Sell an inherited house quickly
You don't need the Grant of Probate before you talk to us, and you don't need to empty the house. We are happy to wait for probate to come through, and we buy properties exactly as they stand, furniture, clutter and all. Most sales complete in 7 to 28 days once you are ready.
Call us nowQuick answer: Once the Grant of Probate (or Letters of Administration) has been issued, a cash sale of an inherited house typically completes in 7 to 28 days, in any condition, with no estate agent fees. We buy inherited properties across South Yorkshire, written offer the same day.
Three steps, at whatever pace suits you
No listing, no viewings, no strangers walking through the house, and no need to empty it first.
Step 1
Tell us about the houseFill in the form at the bottom of this page. Where it is and roughly what state it's in is enough to start with. You don't need the paperwork in front of you.
Step 2
We put an offer in writingOur best offer, first time, with the reasoning behind it. It's valid for 14 days, so there's room to talk it over with the family before anyone decides anything.
Step 3
We complete when you're readyWe work with your solicitor around the Grant, not against it. Most sales complete in 7 to 28 days, and the fastest we've done is 7. Later is fine too.
If you've just received the Grant, your next decisions
Once the Grant arrives you can finally sell, put the house into a beneficiary's name, and share out the money. The Grant of Probate (or Letters of Administration if there was no will) is what gives the personal representative the legal power to deal with the estate. Three decisions follow, roughly in this order.
Decision one: who is going to be the seller? The personal representative can sell the house straight out of the estate. Or they can put it into the beneficiary's name first, using a Land Registry assent (form AS1), and the beneficiary sells it. Each route has different tax and timing effects. More on that below.
Decision two: open market, auction or cash buyer? Three routes, with very different timescales. What you're left with can differ a lot too, once the cost of holding an empty house comes off. The honest comparison is next.
Decision three: how soon do you need this resolved? Be realistic. The longer the house sits empty, the more council tax, insurance and damage add up. That bites hardest in Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley, where empty-home council tax premiums now apply.
What the two routes actually involve
The open market route has seven places it can stall. Ours has two parties in it.
A chain sale
- Your buyer applies for a mortgage, which the lender can still withdraw
- The lender sends a surveyor, who can down-value or flag the condition
- Searches come back and can raise something nobody expected
- Enquiries go back and forth between four sets of solicitors
- Your buyer's own sale has to hold together
- So does their buyer's sale, and so on up the chain
- Everyone has to be ready to exchange on the same day
Selling to us
- No mortgage application, because we buy with our own funds
- No lender's surveyor, so condition can't be used to renegotiate
- No onward chain, because we aren't selling anything to buy yours
- Your solicitor still does the searches and the legal work properly
- You pick the completion date, and we work to it
That's why this route runs in weeks rather than months. The legal work still happens, the things that break sales don't.
Three routes once probate is granted
Estate agent, on the open market
The highest asking price and the slowest route. Listing to completion runs around 22 weeks on average in England, on ONS data. The estate pays council tax, insurance and standing charges all the way through, then the agent's fee of about 1% to 1.5% plus VAT, the legal work, an EPC and any small repairs a survey throws up come off the price.
Traditional auction
Faster than an agent and certain once the hammer falls, but it usually sells for less, and the reserve is normally set below what you'd hope for on the open market. Completion is fixed at 28 days from the hammer rather than chosen, which is tight if the paperwork isn't ready.
Modern method of auction
Brings in investor buyers, and the winning bidder pays a non-refundable reservation fee, commonly 4.2 to 5% of the price plus VAT. It's called the buyer's fee, but a buyer has one budget, so the hammer price drops by roughly the same amount and your own fees come off that lower figure. Completion is 56 days.
Sell to us
The lowest headline figure, bought with speed and certainty. There's no percentage formula behind our price: we look at the house as it stands and at what you tell us about it, and what we quote is our best offer, first time, not an opening bid. Completion takes 7 to 28 days instead of around 22 weeks, with no estate agent fees, no lender's survey to satisfy and no chain. Whether it beats the open market depends on how long the house would take to sell and what it costs the estate to hold meanwhile. Our cash buyer vs estate agent page sets the two side by side.
Not sure where you stand?
Tell us about the property and we'll come back the same day with a written offer, valid for 14 days. No obligation, and no pressure either way.
