Enforced sales – deceased estates

Anyone within a local authority charged with resolving an issue in relation to an empty home will inevitably have come across a situation where the property owner has died and either, the personal representatives are not responding or are unknown. We are often asked what the local authority can do in this situation, because there is a commonly held misconception that a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration (i.e. a ‘Grant’) is needed before an enforced sale can be pursued. That is not quite right. While there may be nobody alive who is dealing with the property in practice, the reality is that there is always a ‘legal’ owner of a property, even where no Grant has been issued. That means an enforced sale can still proceed.

Where the deceased owner left a valid Will, title to the property will vest in the executors appointed in the Will as soon as the owner dies. While the executors would require a Grant to dispose of the property themselves, the local authority can use their power of sale under a Local Land Charge to sell the property, even where no Grant is issued. Any notices that an authority is required to serve as part of the enforced sale process can be validly served on the executors of the deceased estate, if their details are known. However, where do you serve the necessary notices if you do not know the details of the personal representatives or even if there is a valid Will? What happens if the deceased owner did not have a Will when they died?

This is where the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1994 (“LPMPA”) steps in to help. Firstly, section 14(1) of the LPMPA made an amendment to section 9 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925, so that it now provides that, where a person dies without a valid Will (i.e. “intestate”), legal title to anything they owned at the time they died vests in the Public Trustee until the grant of Letters of Administration. This means that there is always a legal owner of property, even where the deceased did not leave a valid Will and no Grant has been issued. Section 18 of the LPMPA also makes provision for service of notices affecting land on a person before a Grant has been issued. 

Section 18 of the LPMPA provides that:

“A notice affecting land which would have been authorised or required to be served on a person but for his death shall be sufficiently served before a grant of representation has been filed if—

1. it is addressed to “The Personal Representatives of” the deceased (naming him) and left at or sent by post to his last known place of residence or business in the United Kingdom, and
2. a copy of it, similarly addressed, is served on the Public Trustee."

This means any notice required to be served on the personal representatives of the deceased’s estate as part of the enforced sales process, can be validly served by addressing it to “the Personal Representatives” of the deceased and sending it to the last known place of residence, which could be the property. Provided the notice is also registered with the Public Trustee before it expires, the notice will be deemed served on the personal representatives of the deceased, regardless of who they are or where they are actually located. It is important to note that while section 18(b) refers to “service” on the Public Trustee, notices are actually registered with the Public Trustee rather than served on the Public Trustee. The Public Trustee simply maintains a register of property notices served on personal representatives under section 18 of the LPMPA, against which anyone can search. This is how the notice is deemed “served” on the personal representatives, even if they never actually see a copy.

A notice can be registered with the Public Trustee. A £40 registration fee is payable on registration of each notice but that is a small price to pay for the benefit of knowing that your notice will be deemed served on the personal representatives, even where you do not know who they may be