Making alterations to house while waiting for grant of probate

A question about : Making alterations to house while waiting for grant of probate

Hello,

Our father passed away recently and left us a house which he had built himself and is about 99% complete.

My two younger brothers were living with dad in the house when he died and are still living there now. It's a big house for them to run, so we intend to sell it asap.

We have a builder booked in to finish the house - erecting a boundary wall, laying a driveway and turfing the garden.

I applied for grant of probate last week, but it will probably be a while until it comes through.

My question is: are we allowed to go ahead with doing these changes to the house before the grant of probate has been given? Or should we cancel the builder for now?

Many thanks.

Best answers:

• Sorry I should have mentioned - yes there is a will and I am the executor. I'm just worried that Dad's assets don't belong to us until I've been given grant of probate, so I'm not sure we're allowed to do any building/alterations until then.
  Many thanks,
• OK, that's great thank you!
• Be careful with valuations and potential CGT implications if any of the beneficiaries don't live in the house.
• There's just us three beneficiaries. My two brothers, who lived/still live in the house, and myself who doesn't. I'm not sure how it will work, but I assume that if we increase the value by more than Ј33,000 I'll have to pay 28% of one-third of the increase over 33k? If that makes sense?
  Many thanks
• You need to do more research.
• Another question would be to check that you have the resources to pay the builder before you get probate / obtain access to the funds in Dad's accounts.
• Thanks, yeah we do.
• Yep, there is a will. Dad built the house himself and he had no mortgage. He was single and just left everything equally to his three sons. I'm the eldest and he made me executor. Thankfully the situation is fairly straightforward. It was just this building the wall and driveway business before I get grant of probate that I was worried about.
  Many thanks