Do you need probate to sell a parent's house, and who gets the grant?
Where the house was in your parent's sole name, yes. The personal representatives need a grant before the sale can complete: probate where there is a will, letters of administration where there is not. Where your parent owned it as a joint tenant with someone who survived them, the survivor owns it and no grant is needed for the house. When is probate needed explains the test.
The executors or administrators obtain the grant themselves, or through a firm licensed to do probate work. Property Law Online does not apply for grants, prepare inheritance tax accounts, administer estates or give tax advice. We start at the sale: the title, the contract, the buyer's enquiries, exchange, completion and the proceeds paid to the estate account. Where the house is to pass to a beneficiary instead, we register the assent on form AS1; where a joint owner has died, we take their name off the register with form DJP. Instruct us while the application is being prepared, and everything up to exchange can run while the Registry works.
Can you put a parent's house on the market before probate is granted?
Yes. Nothing stops the executors instructing an agent, holding viewings and accepting an offer while the probate application is with the Registry. Marketing and the grant application can run side by side, so neither has to wait for the other to finish.
What the executors cannot do before the grant is give a buyer good title. Where the parent owned the house alone it passed to the personal representatives on death, not to the family, and HM Land Registry will not register a transfer by them until the grant has been obtained (Land Registration Rules 2003 r162, checked 26 September 2026). Where there is a will, executors take their authority from the will itself and the grant proves it (Administration of Estates Act 1925 ss1 and 2); where there is none, administrators have no authority at all until letters of administration issue, and the estate is vested in the Public Trustee until then (section 9 of the same Act, checked 26 September 2026). Where the parent held the house jointly with someone who survived them, none of this applies to that property: the legal estate passes to the survivor, who deals with it, and form DJP takes the deceased name off the register with no HM Land Registry fee. Tell the agent, tell the buyer, and let the sale run on the Registry's timetable rather than pretend it can run on the agent's.
Can you exchange contracts before the grant, or only complete after it?
Exchange, with care; completion, no. A buyer's conveyancer needs the sealed grant to register their client at HM Land Registry, so no buyer completes without it. Exchange is different. Executors can agree a sale and exchange before the grant, because their authority comes from the will rather than from the grant, but they cannot prove title to the buyer or register the transfer without it, so completion waits for the grant and the contract ties completion to it (Administration of Estates Act 1925 ss1 and 2; Land Registration Rules 2003 r162, checked 26 September 2026). Section 2(2) of the Administration of Estates Act 1925, as amended in 1995, means a contract for the conveyance of land has to be made by all the personal representatives, or under an order of the court; once probate is granted to only some of the executors, those who prove can act alone. An executor who intends to renounce should not be signing it. Administrators take their authority only from the letters of administration, and until then the property vests in the Public Trustee (section 9 of the 1925 Act), so they cannot bind the estate to a sale and should not exchange until the grant has issued. A contract exchanged before the grant sets completion for a fixed number of days after the grant, not a calendar date.
Buyers' lenders are the difficulty. Whether a lender will fund a conditional contract is that lender's own policy and not a rule of law, so the answer has to be got in writing from the buyer's lender before exchange, and a mortgage offer that expires while everyone waits for the Registry sends the buyer back to the start. Exchanging before the grant carries that risk if the grant is delayed, so the timing of exchange is agreed with the executors, the buyer and the buyer's lender. We watch the offer expiry against the expected grant date and keep the buyer's conveyancer informed throughout.
Should the executors sell the house, or assent it to a beneficiary first?
Both routes end in a sale. They differ in who signs, when, and who pays the tax. In the first, the personal representatives sell directly from the estate, sign the TR1 in that capacity and produce the grant as their authority. In the second, they first transfer the house to the beneficiary on form AS1, the beneficiary is registered as owner, and the beneficiary then sells as an ordinary seller. We act on either route: the estate sale, or the assent registration followed by the beneficiary's sale.
The assent route adds a registration and some weeks. What it changes is whose capital gains position applies. Personal representatives pay capital gains tax at a flat 24 per cent under section 1H(6) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (checked 26 September 2026). They share one annual exempt amount of £3,000 under section 1K, available for the year of death and the two tax years after it. A beneficiary has an annual exempt amount of their own, pays 18 per cent to the extent they are a basic rate taxpayer, and may have private residence relief if they live there. Section 225A can give the estate the relief instead, but only where, immediately before and immediately after the death, the house was the only or main residence of one or more people who between them are entitled under the will or intestacy to 75 per cent or more of the net proceeds (checked 26 September 2026). The other figures checked 20 September 2026. Which route costs the family less depends on the figures, so the two are worth setting side by side with an accountant before the house is marketed. We do not give tax advice.
