Advice on selling a probate property that's in a poor state

[asmallcountry]

I'm inheriting a house (along with another family member) from a relative. The house is in a poor state of repair, needs modernising, is currently filled with chaotic clutter and rubbish and is very dirty and the garden is significantly overgrown.
We don't have any funds to do work on the house ourselves and so will be looking to sell it as quickly as possible. Can anyone advise on what our best options are and what we need to consider?
We will be getting some estate agent valuations and discussing with them how they would approach selling it - but it would be good to get general advice, what to ask, what to avoid, and a plan of attack for what to do next. Wondering whether it's worth getting in one of those companies that specialise in probate properties and handle everything for you (and presumably take a massive cut). Has anyone done this? Any advice to offer? Currently, I'm feeling overwhelmed by the state of the place and how to proceed. Thanks

Was in a similar situation.

Cleared the property ourselves but did no work on it and sold it at auction.

I agree with this. It is cheap and easy to sell at auction. You pay the auction company a flat fee and they do everything, including using their own solicitor and the legal pack. You won't get a top price, but you will get a quick sale and no hassle. If you can clear it out yourself that is great, but if not, you can get a house clearance firm. Do your homework and look at reviews, try and get recommendations from local people.

I would 100% clear the house. Whether you do this yourself or put it on a credit card. Get a gardening firm in to cut back the garden then you can maintain it.

Once cleared, give it a VERY good clean.

People don't mind buyers doer uppers, but most won't want to touch a cluttered, dirty home. You'll lose tens of thousands, depending on where the house is, versus a few grand to sort it out now.

i'd sell an auction too and not expect too much. the market is tough and it's a buyers market. just be grateful i guess you inherited something. at the same time, sorry for your loss

I’ve viewed a lot of probate properties in our recent search and agree it’s much better if they are cleared or have the very minimum of furniture in (I’d also remove dark curtains and dark and/ or stained rugs and carpets not least as I think they absorb and hold smells and the smell of a property can be very off-putting even if you’re in the mood for a big project!). Anything to make it feel light and spacious, as when you’re looking for a project you want those basic bones to be there, so curtains coming down, cutting down any bushes or trees that are shading windows etc

after that I think you leave it as is though. And either sell through an agent and price with a realistic amount off to cover work needed (far too many ‘projects’ are priced near enough the price of a done up house these days!) or at auction. But you may as well try through an agent first?

When you sell at auction you set a guide price and a reserve price. The auction company will visit the property and advise you, so it is definitely worth clearing it out and cleaning it by whatever means you can.

Agreeing with others I would clear it and clean as much as possible but do no work.

People are happy to buy houses that need work that are priced sensibly, but having it cleared will make it sell quicker.

If you can face it yourself get a skip, if not the throw some money at it with a company who clear houses.

If you have had a solicitor deal with the probate side of things then ask them if they have a recommended house clearance firm who will be happy to wait for their payment until after the sale has completed. This way you have someone who will likely be more trustworthy than a random 'man and van' clearer so if they find anything they think you may want they'll probably keep it back for you. The job will then be done properly and when the sale goes through they get their invoice settled. It's something I come across regularly with my job and it is so much better to have the house empty prior to a sale when it's not in good order.

I've viewed quite a few probate properties in a poor state. They tend to sell quite fast as they are priced lower.

There still seems to be a market for doer-uppers.

Is it in a desirable location?

We've done similar and we got a massive skip and sorted everything into donate, recycle or dump. Took a bit of time but got through it. Much better to put on the market with nothing in it. Gives people the opportunity to visualise their own bits in there as opposed to another's taste. Also trim garden back. It doesn't need to be prize winning but if it looks tidy it's a better sell than overgrown with weeds.

Good luck!

