Dad Died Without a Will and the House Is in His Name

Your father died without a will, and the house was in his name alone. The first thing to know is that his wishes, and yours, no longer decide who gets it. A fixed set of rules called the intestacy rules decides instead, and they run whether or not they match what he would have wanted. Who inherits the house depends mainly on one fact: whether your mother, or your father's husband or wife or civil partner, is still alive.

The second thing to know is that nobody can sell or transfer that house yet. A property in a sole name is frozen until someone obtains the legal authority to deal with it. Because there is no will, that authority is not called probate; it is a grant of letters of administration, and until it is issued the house cannot change hands, no matter how clear it is who should end up with it.

This page follows the house through: who inherits it under the intestacy rules, who is allowed to sell it, and the grant you need before anything can move. It is written for the person actually sorting this out right now, and it ends by turning the same question back on you, because if your father had no will, there is a fair chance you do not either.

Who inherits the house under the intestacy rules

When someone dies without a will in England and Wales, the estate passes under a statutory order that ignores intentions and looks only at relationships. The house is part of that estate, so it goes wherever the rules send the estate, unless it was owned jointly, which is a different situation we come back to below.

If your father left a surviving spouse or civil partner, that person takes his personal possessions, a fixed cash sum called the statutory legacy, and one half of whatever is left. The children take the other half between them in equal shares. The statutory legacy in England and Wales is currently £322,000, so in many estates, where the house is the main asset and it is worth less than that sum plus the spouse's half share, the surviving spouse effectively receives everything and the children receive little or nothing.

Source: gov.uk, Intestacy — who inherits if someone dies without a will, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

If there is no surviving spouse or civil partner, which is the position when a widower dies, the children inherit the whole estate in equal shares. That is the more common shape behind this question: dad on his own, the house his only real asset, and it now belongs to his children between them. A child's share is held on trust until they reach 18 if they are still under age. It is worth being clear that "children" here means his legal and adopted children equally, but not stepchildren he never adopted, who take nothing under intestacy however close they were.

Why nobody can touch the house yet

Knowing who inherits does not let anyone act. The house is registered in your father's sole name, and a dead person's name cannot sign anything. Before the property can be sold, transferred into a beneficiary's name, or even have its mortgage formally dealt with, someone has to be given legal authority over the estate.

Where there is a will, that authority is a grant of probate. Where there is no will, it is a grant of letters of administration. The two do a similar job but come from different routes, and using the right word matters when you are dealing with banks, the Land Registry and any buyer's solicitor. What you are applying for here is letters of administration, and the person who receives it is called the administrator rather than an executor.

How long the grant takes varies, and it has been slower in recent years than families expect. HM Courts and Tribunals Service publishes management information on current waiting times, and it is worth checking that before you promise anyone a date, because a complete application still takes a number of weeks to be processed and an incomplete one takes considerably longer.

Source: HM Courts and Tribunals Service, probate management information, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Who applies to administer the estate

Not just anyone can apply. There is a strict order of priority for who is entitled to be the administrator of an intestate estate, and it follows who inherits. A surviving spouse or civil partner comes first. If there is none, or they do not wish to act, the children are next. After them come the deceased's parents, then brothers and sisters, and so on down the family tree.

So if your father was a widower, you and your siblings are the people entitled to apply. One of you can apply alone, or up to four of you can apply together, and where any beneficiary is under 18 at least two administrators are usually required so that the child's share is properly protected. It is worth agreeing among yourselves who will take it on before anyone applies, because a contested application slows everything down.

Being the administrator is a real job with real duties, not just a form to sign. You must gather in the assets, settle the debts and any tax, and distribute what is left strictly according to the intestacy rules, keeping records as you go. Get the distribution wrong, by paying someone who was not entitled, and you can be personally liable to make it good. Where the estate includes a business rather than just a house, the responsibility is heavier still, as we set out in who ends up in charge when a business owner dies without a will.

Can we sell the house before the grant?

This is the question families ask most, usually because the house is standing empty and costing money. The answer is that you can start, but you cannot finish.

You are free to put the house on the market, agree a price and instruct a solicitor before the grant arrives. What you cannot do is complete the sale. Legal title stays in your father's sole name until the grant of letters of administration is issued, so contracts cannot be exchanged and completed until the administrator has the authority to sign. In practice buyers and their solicitors are used to this and will often wait, provided they can see the grant is being pursued, but it does mean you cannot promise a firm completion date until you know the grant is coming.

