Owner dies before contracts are exchanged

[Simpo Two]

I'm in the processing of selling my mother's house under Power of Attorney.

The council was rather slow completeing the searches so a draft contract only arrived with me this morning, and my mother is named as the Transferor.

Unfortunately she died yesterday, so I suppose I'm no longer Attorney but Executor, and the Transferor is the Estate

Can an Executor sell a property on behalf of the Estate or do I have to get Probate first?

I am fondly hoping we can amend the contract to read 'Estate of...'

[Rude-boy]

You will have to have the Grant of Probate issued first.

The solicitor acting for you in the sale should know all this off the top of their head and talk you through the practical steps you can take as well as the legal ones to make sure that the papers are amended and ready to go the day/week you (assuming that it is you who is appointed as the Executor) have the GoP.

If the deal is vital and urgent then you can get the person applying for the grant to expedite or you can have a special form of Grant issued (forget the name) limited only to the sale of the Property but as you are selling to a council it is likely that they would be happy to wait until a full GoP has been issued.

No point in throwing money around just to save a couple of weeks unless the deal is time critical and as you have not exchanged (when there would be much more issues than you already have now...).

[69 coupe]

RIP your Mother.

[Simpo Two]

Rude-boy said:

You will have to have the Grant of Probate issued first.

The solicitor acting for you in the sale should know all this off the top of their head and talk you through the practical steps you can take as well as the legal ones to make sure that the papers are amended and ready to go the day/week you (assuming that it is you who is appointed as the Executor) have the GoP.

Yep, waiting for him to call.

Rude-boy said:

If the deal is vital and urgent then you can get the person applying for the grant to expedite or you can have a special form of Grant issued (forget the name) limited only to the sale of the Property but as you are selling to a council it is likely that they would be happy to wait until a full GoP has been issued.

The buyer is a private individual. By 'council' I meant the searches the local council has to do. Had they been a bit quicker to look in the drawer the sale could have been completed weeks ago... the buyer is currently renting the house - so from my POV, purely financially, the longer it takes the better, but it's something I'd like to get off my desk.


Thanks 69C, today feels like the start of a roller coaster.