Probate sale in our chain - query

[Jaderz]

We have sold our property in September, our buyer has no chain. We have done all the bits needed in terms of paper work and spoke with the buyer a couple of times to let him measure up/ask questions. Our buyer isn’t pushy just a normal friendly person.

The place we are buying I have an uneasy feeling about the sellers. They are very slow at doing anything and come across as not particularly receptive to questions/info.

We waited weeks and weeks after making an offer to go back for a 2nd look with our children who had not yet seen the house (they didn’t come on all the viewings). I know they don’t have to accommodate this so we gave so many dates/times to be flexible and were patient, we even just asked the agent to just tell us up front if it was a no to a 2nd viewing so we could just tell the kids it wasn’t possible and we would accept the response. They eventually made a date and we went, they decided to do the viewing themselves and I was polite to them that I appreciated their accommodation to letting the DC see the house. I felt uncomfortable being there it was a weird atmosphere and I could tell they didn’t want us there.

They sent over the fixtures and fittings list which is missing half the info, and we went back weeks ago with queries to our solicitors and they still haven’t answered the questions.

They are apparently buying a house in probate and no one will tell us any useful information about what stage the probate is in so we have no idea how long it will be until exchange.

I asked this clear question of the agent:

can you let us know what stage their sale is at with the probate - has this been granted or are they waiting for an application/grant? We need to know for financial reasons if this is expected to be a long process.

This is the response I got:

I have been advised by the agent above that probate is still going through but they haven’t given much indication as to how long this will take. Due to the probate being outstanding and the conveyancing still being at the early stages, I feel like it would be really difficult to guess even a rough timescales

I am going to ask for more clarity as this reads to me probate is not granted? How should I approach the agent?

I don’t know if to cut our losses with this house, we don’t want to lose our buyer.

I suggest that you need to give the agent something of an ultimatum ie is anything happening or we will look elsewhere

Sorry I meant to add I don’t think we would have bought this house had we known our sellers were buying probate. We want to move in the next few months not wait a year

What is reasonable to say to the agent? I have not been in this situation before

Probate at the moment is taking 16 weeks, and that’s if it is a simple estate. Have they got to pay inheritance tax? That takes an extra few months too. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are acting shifty because they know it’s going to be months and months. I would start looking for a new house.

I would read this as “probate has not been granted.” I would ask them just the one question and nothing else.

Ok we have decided to panic our agent to get him working on this (they acting for both of us) by asking the question and making it politely clear we aren’t going to wait months.

We are still looking too

If your agent isn't dealing with the probate sale, they won't have accurate info on its progress or be able to advise anything more specific than what they've said. They'll be relying on updates from solicitors/other agents/your sellers.
There's not a lot you can do to hurry probate unfortunately, you might be best to keep searching if you're in a rush to move.

What you need is for the agent to put a banger under the vendors, and you get that by putting a banger under him

I too would read the message as though probate has not been granted. Ask more specific questions and request an individual reply for each.

In your shoes I would ask your buyer for their timescales. Is he living with family and so keen on your house he is happy to stay another 6-9 months? Or is he relocating for work, has a girlfriend who is pregnant, been given notice by his landlord etc? And how easily could you find another buyer if you need to?

Probate can be complex and take a long time but there’s no guarantee any other purchase would be smoother. Unless you find a new build or empty house ready to go, it could still be a long wait eg There could be a chain of 4 above you.

No I know I can’t hurry it but some vague (and honest) idea of a timeline is what I am looking for. If tax is the issue then that’s one thing, currently we don’t know anything. And they haven’t answered our questions. I suppose they aren’t rushing as they are aware it’s a long wait. We were expecting it may be around March time at the latest having bought in September.

Our buyer is renting. We got a very good price on our place, full asking so I don’t want to lose him

We are looking at a new build now, just working out numbers.

we wouldn’t have made an offer had we known it was probate as we want to move sooner rather than later and we have wasted 3 months and feel like they are not being up front.

I would also be looking for a different property. Our purchase was a probate sale and it took 11 months.

As regards what you feel you can ask your EA I would simply say what you’ve asked here as it is entirely reasonable to need the answers.

Good luck

Probate has not yet been granted.
You need to ask, " Can you confirm that other than the outstanding Grant of Probate, the seller is ready to proceed?
And "Can you confirm the date on which the application for Probate was submitted, and that the sellers seller is not aware of any issues which might delay the Grant being processed? " You'd want to know that the application was submitted several weeks ago. If it hasn't been, that would indicate further issues.
You could ask your solicitor to phone up the chain.
Personally I would be looking at other properties

We didn't put our father's house on the market until we received the grant of probate.
This meant we weren't messing our buyer around.
It paid off because we had an full asking price offer from a cash buyer within 2 days and completed within 10 weeks.

My total IHT forms and payment and probate took less than six weeks.

once we had cleared the IHT forms and payment the probate paper took ten days.

The probate office will not even allow you to query where the probate is, until 16 weeks after the probate application has been submitted - although some are issued before the 16 week period is up.

if probate has been applied for (I would want the date) IHT doesn’t matter, as you can’t apply for probate until HMRC give you a code to say they are happy either the tax.

i would count 16 weeks on from the application date and hope there are no issues with the will or application form, as this will extend the 16 weeks.

I thought you couldn't market a house until Probate had been granted. I'm sure that was the case when we dealt with FIL's estate, and DGM's estate (no IHT) in either case.

Look for a chain property and don't waste anymore time on this one.

My mums house she bought was a probate sale and it took less than 3 months. They’d only just applied for probate when they put it on the market too. All the conveyancing was done then we were just waiting on the probate. Just to give you some hope!

I'd take this as probate has not yet been granted. The issue with probate is, you can't tell how long it will take. You could ask when it was applied for, and if it's a complex estate, but other than that it's 'how long is a bit of string'. Based on the probate, and the sellers' reluctance to do 2nd viewing etc, I'd be looking for something else.

You can’t complete until it’s granted but you can get everything else ready.

Probate for my dad in june was 3 weeks, it was straightforward but I understand it’s sped up massively since my 16 week uncle the year before. it sounds like there are multiple things causing the delay and o would question if they’ve actually applied for probate yet.

They deserve to lose you as buyers due to their appalling manners, dishonesty and bad attitude.

I'd walk away. Don't let these people put your sale at risk.

I hope it works out for you. Having gone through a probate processes recently I really don't know why anyone would put a property up for sale until probate is through or at least applied for.

This is my frustration. Everyone seems to think we are ok to wait for them and it’s not a reasonable expectation.

We have seen a new build but it’s one of one on a new estate so not sure if we will get in there in time and it’s £25k more so need to number crunch!

Good luck with it. I definitely felt I should wait until the probate was through and consider other things I wanted to do before selling. New fence, old shed removal. Also, I didn't feel like it was mine to sell until it actually was.

We backed out of a probate buy because we couldn't get any clarity on timescales and discovered they hadn't even applied for probate until after accepting our offer. Found another house that we liked better. It wasn't worth the hassle.

Helpful to the OP ...

OP, it sounds suspiciously like the probate process is ongoing (and as pp have said, the time it will take can vary enormously) but also that your vendors are dragging their heels and quite frankly mucking you around.

If at all possible, in your shoes, I would try to find another house to buy.