When several things are happening at once

This situation is a composite, assembled from the circumstances this kind of property routinely produces. It is not one family and it is not a client. It exists to show how Sahvelo sorts a situation like it, and the example plan below is generated by the Handbook rather than written for the page.

Grandma died eleven years ago. Her house has been in the family the whole time, and one of her sons has been living in it and paying what he can. Nobody ever went to court. There may have been a will and nobody can find it. Two of her four children have since died, so between the children, the grandchildren and at least one spouse there might be six people with a claim, and the family has never sat down and counted. The county has been sending the tax bill to Grandma. It is behind, and nobody is sure how far. Last month somebody called one of the cousins and offered her money for her part of the house. Half the family wants to sell before something happens; the other half will not discuss it.

What may be happening underneath it

What is known

  • The deed still names somebody who died A will directs who should receive a house and does not itself change the deed. Until a transfer is recorded, the land records name Grandma. In some states title has already passed to the heirs by operation of law and only the record is stale; in others nothing has moved. The house is still in their name
  • The property tax is on a clock Property tax is a charge on the land, not a debt of a person. It keeps running, the notices go to the name on the roll, and the county's remedy is to take the property. This is the thread with a statutory deadline whether or not anybody knows about it. Property taxes after a death
  • A share may be about to leave the family A co-owner may sell their own undivided interest to anybody. The buyer becomes a co-owner with a co-owner's rights, including the right to ask a court to end the co-ownership and sell the whole property. When one owner wants to force the sale
  • The family disagreement Real, and not the first problem. Half a family arguing about whether to sell is arguing about a number nobody has computed, over shares nobody has established. When a home passes to more than one person

What is probably true

  • This is heirs' property Property that passed to heirs without a recorded transfer, held now in undivided fractional shares by people who have never all been in a room together. Two deaths since Grandma's mean the shares have already divided twice. Heirs' property

What still has to be established

  • Nobody knows who the owners are With two children dead since Grandma, the interests have passed to their own heirs. Any transfer signed by the people currently in the room moves only what those people own, and leaves an omitted heir's share exactly where it was. How ownership fragments
  • Whether probate ever happened, or is still possible Nobody has checked the court records. Some routes close with time and some expressly do not, so the answer changes what is available rather than whether anything is. Do you need probate
  • Whether the state has heirs'-property protections A number of states have enacted a version of a uniform reform act meant to put steps between a partition filing and a sale. Sahvelo has not read that act or any state's enactment at its own source and does not publish what they provide, so this is a question for a local attorney or legal aid office rather than one this page answers. Protections, state by state
  • Whether there is anything else recorded against it A mortgage, a judgment lien, a contractor's lien, an old unreleased mortgage. Each of them comes off the value before anybody inherits anything, and one of them can be the reason a sale later fails. What the property carries

What matters first

  1. Find out where the tax account stands It is the only thread with a deadline running today. One call to the county with the parcel number establishes whether taxes are behind, whether a lien has been sold, whether a sale is scheduled, and whether a redemption period is running. Everything else on this page can wait a week; this can decide whether there is still a house to argue about.
  2. Get the recorded deed A few dollars, often online, from the county where the house sits. It says who the recorded owner is and how the property is held, and a right of survivorship on it would change the whole picture. Every later conversation is cheaper once somebody has read it.
  3. Find out whether anything was ever filed in court Probate records are public. Whether an estate was opened, and whether a will was ever proved, decides which routes are still available. It is a search rather than a proceeding and it does not commit anybody to anything.
  4. Write down the family tree, with dates Two of Grandma's children have died since, so the interests have divided again. Marriages, children, deaths and dates are the evidence every route out depends on, and the people who hold that knowledge are the oldest people in the family.
  5. Tell the cousin who was approached not to sign anything yet Not because the buyer is necessarily acting badly, but because a sold share puts a stranger inside the ownership with the right to ask a court to sell the whole property, and a fractional interest almost always sells for far less than a proportionate share of the house. A fortnight costs her nothing and may get her more money.