Get my free cash offerCapital Gains Tax: the only tax that bites the beneficiary directly
You don't pay any tax simply for inheriting a house. Inheritance Tax is paid by the estate, before anything is shared out. By the time the house is yours, that tax has been dealt with, or there was none to pay.
The tax that can hit you personally is Capital Gains Tax when you sell. You only pay it on the rise in value since the date of death. Your starting figure, the base cost, is the value at the date of death, known as the probate value. Any rise in value during the deceased's lifetime is wiped clean. HMRC sets this out in its guidance on selling property that isn't your home.
From 6 April 2024, the residential CGT rates set by the Finance Act 2024 are:
- 18% on residential gains within the basic-rate band
- 24% on residential gains in the higher- and additional-rate bands
Want a real figure rather than an estimate?
Two minutes on the form is enough. We price on the property itself, not to a set percentage, and it's our best offer first time.
See what we'd payIHT38: how the estate can recover overpaid Inheritance Tax
If the house sells for less than the probate value within four years of the death, the estate may be able to claim back Inheritance Tax it has already paid. Most pages skip this. You claim on form IHT38. Claim for relief: loss on sale of land, made under section 191 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984.
The conditions, plain English:
- The sale must be by an "appropriate person", usually the personal representative.
- The sale must complete within four years of the date of death.
- The loss must exceed the lower of £1,000 or 5% of the probate value (so trivial drops don't qualify).
- If the estate sold more than one property in those four years, all of them count. You can't claim on just the one that lost money.
- The sale must not be to a "legatee" (a beneficiary, their spouse, child or grandchild).
The claim must be made within seven years of the death. It can be worth real money. The estate gets back up to 40% of the drop in value, and that money goes on to the people who inherit.
Plenty of estates pay no Inheritance Tax at all. They fall under the £325,000 nil-rate band, or £500,000 where the home passes to children or grandchildren and the residence nil-rate band applies. If the estate paid nothing, there's nothing to claim back. But a retired homeowner with savings and a pension behind them crosses £325,000 more often than families expect. See HMRC's Inheritance Tax overview.
That £325,000 threshold has been frozen since 2009, and it stays frozen until April 2031. House prices have risen a long way since. So more estates pay Inheritance Tax every year, and more families need to know about IHT38.
When two or more of you inherit
All of you have to agree
Everyone who inherits a share has to agree to a sale. No single beneficiary can push it through alone, however keen they are to get it moving.
A deadlock is what stalls most sales
One of you wants to sell now, one wants to do it up, one can't face it yet. Nothing gets decided and the house sits empty.
The court route exists, and it's slow
Any co-owner can ask a court to order a sale. Allow months and several thousand in legal fees, and it comes out of the sale money.
A minority share still counts
The majority don't automatically win. The one holding out has a real voice, though a court also weighs up what keeping an empty house indefinitely costs.
A written offer usually moves things
Once there's real money and a real completion date on paper, the conversation tends to change. Ours is our best offer, first time, and it's valid for 14 days.
Or one of you buys the others out
One keeps the house and pays the others their share. You'll need a valuation, a figure for each share, and the funds. Take legal and tax advice.
What each route really nets the estate
What matters is what lands in the estate's account, not the price quoted at the start. An empty house costs hundreds of pounds a month to keep. The longer the sale drags on, the smaller the gap between the routes gets. If the house is cheap to hold and likely to sell quickly, an estate agent will usually still get the estate more than we can. If it's empty, in poor order and hard to get a mortgage on, the faster route often wins. Ask each agent for a realistic timescale as well as a price, then set that against what the house costs you each month.
The cost of an empty inherited house in South Yorkshire
Council tax is the trap most families don't see coming. For the first six months after the death there's nothing to pay, under the Class F exemption, as long as the house stays empty and the estate is still being sorted out. After six months, full council tax starts. After twelve months empty, a 100% premium on top now applies in all four South Yorkshire boroughs:
- Sheffield City Council doubles the council tax on homes left empty for more than 12 months.
- City of Doncaster Council does the same on homes left empty for more than 12 months.
- Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council has charged the empty-home premium since 2019, and added a second-homes premium in April 2026.
- Barnsley Council has charged the empty-home premium since 2019, with a second-homes premium added in 2025.
Working to a deadline?
Tell us the date. Most sales complete in 7 to 28 days, and if we can't work to your timescale we'll say so straight away.
