Two legal processes, one house
When executors sell a deceased person's home, two separate legal processes run at the same time. The probate application establishes who has authority to sell: until the Probate Registry issues the grant of probate (or letters of administration where there is no will), nobody can transfer legal ownership of a sole-owned property. The conveyancing is the ordinary machinery of a house sale: title checks, contract pack, enquiries, searches, exchange and completion. The two meet at one fixed point. You can market the property, agree a price and let the conveyancers do almost all of their work while the grant is pending, but completion cannot happen until the grant is in the executors' hands.
That single dependency shapes the whole transaction, because the grant is not instant. GOV.UK's probate guidance says you will usually receive the grant within 12 weeks of submitting the application, and longer if the registry raises queries. Run well, a probate sale hides most of that wait inside the normal conveyancing timeline. Run badly, the 12 weeks gets bolted onto the end and buyers walk away. This guide covers how the two processes interlock, what the conveyancer actually needs from executors, and the delays that are specific to probate sales. It applies to England and Wales (Scotland uses confirmation rather than probate and a different conveyancing system) and is general information rather than legal or financial advice for your particular estate.
The sequence: from death to completion
A typical probate sale of a sole-owned property runs like this:
- Register the death and secure the property. Executors take responsibility for the empty house immediately: insurance (usually specialist unoccupied cover), keys, post, utilities.
- Value the estate and apply for probate. The property valuation feeds both the inheritance tax forms and, later, the estate's capital gains position. The application fee is £526 for estates over £5,000 (no fee at £5,000 or below), per GOV.UK's probate fees page. Order extra official copies of the grant with the application at £2 each; ordering later costs £16 a copy, and a sale will need at least one.
- Instruct an estate agent and a conveyancer. Neither requires the grant. The conveyancer can obtain title documents, prepare the contract pack and start identity checks on all executors straight away.
- Accept an offer and progress the conveyancing. Buyer's searches, survey and enquiries all proceed in parallel with the probate application.
- Grant issued. The conveyancer sends an official or certified copy to the buyer's solicitor as proof of the executors' authority.
- Exchange and complete. All executors named on the grant sign the contract and transfer. Sale proceeds are paid to the executors' conveyancer and become estate money, to be distributed under the will.
Whether an estate needs probate at all, and the transfer routes for jointly owned homes that skip most of this, are covered in our companion guide to whether you need probate to sell or transfer a property. This page assumes the answer was yes and the house is being sold on the open market.
What the conveyancer needs from executors
Executors sell in a different capacity from an ordinary owner, and the paperwork reflects that. Expect your conveyancer to ask for:
| Item | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
| Official or certified copy of the grant | Proof of authority to sell. The buyer's side and HM Land Registry both rely on it; a death certificate is not a substitute. |
| Certified ID and proof of address for every executor | Anti-money-laundering checks apply to each person signing, not just the lead executor. |
| Title documents | Official copies for registered land; original deeds if the property has never been registered (common with long-held homes, and a frequent source of delay). |
| Property information forms (TA6/TA10), completed to limited knowledge | Executors usually never lived in the property, so replies are given as "not known" more often than a living seller's would be. |
| Unoccupied property insurance details | Confirms the asset is protected between offer and completion. |
On the transfer itself, HM Land Registry's Practice Guide 6 (devolution on the death of a registered proprietor) confirms that personal representatives can transfer a registered property without first registering themselves as owners. They sign form TR1 to transfer to a buyer (or AS1 to assent the property to a beneficiary instead of selling), and the application is supported by a certified or office copy of the grant, or a conveyancer's certificate confirming one exists. GOV.UK's guidance on updating property records when someone dies sets out the same requirement from the buyer's side: the buyer gets an official copy of the grant, and the Land Registry application includes it along with any stamp duty land tax certificate.