The first four are cheap, can be done by one person without anybody else agreeing, and each of them answers a question the family is currently arguing about in the dark. The fifth is there because it is the one thing that could become irreversible while the other four are being done. Valuation, sale, buyouts and the disagreement itself all come after, because none of them can be settled on facts nobody has established.

What not to do yet

  • Do not treat the house's market value as the amount the family inherited. The mortgage, tax arrears, any lien, the cost of clearing title and the other owners' shares all come off it first.
  • Do not sign a deed to tidy things up, including a quitclaim between relatives. It is a recorded transfer of an interest and an incorrect one is harder to undo than the confusion it was meant to fix.
  • Do not sell or accept an offer on a fractional share before the family has had a chance to price a buyout.
  • Do not ignore anything from the county or from a court. Deadlines in both usually run from the date something was sent or served rather than from the date it was read.
  • Do not spend serious money on the house until the ownership and the reimbursement expectations are written down. Paying for a roof does not enlarge a share, and an undocumented contribution is an argument later.
  • Do not decide whether to keep or sell. That decision is downstream of four facts nobody has yet.

What Sahvelo would ask next

Not all at once, and not before saying something useful. Each of these changes what comes next, which is the only reason to ask any of them.

Which state is the property in?
Almost everything. What transfers a house, whether the cheap route reaches real property, how long a redemption period runs, and whether there are heirs'-property protections are all state law.
Whose name is actually on the deed?
Whether this is a records job or an ownership problem. If another owner is named who is still alive, or the deed carries a right of survivorship, the property may never have been part of the estate at all.
Has anyone received court papers or a notice from the county?
The order of everything. A served court paper or a scheduled tax sale moves to the front of the plan and makes legal help the same day's work.
Did anyone ever go to court about the estate?
Which routes are still open. A probated will, an opened administration, or nothing at all lead to three different places, and in some states property omitted from a closed administration has its own route.
Does anyone outside the family already own a share?
Whether the risk is theoretical or present, and whether the family is negotiating or defending.
Is anyone living in the property, and who has been paying?
Whether occupancy and contribution have to be settled as part of any buyout, and, where a surviving spouse is in the house, whether a state homestead protection stops a sale outright.

An example Handbook for this situation

This is generated from an example set of answers, not from yours. A real plan depends on your state, on what the deed says and on what has actually been filed, and would look different. It is staged the way the Handbook stages a real one: what matters now, what comes next, and what is waiting on something above.

What matters now

Cheap, and each one can be done by one person without anybody else agreeing.

