The questions we get asked most

Yes. You can put the house up for sale and accept an offer before probate is granted. You just cannot finish the sale without it. Starting early is the single biggest thing you can do to save time, because the sale and the probate then run side by side instead of one after the other.

Really free, and if they question it we deal with it. The two normal routes are three estate agent valuations - free, but three different opinions and nothing to prove which one HMRC should take - or a RICS Red Book valuation, which is solid but usually £500 or more out of an estate that has not been released yet. We do it the way a surveyor does, at no cost, and if HMRC ever come back on the figure we handle the challenge ourselves.

It happens a lot, and it does not have to hold things up. We can speak to each of you on your own and put things in writing. Then decisions get made on the facts, instead of in a family conversation nobody wants to have.

No. We sell the house and do the conveyancing. The probate application itself is handled by you or your probate solicitor, and we work alongside whoever is doing it.

No - most of the homes we sell are empty, and a lot of the people we help live hours away. We hold the keys, let people in for viewings, and can sort out clearing the house and insuring it while it sits empty.

The same way a surveyor arrives at a probate figure: comparable evidence - what genuinely similar homes nearby have actually sold for. That is what the grant application needs, and it takes two minutes to start. If you go on to sell with us we visit before we agree an asking price, because the number that goes on Rightmove is a different job.

We use the same evidence any estate agent uses. Where we differ is that we will tell you when the honest number is lower than you were hoping for, because an asking price nobody offers on costs the estate months.

No. We will send you the valuation, and we will not ring you unless you ask us to. If you would rather we did ring, say so and we will.

We do. We are not an online agent - our own people cover your viewings, and we handle the bookings, the feedback and the offers. You do not have to be there, and you do not have to hold the keys.

Rightmove, Zoopla and our own buyer list, plus a For Sale board if you want one. Almost every buyer starts on the portals now, which is why a high-street window matters far less than it used to.

Because it removes weeks later. Searches are one of the things everybody ends up waiting on, so we start them at the beginning rather than after an offer. Buyers can move faster, and some pay more for a sale that will actually complete.

One named agent, all the way through. Phone, email or online, 8am to 6pm, six days a week.

Sometimes, and sometimes emphatically not. If we think work would add more than it costs we will say so, and we can fund it and take it back out of the sale so nothing comes out of the estate up front (how that works). If we think it would not pay for itself, we will tell you that too.

1.8% + VAT covers the sale and the legal work together, and it is paid out of the sale on the day it completes. There is nothing to pay up front, and nothing at all if it does not sell.

Money we pay out on your behalf - search fees, Land Registry fees, and any insurance the property needs while empty. Your conveyancer tells you about each one before it is spent, and we do not add a margin to them.

On the day the sale completes the funds go to the estate account. Distributing them to beneficiaries is the executor's decision and usually waits until the estate's other affairs are settled, but the property money itself is there on completion day - there is no extra wait caused by us.