I Inherited a House, Now What?

9 Key Questions to Ask When Selling Your Home
September 24, 2019
9 Key Questions to Ask When Selling Your Home
December 16, 2019
Congratulations and condolences. “I inherited a house, now what?” means you’re still undecided about how to handle this. We have some useful advice for you.

So, you think to yourself following a meeting with the family lawyer, “I Inherited a house now what do I do?

Navigating this question is extraordinarily difficult, and even more, a rather undesirable thing to do when you’ve just lost a loved one. Those closest to you are more likely to have you inherit something, so the pain is likely very severe.

Nonetheless, the world continues to turn, and nobody is going to deal with all of this for you.

Here, learn about what this inheritance means for you, what your options are, and where you can find quality home buyers to help you make the process as quick and seamless as possible.

I Inherited A House Now What?

When you inherit a home, it can be a very tumultuous time. Trying to sort through the life of a loved one can be emotional, but more than that it can be very stressful and complicated.

If you’ve inherited a house, there are a few things you want to get straight before proceeding to anything else.

Home Value

Do you know the value of the home you inherited? Your deceased loved one may have given you a value, but that value could be very far off by the time they died or they could be mistaken. This is why it is important to scour various valuation resources at your disposal.

At the end of the day, you would be wise to value the home using experts who know your area and the market at any given time.

Online valuation tools can be good to give you a general ballpark figure, but to really hone in on the value of the inherited house, you’ll feel much better with the peace of mind that comes with hiring an expert for this.

State Of Title And Property Sharing Types

There are some things you need to find out about your ownership before proceeding forward with anything.

Mainly, you need to know if you’re involved with anyone else in terms of inheritance of the home. In addition, you must know if you have the right to do anything with the home in the first place, or if your loved one only gave it to you for a certain amount of time.

Sole Inheritor Or Multiple Parties?

If you don’t know the difference, you wouldn’t be alone. 

A sole inheritor means that you inherited 100% of the house, nobody shares any portion of the property with you in any manner.

This is the ideal scenario, as you have control and ownership of the whole property, and do not need consult with anyone in order to sell your inherited house.

However, if you did not inherit 100% of the home, you need to figure out how many parties are involved, and in what manner you guys are tied to the property.

What do I mean by “what manner”? Well, depending on the way your loved one devised the inherited property, there are a few different scenarios you could currently be involved in.

Tenants in common is the most common form of joint property ownership. If your loved one did not specify in their will, the law assumes you will become tenants in common. This means that each owner has a right to possess the entire property physically, and owns a certain fraction of the property on paper.

If you wish to sell your portion of the property, you are free to do so without asking permission, but you can only sell what fraction of the property you own.

Joint Tenants With Rights Of Survivorship is not popular anymore, but still exists in some places. This is when people own a property together, and when one of them dies, their share goes to the other stakeholders in the property. This means that you cannot give away these types of ownership in a will, but you can sell them and sever the right of survivorship.

There are other forms of joint ownership, but for the sake of simplicity, you are likely to either own the property outright or share it equally with other persons.

Do You Own The Property Outright?

While you may have received the property in the will, you may not have received it forever. If that sentence seems contradictory to you, you wouldn’t be alone. When a will is drawn up, property can be devised to you a number of different ways.

For example, you could have been given what is known as a life estate, which is a right to the home that ends at the end of your life. This means that you cannot sell the house outright, but rather could only sell your interest in it. So you could sell the house to somebody, but they would only own it until you die.

Fortunately, most wills leave a home to someone in perpetuity, which means forever and ever. This means you are free and clear to sell your home.

Also fortunately, where the terms of the will are ambiguous, the law typically construes it as giving the house away forever, meaning you are free to do as you wish with it.

Is There A Mortgage On The Home?

Mortgages are a common thing you have to deal with when you inherit a home. If your loved one took out a mortgage or received credit lines that used the home as collateral, you will have to get those obligations satisfied before you get any proceeds from a sale.

Sell Your Home Without All The Hassle

Now that you have the answer to the question, “I Inherited a house now what?“, you have a couple of choices to make.

You can go through the rigorous process of dealing with all of these issues and more.

Or, you can contact professional home buyers and let them handle everything from beginning to end, all while providing you with a fantastic value for your home.

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