downstairs is either nice antique or rather outdated furniture and I was wondering if we should sell/ junk that and acquire some more modern family stuff

Home is four bed detached in nice village location with reasonable garden etc so potentially desirable to a family but somehow it still has the air of an old peoples house.

Is it worth going through the hassle of borrowing/ buying secondhand furntiture like double and single beds to repopulate the bedrooms and putting in a dining room table (room previously used as bedroom) ? Or will the empty space and the idea of potentially getting a bargain appeal?

I wouldn't bother personally, if it's practically empty already. The only rooms I'd be tempted to furnish, are ones that appear small dimension wise, ie in a small box room I'd like to show a single bed fits in.

Unless you're going to refurb totally, I'm guessing it's going to be obvious it was previously owned by older people. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact some people appreciate a house hasn't undergone a cheap makeover.

I'd just concentrate on making sure the house is spotlessly clean and fixing anything obvious, so it looks well maintained.

Look at a staging company , be cheaper than buying furniture and a lot of people find it difficult to envisage scale of empty rooms without it

If you keep any furniture you will have to continue paying Council Tax, so I would clear the house completely.

Personally I would have just cleaned out the clutter and left the usual pieces of furniture to give buyers a rough idea of what will fit in the room, ie beds, chest of drawers, wardrobe, sofa, dining table.

Since you have already disposed of the usual furniture then clear it all out and just give the place a really good clean and mow lawn, cut hedge. Dont worry about "old person feel" its the cleanliness that's important.

I haven't heard this before? I think we were given 6 months free, after probate was granted. No mention of furniture was made.

We were in same position in 2020 when we sold father in laws house, thought maybe some of the furniture could be sold, but nobody seemed interested. A friend of ours who cleared the house just broke up all the remaining furniture and we sold the house with cooker, washing machine, dishwasher and fridge freezer. We are happy that a couple got some use of these when they first moved in. I look back and wished we were in a better position to have kept a few bits, until we were out of lockdown, but what’s done is done.

I wouldn’t bother. Just clear the house out and sell it.

It’s glaringly obvious to anyone when a house is being sold for probate/the owner has gone into a care situation. A bit of second hand furniture won’t change that. I’m looking at properties out of curiosity as a family member is in a probate situation and it is SO obvious.

Your plus point as a seller is that there’s no chain.

I like to see the rooms empty, actually. Makes it easier to see how my stuff would fit in

Make sure you keep the garden well cared for as not to turn it into a jungle. A house where its obvious the person has died / gone into care would look odd if it suddenly had modern furniture ( if staged by a company )off
Viewing an empty house wouldn't put me off. In fact my current house was empty on viewing.

You might as well leave it empty now, I think. To try and 'stage' it at all it would probably need decorating and would need new flooring, curtains, etc, to be really convincing - otherwise you are just putting new furniture into an old fashioned looking room which isn't worth it. Given your situation, I'd go for the hassle free solution which is clean it, get it aired out and sweet smelling, then market it.

I'd clear it all, wash down all windows and woodwork (skirtings and architraves etc) engage a gardener to keep front and back looking fresh over the summer and make sure the front door is clean and fresh and the keys work smoothly.
And if leaving an oven, make sure it's clean. In an occupied house, viewers might not dare to peep in but in an empty house you can bet they will!

We didn't have to remove any furniture in a similar situation.

We sold my mums flat last year and the estate agent said not to bother with any staging etc

Half her mahogany furniture was still there for the photos, but we'd got rid of most the stuff by the time the viewings happened. We mainly left sofas and beds, and wardrobes as I always think rooms look too small when there's no sofa/bed.

Advertise stuff for free on fb, you'll be surprised at the stuff people are interested in.

I haven't heard this before? I think we were given 6 months free, after probate was granted. No mention of furniture was made.

Same, and we exceeded the 6 months and only had to pay a basic amount for CT, no mention was made of furniture just that it was still empty.

Of the houses I’ve seen, there are a few where there has been staged furniture. I’ve thought “what’s the point?”. It’s not fooling anyone. We know the owner had died or gone into a care situation, you putting an empty bed frame and chest of drawers isn’t required to tell me that’s a bedroom.

We sold my Dad’s house last year. The estate agent recommended decluttering, cleaning and getting rid of furniture that made rooms look smaller. Tidying garden. They all said houses can look worse if you take all the furniture out.

In the end the buyers asked to buy the sofas and dining table and chairs which we just let them have as easier for us.

Staging normally includes redecorating and minor repairs. My friend used a staging company recently and they painted every room, repaired some damaged flooring, resealed the bath, replaced all the grouting etc as well as putting furniture in. It cost around £5k but she reckons it added at least that to the selling price. (House had previously been rented out so was a bit of a mess).

This is a very, very outdated rule! Years and years ago a house had to be completely empty to be exempt from council tax. Stories about people who were caught with just a biscuit tin in the kitchen and so had to pay used to circulate. This is no longer the case. The contents of a house would have no bearing on whether or not it's exempt from council tax.

I helped a friend stage her rental home for sale. To do the bedrooms we got shipping boxes and put a bedspread over them to simulate a bed In the bedrooms. One item on her checklist was to make sure the windows were clean to let in the most light and to have good lamps in each room.