Dad passed away. Property to sell question

[Literallynoonecares]

Hi,

Has anyone sold a house that has been left to them in a will? How does it work?

So my Dad has passed away. He was mine and my DB last living parent. We are not looking to do anything right now as the passing was very recent but it would be good to know what we are looking at.

We will eventually be looking to sell his house but have no idea what happens next and if we have to wait a certain amount of time. We are both main beneficiaries to his estate which includes the house.

Its all so difficult. At a time when we are heavily grieving and we are worried about keeping the house going and the bills paid. As if him passing isn't hard enough.

Anyone done this and can advise? It is honestly the last thing we want to be thinking about right now but we unfortunately need to know this stuff and neither of us have done this before so have no clue what happens now or what we do.

Thank you

I'm so sorry for your loss, first of all.

You may be able to get a council tax exemption for the property as it will be empty and you are waiting for probate (presumably) before being able to sell. And yes, if the estate is worth a certain amount you may need to go through probate which could take a while. If things are fairly straightforward you may not need a solicitor for this and I applied for probate myself with no issue - apart from the long wait.
Hopefully someone else will be along with more helpful targeted advice soon. But didn't want to read and run

Sorry for your loss. Your Dad's estate will need to go through probate, once you gave probate you will be able to put the house on the market. You also could put it on the market now and state that sale is subject to probate being granted.

Check the house insurance if tge house is empty, make sure you are covered.

Good advice upthread, make sure house is secure and insured. Check kitchen bathroom bins empty. Went through this recently. Agree if simple estate and you feel able you might not need to use solicitor for probate. Couple of links https://www.gov.uk/when-someone-dies

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate
all the best, it’s a tough time with lots to do emotionally and practically, just take it step by step

As above. You can put the house on the market prior to probate being granted but it's not advisable as may put some buyers off, not knowing timescales.

I also sorted probate myself and believe it or not it was granted in 24 hours and that was during lockdown! I have never heard of this before though and it generally takes at least a few weeks if the estate is a simple one.

My council exempts council tax for 6 months after probate is granted, but they may differ. The water company stopped charging but said it was fine to keep using minimal water for cleaning etc... just not to fill a shark tank! Insurance needs to be changed but my dad's company ended up charging less as we no longer insured for contents as we were clearing it out. They just stipulated we had to check on the house, maybe once a week and the thermostat had to be set to I think 10 degrees during October- March to prevent pipes freezing.

So sorry for your loss ❤️

My condolences on the loss of your dad.

You can start as soon as you want and I would do it as soon as you can.

Usually you will apply for probate, which usually means dealing with HMRC first. https://www.gov.uk/money/personal-tax-inheritance-tax

Once you've cleared the HMRC stage and pay anything that might be due in iHT (for most people, nothing), they give you a code, which you use to apply for the grant of probate. If you apply for probate online it can take as little as a few weeks (mine was ten days.)

To start the probate process, collect information about your father's assets, make a spreadsheet of bank and savings accounts (premium bonds?) and amounts and the value of anything like cars. If there's a pension(s), you may need to know how much was paid in the period up to the death. You may also need to know your Dad's income tax position. We did these things ourselves but many people will use a solicitor or possibly an accountant.

Council tax is often halted for a period of months: we got six months with no payments.

You need to let the utilities know what is happening too. They can be surprisingly helpful.

Insurance--you need to call the insurer and tell them what is happening. We actually got a rebate because the valuables were removed and they continued to insure the empty house for a period of time. Then we had to move insurers (now with Towergate, who have a policy for empty houses).

Our house is hopefully going to be sold soon, but we needed to show the grant of probate to the estate agent and solicitors.

Just work through what you can manage and tick off the items.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Did your Dad leave a will? If he did, you need to check what it says and who he appointed as executor(s), i.e. the person/people he wanted to sort everything out.

If he simply wanted everything to be split equally between you and your brother, that's what would happen anyway, even without a will, because there is law that sets out what happens to someone's property if they don't leave a will (intestacy). If they were single/widowed/divorced and had children, it goes to the children in equal shares. So that's covered either way. Either you or your brother could be the executor, or act jointly if that would not create delays. (It might be called administrators rather than executors if there's no will, not sure.)