Meanwhile the house still costs money, and those costs fall on the estate. If there is a mortgage on it, the lender expects the payments to continue and interest keeps building; a mortgage is not paused by a death. Buildings insurance needs to stay in force, ideally on a policy that covers an unoccupied property, and council tax, utilities and maintenance all carry on. If the estate has no ready cash to meet these while everyone waits for the grant, the pressure to sell quickly grows, which is one reason clearing a mortgage in advance matters so much for the next generation, a point we come back to below.

The family shapes that change the answer

The straightforward version above assumes a simple family. Real families are rarely simple, and three variations catch people out.

The first is an unmarried partner. If your father lived with a partner he never married, that partner inherits nothing under the intestacy rules, no matter how many years they were together or whose home it felt like. She may have a claim to make as someone who was financially dependent on him, but she does not automatically inherit, and she has no automatic right to stay in the house. We set out that harsh gap in full in who gets the house when an unmarried partner dies without a will.

The second is a second marriage. If your father remarried, his new spouse sits at the front of the queue, taking the possessions, the statutory legacy and half the rest before the children of his first marriage see anything. That can mean the family home effectively passes to a stepparent while his own children receive very little, a scenario we deal with directly in what happens when a father remarries and dies without a will.

The third is joint ownership. Everything on this page assumes the house was in your father's sole name. If it was instead owned as joint tenants with someone else, it usually passes automatically to that co-owner on death, outside the intestacy rules and outside the estate altogether. Which of these applies is decided by the exact way the title was held, not by who lived there or who paid the mortgage, so it is always worth checking the ownership at the Land Registry before assuming anything.

Now turn the same question on yourself

Administering an intestate estate is the clearest possible lesson in why a will matters, and it is worth taking that lesson while it is in front of you. If you are reading this because your father left no will, ask yourself honestly whether you have one either. Most people who die intestate did not decide against a will; they simply never got round to it, exactly as your father may not have.

If you have children of your own, the stakes are higher than the house. Without a will you cannot appoint a guardian to raise them, and the decision could end up with a court. It is worth understanding early that the people you might assume would step in, such as godparents, have no legal standing as guardians unless you actually appoint them, and that the relatives most likely to volunteer, often grandparents, may not be able to take on young children for the long haul, as we discuss in naming grandparents in their seventies as guardians.

There is also the plain financial point you have just watched play out. Your father's estate is being squeezed by a house that costs money while everyone waits for a grant. A modest amount of level term life cover, written to clear a mortgage or leave ready cash, spares your own family that exact bind: it means the people you leave behind are not forced to sell in a hurry simply to stop the outgoings. If you want to see what that would take for your circumstances, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker size it against your own mortgage and family. To pair that with the will and guardianship side, our guide to wills, guardianship and children sets out the steps in order.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The intestacy rules described here are those of England and Wales, and they do not apply across the whole UK.

Scotland works very differently. Instead of a single statutory legacy, a Scottish intestate estate is divided into prior rights, which give a surviving spouse or civil partner an interest in the home up to a set value plus a cash sum, then legal rights for the spouse and children out of the moveable estate, and only then the free estate. The person who administers is an executor-dative, appointed by the sheriff court, and the grant is called confirmation rather than letters of administration. The result for a house and who keeps it can be quite different from the English outcome.

Northern Ireland has its own intestacy rules, again broadly similar in shape to England and Wales but with different figures and its own probate office and procedures. Wherever the estate is, the safe move is to check the rules for that jurisdiction rather than assume the English position applies, because the family who inherits and the order in which they do can both change.

Frequently asked questions

Who inherits my father's house if he left no will?

The intestacy rules decide. A surviving spouse or civil partner takes the possessions, the £322,000 statutory legacy and half of the remainder, with the children sharing the rest. If there is no surviving spouse or civil partner, the children take the whole estate in equal shares. An unmarried partner and stepchildren who were never adopted inherit nothing under these rules, whatever the relationship was.

Can we sell the house before probate?

No. A property in the deceased's sole name cannot be transferred or sold until a grant of letters of administration is issued. You can market it and agree a sale in principle, and instruct a solicitor, but completion has to wait for the grant to come through. In the meantime the mortgage, insurance and bills on the house all continue and fall on the estate.

Who applies to administer an intestate estate?

There is a set order of priority: spouse or civil partner first, then children, then parents, then brothers and sisters. Whoever applies becomes the administrator and takes on the duty to collect the assets, settle the debts and any tax, and distribute the estate correctly. Getting the distribution wrong can make the administrator personally liable, so it is a role to take on with care.