  • Order certified copies of the death certificate Some institutions require a certified copy; others accept a photocopy, or return the certificate. Before ordering extras, ask each institution what it requires — adding to the first order costs less than going back. In the next three days · changes by state
  • Take the free identity-protection steps A deceased person's identity can be misused before the family has a chance to act, and Social Security's death file is withheld for three years from any company that has not certified itself to see it. The freezes and the IRS flag are the steps to take first. In the next three days
  • Keep every notice about the property, with the date it arrived Deadlines in property cases usually run from the day something was served rather than from the day it was read. A photograph of the envelope and the first page costs nothing and is the difference between a lawyer being able to work out where you stand and having to guess. In the next day
  • Confirm who has authority before acting for the estate A great deal of what goes wrong after a death is somebody acting without authority in good faith — selling contents, closing an account, distributing a share. Authority comes from a specific place: a court appointment, a trust document, a beneficiary form, or a statute that lets a family act without any of those. Knowing which one applies to you is the first question, not a later one. In the first week
  • Work through the facts that mean you need a lawyer A short and specific list of facts is what makes an estate one that needs a lawyer, and knowing which of them you have is worth more than any recommendation. In the first week
  • Notify the organizations that need to know, and ask what each notice triggers Some of these calls do more than pass on news, but only if you ask. Reporting the death to Social Security also notifies Medicare, and the same call is where survivors benefits are raised. A credit card issuer has to tell an estate's administrator the balance when the administrator requests it. A pension or 401(k) plan has to hand a beneficiary the plan document, the summary and the annual report on a written request. None of the three arrives on its own. In the first week
  • Redirect the mail and work through the subscriptions An accumulating mailbox is a security problem as well as an administrative one. In the first week
  • If you are not the executor, know what you can still do Somebody else holding the appointment does not make you a bystander. Finding out what exists, gathering documents, and canceling things that were only ever the deceased's own are open to anyone. Signing on the estate's behalf, closing an account, or moving anything titled are not. Doing the second kind in good faith is the most common way a helpful relative creates a problem for the person who does hold the appointment. In the first week
  • Keep the itemized statement The statement of goods and services selected is the itemized total a funeral provider has to give you once the arrangements are chosen. The estate's own accounting rests on it, a claim for the veterans' burial allowance may ask for it, and it is how you check that what was charged matches what was agreed. In the first week
  • Get the current recorded deed and read the names on it Everything about the property turns on what is recorded rather than on what the family believes. The deed says who owns it, in what form, and when it last changed, and a copy is obtained from the county recorder, whose fee and turnaround it sets. Read it before paying anybody to advise on it. In the first week
  • Get the recorded deed and read the names on it The deed is the only document that says who may sell, mortgage or agree to anything, and it is usually the one nobody has looked at. What it names decides whether this is a filing or a court proceeding, so every later question waits on it. In the next three days · changes by state
  • Check the property tax account before anything else on the house Property tax is a charge on the land rather than a debt of a person. It keeps running after a death, the notices go to the name on the tax roll, and the county's way of collecting is to take the property. This is the item with a clock on it, and it is answerable in one phone call. In the first week · changes by state
  • Write down who may hold an interest, with dates Where nobody established the heirs, a transfer signed by the people in the room moves only what those people own. Every death since the original owner's may have added heirs. The family tree with marriages, children and dates is the raw material of every route out of this, and the people who hold it are the oldest people in the family. In the first week · changes by state
  • Establish whether probate is actually required This answer determines who can act, how long the process may take and which property needs a court process at all. Joint ownership, trusts and beneficiary designations can move property outside probate, and most states offer a simplified route for the rest below a threshold that each state sets for itself. In the first week · changes by state
  • Exhaust the four places a will turns up before concluding there is not one "We never saw one" is not the same as "there is not one". Wills are found deposited with the probate court for the county where they lived, in the file of the lawyer who drafted it, in a safe deposit box, and among their own papers at home. Each is asked in a different way. It is worth doing all four, because dying with a will nobody finds produces the intestacy result, and that is usually not what anyone intended. In the first week · changes by state

Next

Once the four facts above are in hand, these are what they unlock.