It's not very likely that you'll have to worry about inheritance tax, but you will need to check. Basically if your Mum left everything to your Dad and he is now leaving everything to the two of you it's likely that anything up to £1m can be passed on without any inheritance tax being payable.

You won't be able to sell the house until all the paperwork is done to transfer your Dad's assets to you and your brother. This is called getting probate in England and confirmation in Scotland. As part of the process, you will need to get the house valued by an estate agent (I think you might need three valuations and you take the average - can anyone confirm that?). You also need to get the contents valued. I don't know how precise that has to be. It's obviously easier to put a value on his savings, current account balance and so on. You also need to know how much money he owed, if any. When my Dad died, there was just the outstanding balance on his credit card, but you might have to look for car loans or a balance on the mortgage, for example.

There are a lot of very helpful people here who can help. Legal Matters is the best topic for this on Mumsnet. Good luck!

Thank you so much for this. It is so daunting and we have no idea where to start with it all.

There is a will and the estate is fairly simple and straightforward. The house is not massively expensive and he has some savings. No debts and the house is paid for so no mortgage.

I am so sorry you have lost your dad. I lost mine last year and was a joint executor with my DB. We did bring a solicitor on board to help us as it was a way to avoid arguments with other siblings as to whether we were being fair in our dealings. We sold his house and it was quite straightforward to do so but we did have to wait for probate to complete before we exchanged and completed the sale. We got several quotes and went with the one we thought was most realistic. We left the house 'dressed' for photos and viewings but removed precious things in case they walked. The most challenging thing for us was that we were not local but were lucky that there were people we knew and trusted who would do a regular post check and walk through in case of damage like leaks appearing as we were selling over winter. We kept the heating on a constant low and we informed the utility companies and insurance the house was vacant as well as the council. His insurance could be extended for the period we needed but there are specialist insurance companies who also offer cover - shop around as prices vary. The utility companies are used to dealing with estate sales and will wait to do a final bill until the sale. We just cancelled the internet but nothing else. You may need to get his things valued for probate - the local solicitor we worked with had connections to people who could do this for us and also clear the house at the end. The other issue was the garden so we got a recommendation from the estate agent for someone to go in regularly once the weather picked up. It was a difficult and painful time- not least because some buyers thought a probate sale = desperately keen to sell at a low price and there were repeated attempts to push down on the agreed price. It was quite emotional doing the final clear not least because things that I knew were precious to my parents were not wanted by the extended family so we sent those to charity shops in the hope that the money raised would benefit the charity.

Regarding the savings, under a certain amount, it might differ by bank, but iirc barclays was 50k, they released the money to me even prior to probate being granted - I was really surprised.

I wouldn't put the property on the market until you're very close to receiving Probate/have received it. In the meantime, notify the utilities - unless the heating is left on constantly and you're accumulating a large bill, most utilities will wait for pay until after Probate has been received and monies start to come in.

In the meantime, when you're ready you can start to clear out the property. You haven't got to do it all at once, some of it can be left until the property is on the market. As it's winter, I'd leave the heating on low to avoid burst pipes, but as the weather starts to improve next month, switch it off, unless you're there for any length of time clearing it.

Basically you can start the process off immediately, or leave it a few weeks until you're both ready.

If

There is also a government thing, I can't recall exactly what it's called, something like "inform all" where you let them know of your dad's death and they inform pension people and some others, to save you doing it all separately.

Thank you so much this is really helpful. It all feels so daunting right now. But I almost could do with a 'an idiots guide' to what needs to be done. I am meeting with my Brother this weekend so we can split the tasks between us and hopefully get some things sorted out this coming week.

Sorry for your loss. When my Dad died my Brother wanted to stay in the house, so we applied for Probate ourselves and he paid myself and other brother one third of property value each.

When my FIL died, we applied for Probate and then when it was received 4 months later we put the house up for sale, it sold quick and was completed about 4 months after.

If you are executors you need to sort out utilities and get house insurance, inform bank who will freeze bank accounts until Probate is received. Hopefully you’ve used the Tell Us Once service that informs a lot of organisations of your Dad’s passing.

It is daunting.. but I did it all myself, marketing the house and all the probate and official stuff and I'm not great at things like that! My sister dealt with the funeral and most of the house clearance.

Tell us Once is the government service that lets people know. They will get in touch with the council, DVLA, TV, etc.

