Move with Us joins ILM as new Corporate Partner

Joining the ILM family of Corporate Partners in November last year was Move with Us. As the largest independent residential property asset manager in the UK, the team’s wealth of experience and expertise provides critical support and reassurance for legacy teams facing the challenges of selling properties.

As co-founders of the Professional Probate Partnership (PPP), an organisation launched to support and advance the probate sector through education, networking, and shared expertise, Move with Us is keen to work alongside ILM members. Mark Kay, Managing Director, explains more.

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Put simply, if any charity legacy manager or probate solicitor is dealing with an estate that has a property to sell, we can assist them.

We have a dedicated probate team who really understand that this is a sensitive time for all involved and they will reach out to executors, beneficiaries and estates to explain how the process works. This is about giving our charity customers confidence in knowing they can trust our service and reputation – something that is evidenced by our Trustpilot score where we have over 2,000 five-star reviews, which we are very proud of.

A partnership approach

We co-founded the Professional Probate Partnership (PPP) in 2025 with Probate.Auction, CLSQ and The National Will Register, the idea being to create a space where like-minded professionals can network, gain industry insight and achieve CPD credits too.

All four of our businesses are in the probate space but we all do something quite different.

We’ve held three events so far (Birmingham, London and Bristol) with another booked for Leeds in February, and we hope they will become regular monthly activities.

The feedback from attendees – solicitors, will writers, charities and others – has been great.

Some of the conversations we’ve been having with legacy managers and charity teams have shown us that they often aren’t aware of the type of services we offer in helping to sell a legacy property.

Many say they will just go and instruct a local agent, which often generates a really bad result for them and creates more stress so yes, I do think charities are missing out at the moment.

The longer a house is on the market, the more the price gets reduced; and, after 120 days, buyers start to think there is something wrong with it. Pricing it correctly from the start generates a quick sale and often with more competition.

By joining the ILM as a Corporate Partner, we hope to be able to educate charities and work with them to show there is a solution that will speed up estate settlements and improve results for them – and that’s what most important for us.

How we work

When we’re instructed, the first step is to arrange a probate valuation. We know that property is generally the aspect of settling an estate that takes the longest and, for us, it’s about selling the property for what it is worth and doing so quickly so we can conclude what is an extremely stressful time for people.

We are genuinely independent, we aren’t owned by any estate agency group, and we use our own software to select the best two local estate agents in any given area. We rate them on criteria such as market share, proportion of properties sold and how quickly etc., and we mark them down if they use a lot of price reductions to generate sales.

At the same time, our own valuations team will take a view on the property – we compare it against at least three other local properties that are on the market and three that have been sold; and we build a detailed picture and produce an extremely detailed market appraisal report showing where our property price sits.

By having three valuations, we can satisfy the necessary estate requirements, and our evidence-based approach means we are very happy to answer any questions from a district valuer because we are confident our valuation stacks up.

Accurate valuation is something we pride ourselves on, and the last 200 properties we sold achieved 100% of the valuation price we had put on them – we won’t say you’ll get £300K if the property is worth £250K.

Our experience and technology, backed up by our market reports, give families and executors the confidence that our valuation is correct and will also be accepted by HMRC for tax purposes.

Once a property is ready to go to market, we instruct both agents at a multi-agency commission model of 1.65% – if a customer goes multi-agency themselves, they will typically pay 3%. This means the charity gets a multi-agency approach at a reduced fee and there is an element of competition, as only the agent which sells the property gets paid by us.

First impressions

We also know that first impressions really count, and part of our role is therefore to make sure a property is in the best possible condition for a sale. Typically, it might be garden maintenance or a good clean – we can manage that process and importantly, we can also fund that work. We often see personal representatives and beneficiaries who would like the work done, but they aren’t able to pay for it themselves. We get the job done and take the money out of the sale proceeds; it limits stress and we’ve found it’s a real benefit to customers – plus we don’t charge interest.

We can also offer vacant property insurance, which is useful for some estates too.

Close communication

For us, it’s about achieving the best outcome, we all know that if a property is on the market for a while, then it will fall to the bottom of the estate agent’s pile. Our team is constantly calling agents to ensure they are contacting their applicant list. We manage them really closely and communicate with everyone throughout the journey, so they all know what is happening.

Once an offer is received, our sales progression team takes over, and we negotiate directly with the buyers to ensure the best price is achieved, helping to expedite the process as much as possible through to conclusion.

Because we’re part of Simplify, the UK’s leading independent conveyancing and property services group, we have access to a lot of transactional data – for example, typical transaction times, prices achieved etc. It also means we have access to around one in five of UK property transactions where chains are involved. In turn, it is often in our gift to be able to expedite a sales process and get things moving more quickly to the satisfaction of everyone involved.

That may mean calling people up to make sure they respond to outstanding actions, dealing with conveyancers throughout the chain etc., and generally keeping people up-to-date. Our software will identify where milestones in a chain have been met and it will send an email to a customer that supplements our calls and emails, it’s all about making sure customers feel supported and informed throughout.

We constantly review the process and, if a property isn’t selling, then we will look at other options, such as working with our PPP partner (and fellow ILM Corporate Partner) Probate.Auction to consider it if is appropriate to put it into an auction.

For us, it’s about demonstrating the depth of our experience and expertise – we have over 25 years in the property business – and we want to show charities the difference we can make.

Selling a property at a commission rate of 1.65% versus up to 3% will make a huge difference to a charity, and more so if the property is sold in a way that saves time and delivers value for money.

We absolutely want to work with ILM members – and with fellow Corporate Partners – and see significant opportunities where we can assist. Together with my colleague Will Archibald, Head of Partnerships, we will be doing webinars for members and look forward to meeting everyone at the ILM Conference in May.

Special offer for ILM members

For every ILM member charity that works with Move with Us, it will donate 0.05% of its commission to the charity as a thank you.

Don’t miss our webinar with Move With Us – Probate Market Appraisal, adding value to an estate .