Audio – Problem Property Buyers

How do you sell a property as an executor?

Lothian property buyers work with a lot of executors when they are needing to sell a property quickly.

We’ve written this guide as a way of explaining what you need to do when administering a property sale in probate.

Initial steps
As an executor you’ll have a Will that will hopefully set out the property or properties and the ownership. Most people will have one home and if this is held in just the name of the deceased then you’ll need to apply for a grant of probate.

This document is used as a method of proving to organisations such as banks and building societies that the will is the final version and that they can work legally with the executor to sort out the
estate. As an executor you can’t distribute any of the assets of the deceased until you have this grant of probate.

How do you get a grant of probate?
When someone passes on the first thing to do will be to register the death. This needs to be done within 5 days in England and Wales and 8 days in Scotland.

The executor will then need to access the will and work out the value of the estate.

This will entail working out what assets are included and where they may be, who owns them (are they wholly owned by the deceased or jointly owned) and also what debts there may such as utilities, bank loans and tax.

The valuation can’t be exact at this point, because for example, you won’t know what a house may actually be sold for, but it does need to be pretty close so it’s best to get professional valuations to avoid challenges later.

The grant of probate can then be applied for online here and you’ll need to make an official statement of truth. There will be some costs involved in applying for a grant of probate and you can check out our handy fee calculator app here.

At this point, an inheritance tax return will need to be completed and any tax due should be paid. If there is cash in the estate then the bank will have a direct payment scheme that will allow this.

Once the taxes have been paid then HMRC will issue a receipt that can then be passed on to allow probate to be granted. Bear in mind that a grant of probate could take up to 12 weeks.

How do you get a valuation?
Some valuers will charge you to provide a letter stating what the approximate value of the house was at the point the deceased passed on.

Naturally this has to be approximate because nobody knows what the eventual sale price will actually be.

Once you have the valuation, you can apply for probate and work out the inheritance tax due.

When you have the grant of probate
Once a grant of probate is obtained the Executor has full discretion as to how to proceed with the sale of the asset and at this point you will need to decide how to dispose of the property. However it is good practice to keep the beneficiaries informed about how the process is proceeding.

Now it may be that you have a beneficiary who will want to make an offer to buy the remaining share of the property and if so then all well and good. But if not then you need to choose a method.

You have an obligation to sell the property at the open market value but that having been said there is always the time/price issue.

The problem is that if you want to sell something really quickly then you’ll need to be prepared to bend on price, alternatively if you wait long enough then you can achieve market price.

If you find that you have had to wait three months to obtain the grant of probate then you may well also find that the beneficiaries aren’t going to be pleased to wait another 3-6 months for the sale to be concluded!

How Problem Propery Buyers can help
The first way that Problem Property Buyers can help will be in providing you with a totally free valuation. This will have a clear open market price based on actually achieved sales and current property condition.

The valuation will also have an offer to buy the property which will clearly show the discount required and an undertaking to pay the fees required.

Before the grant of probate HMRC will expect inheritance taxes to be paid. This causes a problem for a lot of executors in that estates can be asset rich and cash poor.

Problem Property Buyers can advance a proportion of the final sale value conditional upon the cahs being used to pay taxes and in anticipation of the sale being completed.

Finally Problem Property Buyers will pay the value of the house to the executors as quickly as 10 days from receiving a copy of the probate meaning that the executor can forget about selling a house and can concentrate on administering the rest of the estate.

Quick house sales for landlords

One of the areas that Problem Property Buyers specialise in is quick house sales for landlords.There might be any number of reasons why you need to sell a house as a landlord and our aim is to make it quick and easy.

Strategic change
If you have a sizeable property portfolio then it may well be that you want to rebalance it.A good example is when we had a landlord that bought a parcel of properties from a colleague with a couple of houses that were slightly out of their area.

They wanted to shed the two properties with the minimum of fuss and frankly, didn’t want to travel several hours to manage the sale. Another of our sellers really only liked houses of a certain value with 2 or three bedrooms so they asked us to buy a flat that they acquired and a larger house that was too big for their normal tenants.

Are you an accidental landlord?
It’s becoming more common that people get together when both of them already own their own property.Often they decide to rent out one property (usually a flat oddly enough) and then live in the larger family house.

In a similar way, sometimes people inherit a property and feel that the easy way to deal with it is to rent it out. When this happens they kind of become accidental landlords and often their hearts just aren’t in it. After a couple of troublesome lets, they decide to move the property on and turn to us.

