We Need Some Advice ASAP

[maff85]

Hi everyone,

I am a house purchaser of a house that's probate.

Our sellers had accepted an offer and was official on 5/7/20.

We are now end of October and found out they only applied for probate the third week of August. They are now saying they are still waiting for a grant of probate before their solicitor will even start the legal side of it. Our sellers should have got this sorted before they put the house on the market.

What is unfair about this is our chain have to complete by 24/12/20 if not their mortgage offer runs out and would collapse the chain so we may have to be forced out of our home with a young family to avoid the chain collapsing. Two young kids shouldn't have to be forced out all because our sellers lack of urgency with probate application. We may have to go into rented until all complete.

So does anybody know how long APPROX a grant of probate is taking at the moment during covid? They applied third week of August.

Please any idea on time frame would be good, we are getting desperate and time is running out for us.

Can probate be expedited and is there a process to do this?

Thanks, any help would be really appreciated at this time.

Thank you

[des8]

Are the vendors seeking a grant of probate for a will, or for letters of administration?

Basically:
If there is a will the house can be marketed, but not sold until after probate has been granted
If there is no will the house should not be marketed until letters of administration are granted

Applying for probate is not necessarily straightforward and without knowing the full circumstances it is not possible to comment on what you perceive to be a delay.
At the moment I understand it is taking between 3 & 6 months to obtain the grant.

I wonder if there is any possibility of you renting the property you intend to buy whilst awaiting probate?

[maff85]

Thanks for replying. Appreciate that.

We believe it is Grant for probate for a will.

So based on time scales the grant should/could be with them sometime in the next month or two?

Can probate grant be escalated in anyway?

[des8]

I suppose the executor could ask, but with the current covid situation.............

[maff85]

Yeah I believe they are chasing through their solicitor but I still can't believe a grant is taking 3-4 months. It's Usually 2-4 weeks isn't it?

it's really worrying times at the moment. We have until 5/1/21 to get it all done if not our mortgage offer runs out which we would have to start the process again.

It's very frustrating at the moment everything is crazy slow. We are on 18 weeks now and still counting....

[des8]

Traditionally the target for granting probate was 10 days but actually the time varied between 1 & 8 weeks (although if there were problems it could take months)

[maff85]

That's interesting to know. If all goes well that means very soon they should hopefully get the grant. Thank you for the info. We are keeping fingers crossed we can get it all done.