Have inherited land, how do you get started? Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land, and I wanted to answer that question today.
We get a lot of people who have inherited land and they’re not sure what to do first. Can they even sell their land? How does it work and where do I get started?
When we first speak with you, whether it’s on the phone or through an email, one of the first questions we’re going to ask you is, whose property is it? We’ll want to know the name of the state and the county where the property is located, as well as the APN or the assessor’s parcel number. We’ll also want to know who owns the property and then whose name is on the tax records. Those can be different people, which is why we ask and that allows us to look up the property.
The next question is, how did you inherit the property? Did someone pass away? Was it given to you through a will? If you were willed this property, we will want to know, did the will go through probate? Is it still in probate, still tied up in court, or has it been finalized? The reason we ask that question is that we always close through a reputable title company in the area. We do that for safety, security, as well as accuracy, which we believe is important. The Title Company will want to know about probate, and they will ask for the probate documents to move forward.
However, if the property was not willed to you, we’ll ask the question, “How did you end up with the property?” What that means is, let’s just say maybe it was your mother’s property, we’ll want to know, how did that make its way to you. Are there other heirs, is what I’m trying to get to. If you have three brothers, then we know that there’s possibly four heirs. We’re going to want to make sure that everyone wants to sell the property because they all have a right to it.
Because we close through title, things have to be done correctly and judiciously. All heirs who have a right to the property have to be able to sign off on the sale of the property. They have to agree. Let’s just say it’s a little bit more complicated. Maybe this is a great-grandparent. We have to walk through that chain of a title those circumstances. Maybe it wasn’t officially titled to them over the years but Title will have to show the correct chain of inheritance. We might start by asking, “it was the great-great-grandparents’ property: how many children did they have? How many children did each of them have? Of those, who are alive?” We have found some circumstances in the past where a potential seller ended up with 100+ heirs to a property and we were not able to work with that unfortunately.
In several other cases, we have seen where there’s a handful of heirs, 5, 6, 7, or even 8, and they’ve all gotten together and signed off on the sale of the land. It took some time and some coordination but those who were motivated made it work. There have also been other circumstances where all of the heirs have passed and you’re the last one. There are legal methods to prove your rightful heirship through affidavits of heirship and other legal tools to convey that you are entitled to this property and that we can buy it from you directly.
If you have inherited property, don’t despair. Many times, there are ways that we can work with you. We buy a lot of inherited property. It tends to take a little bit longer if there’s extra paperwork to do or if there is probate paperwork involved, but it can be done.
The first step is to reach out to us, email us, or give us a call, and provide us the county, state and parcel information. This is all public record. This information allows us to look up your property and we can start going from there and making a recommendation.
TB Properties Buys Land: We buy 10+ acres of land across the country and we buy in cash, which means we don’t need to get a loan. We always close through title for your safety. I look forward to working with you. Thanks again for listening.