Though the TV licence people still keep trying to make me buy a licence for an empty house.

There's also a site called lifeledger, which lets you upload death certificates, etc, meaning that you can let a group of organisations know without having to go through the same thing again and again.

Thank you so much this is all so very helpful.

He did leave a will and I am not sure who is executor. He has savings and a property with no mortgage but its not a massively expensive property. The only debt he has is a small amount on his credit card. No other loans or car loans. So I am hoping it will all be fairly straightforward.

I did think to post this in legal matters but wondered how many people would reply there. But this thread has been so helpful.

Thanks again

Tell us once is very easy (once you have a death certificate) Tell us once.

I'd do a first clear out of the house so perishables are gone/bins emptied. Ideally turn the water off if you're not planning to visit regularly. Once you know who provides energy services you can give them a call and let them know the situation. Usually they have a separate department that deals with bereavements and they're trained to be sensitive and know what to ask/what needs to be done. If he owned a car you'll probably need to consider what should happen to it as a higher priority than a house as cars just can't be left without being driven for long.

If you need to apply for probate and don't feel confident doing it yourself, I can recommend Farewill who provide a fixed fee for an application submission (I don't work for them but used them after I spoke to a solicitor who wanted to charge 2-3K for the same work). You will need to get the house valued as part of the probate process so if you can face it I'd get that done in the next few weeks.

Sorry for your loss.

My dad died two years ago and we (my sister and I) applied for probate online. Came through in about 3 months. In contrast, a friend used a lawyer. Cost her a bomb and took 2 years!

We put the house on the market while the probate application was pending but it didn’t sell until after it was granted.

Probate isn't that difficult to do yourself. I did it for both my FIL and MIL .... I figured if we needed to find out all the financial info to pass to a solicitor then I may as well do it myself. Cost about £250 and took 6 months. A solicitor can charge up to 10% of the value of the estate ... which in our case would have been thousands.

We're still trying to see my in laws house. Don't forget to talk to the insurance company as a lot of them don't like the house being empty. We had to change companies and it is costing a lot more.

Also you don't need to put the deeds in your name, you can sell the house as a beneficiary.

The Will will say who has been appointed Executor.

Have you got his will?

So many difficult details to deal with.

Have you held the funeral , and if not do you and your brother have money to cover it? You can pay from the estate (his savings) once you have probate, but otherwise the Funeral Directors can talk to you about how they can claim direct.

So sorry, it’s tough at such a sad time.

I'm sorry for your loss @Literallynoonecares Our mum died last April after a month long illness, at 99 she was unable to recover. It's an incredibly sad time to lose a parent and the only way we could cope was to do things immediately (many of us didn't live in Northern Ireland anyway). Mum's will stipulated that a solicitor do the probate and to cut costs we kept to two family members as the executors.

Immediately we got estate agents in and possible quotes. We also cleared out her clothes and sent them either to the clothes bank but mostly to the charity shops - who were very grateful for them. Then we got an auctioneer out to value items for sale. We also packed the enormous amount of crockery and vases etc for the sale as well. This took two weeks.

The auction went through in July and the house was finally cleared and cleaned at the end of October. Probate applied for in November, still not granted, but it is NI. The house is currently on the market though some storm damage means that work needs to be done, so I do stress the importance of house insurance which we have thankfully. The house also needs to have heat running so temperature doesn't cause freezing pipes.

I know people who have done their own probate application without a solicitor and it's doable - probate didn't take long at all, England.

Great advice and links in this thread. All the very best to you.

“You can sell the house as a beneficiary”
No you can’t. However you can sell the house as EXECUTOR without it being transferred to your name first.

I would ask a local estate agent about how buyers feel about it in your area, but I would say with a simple estate like that you can market the property as soon as you apply for probate. The conveyancing process can take months anyway.

It is such a stressful and overwhelming period right after the loss of a parent.

Don’t feel guilty about being ‘practical’. Losing my mum was a massive shock but I managed all the practical stuff. The grief hit me at odd times but I managed to sort everything very quickly.

I have a friend who was paralysed by her grief. Couldn’t face going to the house or marketing it. She still has it 18m later and is paying C Tax and having to constantly visit and maintain it. Won’t consider offers below what she thinks it’s worth.

Time with your brother, just you two, sorting out Dad’s things and sharing memories is important. Sorry for your loss.