  • Check whether the small-estate route fits Most states have a route that avoids a full administration, measured against a threshold each state sets for itself, and against different things in each: one counts the house, another leaves it out, a third lets a surviving spouse take more. In the first month · changes by state
  • Make the pension election What the survivor receives is usually fixed by an election made years ago, and the plan document rather than the will decides it. In the first month
  • Work out which of the few real deadlines are running, and treat the rest as unhurried Months after a death, most of what is left has no fixed date attached and can be done in whatever order suits the family. A short list does have clocks on it: disclaiming an inheritance, a surviving spouse's election against the will, the court's claim period once notice has been published, and the tax returns tied to the date of death. Those are the ones worth checking against the state's own rule first, because they are the only ones where waiting costs something. In the first month · changes by state
  • Know what you are entitled to see as a beneficiary A beneficiary is not entitled to run the estate and is entitled to know what is in it. In most states that means a copy of the will once it has been filed, notice that the estate has been opened, and an accounting before it closes. Asking early and in writing is ordinary rather than hostile, and it is far easier than reconstructing the position two years later. In the first month · changes by state
  • Before signing a waiver or release, review the accounting and fees A waiver, a consent, or a receipt-and-release is usually presented as the formality that lets distribution happen. It is also the point at which the ability to ask questions ends. Two things are worth checking before signing, and neither takes long: whether the document names what the executor and the lawyer are being paid, and whether you have seen enough of the numbers to know that the figure is reasonable. Several states require a compensation waiver to declare that you knew the amount and how it was worked out — a form that never names a figure has not met that. Asking for the account before signing is ordinary, and it is much easier than reopening the question afterwards. In the first month · changes by state
  • Document who paid the funeral bill and how the estate will reimburse it Funeral costs are usually paid by whoever books them and are usually recoverable from the estate afterwards, ahead of most ordinary debts. What the priority is where you are, and what evidence is needed to be repaid, is worth establishing before the bill is split informally between relatives — because informal splits are the ones nobody can evidence later. In the first month · changes by state
  • Look anyway — an estate can hold something nobody knew about "Nothing that we know of" is the normal starting position and it is usually wrong in small ways: a dormant account, a policy from a former employer, a final pay check, a utility deposit, money already sitting with the state. None of it is found by waiting, the searches are free, and each one is a different place. In the first month
  • Write down the family tree, starting from the name on the deed Where the deed names somebody who died before the person you are dealing with, the owners are their descendants and there may be many of them. Everything that follows needs that list, it is cheapest to build while the generation who remembers the family is alive to say who is in it, and the branches nobody can trace should be written down as unknown rather than left out. In the first month
  • Ask about free or nonprofit title help before paying for private title work Clearing a title that has passed informally through more than one generation is specialized work, and several kinds of help exist that a general estates practice will not mention: legal aid programs whose income limits run higher than the phrase ‘legal aid’ suggests, law school clinics, and nonprofits that work specifically on family land. Ask what exists before pricing the general route. In the first month
  • Write down who has been paying the property's taxes, insurance and repairs Where ownership is shared or unresolved, the money going into a property usually goes unrecorded, and that is a problem for whoever has been paying as much as for anybody else. Whether a co-owner who paid is owed anything varies by state and Sahvelo has not verified it anywhere. Keep the receipts now, while they exist, and ask the question of a lawyer rather than assuming an answer. In the first month
  • Write down who is using the property and who receives anything from it Land can produce real money while its ownership is unresolved: rent, a lease, a crop, timber, a royalty. Recording what is actually happening is not an accusation and is much easier before anybody is arguing. Note who lives there and on what basis, who receives what, and whether there is a written lease or contract anywhere. In the first month
  • Do not count the property's value as the amount you inherited Market value is what the property would fetch. What reaches the family is that number after the mortgage, tax arrears, any lien, claims against the estate, the cost of clearing title, selling costs and the other owners' shares. Plans made on the first number, including borrowing against an expected inheritance, are made on a figure nobody has calculated. In the first month
  • Do not sell or sign away a share before you understand what it does A co-owner may sell their own undivided interest to anybody, and the buyer becomes a co-owner with the right to ask a court to sell the whole property. A fractional interest also normally sells for far less than the same fraction of the property is worth, so the seller usually does badly too. A buyout among the family is frequently better for everyone, including the person who wants out, and it is available in every state without depending on any statute. In the first month · changes by state
  • Ask whether the state the land is in has heirs'-property protections that reach it A number of states have enacted a version of a uniform reform act on the partition of heirs property. Sahvelo has not read that act, or any state's enactment of it, at its own source, so it does not tell you what the protections are. What it can do is make the question precise, which is most of the value: asking whether a named act applies to this property gets an answer in one conversation, where asking whether there are any protections gets the same conversation twice. In the first month · changes by state
  • Find the organization in that state that does this work Several states have nonprofits and legal aid programs that work only on heirs' property and clear title for families without charging them. Others have law school clinics, and every state has a bar referral service. The difference between an organization that will act for you and one that will teach you matters most when a deadline is running, so ask that question first. In the first month · changes by state
  • Clear the title before it passes to another generation Unclear title blocks a sale, a loan, insurance, exemptions and most assistance programs, and the cost of repairing it rises with every death that adds owners. The people who can testify to who inherited are the oldest people in the family. This is the step that turns land the family holds into land the family can use. In the first month · changes by state
  • Get a value nobody in the family chose alone A buyout, a sale and a partition case all turn on a number. An appraisal by somebody neither side picked converts an argument into arithmetic, and the date-of-death value matters separately because it is what an heir subtracts from the sale price years later. In the first month
  • Get the estate a tax number, and note the date-of-death values Most banks will not discuss an account without the number, and the values are far easier to capture now than to reconstruct from statements a year from now. Nothing else on the tax side needs attention this month. In the first month
  • Understand which debts belong to the estate and which do not Most debts do not become a family member's personally, and the collectors who ring do not always say so. In the first month
  • Check what has to happen before estate property is distributed Before distributing estate property, check the creditor, tax and court requirements that apply where the estate is being administered. Distributing early can leave a personal representative personally answerable for a valid claim that arrives afterwards — out of their own pocket rather than the estate's. Where that pressure comes from, the exposure still lands on one person. In the first month
  • The house cannot be sold until somebody has authority to sell it Before a sale can close, confirm who holds the power to sell and convey the property. What creates that authority, and whether the court's approval is also required on top of it, depends on the state and on the estate. A real estate agent can list a property without that being settled; it is the closing that will not complete. In the first month

