Selling Your Parents’ Home After They Pass Away: Take it Step by Step
No matter how young or old you are, losing a parent is heartbreaking. On top of your grief at their passing, you must deal with the emotionally heavy task of settling their estate. For many, selling their parents’ home after death can be a daunting and exhausting challenge.
“Handling your parents’ estate after they pass away is a very difficult process. If the sale of the house needs to also be taken care of at that same time, it’s easy for details to get overlooked,” explains Ryan McKee, a Los Angeles-based agent and probate specialist agent experienced in helping clients sell their parents’ home after death.
“Be ready and prepared emotionally for the process to begin, first and foremost,” advises Greensboro, North Carolina agent Beth Sauer, who also has firsthand knowledge as the seller of an inherited home.
If you need to sell a house you’ve inherited from your parents, you have a long to-do list in front of you. However, you can reduce some of the stress by working through the process step-by-step.
Step 1: Establish the status of your parents’ estate
Most adult children know they’ll be inheriting their parents’ home one day, but too few understand exactly how the house will pass into their hands. You need to know the steps your parents took to give you ownership of the inherited property before you can even think about selling the house.
“You can’t just turn around the next week, most likely, and just put the home on the market. You have to make sure that you have the legal right to sell the home,” says Sauer.
There are primarily three ways to inherit a house from your parents: through the probate process, by a transfer on death deed, or via a living trust.
Probate
Many families mistakenly believe inheriting property is as simple as listening to an official reading of their parents’ will. That may work in the movies, but in reality, real estate inherited via a will is usually subject to the long, complex probate process.
And if your parents didn’t leave a will, then probate is pretty much a given.
So, what is probate?
Probate is a court-supervised process that oversees the dispensation of your parents’ entire estate — including the sale of the house. This is done so that the proper people are granted the right to and responsibility for the estate, and so that your parents’ debts get paid as part of the process.
While probate laws vary from state to state, expect the complex process to take a while, from several months up to a year or two.
Depending on the laws in the state where your home is located, the courts may play a role in when and how the home is sold during probate. So be sure to do your probate research and enlist the help of a probate attorney.