Liquidating assets
As a landlord, it may be that you want to turn your assets into cash. From a strategic point of view, you may have another opportunity that you want to pursue and so need access to funds quickly.

Alternatively, maybe some of your portfolio is locked into high-interest deals and you want to shed them. You may find yourself with a property that, for whatever reason has been historically difficult to let. Sometimes there’s a good cause but occasionally it can seem to be for no reason whatsoever.

Either way, we’re able to help you move the property on.

Some landlords find themselves highly leveraged with high LTV loans on the whole portfolio and as soon as they suffer a period of vacancy need to find cash as working capital.

How Problem Property Buyers can help
Problem Property Buyers are specialist property buyers who regularly work with landlords on turning their unwanted properties into ready cash.Our quick sale process can go from enquiry to completion (and cash in your account) in as little as ten days and will cost you nothing in fees. Contact us now to discuss how we can get you cash for your property quick.

What is a quick property sale?

Why you may want to sell your property quickly
There are any number of reasons why people want to sell their house or flat quickly and as we’ve learned everyone’s situation is slightly different.

That having been said there are some general themes.

Some people find themselves in a chain that breaks down. This can be incredibly frustrating, especially when they have set their heart on moving to a new home and so a quick sale company can certainly help bridge the gap. By arranging a quick sale the chain can be reformed before all of the individual deals break down irrevocably and people can get on with their moves.

Relocation is another reason why people may wish to get a quick deal done on their property.

It can often be the case that our sellers find that they have little time to get everything sorted before they move overseas and frankly once they have moved to their new home they can’t find the time or money to keep coming back and dealing with the sale of their old home.

Sometimes our sellers find themselves in a pickle with money and either need to unlock some cash from their equity or may even be facing repossession. In these cases, we can organise a very rapid sale and speak with the lenders so that the repossession is stopped and the debt paid quickly from the proceeds.

We don’t just deal with private sellers. Often, executors will want to move property on and they are duty-bound to get a good price but also not hold up the process unduly. Buy to let landlords sometimes want to adjust their portfolio (for example they may want to move from flats to houses) and they wish to sell their flats as quickly as they can.

Alternatively, some people get into the buy-to-let business but find it is not for them and they just want a quick exit.

So what exactly is a quick property sale company?
Some years ago, businesses started to emerge that specialised in getting property deals done ultra-quickly.

Unlike traditional methods that might have taken months to complete, these companies were able to get the deal done within days.

With the advent of the internet and online information, together with some more forward-thinking solicitors and surveyors, it became possible to affect those quick sales.

A quick property sale company is specifically set up to get all of the administration and organisation of the selling of a property done slickly and with the minimum of fuss.

The main point is to get cash to the seller as quickly as possible. A quick sale company will have a panel of property experts who can be called upon at a moments notice to start the ball rolling.

Initially, they will have internal experts who will assess the property using a variety of sources of information and will be able to give an offer to the seller. And at this point, we really see the difference between a quick property sale company and normal buyers. Once the offer has been made and accepted then there will be no going back. This means that the company needs to be fairly entrepreneurial and take the risk that something will turn up later. The company also has to take the risk that it won’t be able to sell the house later.

So essentially the quick house sale process is a case of transferring these risks from the seller to the company.

Once the offer has been accepted then the company will typically use external experts such as solicitors and surveyors to continue with the sale process but they will be specially chosen because of their expertise in this form of property transfer.

It’s also true to say that technology has made a big difference to the speed of completion and this helps to ease the way. We make sure that the centre of the business is people and we never let technology get in the way of speaking to our sellers.

So that all sounds very positive but there must be some downsides?

There are naturally some downsides to the industry.

The most obvious one is that in order to get the property sold quickly the company will expect a discount.

For some people, this can be too much and they will prefer to sell their house the traditional way however you should check out our article on the economics of selling your house quickly here.

It is also true to say that some companies haven’t acted in the best way and sellers haven’t been impressed. The good news is that the new generation of quick sale companies realise that reputation is everything and only by treating their sellers fairly and honestly can they expect to have a growing and profitable business.

Call us now – it could be the best call you make all year! Problem Property Buyers make treating customers well the bedrock of their business.

We know it’s sometimes a bit worrying when you have to call companies you don’t know but you shouldn’t be concerned.

Our customers tell us that we’re friendly and approachable and we promise there really is no hard sell.

We’re happy to just go through the options and process with you and then let you take your time to make up your mind.