Probate advice at the end of our tether

[probatepurchase]

We are the bottom house in a chain of 3 houses. The owner of the top of the chain has died in April 24, and so we are waiting for probate to be granted. Apparently it's with HMRC to wait for a code to be released and there is talk of an inheritance tax 'cheque'.

The information we have is from the lady we are buying from.

We are going to lose our buyer if we don't complete within 2-3 weeks.

Does anyone understand what the above means and, if our timescale of 2-3 weeks is realistic?

@probatepurchase
I don't think he is correct.
He seems to have missed out the stage where the solictor uses the code to apply for probate.
"The code to proceed with the release of the probate" Don't recognise this.

Ask him to check specifically with that solicitor

1. Whether probate has been submitted (doesn't look like it)
2. How long the solicitor thinks it likely to take , from getting the code, to getting probate

I'm really shocked that a house has been put up for sale after some has died and with no probate !

Bizarre

A relative of mine died in late 2022 and probate was granted a year later due to IHT complexity
If the application hasn't been submitted yet ( looks that way) then it's currently around 16 weeks.

Ask your solicitor handling your sale to find out what's going on. He should also be able to explain what's likely to happen next and possible timeframes.

You weren't to know being so much lower down the chain but yes there could be delays. Always a problem when these houses are put on the market before probate has been granted.

It took almost 2 years for my grans to be sorted. Her bank was the executor so pretty sure that paperwork was done properly. It was 10 years ago so things may have changed

I did the probate myself which took approximately 4 months because it was stopped midway due to further information needed. Unfortunately the probate office didn't specify what the information they required was and they wouldn't talk to me until 16 weeks had passed. Once I could speak to them, it was plain sailing after that.

A solicitor doing the probate on behalf of lots of clients will be slower as they don't prioritise one client above another.

The property was up for sale before the owner died. At that point it might have been better if the executors had stopped the sale.

You guys have been amazing, we are going to push the problem further up the chain, hopefully we can still move to our house and they can go into rented or make other arrangements if they want to hang on to the house going through probate.

I'm annoyed that our seller is just taking the estate agents word for it and we are having to unpick it all further down the chain.

I feel like we have been messed around.

Nothing we can do. But

For my mum's estate, a very simple one just building society savings with no property or Inheritance Tax to pay, the forms were submitted to Probate Office by my brother in the 2nd week of March. He received an email last Friday saying the Probate Certificate was being issued and sent out to him. That's around 16 weeks.

DH is doing it in our case but he is also a solicitor

We are using solicitors. It just seems very arbitrary as to who gets it quickly and who doesn't. MIL estate isn't complicated but we're up to a year nearly now and no- one gets any response, solicitors included. It's very frustrating.

My brother completed the Probate forms iro my mum. He did my step-dads estate as well a couple of years ago. They were fairly straightforward though.

A couple viewed our house. They had been waiting for months and months for their probate purchase and had decided to give up and look elsewhere

6 months usually for probate to be completed

Hopefully the end is nigh ours took 18 months . It's galling to hear of people who have taken 4 weeks.

You get up to 10 years to pay if the IHT is due in a property you don't intend to dispose of.
Interest is charged of course and if you dispose of the property the balance is due.

It's because they have taken that long to get together the financial information & filling in the form rather than the probate office taking that long.
Or there is extra complications or incorrect figures.
Or they use a solicitor, that really drags things out (no shade on those on this thread!)

My advice (having been through probate a few times) if you have LPA (Financial) or the person you are going to be an executor or beneficiary of their estate start streamlining their bank accounts/savings/shares etc eg get rid of all those bank accounts that aren't needed and move as much as you can into one place.
The after death admin is horrible, amazing how many companies throw up so many barriers and don't return vital original documents like wills and death certs.
The fewer companies you have to deal with the easier it is.

Apeach. Yes, it cannot take 18 months once it’s with Probate. I can understand it’s taking months to actually get the financials together. I am no fan of the Probate Office but unless the info is wrong on the forms they really don’t take that long. If they did it’s probably because no one is responding to their queries in a timely fashion.

What took the time?

You can’t possibly be saying this with any authority.

it has taken that long. There haven’t been any queries. It’s been chased numerous times. The IHT is paid. It isn’t being dealt with by a law firm so it isn’t a question of the solicitors holding things up.

im not saying it’s the most straight forward of estates but it still ought not to be taking this long.

Neither are the figures wrong. Dh is a solicitor and also had it all double checked by someone at his firm.

Fil passed away in April this year. DH is an executor with his brother. They are the only beneficiaries. FIl and DH were/are very organised. DH is working with a solicitor who is amazingly quick.
The estate is just below IHT. The code has been applied for. The 20 working days are due up this week.
We have readied the house for sale. However we will not be putting it up for sale until probate has been applied for and 4 weeks at least passed. We do not want someone interested in buying and then having to hang around whilst we wait for probate. Hopefully it will all be straightforward. Who knows?
Good luck to those still waiting. The system is ridiculous.

I'm doing it myself. When I looked into it properly and realised I'd have to gather all the financial information myself and present it to a solicitor, I decided I might as well just input the info onto the form online. It was fairly straightforward. One solicitor said he would charge up to 15% of the entire estate ... that's thousands of pounds!

This happened to us 3 weeks before our move & the day before contracts exchanged. Not sure if it makes a difference whether you've exchanged or not. There was no way Probate was going to happen in a few weeks. Our buyers were pushing us too. Our seller agreed to rent as they didn't want lose us as buyers either & we completed a week later than originally planned. . They ended up renting for 6 months & in the end bought a different property as Probate still ongoing on their original property.

@probatepurchase
We are going through probate at the moment for my mum who died in April. Still being processed.
Personally I think it is irresponsible of the seller to put the house up for sale until they have probate. When my father eventually passed away and we have to sell his property there is no way I would be putting it on the market until probate granted. The process and the length of time it takes is out of your control.
Sending you hugs, they have put you in a really difficult position.