How we work
How a property is looked after, from the day we are instructed to the day it is sold.
Prospect manages property for probate, Court of Protection, deputyship and local authority matters, in-house across England and Wales. Over 0+ properties secured and sold since 2011.
Our own DBS-checked staff attend every instruction, and every report comes out of the same case record.
Just a personal note to thank you for the excellent work you and your team carried out for us in Yorkshire recently. Your diligence, expertise and prompt attention were hugely appreciated. Please do pass my thanks to your colleagues, too.
Jenny Alexander
NATIONAL TRUST LEGACY ADMINISTRATION TEAM
The instruction
An email arrives. The case is built.
The instruction is read on arrival. A case record is created, every job that the instruction requires is generated, and the work is allocated to the right inspector by location. Admin reviews the allocation before anyone is dispatched.
Initial inspection
Carried out in-house. Every case.
Every initial inspection is attended by a Prospect inspector, fully trained and DBS-checked, working from our custom secure app on their own device. We do not contract this step out. The standard does not vary by region.
What the submission produces
One submission. Six outputs.
The inspection submission is the moment the case picks up speed. Six pieces of work are produced from a single form completion, in the minutes after admin has cleared the report.
Inspection submitted
Admin clearance, then the cascade
Statement of Fact
Auto-generated from the inspection data. Property type, construction, condition flags and declarations, ready for the insurer.
Redacted brief
A redacted version of the report is generated and sent with estate-agent valuation invitations alongside the property dossier.
Quote requests
Quote jobs for clearance, garden works and contractor work are created and queued into their kanbans.
Vehicle records
Any vehicles logged during the inspection appear in Vehicle Management, ready for admin to move or store.
PDF to the solicitor
The inspection report is rendered as a PDF, checked by admin, and sent to the instructing fee-earner.
Invoice raised
The invoice for the inspection is raised in parallel and follows the PDF, in the minutes after admin clearance.
In-house, not a network
One firm, one chain of command.
Every inspection on a Prospect case is attended by a Prospect operative, employed by us, trained by us and DBS-checked. We carry out the great majority of house clearances with our own people too. Where a specialist trade is needed, we invite vetted contractors to quote, the instructing firm chooses, and we appoint and manage that contractor directly through to completion.
Our operatives work from software we built and own, used to run every case from instruction to sale.
Who attends
Recorded against the case, with date and time
Prospect operative
Employed by us, trained and DBS-checked
External contractor · North West Clearance Ltd
Waste carrier licence · Environment Agency
Confirmed 24/05/2026
Public liability cover · £5m
Confirmed 24/05/2026
Safeguarding confirmation · Recorded against the case
Confirmed 24/05/2026
A contractor who will not confirm does not get the work.
Who enters the property
Vetted before the door opens.
The people who attend a property for Prospect are our own employed operatives, DBS-checked, because of what these properties hold. External contractors confirm their credentials before we engage them and again on every quote they submit: a valid Environment Agency waste carrier licence, public liability cover of at least five million pounds, and safeguarding confirmation recorded against the case.
Post and papers
The post at the property is read page by page.
The letters, bills and statements found at an inspection come back to the case as a Paperwork Review. It lists each item of post, what it says and the action it needs, with the debts, accounts and deadlines drawn out at the top.
Paperwork Review
42 Rosewood Gardens, Wilmslow
The late Dorothy Margaret Sykes, died 14 March 2026
Points needing attention
- Council tax. Cheshire East Council has issued a final notice for £412.18, payable by 20 May 2026.
- Pension. Payments continued after the date of death. The provider asks for a copy of the death certificate.
Items of post
| Item | What it says | Action required |
|---|---|---|
1. British Gas Final bill, 7 May 2026 | £86.40 for gas to the meter reading taken on 7 May. | None. Paid by direct debit on 9 May. |
2. NS&I Premium Bonds prize notice | A £25 prize on the holder’s number. | Notify NS&I and claim with the estate’s holdings. |
Checks
1 check blocks approval · 3 for information
The electricity reading on the letter is 48213 on 7 May 2026, but the initial inspection recorded 48231. Confirm which is right before the review quotes either.
ResolveBritish Gas: £86.40 appears to have been paid ("BRITISH GAS DD" on the Barclays statement of 9 May 2026), so it is left out of the debts total.
Pension statement is dated after the death and still addressed to the deceased by name, so the sender has probably not been told.
Council tax final notice: payment by 20 May 2026 (in 8 days).
Checked by our office before anything is sent.
ApproveCaptured
Post is photographed at the property, or brought back and scanned at our office under a cover sheet that files it to the case. A page that went in upside down is turned and read again.
Read
Every page is read. Account numbers, references and amounts are read a second time, and bank details are confirmed against the IBAN’s own check digits.
Checked
Each figure is traced to the page it came from. Meter readings are compared with our inspection, and a bill already paid on a bank statement is marked as paid.
Approved and sent
A member of our office team resolves every check and approves the review. It goes to the fee-earner as a PDF, with the original scans on a secure link.