| Executors sell from the estate | Assent to a beneficiary, then sell | |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs the transfer to the buyer | The personal representatives, with the grant | The beneficiary, as registered owner |
| Documents | One TR1 | An AS1, then a TR1 |
| Land tax on the assent | None, no assent | Exempt under FA 2003 Sch 3 para 3A, and its Welsh equivalent, unless the beneficiary takes on secured debt |
| Capital gains exemption | The estate's single annual exempt amount | Each beneficiary's own exempt amount |
| Private residence relief | Only under TCGA 1992 s225A, on strict conditions | Available if the beneficiary lives there as their only or main home |
| Timing | Faster | Adds the assent registration |
| Often chosen where | One or two beneficiaries want cash | Several beneficiaries, or one who may keep it |
What tax is due when you sell a parent's house in probate?
Inheritance tax comes first and is dealt with before the grant, by the executors or the firm they use for the probate work. Two points touch the sale. Where tax on the house is paid in instalments under section 227 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984, section 227(4) makes the balance payable in full when the house is sold. And the value declared for inheritance tax is the value the estate is treated as having paid for the house: the base cost for capital gains.
Capital gains tax then applies only to the rise between that value and the sale price. A house sold within months for close to the probate value produces little or no gain. A house held for a year in a rising market can produce a real one, taxed at the personal representatives' flat 24 per cent under section 1H(6) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, with their single annual exempt amount of £3,000. HMRC compares the two figures and can refer a value that looks low to the Valuation Office Agency's district valuer, and section 274 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 locks whatever value is ascertained for inheritance tax into the capital gains calculation as well. Where the appropriate person sells land within three years of the death for less than the probate value, sections 190 to 198 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 let the sale price replace it, and section 197A extends that to a sale in the fourth year that produces a loss. A sale whose price differs from the probate value by less than the lower of £1,000 and 5 per cent of that value is left out of the calculation (Inheritance Tax Act 1984 section 191(2), checked 26 September 2026). The relief takes in every sale of land in the period rather than only the ones that lost money, and it is claimed on form IHT38. It does not apply to a sale by the personal representatives to anyone who has been beneficially entitled to the house since the death, including a beneficiary of the residue, or to that person's spouse, civil partner, child or remoter descendant (section 191(3)), and the claim must be made within four years of the end of the three-year period (section 191(1A), checked 26 September 2026). Checked 20 September 2026.
Any gain on a UK residential property is reported and paid on a separate return within 60 days of completion under Schedule 2 to the Finance Act 2019, as amended by section 23 of the Finance Act 2022 for completions on or after 27 October 2021, not left to the annual tax return. No return is needed where no tax is payable on the disposal. Checked 20 September 2026. Stamp Duty Land Tax in England and Land Transaction Tax in Wales are the buyer's taxes and do not touch the estate. In England, a beneficiary who keeps an inherited share may meet the higher rates when they next buy, subject to the exception for a small share, where an interest in a dwelling worth less than £40,000 is left out of account when the dwellings you own are counted (Finance Act 2003 Schedule 4ZA paragraph 3(4)), and the separate rule for a share inherited in the last three years (paragraph 16). We are not tax advisers: we give the personal representatives and their accountant the completion date and the figures on the completion statement, and the tax returns are theirs.
Who looks after an empty house during probate, and who clears it?
The personal representatives, from the day of death. That means insurance, council tax once the exemption for a deceased owner's empty home ends, utilities kept on at a level that stops pipes freezing, and someone checking the house at the intervals the insurer sets. In England the exemption is Class F in article 3 of the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) Order 1992, which runs until the grant and for up to six months after it, while the house stays empty and has not been transferred or sold (checked 26 September 2026). It has to be claimed from the billing authority rather than given automatically, and a refusal can be appealed at no cost under section 16 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. Checked 20 September 2026. The English rule does not apply in Wales. There, from 1 April 2026, a home empty since the owner died is exempt until the grant but for no more than two years from the death, then for up to 12 months after the grant (Council Tax (Discounts, Disregards and Exemptions) (Wales) Regulations 2026 reg 29, checked 26 September 2026). Keep receipts. Every one of these is an expense of the estate and belongs in the accounts.
Clearing is a family job that has a legal edge. The contents are estate assets. Anything of real value should be valued for the inheritance tax return and sold or distributed under the will before the skip arrives, and a will that leaves specific items to named people must be honoured before the rest is cleared. The contract will say what condition the house is to be left in, and a buyer can refuse to complete on a house full of furniture the contract said would be gone. Clear it before exchange, not the week of completion.