Anyone purchased a property going through probate? Do we stick or do we twist?

[ErlingHaalandsManBun]

Bit of a situation with the property we have just made an offer on.

It was being sold by the owners daughter on behalf of her Mother who has had to be moved into a care home. Daughter had power of attorney. All going well, we agreed a price and began to get the sale underway. Then we had a call from the Estate Agent selling to say that the owner had unfortunately and suddenly passed away (for which I have huge sympathy for them having not long lost my Dad and gone through this process myself) So, daughter's power of attorney no longer exists upon death and she no longer has legal rights to sell the property. So this will now have to go through probate.

Understandably the Estate Agent didn't want to be insensitive and probe too much as to what the daughters intentions are now as this death had only just occurred. However she thought the daughter would apply for probate and still want to sell. So we have been asked what we want to do. We have asked for time to consider our options.

WWYD?

Would you walk away from this seeing as though it could take months for probate to be granted which will more that likely piss off our own buyers who have already had to wait for us to find a house.

Or would you stick with it and hope that in a few weeks time the daughter applies for probate and its granted quickly.

As I said, I went through this with my Dad's house earlier this year. The estate was very simple, just myself and my sibling as beneficiaries and just the house and contents of his accounts so probate was granted within 8 weeks. Although I do know of friends who have waited best part of a year!!

My head is telling me to walk away and find something else but my heart wants to wait. But then there is the risk of losing our own sale.

Help! 😬

I didn't need to have my water turned off. The house just had to be unoccupied and empty. This was with Thames Water.

Thank you. I did suggest that this might be a possibility to my DH when we were talking over options. I had no idea if this was something we would have been able to do while we were in the process of buying it. But definitely food for thought hearing that people have done this.

A couple in a village I previously lived in did exactly this.

Often properties owned by older people need quite a bit of work, so renting the house you intend to buy might not be possible or practical. You may be better off renting a flat nearby and putting stuff in storage.
Even when we got the keys to our house we kept our rented flat another 3 months while emergency repairs were done on the house, it was a godsend honestly.

Someone I know was in this exact situation (a little further along but before exchange). The solicitors ended up drawing up an agreement where they basically ‘rented’ (at a nominal rate) the house for 6 months while probate went through. It worked well for them. They could move in and live there as normal, just couldn’t decorate or make any changes til it was theirs. Perhaps something like this is a possibility?

Thank you. We were very early on in our sale, having only just agreed on a price. The owners daughter was in the process of getting solicitors quotes to handle the sale. The owner died completely suddenly, her daughter didn't see it coming so its been a big shock. From what we can gather thinking about the house right now is the last thing on her mind. Which is totally understandable and acceptable.

However we have a limited amount of time that we can wait to find out what the owners daughter wants to do now. Does she still want to sell it to us and go through probate or is she going to take some time?

So its a real tricky situation for us as we need to buy something as our buyers won't wait forever.

So for now we are viewing the other property that has just come on that is a few doors down and we will take it from there.

This is a definitely something to think about though and something we could do if the owners daughter is open to this. I wasn't even aware that you could even do something like this so it may be something we suggest if we end up still favouring our original house after next weeks viewing. But there is nothing to say that the daughter will even answer messages from the agent, especially if she is drowning in grief. Its a sad and tricky situation all round.

My mums took a few months, my aunts took almost 2 years....its so hard to know how quick it would be wrapped up.

My DH died just before Christmas. Probate came through in September.

Probate hasn’t necessarily sped up. We pulled out of a purchase which - at the time of our offer - had been going on for 10 months. I can see that probate was eventually granted 2 weeks ago so it took 1.5 years. There’s not a chance your buyer would hold on for that long.

Probate is a ‘how long is a price of string’ process and unless there’s nothing else to buy, if I was a buyer in a chain involving a very recent probate application, I’d walk away.

