Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land and today I want to talk to you a little about inherited land.
If you inherited land from a family member, friend or by other means, it may be a lot harder to sell your land than you first thought.
If the land was properly conveyed to you by means of a quit claim deed, grant deed or warranty deed, then most likely you can sell your land easily on your own or through a realtor or through a company like us, TB Properties Buys Land, if you want to get paid cash quickly and close through a Title Company.
But, if a family member passed away and you were left that land but a will was not probated or there was no will, then things can get very sticky.
I want you to understand this: even if you have been paying property taxes on the property every year for decades and your name is on the assessor’s bill, that doesn’t mean the property is legally yours so that it can be conveyed to someone else.
Chances are you will need to pay a real estate attorney to clear the chain of title. This can be very costly. Depending on how clouded the chain of Title and where you’re located, it could be a thousand dollars to thousands of dollars. Or they could find that the property needs a survey, in which case that could be additional thousands of dollars alone. That is why if you have inherited land and the property has not been properly deeded to you, that working with a company like TB Properties Buys Land can be helpful. You don’t have to pay those up-front costs of attorney fees, survey, etc. before you even have a chance to list the property, let alone sell it. When working with TB Properties Buys Land you get paid cash quickly and through a Title Company.
Now to be up front, most of the time we can purchase land in about 2 weeks through a good Title Company, with our seller’s receiving their cashier’s check or wire transfer in that time but when it comes to clearing the chain of Title it can take longer. We’ve had some close as quick as 3-4 weeks in clearing the chain of Title (we used an awesome Title Company!) and others that took over a month since there were multiple people involved and different issues but we do try to close the transaction as quickly as possible so that our sellers can receive their cash quickly.
I wanted to share a story with you about a family we worked with that had inherited land. It was the mother who owned the land and she had passed away years before with no will, leaving the property to her 4 surviving children. They knew they wanted to get rid of the land; they had been paying property taxes on it forever but had no means of being able to do so until they went to an attorney to clear up the matter. Instead, one of the family members received a letter in the mail and decided to check us out. Needless to say, we ended up with all 4 of the families signing a purchase agreement for the sale of the property and sent it to Title to work out the Title issues. On top of that, we received the Title Commitment back and they told us the property needed a survey too since there was no survey on record! So, that took a little longer to close the sale but in the end all four of the families were able to get paid from the Title Company and they were able to get their cash much faster than they would have been able to do on their own. The best part is that they didn’t have to put any of their own money up front in order to sell their property. They were super relieved they didn’t have to go through that.
So, if you have inherited land and you have questions, just reach out to us at (503) 610-0210 or by email at service@tbpropertiesbuysland.com. We would love to be able to answer any questions for you. It we can help you, that would be super but you can find us at www.tbpropertiesbuysland.com. Thanks, I hope we helped answer some questions you had on your inherited land!