Talk to us todayWhen the property needs work
Inherited South Yorkshire homes are typically older. Sheffield's stock around S2, S4, S5 and S8 is heavily Victorian terraces and inter-war semis. Doncaster's older areas: Bentley, Adwick, Mexborough, are 1900-1955 stock. Rotherham's Maltby and Wath, and Barnsley's Worsbrough and Wombwell, share the same profile. Solid walls, thin loft insulation, wiring due for replacement, a boiler near the end of its life, damp patches, sometimes a single-glazed back room. We see these houses every week.
The problem on the open market is the mortgage lender. Lenders are wary of a house with several things wrong with it. The survey comes back subject to a damp report, an electrical certificate, a roof inspection. Every one of those is a point where the sale can collapse. A house that looks perfectly saleable can go through three buyers and six months, because each new survey raises something else.
Cash buyers don't have this problem. We don't need the property to be mortgageable. We don't expect it to be in perfect condition. We price it on what it's worth as it stands, allowing for the work it needs. Our offer doesn't hang on a lender's survey. It can still change if the conveyancing, the legal work on the sale, turns up something material, such as a problem with the title or a serious structural fault. If that ever happens, we put the reason in writing.
If the property needs significant repairs, has stood empty for years with damp throughout, or has a dead boiler and pre-1980 wiring, we will still buy it.
Post-Grant sale: the 7-to-28-day timeline
For a cash sale post-Grant, here's the realistic step-by-step from "we'd like to sell" to "money in the estate's account":
- Decide to sell, agree the route with co-beneficiaries (days 1-7). If you're a sole inheritor, faster. If you're co-inheriting, this is where the conversation has to happen.
- Get valuations: two or three local agents plus a cash offer (days 3-10). Free, no obligation. The agent valuations stop you accepting a low cash offer. The cash offer gives you a real floor to judge the agents against.
- Accept the offer, instruct your solicitor (days 7-14). Your own choice of solicitor, never a buyer's "panel" solicitor. Allow for anti-money-laundering onboarding.
- Searches, enquiries, contract drafting (days 10-28). Local authority searches in the SYK boroughs typically return in 3-10 working days. Environmental and water searches follow.
- Pre-contract enquiries answered, contracts approved (days 14-28). The TA6 property information form is critical. Be honest, see the disclosure section below.
- Exchange and completion (days 21-28). Exchange and completion can happen on the same day in cash transactions where both parties are ready.
Realistic range: 7 to 28 days. Three weeks is the most common outcome for a well-prepared SYPB transaction. Seven days is our fastest, and it needs unusually clean title, ready buyer funds, and a solicitor with capacity.
Some things add time. Missing deeds, where the house was never registered with HM Land Registry and has to be registered now. A mortgage still on the deceased's title, which adds two to four weeks while the lender produces a redemption figure. Co-executors living abroad. HMRC clearance where the estate pays Inheritance Tax. None of these stop a sale. They just need planning for.
If the executor chooses to assent the property to you first (form AS1) before you sell, you'll add the HM Land Registry processing time. As of 2026, the HMLR processing time for many AP1 applications including AS1 transfers is 3-12 months. If you want a fast sale, it's usually quicker for the personal representative to sell straight to the buyer, using a TR1. There are tax reasons to assent first in some cases, so take advice.
Disclosure: what you have to tell the buyer about the property's condition
You have to answer the pre-contract questions truthfully, even if you barely knew the house. You may never have lived there. You may have visited twice. That doesn't excuse you from telling the truth about what you do know.
The TA6 property information form asks specific questions about the condition, any disputes, any building works, any known defects, any flooding, any damp treatment, any pest issues. The honest answer to many of them, for an inheritor, is "not so far as I am aware", and that is a perfectly proper answer where you genuinely don't know.
What you can't do is hide what you do know. In Patarkatsishvili and another v Woodward-Fisher [2025] EWHC 265 (Ch), the High Court undid a completed house sale because the seller had hidden a moth infestation he had been told couldn't be cleared. The rule is simple. If you know about a problem, say so. It doesn't matter whether the deceased told you, you found paperwork in the house, or you saw it yourself on a visit.
This is one place where selling to a cash buyer helps you. We buy the house as seen, with no lender's survey to satisfy, so there's less that can come back on you later. We won't walk away over a fault you've told us about. We'll build it into the offer.
Companion to our probate guide
This page is for after the Grant, when the house is yours and you want to sell. If you're still waiting for probate, or working out whether to apply at all, our guide for executors selling during probate covers that. Our blog post on the step-by-step process of selling a probate property in South Yorkshire walks through the executor timeline in detail.
