Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in District of Columbia

My husband's grandmother passed away in 2005. She sold a home 27 years earlier in Washington D.C. and offered the buyer owner-financing. The buyer paid off the owner-financed mortgage in 2009 to a mortgage servicing company that collected the payments from the buyer and dispersed the payments to grandmother. The servicing company has now dispersed to my husband a small sum from the payments that they held since grandmother's death. Grandmother had signed a form designating my husband as her beneficiary with this company and they had the form on file. The company required my husband to provide an official death certificate and sign an affidavit providing information to prove he is the only living descendant since grandmother did not have a will. The company has now refused to complete the property title transfer to the buyer because my husband did not file a petition for probate. We understood that if there is no will but the asset has a designated beneficiary, it is not necessary to petition for probate to transfer assets. All of grandmother's other assets were non-probate assets as they were jointly owned/titled by my husband and grandmother. She had planned well and probably thought the form she signed making my husband the beneficiary to the owner-financed mortgage was all that was needed. The buyer is anxious to have the title transferred on the property. My husband consulted a title company who stated they could not transfer the title to the buyer and recommended that my husband file a petition for probate. Is this really necessary to petition for probate to transfer this property title? Should my husband or the buyer be pressuring the servicing company that collected the payments for 30 years to complete the service they were obligated to perform for his grandmother?

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