Later, and what each one is waiting for

None of these is optional and none of them is this week. Most are late because something above has to happen first.

  • Search the state unclaimed property lists — free Over the following months
  • Work out which returns are needed Over the following months
  • If you object to the executor's final accounting, the second deadline is the one people miss Over the following months
  • A few states tax what the recipient receives, and it arrives as a personal bill Over the following months
  • If a medical bill looks wrong, investigate the medical record Over the following months
  • Compare what resolving the title would cost with what the property is worth Waits on: Ask about free or nonprofit title help before paying for private title work
  • Settle the four facts before the family decides whether to keep it Waits on: Get the current recorded deed and read the names on it
  • Write down who pays what, who lives there, and how somebody gets out Waits on: Get the current recorded deed and read the names on it
  • Price a buyout before anybody talks about selling the whole thing Waits on: Get a value nobody in the family chose alone
  • Try mediation before anybody files anything Over the following months
  • Once the ownership is settled, stop it happening again Waits on: Clear the title before it passes to another generation
  • Most of the tax work is not this month's problem Over the following months
  • Do not rush to close the estate just because time has passed Over the following months
  • Once ownership is settled, plan for the next death so it does not fragment again Waits on: Write down the family tree, starting from the name on the deed

The dates to hold

  • Whatever is on the papers. A response date in a court case and a redemption date after a tax sale are set by statute and do not move. They are the only two dates on this page that somebody else controls.
  • This week. 3 of these are marked as mattering first, which in the Handbook means they come due before anything that depends on them.
  • The next tax installment. Whenever the county's cycle falls, because a delinquency that starts now is the thing that ends the rest of the plan.

Open this example plan in the Handbook

Where state law changes the answer

There is no national answer to any of the four questions this situation turns on. These are the points at which the same facts produce different outcomes in different places.