If you're in South Yorkshire specifically and want local market context, our location pages cover Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley in depth, including local price data and stock condition profiles.
For impartial guidance independent of any cash buyer, MoneyHelper (the government-backed financial guidance service) is the best starting point on tax after a death, and the Citizens Advice bereavement section covers the wider practical position. If you're working through grief, Cruse Bereavement Support offers free help.
Still weighing it up?
You don't have to decide anything to get a figure. Tell us about the property and we'll put our best offer in writing, valid for 14 days.
Get my free cash offerFrequently asked questions
You can put the house on the market and agree a sale at any time. You can't exchange contracts or transfer the title until the Grant of Probate (or Letters of Administration on intestacy) has been issued. So we can give you a written offer now, look at it again once the Grant arrives, and complete in 7 to 28 days from there.
Your starting figure is the probate value, not what the deceased originally paid for the house. You only pay CGT on the rise in value since the date of death. From 6 April 2024 the residential rates are 18% (basic-rate band) and 24% (higher- and additional-rate band). You can take £3,000 of gain tax free each year, per person. Many people who sell within months of the Grant owe nothing, because the value has barely moved since the probate valuation. Ask an accountant if the gain is more than small.
IHT38 is the HMRC form used to claim back inheritance tax when land or buildings sell for less than the probate value within four years of the death. If the estate paid IHT and the property has dropped in value, or the probate valuation was simply too high, the estate can recover up to 40% of the loss. The claim has to be made within seven years of the death.
All co-owners have to agree to sell. If you can't agree, any one of you can apply to court under section 14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (TOLATA) for an order for sale. Allow 4-9 months and £6,000-£20,000 in legal fees. A written cash offer with a deadline often unblocks things first, because it makes the cost of the alternative obvious.
Yes. You'll need a formal valuation and the money to pay them out, from savings, inherited equity or a mortgage, matching their shares. Stamp Duty Land Tax may be due on the share you buy, but only on what you pay for that share, not on the full value of the house. Take legal and tax advice.
AS1 is the Land Registry form an executor uses to pass the house to a beneficiary, where no money changes hands. TR1 is the form used when the house is sold to a buyer. Both come up with inherited property, at different stages. Use the wrong one and HM Land Registry rejects the application.
For a fast cash sale, it is usually quicker for the personal representative to sell straight to the buyer. That avoids waiting for HM Land Registry to register the AS1, which currently takes 3-12 months for many applications. Taking the assent first sometimes works better for tax, especially where several beneficiaries can each use their own £3,000 CGT allowance. Take advice from a solicitor or accountant who can see the figures.
Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley all now double the council tax on a house that has stood empty for 12 months. Add insurance for an empty property, which costs more than normal cover, plus standing charges and someone to keep an eye on the place. Expect £300-£500 a month on a typical South Yorkshire house, and more once the council tax premium starts.
Yes. Cash buyers including South Yorkshire Property Buyers buy in any condition. Buyers with a mortgage often can't. Lenders regularly refuse to lend on a house with bad damp, structural problems, no working heating, or alterations that were never approved.
Whatever you know. The pre-contract enquiry form (TA6) asks specific questions. Following Patarkatsishvili v Woodward-Fisher [2025], the courts take a hard line on sellers who hide known faults. Saying you never lived there isn't a defence if you do know about a problem, because the deceased told you or there is paperwork in the house. Where you genuinely don't know, it is fine to answer that you are not aware of any problem.
Six checks. Find the company on Companies House and check it is active. Ask for written proof of funds dated within the last 14 days. Check they belong to the NAPB or the TPO, on those bodies' own websites. Get the offer in writing, with the reasoning behind it, not just a number over the phone. Use your own solicitor. And never pay a fee up front.
Rather just ask us directly?
You don't need to read the rest. Send us the property details and we'll come back the same day with a written offer, valid for 14 days.
Get my free cash offerOnce probate has been granted and you have instructed a solicitor, a cash sale usually completes in 7 to 28 days. The fastest cases close in 7 days. Some take longer, where the title is complicated, the house was never registered, or beneficiaries live abroad. We confirm a realistic completion window in writing with our offer.