Its not clear if the house will be inherited to you and put into your name, or if you mean the house forms part of an estate which needs dealing with, including the sale of the house to pay IHT or something like that

We had an estate to deal with, including a property and the property had to be sold in order to finalise the estate, so house clearance firm was commissioned to get rid of the stuff and give a price of the items cleared (funnily enough the cost of the clearance was exactly the same payment of the items!!!!), once that was done, got a company in to deep clean as a one off. Then when allowed to by HMRC, we asked a local EA to value it, needed that again for HMRC and then put it up for sale. We put a very realistic price on it, didnt want it to drag on any more than it already had. But it wasnt dirty or run down as such, but that was the process.

Recently did this for a deceased relative.This is how I did it.

1. Sort through and remove paperwork, belongings to be kept for sentimental reasons.
2. get house clearance company to remove everything else- including carpets and curtains (smoker)
3. Strim Garden
4. Clean: it was never going to be clean-clean, and no point in a reno property, but grubby lightswitches and bathroom are suprisingly offputting
5. Replace lightbulbs with brighter- makes quite a difference, esp for rightmove photos.
6. EA put on market, got 95% of asking price.

Good luck. It's an upsetting process.

If it's a probate property make sure you get that ball rolling early doors. So you aren't left waiting for the process to rumble on if you are ready to sell

I was in the same position when my mum died a couple of years ago. I was her only relative, apart from my daughter who was living overseas, and I cleared almost everything from the house before I got estate agents round. I've still got boxes of ornaments and Crystal packed away upstairs, which I can't bring myself to part with yet. I found a charity shop that was happy to take bulk donations and donated two cars full of clothing, kitchen ware and trinkets. My best friends daughter was about to move into her new flat so she was very grateful for some of the smaller items of furniture, pictures, mirrors, China etc. we hired a skip for a weekend and got a friend to help clearing out the garage, and then a charity came to collect some of the remaining furniture. I think I paid £150 to a house clearance company to take the beds and a few other pieces of furniture away. I've got a fairly heavy duty carpet shampooer, so cleaned all the carpets myself, and I cleaned everywhere apart from the kitchen, and paid £75 for it to be deep cleaned.

I think it cost me about £400 in total for all the cleaning and removal of rubbish and furniture, but it took many many weeks of hard work getting the house clean and tidy enough to be able to sell. One reason why I wanted to do as much of everything myself was because my mum had severe dementia and she had hidden money and jewellery all round the house, in some really unlikely places.

By the time I had finished cleaning and clearing the house, it was in good enough condition to sell through an agent rather than at auction and it sold very quickly.

I also recently did this.

Don't hand it over to a probate company to deal with it. It will cost you a fortune and you'll be frustrated at how slow they are.

As above, remove paperwork and any sentimental and personal items.

Do some minimal cleaning so it presents better. No-one buying a renovation project is expecting it to be immaculate.

We kept a bit of furniture in the property to 'stage' it for sale - estate agent photographs look better when potential buyers can get an idea of room size and what the room can be used for. Empty rooms can look bleak. Once we had a buyer, we started to empty the wardrobes - clothes/shoes to charity.

I did manage to cut the grass though the weeding got left, but at least it didn't look completely out of control.

I instructed a normal estate agent to market it. It was marketed at the lower end of it's type due to the poor condition and taking into account the amount of updating it required. We had several offers within the first two weeks.

Get a house clearance company in to remove the rest once the sale is underway.

Clean the property a bit more thoroughly now it's empty.

Read the meters on completion.

We’re in this position too, but a year on. We have cleared out everything- we might leave minimal furniture in if we sell by estate agent, but at the moment we have a few people interested prior to us listing it, We had it valued for probate and a few agents to value it. One said to sell at auction as fixer uppers often fall through later down the chain. The other said not to sell at auction! I think if this doesn’t sell privately we will put it on the market and give it 6 months or so, and if it really isn’t selling we’ll think about auction. But this house is a lovely period property in a gorgeous position, so I’m hoping it will sell despite the work it needs - and it is priced £100k less than it would be if it were renovated.

We're in the process of buying one, through a normal estate agent. Agree with clearing out the house first. Also, be upfront about any known issues. The house we're buying needs a new roof and the EA told us this at the first viewing.