PoA/Probate question

IANAL but I think that if they are named executors then they can crack on.

Think you will have to wait for probate. The PoA is no longer active. However I'm not a lawyer and it's not a situation I've direct experience of.

Edit: though you can crack on with all the preparatory stuff in the meantime, so they are ready to complete quickly when the probate comes through.

Can they proceed with the flat sale as executors now, or do they have to wait for probate, which is estimated to be 16 weeks?

I think (having just bought a house pretty much in the same circumstances as you're selling) that it may be a Deeds issue as much a  will / POA one. Something about 'survivorship clauses'  I forget the details now - our house was being sold by someone in care with their daughter as POA and the mum died during the transaction. I think it added about a week to the process in terms of to and fro correspondence between our and their solicitors while those deeds were checked in relation that clause then things just continued but I think with different wording there'd have been and extra legal/court process to go through that would have added a fair bit of additional time.

had to do this pretty recently, we had to wait for probate to go through.

Was in Scotland if that makes any difference

Sorry for your wife and brothers in law's loss.

This situation is covered by this link

POA is irrelevant it ends with the death, but if contracts are already signed the sale can go ahead otherwise they need to wait for Grant of Probate.

HMRC will want any inheritance tax as soon as possible, if the deceased has bank or savings accounts the bank will be able to pay HMRC before probate based on the death certificate (get multiple certified copies).

Thanks for the advice, waiting for probate was what we were expecting. No IHT as far as we can tell.

We had a similar thing recently, in England. No IHT, but still needing to wait for probate to be granted before we can do anything about the property.

Presumably, there is a solicitor involved in the sale of the house.  It would seem they are best placed to actually advise based on exactly where in the process you are (and which bit of the country etc).  It should not be a scenario they (or their colleagues) have never encountered before.  Getting legal advice from IT managers on a MTB forum is probably not the best solution for a very specific scenario.

FWIW, in the grand scheme of things the house sale falling through is a PITA but unless I am missing something it's nothing more than an inconvenience to the executors.

FWIW, in the grand scheme of things the house sale falling through is a PITA but unless I am missing something it’s nothing more than an inconvenience to the executors.

It's a £1k a month inconvenience, the service charge on the flat, which has been empty for a year. Amazing how cheap a Mccarthy & Stone flat sells for (or doesn't sell for!) with that extra cost hanging over you.

Amazing how cheap a Mccarthy & Stone flat sells for

There are some real horror stories about this. People have been left McCarthy and Stone flats in a will and the service charges have almost bankrupted them before they could sell them. We were lucky and managed to sell my mother's flat for a little bit more than she bought it for, albeit rather less than McCarthy and Stone sold it to their first victim for. I did hear that if you are lucky they might give a discount on the service charge, based on the owner being dead and not actually using any services. Good luck!

We are quite happy to lose a bit of money over what was paid for it - I remember the initial prices when they built a complex near us in Derbyshire, I was gobsmacked that the value of them in Sussex was only 10% of that, bought at auction too.

Some poor bastards must have lost tens of thousands.

We've been wondering about this in a similar situation and though it is a bit of a last resort, you can always refuse any bequest. Though that doesn't help with the case where you initially accept it, only to realise it's an open-ended liability some way down the line...

Can they proceed with the flat sale as executors now, or do they have to wait for probate, which is estimated to be 16 weeks?

Estimated...

Sorry for your loss.

You can pre market the property warning that probate will delay it.

I ve just done this, got 3 valuations for sale in current condition. Get them on letterheaded letter from local agents, or email.

Deffo keep them for your records u can be investigated up to 16 weeks post probate.

Best of luck, tell all utilities to draw down credit. I set up min DD,just a fiver pcm, to restore lowest tariff.

It’s a £1k a month inconvenience, the service charge on the flat, which has been empty for a year. Amazing how cheap a Mccarthy & Stone flat sells for (or doesn’t sell for!) with that extra cost hanging over you.

Ah, well that probably affects how easy it is to find another victim/buyer too.  Although, I'd have thought that also means you probably have a buyer who is a little more tolerant and understanding of the situation you find yourselves in than say a young couple desperate to get in and have kids registered at a school etc.

This might be a crazy idea but could you rent the property to the prospective buyer for a peppercorn rent (or say the service charge) whilst the transaction completes?

However, either its an inconvenience to the Executors, it may be financially painful to the beneficiaries but the executors need to think of themselves with a different "hat" on.  Problems for Executors usually only arise when they muddle the two up.  But at £1000/m my suggestion stands - get on the phone to the solicitor.

We've got some McCarthy and Stone flats locally that seem to fetch a very high price still, I don't know the details of the service charge but the M&S website suggests it's typically about 50-150 per week depending on level of support, which seems very much lower than the OP's situation.

edit: I mean that's what they say they charge nationally, not specifically local to me.

Some poor bastards must have lost tens of thousands.

My MiL bought one in Bath a couple of years ago. We expect to take quite a hit on that when we need to sell. I just looked on Rightmove for the sale history in her development and found one, sold new by M&S for £558k in 2018, sold again in 2020 for £370k, so not just tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands. MiL's service charge is about £11k pa, my mother's was £6k. £150pw is £7800 pa, so not so far out of line with the OP's case.