Agent Appraisal Summary
Seven local agents have provided appraisals through the Prospect process. The summary across all responses is shown below.
The auction reserves shown below represent guaranteed sale floors, not market valuations. The five private treaty ranges sit materially higher, with the top end reaching £374,000. Private treaty is therefore the route most likely to realise the property's open-market value.
Agent Appraisals — Detail
Agents are listed by sales route, then by top of range descending.
Valuation that holds
The evidence a valuation rests on, at no cost.
Our standard property appraisal is free and carries no obligation to sell through us. It assembles agent appraisals to the number the instructing firm's compliance standard requires, drawn from a panel of over a thousand verified members invited through our secure platform. Every return sits next to HM Land Registry recorded comparables for the same street, with EPC and property data alongside.
Independence
The decision stays with the firm.
We work for the instructing firm, with no franchisor and no introduced solicitor panel behind us. When a property is to be sold, we gather appraisals from local agents, set them beside the comparable sales, and recommend a route on that evidence. The firm chooses the agent, and the appraisal carries no obligation to sell through us.
Contractors vetted before they enter a property
A plasterer sees only the plasterwork.
Quote-request briefs are produced per workstream and scoped to the trade. A clearance firm sees man-day estimates, tipper loads and hoarding severity. A plasterer sees only the photographs tagged for plasterwork. No client name. No identifying detail. The brief is redacted by default.
Quote-request briefs
One brief per progression on this case. Specialist contractor briefs surface only that trade’s scope.
Initial Garden Clearance & Tidy-Up
Initial Garden Clearance brief
29 Apr 2026, 10:47
Property Clearance
Property Clearance brief
29 Apr 2026, 10:21
Garden Maintenance (Apr–Nov, recurring)
Garden Maintenance brief
29 Apr 2026, 10:29
Garden Maintenance (Apr–Nov, recurring)
Garden Maintenance brief
29 Apr 2026, 10:20
Locksmith
Contractor brief, trade-scoped
29 Apr 2026, 10:20
Plasterer
Contractor brief, trade-scoped
29 Apr 2026, 10:47
Note: Briefs include property photos and details for contractor quotes. No client info.
Vehicle management
Every vehicle on the case, tracked alongside the property.
Vehicles logged at the initial inspection move straight into Vehicle Management. Registration, make, model, mileage, VIN, condition and inspection photographs are all on the record, through valuation, recovery, storage and disposal. Proceeds flow back to the estate or the protected person.
Vehicles
81 vehicles in workflow
INV-PROB-2025-DEMO-001
HeldCreated 27/05/2026
Estate of Dorothy Sykes · 42 Rosewood Gardens, Wilmslow
Held
until funds are released
Line items
Held against the estate. Raised as the work completes, with no settlement expected until funds are released.
We fund the works, you settle when funds are released
Our balance sheet behind the file.
When works are needed, the quotes go to the instructing fee-earner, the fee-earner decides, and we instruct and pay the contractor directly from our own funds. Our invoices are raised as the work happens, and we do not expect settlement until funds are released. We hold invoices for consolidation on request.
One case model, every report
One submission. Every output the file needs.
A single parsed will and one inspection feed every document the case produces. The chattels reconciliation, the IHT schedules and the OPG report are drawn from the same case record, so the figures reconcile because they come from one source rather than being re-entered.
Executors
Specific Bequests (3)
Residuary Estate (100 parts)
Individuals
Charities
Free of duty clause (section 3) applies to all legacies and bequests. The survivorship clause requires beneficiaries to survive by 28 days. Residuary charities matched to the Charity Commission register.
Case activity
Estate of Dorothy Sykes · PROB-2025-DEMO-001
Instruction received
A. Mason · 02/05/2026
Property secured, locks changed
D. Lord · 07/05/2026
Valuation returned
S. Patel · 14/05/2026
Works approved by fee-earner
A. Mason · 20/05/2026
Contractor confirmed
A. Mason · 24/05/2026
Clearance scheduled
A. Mason · 31/05/2026
Every action attributable to a named user, kept for audit.
Audit trail
Every action recorded as it happens.
From the moment an instruction lands to the final disposal, every action on a case is logged, timestamped and attributable to a named user. Contractor confirmations, valuation returns and works approvals are recorded against the case as they occur.
Built for a vendor-risk assessment
The questions a large firm's procurement team asks, answered.
Prospect is registered with the ICO (registration ZB673226) and operates to UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Client data is held within UK and EU data centres. Access is governed by database-enforced row-level security and role-based permissions, with every action logged, timestamped and attributable to a named user.
Data governance
UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018
- ICO registration
- ZB673226
- Data residency
- UK and EU data centres
- Access control
- Row-level security, role-based permissions
- Audit
- Every action logged to a named user
- Infrastructure
- SOC 2 Type II attested suppliers
ICO registeredInstruct or talk to us
Hand us the property, and get on with the estate.
Instruct us on a live case, or take a 20-minute call that walks a senior fee-earner through the case path on a real example. We can send a sample case completion summary and Paperwork Review before any commitment.