Timing the grant against the sale
The recurring question in probate conveyancing is whether to market before the grant arrives. There is no legal bar to marketing, accepting an offer or even exchanging contracts pre-grant. The constraint is practical: executors cannot promise a completion date they do not control, and the Probate Registry's timetable is outside everyone's hands. The workable positions, roughly in order of caution, are:
- Wait for the grant, then market. Safest, slowest. Sensible where the estate is complicated or a dispute is possible, but it adds the full probate wait to the sale.
- Market pre-grant, exchange post-grant. The standard approach. The buyer is told from the outset it is a probate sale, the conveyancing groundwork completes during the wait, and exchange follows days after the grant arrives.
- Exchange pre-grant with a conditional contract or long stop date. Used where a buyer needs certainty (or the seller fears losing them), but most buyers' solicitors advise against unconditional exchange before the grant exists, and cautious drafting is essential.
Estimate your own end-to-end timeline, including the probate wait and the sale, with our probate timeline estimator. For how the application stage itself behaves, and what makes it overrun the 12-week norm, see how long probate takes.
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Worked example: a pre-grant marketing strategy in practice
Priya and her brother Dev are executors of their father's estate: a registered freehold house in Nottingham valued at £340,000, plus around £90,000 in savings. In week 2 after the death they arrange unoccupied-property insurance and get three agent valuations. In week 5 they submit the probate application online, paying the £526 fee and ordering four extra copies of the grant at £2 each (£8, against £64 if ordered later). The same week they instruct a conveyancer, who orders official copies of the title and runs ID checks on both of them.
The house goes on the market in week 6 as an advertised probate sale with no onward chain, and an offer of £335,000 is accepted in week 10. While the buyer's searches and survey run, the conveyancer answers enquiries to the executors' limited knowledge. The grant arrives in week 17 (12 weeks after applying), a certified copy goes straight to the buyer's solicitor, contracts exchange in week 19 and completion follows in week 21 with both executors having signed the TR1. Total time from death to sale proceeds: about five months, of which the probate wait cost the transaction almost nothing because it ran underneath the conveyancing rather than in front of it. Had they waited for the grant before marketing, the same sale would have finished around week 30 or later.
The delays specific to probate sales
Beyond the ordinary hazards of any chain, probate conveyancing has its own failure points worth anticipating:
- Inheritance tax before probate. Where IHT is due, some or all of it must be paid before the grant is issued, which is awkward when the main asset is the very house being sold. The Direct Payment Scheme and instalment options help; our guide to paying inheritance tax before probate explains the mechanics.
- Unregistered title. If the deeds are missing for an unregistered property, reconstructing title can add months. Flag this to the conveyancer on day one.
- Registry queries ("stops"). Errors or gaps in the probate application pause the 12-week clock. Getting the application right first time, or using a professional, protects the sale timetable.
- Executor logistics. All executors on the grant must sign; one living abroad or slow to return documents delays exchange. Consider power reserved or renunciation before applying if an executor will not realistically take part.
- Limited seller knowledge. Buyers sometimes get nervous when replies to enquiries say "not known". An experienced agent framing the sale honestly as a probate sale, often chain-free, turns this into a selling point rather than a red flag.
- Price movement against the probate value. If the sale price beats the date-of-death value, the estate can face capital gains tax on the growth; if it undershoots, a relief claim may be available. See capital gains tax on inherited property.
Who does what: probate specialist and conveyancer
These are usually two different instructions, sometimes within one firm. The probate practitioner (or the executors themselves) handles the estate administration: valuations, tax forms, the grant application, distributions. The conveyancer handles the sale. The transaction runs smoothest when they talk to each other, because the handoff points, sending the grant copy across, confirming who signs, timing exchange against the grant, are exactly where probate sales stall. What each role covers, and what you can safely do yourself, is set out in our guides to what a probate solicitor does and the wider probate process.
If you are an executor facing a property sale, the highest-value move is sequencing: get the probate application in early and accurate, insure and prepare the house, and instruct the conveyancer well before the grant lands. Where the estate has complications, an unregistered title, IHT to fund, an absent executor, a probate specialist can keep the grant and the sale moving in step rather than one waiting on the other, and that coordination is usually what decides whether the buyer is still there at the end.