House Insurance

[Bazile]

For the purposes of obtaining House insurance .

Daughter died leaving no will
Mother subsequently dies leaving house in will to daughter .

Two sons / brothers remaining .
Daughter / sister's estate will pass to brothers , in the absence of the sister having a husband/ partner / children , i understand

Mother & daughters estates has not been sorted out yet .

My question is - is it ok/legal at the present time ,for the brother to state that he is the owner of the property on an insurance proposal form ?

[Buenchico]

I'm assuming that the will didn't actually say what should happen to the house if the daughter was to die first. (If so, that instruction must be obviously be followed):

Since the daughter died before the mother (and the daughter had no children), the house passes to the 'residuary beneficiary' in the mother's will. (e.g. if the mother concluded her will by stating "I leave the remainder of my estate to Battersea Dog's Home", then it's BDH that gets the house).

If the will didn't name a residuary beneficiary, or he/she also died before the mother, then a 'partial intestacy' is created, with that part of her estate being dealt with as if she'd not left a will. As I understand it from your post, that means that it will pass jointly to her sons.

So the first thing to check is whether the mother's will named a residuary beneficiary.

At the present time however it's the executor of the mother's estate who should be seeking to insure it (and who has the legal right to do so).

[Buenchico]

>>> "that instruction must be obviously be followed" ????

I haven't touched a drop, honestly!

[Bazile]

ok just to clarify -
So if one of the brothers is the executor of the mother's will , then it's correct for him to tick /answer 'yes' to the question on the insurance proposal form , where it says -

'You are the owner of the property' ?

[Buenchico]

I'm hoping that it's a paper form, rather than an online one.

If it's a paper form I'd actually change the wording on the form to read "executor of the owner's estate" AND enclose a covering letter to explain the situation. (There's no need to complicate things by referring to the deceased daughter. All that's needed is to state: "The title to the property is registered to Mavis Thelma Bloggs, who died on 12 December 2015. I am the executor of her will and currently seeking probate").

If it's an online form then I'd definitely advise AGAINST ticking the box declaring ownership of the property as, without any additional explanation, the insurer could use that as a valid reason to fail to pay out.

A face-to-face (or telephone) conversation with a broker is probably needed here.

[Bazile]

1. Do you mean get advice from a broker or get the insurance through the broker ?

2.So at what point does the brother become the owner of the property ?

[Buenchico]

I suggest getting the insurance through an experienced broker, as cover for houses in probate is a bit of a specialist area.

The executor has to apply for probate, which involves collecting all of the relevant information together, completing the paperwork and swearing an oath (or simply 'affirming' if, like me,he's an atheist).

The 'grant of representation' that he'll then have entitles him to distribute his mother's estate in accordance with the terms of her will (and in accordance with the intestacy rules if, as explained above, a partial intestacy has been created through his sister's death).

At that stage though the house will still belong to his mother's estate and not to him and his brother. However he'll then be empowered to 'assent' the property to the beneficiaries (i.e. himself and his brother), using Land Registry form AS1:
http://blog.landregistry.gov.uk/property-owner-dies/

Once form AS1 has been accepted by the Land Registry, and the title register changed, he and his brother will then co-own the house.

[woofgang]

Phone the insurance company and talk to them rather than complete an online form. Assuming that the house is unoccupied, the insurance company will have certain requirements which are broadly similar but its worth checking what these are.

Whoever inherits the house will own it when ownership is passed to them by the executor. This is the law even if both the executor and the inheritor are the same person, as with the executor’s hat on, the person needs to settle debts collect monies belonging to the estate and so on. btw, the estate pays to insure the house.

[237SJ]

I`d phone the insurance company and tell them the situation. I`m the executor of my mother`s will and when she died, I phoned her house insurance company and told them that I wanted to keep the property insured. I didn`t have probate at that time but it made no difference. They cancelled the existing insurance and issued a new policy which took into account the fact that the place is unoccupied. The paperwork came to me as the executor of my Mum.