Probate House for Sale,

Real Estate Terms to Know

Hi, I’m Kim Ward, real estate broker, in beautiful San Diego California! And expert with helping executors, administrators and trustees with homes in probate or trusts.

Welcome to my website, please come back every Thursday for my weekly blog post and video!

Probate house for sale, real estate terms to know. If you are the personal representative for an estate you may be inundated with all kinds of information, phone calls, mail, and terms. All these things can be a bit overwhelming. As the executor, the administrator, or the trustee of a loved one’s home. To get ahead a little bit of some of the terms during the purchase and the sale of the property in probate or trust here are the most common terms.

1.) CLOSING COSTS as a real estate broker I believe having the facts helps you to make good decisions. So, whenever I meet with a potential seller I bring along an estimated seller proceeds document. It has all of the closing costs listed out making it easy for you as the seller to understand what the closing costs are going to be. Some of the closing costs are of course commissions, that’s how I get paid and the buyer’s agent gets paid, that’s how we pay our bills and feed our families. Also, there’ll be title and escrow fees, there’ll be a termite repair fees, you’ll have some taxes that might be due if you have a mortgage that will be lifted on there also. So, that way when you read over that estimated closing costs with me you understand exactly what is going to be paid through the escrow process.

2.) ESCROW AND TITLE. Escrow is a third party, they’re neutral, they collect all the information from both sides of the seller and the buyer and they put lots of things together in order to make things go smoothly. They’ll also be checking on if you have a mortgage on the property, they’ll be getting the information on that so when it’s time to pay it off they’ll have all that information ready to go. In regards to title, I always make sure way ahead of putting the house on the market that we get a preliminary title report. This shows all the liens and debts on the property, maybe easements, and other information.

Quick story about Tom, executor of his father’s estate or so we thought, when I pulled the preliminary title report through the title company it came to light that Tom’s mother passed away prior to his father and she was still on title. Nothing had ever happened with that to put the title into his father’s name. So, now we had to go through the entire process through the probate courts in order to get his mother’s information because we needed to have her name on all of the documentation as we worked through selling the house in probate. So, we avoided a huge delay by getting that information up front before we put the house on the market.

3.) INSPECTIONS Once the buyer is under contract, once we’ve negotiated that contract, then the buyer will have a specific amount of time to do inspections. Inspections usually start with a general inspection report, and then if something is found that there are concerns about, for instance the roof, or the heating, and air conditioning system plumbing electrical then the buyer has the right to be able to bring in other more specific inspectors, such as a plumber.

4.) TIMELINE speaking of inspections that is one contingency that’s in the purchase agreement. Two other contingencies that are almost always there are appraisal and, full loan contingencies. Once we contract with the buyer those timelines are gonna be set in stone, so typically what I help my clients negotiate is: 10 days for inspection; 14 days for appraisal; and 17 days for all contingencies including the buyers loan contingency. My team and I will be monitoring those timelines to make sure that we stay in line with what was contracted, and we’ll be sure to have your buyer remove those contingencies in writing.

5.) APPRAISAL. Going back to the contingencies we already talked about that the appraisal is one of those contingencies, and it’s a huge one! I always do my best to show up at the appraisal, so that I can give documentation to the appraiser, so that we make sure that the value the appraiser comes in at, is also the value that we contracted for. We don’t want any surprises by me not showing up and that appraiser not noticing some of the amenities that the home has that could add value and make sure that the appraised value comes in at the purchase price.

So, there you go! My top five terms that will get you started to a great education, so that you’ll know what to expect during the probate or trust sale of the property. If you found this of value give please come back every week for my upcoming videos.

Thank you again!