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Hello,
A family member passed away over a year ago - for a number of years I have owned half of the property that my relative lived in.
When my relative passed away a few strange things happened that didn’t quite sit right with me.
We didn’t find out that my relative had died for over a week after they had passed. We had known my relative was in hospital and we were alerted to something not being right when I noticed that furniture in their house was being sold on Facebook marketplace.
I made contact with the hospital and was told my relative had passed, we were given the contact details of a solicitor dealing with the estate. I phoned the solicitor who was pretty unsympathetic and declared that contacting me was on a list of things they had.
At the time I believed I would inherit my relative’s estate - however I later learned that my relative had changed their will some months before their death.
Whilst I have no issue with the fact that my relative can leave whatever they want to whoever they want - there were several instances with the solicitor handling the estate that made me feel uneasy and question what was going on - So, I entered a caveat to stop probate.
I employed a solicitor of my own to ask questions - it took some time to get a reply from the estate solicitors.
My solicitor asked further questions and for 8+ months we have received holding emails, that someone will eventually be in touch to answer the questions presented. The estate solicitors have now passed this to another firm of solicitors but we are still waiting to hear even any sort of acknowledgment from them.
Caveat extensions have had to be put in place to continue to halt probate.
As I own half of the property I would like it to be sold so that I can release my equity.
However the estate solicitor is telling me that it cannot be sold until probate is granted and that probate will be granted when I remove the caveat.
Is there any way that the property can be sold in this situation?
At present, the estate solicitors are drawing this out unnecessarily by holding off answering my solicitors questions. But at the same time the property has become overgrown and is falling into dilapidation which will have some effect on value.
Any advice welcome.
A family member passed away over a year ago - for a number of years I have owned half of the property that my relative lived in.
When my relative passed away a few strange things happened that didn’t quite sit right with me.
We didn’t find out that my relative had died for over a week after they had passed. We had known my relative was in hospital and we were alerted to something not being right when I noticed that furniture in their house was being sold on Facebook marketplace.
I made contact with the hospital and was told my relative had passed, we were given the contact details of a solicitor dealing with the estate. I phoned the solicitor who was pretty unsympathetic and declared that contacting me was on a list of things they had.
At the time I believed I would inherit my relative’s estate - however I later learned that my relative had changed their will some months before their death.
Whilst I have no issue with the fact that my relative can leave whatever they want to whoever they want - there were several instances with the solicitor handling the estate that made me feel uneasy and question what was going on - So, I entered a caveat to stop probate.
I employed a solicitor of my own to ask questions - it took some time to get a reply from the estate solicitors.
My solicitor asked further questions and for 8+ months we have received holding emails, that someone will eventually be in touch to answer the questions presented. The estate solicitors have now passed this to another firm of solicitors but we are still waiting to hear even any sort of acknowledgment from them.
Caveat extensions have had to be put in place to continue to halt probate.
As I own half of the property I would like it to be sold so that I can release my equity.
However the estate solicitor is telling me that it cannot be sold until probate is granted and that probate will be granted when I remove the caveat.
Is there any way that the property can be sold in this situation?
At present, the estate solicitors are drawing this out unnecessarily by holding off answering my solicitors questions. But at the same time the property has become overgrown and is falling into dilapidation which will have some effect on value.
Any advice welcome.
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