Today I experienced it again with a client. Her husband had died a long time ago. Madam had just sold the house and the purchase agreement had been signed. However, very often things go horribly wrong here. The moment your partner is (co-)owner of a house and you are his or her full heir, you basically inherit the house.
But that doesn’t settle it. It is crucial that you then have a certificate of inheritance drawn up. And this is for the following reason. It is important that a notary find out and officially establish who the legal heirs all are of the deceased person. This must be confirmed on paper by a certificate of inheritance and that certificate of inheritance is then also registered in the land registry and linked also to the property that is bequeathed to you.
What is the consequence when selling a property if no certificate of inheritance is prepared?
The result is that the property cannot be transferred / cannot be “delivered” to the buyers on the agreed upon day of transfer of ownership. Does this happen often then? Yes, very often. And we understand that, because when someone dies, your partner or child’s world is turned upside down. You do not always think about this and you are not always pointed out by the people / professionals (brokers) who help you. The unpleasant consequence is that if you cannot ‘deliver’ the house to the buyers, the buyers can declare you in default and (as is included in most purchase agreements) will successfully claim 10% of the purchase price from you as a penalty.
Fortunately, client I was with today did have a certificate of inheritance drawn up neatly at the time and there was nothing to worry about.
How long does it take to prepare a certificate of inheritance?
It depends. Sometimes it can be settled very quickly within about 2 weeks. But it can also be that there are some open endings so it can take a very long time. For example, I once experienced that a gentleman of 60 had died. We’ll call this gentleman Pete for a moment. This Mr. Pete had a wife, a son and a daughter. Ten years later, the Mrs. went to sell the house. However, no certificate of inheritance had been drawn up. The Mrs. was the only heir together with her son Jan and daughter Marie, so normally this would be a very easy case to draw up a certificate of inheritance for. But not in this case. Unfortunately, son Jan had also died 5 years ago. Son Jan lived abroad and was married there and also had 2 children. What the notary had to do here was to find out how son Jan was married (under what conditions) in order to find out what the woman he left behind would be entitled to. Also, the same son had 2 young kids who in turn were his heirs and would be entitled to the ‘child’s share’ that their father Jan would have inherited from ‘grandpa’ Piet. And son Jan lived abroad. Didn’t his Jan perhaps have more children?
All in all, it became a dramatic search job for the notary that took about 1.5 months, after which only then could a certificate of inheritance be drawn up. The delivery of the property therefore had to be suspended. Fortunately, the buyers of the property in this case were kind and compassionate enough not to declare a default on the woman who had sold the property to them.
The moral of the story: take great care to always prepare a certificate of inheritance when someone dies. And no matter how tough it is, please don’t wait too long.
Should you be reading this and have just lost someone close to you: immense strength!