Inherited property LR first registration

[gino]

Hello
Looking for bit of advice on long running inheritance matter.
The key points are.
Grandma died in 2021.
Grandma had 2 children.
Her eldest son passed away before Grandma, so eldest son's children are set to inherit the his share.
There was no Will, so rules of intestacy were followed.
The younger son has been handling the estate - hence its taken 4.5 years to get to this point as he was unwilling to take advice from us (the children of the deceased) or a solicitor.
Probate has now been obtained, which resulted in the property being registered for the first time at LR. This is now completed.
The property is to be sold.
It has been noted however that the property has been registered in the sole name of the sole surviving son, and not jointly with the surviving son and children of the deceased son.
Will this cause a problem? AI suggested the registration in the name of the Executor and beneficiary of half the share may not comply with rules and could “lead to legal issues”.
If this could be a problem - what issues could arise?
Just trying to work out if we should instruct our expensive lawyer to get involved again (which we had to for another matter relating to this) - although would prefer not to.
TIA.

[Tofros]

It is acceptable for the property to be transferred into the executors sole name as trustee for the estate. If there are costs of administration to be paid or reimbursed out of the proceeds before distribution ( eg the costs of first registration) it is prudent for at least a proportion of the property sale to be on behalf of the estate. This long after the death there will be no capital gains allowance for the estate to set against any gain. If the beneficiaries have capital gains allowances available, or lower effective rates of CGT, it is possible to appropriate a portion of the beneficial interest in the property to beneficiaries prior to sale without updating the legal title. The conveyancer should be able to help with that.

[Frank1]

There is nothing wrong with an executor registering deceased's property in their own name before selling it.
4.5 years to do this is far too long. Has the property fallen in value during this period? Have estate funds been used to pay for the upkeep of the property? If so beneficiaries may have lost out financially.
Evidence would have been required to prove ownership of the property. A solicitor would have uncovered this paper trail quicker.
The executor has put himself at risk of a money claim from the beneficiaries.

[gino]

thank you for replies.
executors have been massively incompetant and failed in every task but had list of excuses as long as their arm and refused our assistance.
our solicitor who we appointed for initial chasing due to lack of progress said to relieve the executors of their post could cost around £10k in court costs. we therefore didn't pursue that and had to back off with legal work when we hit £4k of legal fees. we had a valuation done 2 years ago - initially executors would not allow us access to have the house valued. therefore if it does drop in value i may seek legal advice and sue for loss.
its very interesting about the CGT allowance being lost. i think we will need to see what happens over the coming months and may have to seek legal advice over any potential losses due to their delays.
another concern we have is condition of the property - which was poor at the outset and likely to be very poor now given the time its taken.

[gino]

so if the probate valuation they did was only £350k for house, but an independent valuation i managed to obtain shortly after the one used for probate valued at £450k - CGT will be payable at 18-24% for any amount over the original probate valuation? they got the lower figure as they wanted another relation to buy it - which we objected to at the lower price.

[Frank1]

The estate CGT relief has definitely been lost after 4.5 years from date of death.
As the administrator has transferred property ownership to himself before selling the property, he is responsible for paying any CGT This tax must be reported to HMRC within 60 days of completion of the sale
Your valuation of the property over 2 years ago is now out of date. CGT should be calculated using the sale price and probate value

[Frank1]

Unregistered property can be sold provided the seller has proof of ownership It is common practice to let the buyer's conveyancer register the property after the sale

[Frank1]

If the property was significantly undervalued for probate, HMRC could have queried the valuation Particularly if they considered there would be more IHT to pay
Under intestacy rules if the beneficiaries of estate property are direct descendants of the deceased, then the estate can still claim IHT RNRB (max £175) in addition to £325k NRB.
HMRC may have carried out a IHT calculation and realised that using a higher and more accurate property value there still wouldn't be any IHT due

[gino]

Unregistered property can be sold provided the seller has proof of ownership It is common practice to let the buyer's conveyancer register the property after the sale

thank you. i did attempt to get them to market the property "as is" last year when probate was obtained as i thought first registration could be done by the buyer. hes made a mess out of this. thank you for your thoughts.

[Tofros]

I believe it is possible to file with HMRC a corrective account known as a C4 together with a RICS valuation as at the date of death if the original DOD valuation was amiss.obviously the estate would need to incur the costs of the RICS valuation.

[gino]

I believe it is possible to file with HMRC a corrective account known as a C4 together with a RICS valuation as at the date of death if the original DOD valuation was amiss.obviously the estate would need to incur the costs of the RICS valuation.

thank you. the executor is so obstinate, slow and refuses to take our guidance. when solicitors were involved last time to move things along it cost us thousands so we are reluctant to involve them again, but if it turns out there is either a CGT hit on the estate which will impact us, we'll then involve them. luckily despite their resistance to allow myself and siblings to get our own valuation a couple of years back, we managed to get one which i hope in the event of a C4 corrective figure being required should back this up. Luckily the estate is below IHT threshold as they were able to utilise previous deceased grandparents nil banding, so an increase to probate valuation is at all possible should not trigger IHT. the executors original goal was to sell the property to his family member hence the low ball probate valuation - which think will now come back and bite them on the a**e.