An inherited house isn’t free to own
When a house comes to you through a will, it arrives with a running cost. Most families don’t see that until a few months in — when the second council tax bill lands and the insurance renewal asks awkward questions.
We’re David & Jason, and we buy houses right across Swansea — Landore, Townhill, Morriston, Sketty, Mumbles, the lot. Inherited properties are a big part of what we do. Here’s what actually happens to a Swansea house between the funeral and the sale, and what each month of it costs.
First: you can’t sell until probate is granted
If the property was in the deceased’s sole name, the sale can’t complete until the grant of probate is issued. You can market it, take an offer and instruct a solicitor — but completion waits.
Probate in Wales and England currently runs to roughly four months for a straightforward application, and considerably longer where there’s inheritance tax to settle, an unclear will, or a missing document. That’s before the sale itself starts.
The practical consequence: an inherited Swansea house sold through an estate agent commonly takes a year or more from bereavement to completion once you add probate, marketing, a buyer’s mortgage and the conveyancing. All of it with the house standing empty.
What it costs while it stands empty
Council tax — and the empty-home premium. Welsh councils have powers to charge a premium of up to 300% on long-term empty properties, and most South Wales authorities now use them. There’s usually an exemption for a period after death, and a further one while probate is pending, but those run out. Check with Swansea Council what applies to your property and from when — this is the cost that catches families out, and it’s the one that keeps climbing.
Insurance. A standard home policy generally stops covering a property once it’s been unoccupied for 30 to 60 days. You need specific unoccupied-property cover, which costs more and often requires the water drained down and the place checked regularly. Leaving the old policy in place and hoping is the expensive mistake — an escape-of-water claim on a house that’s been empty for months may simply be refused.
Deterioration. Empty houses go downhill fast in a damp coastal climate. Damp, mould, a boiler that seizes because nobody ran it, a slipped slate letting water in all winter. Swansea’s weather is not kind to a house nobody is checking on.
Security. Empty properties attract attention. Squatters, break-ins, and the copper piping going missing are all real, and each of them makes the house harder to sell than it was.
The drive. Plenty of the families we deal with don’t live nearby — the house is in Swansea, they’re in Bristol or London or further. Every viewing, meter reading and contractor visit is a day out of their life.
What Swansea buyers actually want
Here’s the awkward part. The inherited houses that come to us are usually the ones the open market handles worst.
They’re dated, sometimes damp, often needing a full modernisation — and they’re competing against renovated houses on the same street. A buyer needing a mortgage will struggle if the survey turns up damp or a failed roof, and their lender may retain part of the loan or refuse it altogether. That’s how these sales fall through at week fourteen and reset to zero.
You can spend to fix that. Rewire, replaster, new kitchen, new bathroom — the sums run to tens of thousands, take months, and you’re funding it all on a house you don’t live in and are still paying to hold.
The direct route
We buy inherited Swansea houses exactly as they stand.
- Offer within a day, no obligation, based on the house as it is — damp, dated, cleared or not.
- We complete when probate allows. We don’t need a mortgage, so we’re ready when you are; if the grant is still pending, we wait without pulling out or re-negotiating.
- Free house clearance. Take what matters to the family. Everything else, we handle — no skip hire, no clearance firm, no weekends spent bagging up a lifetime.
- No fees, no commission. We pay the legal costs, including yours. The figure we agree is the figure the estate receives.
- One point of contact. Useful when several siblings are involved and everyone needs the same answer.
We’ll be straight about the trade: our offer is below full market value. Against it, set the agent’s commission, the months of council tax at the empty-home rate, the unoccupied-property insurance, the repairs a mortgage buyer will insist on, and the risk of a chain collapsing after four months.
When to hold instead
If the house is in decent order, probate is already granted, and no sibling needs their share quickly, the open market may well net the estate more. That’s a fair outcome and we’ll tell you so.
It’s the other cases — a dated house, a long probate, beneficiaries in different cities, or an estate that needs to settle — where waiting quietly costs more than it earns.
The bottom line
An empty inherited house in Swansea costs money every single month, in ways that don’t show up until you add them together. Whether you sell to us or through an agent, the expensive option is doing nothing while everyone decides.
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