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Farra is a death administration assistant for UK families. Get step-by-step guidance for registering a death, applying for probate, notifying banks, and managing bereavement admin. From essential documents to practical checklists, Farra simplifies estate paperwork and funeral-related tasks so you can focus on what matters.
Conveyancing is the legal work of transferring property from seller to buyer, and in a probate sale the seller is the estate rather than a living owner. Most of the process looks familiar to any house sale. The differences sit in four places: who signs, what authority you need before completion, which legal route the sale takes, and how long it honestly takes. This guide walks through each.
In a probate sale, the conveyancer acts for the personal representatives, the people legally entitled to deal with the estate. If there is a will, they are the executors; if not, the administrators. The personal representatives are the legal sellers, even though none of them owns the house personally.
A practical consequence: expect identity and anti-money-laundering checks (the legally required identity verification for property transactions) on every personal representative, not just the one leading the sale. If a co-executor is slow to send in their passport and proof of address, the whole file waits. Getting everyone's ID to the conveyancer in the first week is one of the easiest ways to keep a probate sale moving.
When choosing a firm, ask whether they regularly handle probate sales, and ask for a written quote. Typical probate-sale conveyancing costs roughly £1,000 to £1,800 plus disbursements (third-party costs the solicitor pays on your behalf, such as Land Registry fees and searches). Some firms charge a probate-sale supplement on top of their standard fee, so ask directly whether the quote includes it.
The grant of probate (or letters of administration where there is no will) is the court-issued document proving your authority to deal with the estate. It is required before the sale can complete.
Everything before completion can proceed without it: marketing, accepting an offer, searches, enquiries, even preparing contracts. Exchange itself, though, waits for the grant in practice. A conditional exchange, where the deal is signed but only becomes binding once the grant arrives, is theoretically possible, but most buyers' solicitors, and their mortgage lenders, will not agree to it, because it leaves their plans hostage to the probate registry. So plan on exchanging once the grant has been issued, and treat anything earlier as a rare exception rather than something to count on.
If you have not yet applied for probate, or are waiting, our guide to probate waiting times in 2026 covers the current queues and what affects them.
The most common route. The personal representatives sell the property as sellers, using the grant as their proof of authority, and on completion they sign the TR1, the Land Registry transfer deed, in their capacity as personal representatives.
If there is more than one personal representative, all of them must sign the TR1. This is another reason co-executor logistics matter: a signature stuck in someone's holiday post can delay completion.
On this route the sale proceeds belong to the estate, and any gain between the probate value and the sale price is the estate's for capital gains tax purposes.
The alternative is a two-step route. The personal representatives first transfer the property to the beneficiary using form AS1, called an assent, which is the formal transfer of estate property to the person entitled to it. The beneficiary becomes the registered owner and then sells the property as an ordinary owner.
Our guide to transferring property title after a death explains the assent process in detail.
The route choice affects capital gains tax. Take advice.
If the personal representatives sell, the disposal is the estate's for capital gains tax. If the property is assented first, the disposal is the beneficiary's, with their own allowances and circumstances. Which is better depends on the gain, the number of beneficiaries and their personal tax positions, and getting it wrong can cost real money. This is a genuine advice point: raise it with your solicitor or accountant before contracts are prepared, and see our guide to capital gains tax on inherited property for the background.
One important exception. If the property was owned as joint tenants (the form of co-ownership where the survivor automatically inherits the whole property) and one owner is still alive, the property never enters the estate for sale purposes. Ownership passed to the survivor at the moment of death.
The survivor sells as owner, providing the death certificate so the deceased's name can be removed from the title. No grant of probate is needed for the sale, which typically makes the conveyancing quicker and simpler.
If the property was instead held as tenants in common, where each owner has a distinct share, the deceased's share does form part of the estate, and the position is more involved. Your conveyancer will check the title early on and tell you which applies.
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Once instructed, the conveyancer will obtain the title from the Land Registry and send you the seller forms.
If the property is unregistered
Long-held family homes are the properties most likely to be unregistered, meaning they have never been recorded at HM Land Registry and ownership rests on old paper deeds. An unregistered title adds first-registration work to the transaction: the deeds must be found, checked and used to prove ownership, which takes extra time and cost. If you cannot find the deeds, tell your conveyancer early, as there are procedures for reconstructing title, but they are slow.
With the grant of probate already in hand, a probate sale typically completes 8 to 12 weeks after an offer is accepted, much like an ordinary chain-free sale. Searches, enquiries and the buyer's mortgage arrangements set the pace.
Without the grant, the probate wait sits squarely on the critical path, and no amount of conveyancing energy can shorten it. If your application has not yet been submitted, submitting it is probably the most useful thing you can do for the sale this week.
It is worth being as honest with yourself as with the buyer. A realistic timeline, communicated early, keeps buyers patient. An optimistic one, corrected later, is how probate sales fall through.
For the full journey from decision to completion, including insurance, clearance and tax, see our pillar guide to selling an inherited house.
Much of a probate sale's pace is outside your control, but not all of it. The executors who complete fastest tend to do the same few things.
In practice, no. Plan to exchange only once the grant of probate has been issued. A conditional exchange, binding only when the grant arrives, is theoretically possible, but most buyers' solicitors and their lenders will not agree to it, because their plans then depend on the probate registry's timing. Completion always requires the grant.
Typically in the region of £1,000 to £1,800 plus disbursements such as Land Registry fees and searches. Some firms charge a probate-sale supplement on top of their standard fee, so ask for a written quote and check whether it is included. An unregistered title adds first-registration work and cost.
Both routes exist. The personal representatives can sell directly, signing the TR1 with the grant as their authority, or they can assent the property to the beneficiary with form AS1 and let the beneficiary sell as owner. The choice changes whose capital gains tax position applies to the sale, so take advice from your solicitor or accountant before deciding.
Not if it was owned as joint tenants and an owner survives. The property passed automatically to the survivor at death, so it never enters the estate for sale purposes, and the survivor sells with the death certificate. If it was held as tenants in common, the deceased's share is part of the estate and the position differs, so check the title with your conveyancer.
If the grant of probate is already in hand, typically 8 to 12 weeks from offer to completion, similar to any chain-free sale. Without the grant, the probate wait sits on the critical path and the sale cannot complete until it arrives, so be honest with buyers about timing from the start.
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