A Guide to Selling an Inherited Home

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An inheritance is one of those things where even a gain can often feel like a loss. The circumstances for most inheritances being disbursed is either severe illness or death of a loved one. Such situations can be incredibly difficult to get through and yet they must be dealt with as they arise.

A common object that is passed down as inheritance is a home. In such cases you really only have two options: rent the home out to someone else and generate some income on the side or sell the home after holding an estate sale to sell of the items within the home.

Today we’ll walk you through the intricacies of selling a home that you’ve inherited so you can make the best decisions possible.

Preliminary Considerations

Before you can begin in earnest, you must figure out a few things with respect to the property you’ve just found in your possession. The first thing to take care of when selling an inherited house should always be to find out how much the home is worth. Professional evaluators can do this job for you and they are a better option than using online estimators.

This is because the pros can tell you what you are likely to get not what you should get. Estimators only give ballpark figures and don’t factor in market conditions. You will also have to contact the mortgage company to find out how much of the mortgage is still outstanding.

Along with the mortgage, you should probably take a look into any and all debts that may be associated with the property as those will be deducted from any sale. The same applies to the mortgage. All these calculations will provide you with realistic figures surrounding the property.

You should lastly account for how the windfall from the sale of an inherited home will have to be reported on your taxes. You will have to look into what exceptions you are and are not eligible for and make decisions accordingly.

Selling the Home

Now we move on to actually selling the property. Before selling an inherited house you will want to clear out all the belongings in the home. This means that first you and your loved ones should distribute objects of sentimental value. After that, you should hold an estate sale or a yard sale to empty out the things in the home.

This is because you have no need for these things and the proceeds from the sale can be used to fund other aspects of the home sale. You should then find a good realtor who can take care of the legal and financial aspects of selling an inherited house. You should also determine who has the legal responsibility to carry out the transaction. This would normally be the executor of the will.

The next steps are simply to wait for an appropriate offer to arrive and then iron out the final details of the sale with a real estate agent.

Cleaning a Late Parent’s Home

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The process of moving past the loss of a loved one can never be easy. The turmoil of funerals, paperwork, assets, and liquidation can be very taxing. Sometimes, it can feel like the whole world is against you, especially when investors and banks start giving you time limits on when to have things done. One frustrating ordeal can be clearing out a home.

We’re taking this month to give you some helpful tips on getting through this process with a clear and open mind, rather than racing against the clock to put the loved one’s memory and belongings behind you. Join us as we recount some steps to take during this time:

  • Even though you want to quit, be thorough. You have absolutely no idea how many lost treasures lie in someone’s home. We see it every day. Make sure to do your research and inquire about unknown items. This whole time, they could have been sitting on a nest egg!
  • Locate the financial papers. Most often, people think in terms of “well, they’re not around anymore so none of this matters.” Unfortunately, any recently departed person’s debt or monetary troubles do not just disappear. The opposite is true, too. There are many accounts of acute and organized filing of papers leading to a financial gain for family members.
  • Family comes first. If you’re spearheading the process of liquidating an estate, get your family involved. Ask what sort of items they’d like, help in the moving process, and how they’d like to divide bipartisan items (something that belongs to more than one person).
  • Bring in a liquidator. Aside from a little self-promotion, we can’t stress this enough. Selling a whole estate can be VERY taxing, especially when you aren’t sure of the steps to take. A liquidator needs to be trusted, though. Have a conversation with them about the whole process before committing. You need to feel comfortable handing over your estate to someone who can get the job done, and done well.

 

With the Ladies, there are no upfront fees to the client. We receive a commission on the back end, so your only cost initially would be trash removal. The last thing you want is to spend a ton of money on a sale that doesn’t produce results. Always remember, big or small, the Ladies handle it all! Give us a call for any questions you may have, or to get your estate sale underway!

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