Inheriting a house in Oklahoma City: How does it work?
Inheriting a house can be a complicated situation—we get it.
For most people, inheriting a house doesn’t happen every day, so we understand how hard it can be to know how the process works. Plus, you could likely be dealing with all the emotions from the death of a loved one. If that’s your situation, we at We Buy Ugly Houses® want to tell you that we’re deeply sorry for your loss.
To help your inheritance process go as smoothly as possible, we’re giving you 5 brief points we think may help you when inheriting a house.
With more information, you can be confident in making the right choice for your situation.
1. Know how probate works.
What is probate? Probate is the legal process of officially recognizing a person’s death and deciding how much of the estate will be sent to each heir and how they’ll receive it.
Funds that don’t have to go through probate are considered non-probate. These include: transfer-on death and pay-on-death accounts, life insurance payouts, property held in a trust, 401ks, IRA, and joint tenancy.
An executor will be assigned to manage the will. Executors make sure the heirs receive any item they’re owed in the will. During probate, executors are responsible for maintaining the property and paying off any outstanding mortgage payments by using the funds from the estate.
The executor can sell the property if they calculate that making the payments will cut too much into the inheritance owed to the heirs.
Probate can take 2 months or up to a year to finish, so you, the executor, and any other heirs should plan a sale early if needed.
2. Even if there’s no will, there’s a way to decide who gets what.
If a will was made, it should clearly define who receives what from the estate. In the case that a will wasn’t made before death, the estate is called intestate. For intestate estates, inherited assets are divided among a surviving spouse, children, and other successors.
3. Inheriting a house in Oklahoma City has its own rules.
Each state has different laws and processes you must follow when inheriting a property. For some states, you pay an inheritance and estate tax if you receive an inheritance or estate; however, Oklahoma abolished both kinds of taxes.
But that’s for the state. You will still owe federal inheritance taxes.
For a will in Oklahoma to be valid, the heirs must be clearly named, a representative of the will must be chosen, and two witnesses must sign the document and have seen the decedent (the deceased person) do the same.
You may want to sell an inherited house. If you do, all other heirs must also agree to the decision.
4. Selling an inherited property in Oklahoma City can get tricky.
Once you have acquired the property, the selling process works almost exactly how selling any house would normally be.
The twist with selling an inherited house is that you’re selling a property you don’t typically live in. Here are some other obstacles you can find yourself going through:
Selling Out of State: Your inherited house may be in Oklahoma City, but you may not live anywhere nearby. Selling out of state or long distance can quickly become hard to manage when you’re needed for negotiations and documentation.
Unexpected Damages: You most likely don’t know as much about the property as the previous owner. The squeaky floorboard upstairs, the draft in the guest bedroom, and the hole hidden behind the framed painting are all surprising and costly repairs that can lengthen the time of your sale.
Unknown Items: If the past owner left belongings inside the property, it can be difficult to decide what to do with each item, if not mentioned in the will.
Sharing Ownership: If the will grants multiple people partial ownership, that means you’ll need to consider each person’s opinion before making decisions. You could be spending a huge chunk of time just to get every inheritor on the same page.
5. Selling your inherited house by owner is an option.
Selling by owner means that you’re not putting the property on the market—instead, you’re taking the selling responsibilities into your hands.
It may sound like more work, but you can sell directly to a cash buyer who can help you through the entire process.
Cash home-buying companies will usually buy your house “as is” for all cash, typically at a discounted price. In exchange, you won’t need to make any repairs—they take care of that after they buy it.
Feel free to learn how we buy inherited houses for cash.
Choosing the right home buyer depends on which one best fits your situation. If you feel unsure which method works for you, talk with us. We Buy Ugly Houses® is a cash buyer who can help you feel confident in your decision.
We can send one of our Oklahoma City property specialists to explain our process and take a look at your property. If it sounds right, we can move forward. If not, no problem. We encourage you to talk with trusted sources and thoroughly weigh out your options.
We’ve helped many homeowners looking to sell an inherited property in Oklahoma City. Let’s talk about whether we’re a good match for your needs.
