Evicting Family members after a death

[PetraM]

Hi all, long time no see..

A member of the family has died and we're now the Executors of the Estate.

The family member was not wealthy, but did own a house in one of the most run down areas of the country which they were living in together with 2 to 4 (depending on the day of the week ) adult grandchildren.

Those two grandchildren are still there and are occasionally joined by their siblings (who are not all adult) - hence my "2-4" comment.

AFAIK, there has never been any formal arrangement about this, they just live there while "in between" looking for alternative accommodation and have contributed towards shared costs.

Now we don't want to evict them while their grandmother's body is still warm but, looking forward, as they have limited incomes and, frankly, prospects, as we will ultimately need to sell the property in order to conform to the terms of the will, I'm wondering what we might have to do if they won't - or can't - find somewhere else to live.

(One is a priority for social housing anyway, she has two young children. But the other is not. To complicate things a little, both will inherit small sums from the sale of the property; enough to pay the deposit on a rental flat, but not enough to do much else with.)

There is no formal tenancy agreement and the house is not fit for rent anyway as there's no gas or electrical certificates.

Where do we and they stand? What is the process if they can't find alternative accommodation without actually being "homeless"?

Or alternatively, we do have the option under the terms of the will to postpone the sale. Thing is, the grandchildren aren't really grown up enough yet to take care of the property and we live too far away to drop in often to chivvy them up about it. If they were to just "stay on" and to keep the property in a reasonable standard (despite my reservations that they're not capable), does that set us up for problems further down the line?

Thoughts? Honestly, the sums of money involved here are not huge by the standards of many on this site but for people who can't always afford a £10 phone top up, they're enormous so we're not only grieving the loss but we feel this is likely to be a great deal of hassle and a lot of pain when all we really want to do is the right thing for everyone involved.

[Clitheroekid]

You don't actually say whether or not they were paying for the `privilege' of living in the house. However, I'm assuming from the description that they weren't.

In legal terms they were therefore`licensees' - they had been granted a licence to occupy the house by their grandmother.

Licensees have very limited rights. Their licence can be terminated on `reasonable notice'.

In order to get rid of them you would therefore have to serve them with notice terminating their licence and telling them to vacate within a reasonable period - a month should be enough.

The Protection from Eviction Act 1977 generally requires a court order before the owner can take possession of a residential property. However, licensees are generally not protected by the Act, and if they fail to leave at the end of the notice the owner can simply change the locks while they're out.

However, before taking such a drastic step you should definitely seek legal advice, as if they did turn out to be protected for some reason this would be illegal eviction, which is a criminal offence and would also entitle the occupiers to seek damages from the estate - in practice, from yourselves as executors.

The one thing you must not do as executor is to ask them for any payment, otherwise there is a distinct danger of creating a tenancy, in which case they would acquire legal rights of occupation.

However, this is the legal position, and it's invariably better to try to reach an amicable agreement with them. Cash is usually effective in such situations. If the amount they would receive from a sale isn't enough to persuade them to leave it may be reasonable for the estate to pay them an additional sum, though it would be sensible to obtain the agreement of the other beneficiaries to this.

So far as their finding other accommodation is concerned they should be classed as unintentionally homeless on expiry of the possession notice, in which case the local authority has a statutory duty to house them.

[PinkDalek]

A member of the family has died and we're now the Executors of the Estate.

… There is no formal tenancy agreement and the house is not fit for rent anyway as there's no gas or electrical certificates. ...

Merely to add and if not already considered, the Executors (or whoever ends up administering the Estate) will need to look very closely at the Property Insurance Policy and to establish what the insurance company needs to be told, as soon as possible, about the death of the policyholder and ongoing occupation by licensees (using CK's obviously correct terminology).