Without wanting to sound insensitive, you shouldn’t be marketing it at all. It isn’t yours to sell and it just messes buyers around. Your estate agent will tell you otherwise because they don’t care about messing people around.

I was going to say the same as this. We applied for probate in February this year and it took 3 weeks so you might not have to wait too long OP

I agree - my partner's father died at the beginning of April, think the solicitor started the process in May. Simple estate with a modest property owned outright and small amount of savings. Have heard nothing except that the probate office mislaid the paperwork sent recorded delivery by the solicitor. Had to get two valuations from local estate agents for the probate process - one won't leave my partner alone, keeps calling saying he has "many interested parties". Partner has had to make it very clear - by email and now through his solicitor - that he will not be marketing before probate is granted. Frustrating as there are so many extra costs and worries with an empty property, quite apart from it being a shame it's not being passed on, but better to deal with one thing at a time. It could be that when probate is granted, one of the other beneficiaries has decided to buy my partner's share - who knows yet?

I beg your pardon? A) it is mine to dispose of how I wish and B) I didn’t say I WAS marketing it, but that I CAN market it if I so wish. I don’t “have an estate agent” because I am not marketing it.

If you own the house why are you going through probate? And you mentioned an estate agent TELLING YOU you could market it. Excuse me for taking what you said as what you said.

@soupyspoon- I didn’t use a solicitor. My husband has done Probate for my father & mother this year. I’m the only beneficiary and the Executor of their Estate. In both cases it was painless and quick but they won’t talk to you until 12 weeks has passed. There is literally no way of speaking with them.

Of course you can put a property on the market before probate is granted. Look at any EA listing and you will see properties which say ‘subject to probate’.

Nobody said you can’t put a probate property on. I’ve said (and others fucked around by people who don’t own the house) think it’s a shitty thing to do because you have no idea and no control over how long that process takes. Estate agents who we all know to have very few morals, will have no concerns about marketing them because they want to secure the client.

Because the flat was left to me by my father as part of a fairly large estate so obviously I have to apply for probate.
And yes, the estate agent valuing the properties told me that legally I could market it before probate was granted.

Then you don’t own the house - yes the intention is for you to become the legal owner but unless your name is on the title deeds now, then you don’t own it.

Nobody is saying you can’t market it. It’s just a shitty thing to do because nobody has any idea how long probate can take.

I agree on both counts. And, as previously stated, I’m not marketing it. In fact I’ll probably let it out and not market it at all!

Hi @ErlingHaalandsManBun I’ve just had a messy year of house sales and purchases and sales falling though. luckily now moved and getting settled!! 😅

One thing I ended up doing was deciding that for me the sale of my house was the most inportant thing as I needed to realease a lot of the equity in it. So I continued with the sale and exchanged being fully prepared to rent if I needed to. I didn’t spook my buyers and my sale went through fine in the end.

Luckily I found another property to buy and this went through and I managed to coincide the completion times but I did have a rental lined up if it wasn’t feasible. I also liked the idea of being a cash buyer.
This worked for me due to the freedom of my work and the large amount of equity in my property so I could afford a rental for a bit if I had needed.

Appreciate your circumstances may be different but not giving up on the sale worked for me and the my new purchase just fell into place. The new place you’re looking at may be better?? And this maybe a blessing in disguise. I’ve also found trying to do any building work at the moment with scarcity of labour and price of materials is exhausting!!

The Probate Office wouldn't hurry for the sake of our property chain of four properties. The sellers of the probate property tried, estate agents tried... but there was seemingly nothing they could do. It wasn't the most straightforward case, but the Probate Office seemed disorganised. For example, one time they were chased, they claimed they couldn't do anything as they were waiting for a particular document. It turned out that said document had been received and uploaded to the case weeks ago!

Several months in and a few days before my mortgage offer was due to expire, we received an update that the Probate Office would be "getting to" the case in the next 1-2 weeks. Getting to? I still feel angry when I think about it.