The four state variables in this situation
The questionHow much the state decidesWhere Sahvelo publishes it
Who inherited when there was no willEntirely. The order differs, and so does what a surviving spouse takes against children from an earlier marriage.Who inherits when there is no will
What moves a house out of a dead owner's nameEntirely, and in kind. One state read here has already passed title and only the record is stale; another puts real property on a separate petition; a third closes its cheap route to any estate containing land.The house is still in their name
How long before a tax delinquency becomes finalEntirely, and it is administered county by county. Sahvelo publishes no redemption period for any state, because it has read none.Property taxes after a death
Whether a co-owner can have the land auctionedEntirely. A number of states have enacted reform protections and Sahvelo has read none of them at source, so it names the question rather than the answer.When one owner wants to force the sale

Sahvelo publishes what a state's law provides only where it has read that law at its own source. For partition protections that is nowhere yet, and the partition page says so and gives you the question to ask instead. The reading is queued rather than forgotten.

Not sure which of these is yours?

Sahvelo answers from what it has verified, and asks when it needs one more fact.

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Answer a few questions and build a personalized Handbook around your situation.

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Sahvelo gives information drawn from statutes, agency guidance and official forms. It is not legal advice for your particular situation. Terms & disclaimer.

The short answers

One state read here, on the question this situation asks that has an immediate practical answer. Everything else that varies is on the pages this one links to.

QuestionTexas
Can the relative living in the house be made to leave? Not while a surviving spouse elects to stay. The homestead of a person who dies leaving a surviving spouse descends and vests under the ordinary rules of descent and distribution, so the children may own it, including children of an earlier marriage. But it may not be partitioned during the lifetime of the surviving spouse for as long as that spouse elects to use or occupy it as a homestead, or while a guardian of the decedent's minor children is permitted by court order to occupy it. The word the statute uses is elects: it is a continuing choice, and it ends if the spouse dies, sells their interest, or stops using the property as a homestead. Agreeing to move out temporarily can therefore be the act that lets a sale proceed. The homestead rights are the same whether the property was separate or community property. Where the occupant is a child or a grandchild rather than a surviving spouse, this provision does not apply and the ordinary rules about co-owners in possession do.1

Questions people ask about this

  • Why can we not just sell it and split the money?

    Because a buyer's title insurer will not insure a chain of title with a dead owner still on it and heirs who were never established, and because a sale needs every owner to sign. Selling is a perfectly reasonable outcome and it is downstream of the same four facts as every other outcome. The family that establishes them first sells faster than the family that starts with an agent.

  • Our uncle lives there. Can we make him leave, or make him pay rent?

    Generally not simply because he lives there. A co-owner has the right to occupy the whole property, and occupying it is not by itself a wrong done to the others. What changes the answer is ouster, and the rules are state law. Where a surviving spouse occupies a homestead, some states go further: Texas provides that the homestead may not be partitioned for as long as the surviving spouse elects to occupy it, even where the children own it. In practice the useful conversation is not about rent but about the whole arrangement, in writing.

  • None of us can afford a lawyer.

    The first four things on this page cost a few dollars and some time, and they are what makes a lawyer affordable if one is needed, because the first conversation is otherwise spent gathering them. Beyond that: legal aid offices take civil cases below an income limit, several states have nonprofits that work only on heirs' property and clear title for families free, law school clinics take cases, and where the land is farmland there are federal programs aimed at exactly this. The list is on the protecting page.

  • How long does all this take?

    The first four things take an afternoon and a week of waiting. Establishing heirs and repairing a record that has been unrepaired for eleven years is measured in months, and longer where somebody has to be found. That is the honest answer and it is also the argument for starting: the same job in another ten years involves another generation of owners.

Where this sits in the process

Related

Sources

This page sequences problems rather than stating law. Every legal point in it is carried by the topic it links to, where the citation is. One state rule is quoted directly because it answers a question asked on this page.

  1. Texas Estates Code §§102.002–102.006 — passage of the homestead and the bar on partition

    Texas: the homestead may not be partitioned while the surviving spouse elects to occupy it.

    tcss.legis.texas.gov Checked 2026-08-14

Sources last reviewed 2026-09-09. Where a source is marked pending re-verification, the page says so wherever the claim appears.