Not by much. Without a will you apply for Letters of Administration instead of a Grant of Probate, and it does the same job. The person who applies is usually the closest relative. Once the Grant is in your hands, the sale runs exactly as it would with a will. Getting it can take a bit longer, because the law decides who inherits and in what shares, and those shares need to be clear before any money is paid out.
No, you don't have to clear it for us. We buy houses as they are, furniture, carpets, loft, shed and all. Take whatever time you need to sort through the things that matter to you, and leave the rest with the house. On the open market you would usually be expected to clear it first, which is one more heavy job at a hard time.
Yes. The mortgage is paid off out of the sale money on the day of completion, and whatever is left over goes to the estate. Interest usually keeps building until then, so the debt grows while the house sits empty. Tell your solicitor early so they can ask the lender for a redemption figure, because a slow lender can add a few weeks. Equity release plans work the same way.
Usually not, unless the work is cheap and quick. Full renovations on an older South Yorkshire house often cost more than they add, and you carry council tax, insurance and standing charges the whole time the work drags on. A clear out and a good clean can help on the open market. Anything bigger is a gamble with the estate's money. We buy in any condition, so no work is needed for us.
Sometimes, but it is a far bigger job than people expect. You become a landlord, with gas and electrical safety checks, an EPC, deposit protection, insurance and tax on the rent. If several of you inherited, you all have to agree, and keep agreeing, for years. If the house needs work before anyone could live in it, that money comes out of your own pockets first. Selling ends it cleanly.
For a smaller estate, written valuations from two or three local estate agents are normally enough. If the estate looks likely to pay Inheritance Tax, pay for a proper RICS red book valuation instead, because HMRC can question a figure that looks too low. Keep all the paperwork either way. That date of death value is the starting point for any Capital Gains Tax when the house is later sold.
It can add time, so plan for it. Everyone with a share has to sign, and the solicitor has to check identity documents for each of you, which is slower from overseas. Ask your solicitor early how they will verify someone abroad, and start that paperwork before you agree a completion date. We can work to a date that suits everyone rather than pushing you into one.
The sale money goes into the estate first, not straight into your own bank account. The executor then pays any debts, funeral costs, tax and fees before splitting what is left between the people who inherit. Many hold a little back for a while in case a bill or a claim turns up. Ask your solicitor for a rough timetable, so nobody is counting on money that hasn't been released yet.
No. A death in the family doesn't change how we price a house. We don't work to a percentage of market value: every property is priced on what it actually is and on what you tell us about it, so we won't put a figure on yours before we have spoken to you. The figure we do give you is our best offer at that point, based on the information provided, and we don't start low and work up to get a deal over the line. It can still change if conveyancing turns up something material, such as a title defect or a structural problem. What you get in place of an open-market price is speed and certainty. We will say it plainly: if you aren't under time pressure and the house is in reasonable order, an estate agent will probably get you more than we can.
No. Almost all property in England is registered with HM Land Registry, so your solicitor can pull up the record without any paper deeds. If the house was never registered, which still happens with a few older South Yorkshire homes that haven't changed hands in decades, your solicitor can apply for first registration using whatever documents exist. It adds time, so flag it as early as you can.
While the house is still part of the estate, often yes, because the executor holds the legal power to sell it. They must still act in the beneficiaries' best interests, and they can be challenged if they don't. Once the house has been transferred into your joint names, that changes, and every owner has to agree. A good executor shares the valuations and any offers before deciding. If you feel shut out, ask for the figures in writing and take your own legal advice.
Question we haven't answered?
Put it on the form with your property details and we'll answer it straight, even if the answer is that a cash sale isn't right for you.
Ask us about your propertyGuides for executors and beneficiaries
Probate House Sale Timeline: How Long Each Stage Takes
From the death certificate to completion, stage by stage, and where probate sales usually get held up.
Read guide →
The Empty Homes Council Tax Premium in South Yorkshire
Every borough now doubles the bill at twelve months empty. What an empty inherited house quietly costs the estate each month.
Read guide →
Buttle v Saunders [1950]: Can an Executor Accept a Cash Sale?
If you're worried that taking a quick offer breaches your duty to the beneficiaries, this is where the line actually sits.
Read guide →Tell us about the house, in your own time.
We buy with our own funds, so there's no lender, no survey and no chain. You don't need to clear the house or fix anything first, and if an estate agent would do better for you we'll say so.
Our promise to you: We will never pressure you into a sale. Your enquiry is completely confidential. If we make you an offer and it isn't right for you, there is absolutely no obligation to proceed.