Probate and Inherited Property
Property does not pass because the family agrees on what the deceased wanted. It passes because an instrument moves it, and the record accepts it.
When a Michigan owner dies, title stays in that owner's name until something moves it. A will admitted to probate and a personal representative holding letters of authority. A trust that actually took title during life. A lady bird deed. Survivorship written into the deed itself.
Most families learn which one they have at the worst possible moment. At a closing, at a refinance, or when the delinquent tax notice arrives and no living person has authority to pay it.
What is usually holding the property
- No estate was ever opened, and the deceased is still the owner of record, sometimes for decades and across two generations
- Several heirs, one of whom lives in the house and does not want it sold
- No will, so intestate succession sets the shares, not the family's understanding of who was promised what
- Heirs who cannot be located, or whose existence nobody accounted for
- A personal representative who sold, leased, mortgaged or spent without the authority to do it
- A mortgage, taxes, insurance and upkeep running against an estate with no cash to carry them
- A trust or lady bird deed that does not say what everyone assumed it said
An unsigned or undelivered deed moves nothing. An unrecorded one may still bind the people who signed it, but it will not satisfy a title company, a lender or a buyer, and Michigan protects the party who records first. If the instrument never reached the register of deeds, assume the record still shows the old owner.
Selling property out of an estate
A personal representative's power to sell comes from the letters of authority, not from being the eldest, the executor named in a draft, or the one paying the taxes.
Unsupervised administration gives a personal representative broad power to deal with estate property, including the power to sell. Supervised administration puts the court in the middle of it. Which one applies changes what has to happen before a closing, and title companies ask.
Interested persons are entitled to notice. A sale closed without the authority or the notice can be attacked later, and it becomes a defect on the record that surfaces at the next sale rather than this one. Fixing it then costs more than doing it correctly now.
Transfer also raises taxable value. A transfer of ownership uncaps taxable value to the assessed value, which can move the tax bill sharply. Certain transfers of residential property to close relatives are exempt where the use does not change. Whether an estate transfer qualifies is worth knowing before it is recorded, not after the summer bill arrives.
Partition
Co-owners who cannot agree on whether to sell are not stuck. Partition is a circuit court action. The court can divide the property physically where that is practical, and where it is not, order it sold and the proceeds divided according to each owner's interest.
Occupancy, rent, taxes paid, insurance carried and improvements made by one co-owner against the others all get accounted for. So does condition. What the property is actually worth, and what it would take to make it sellable, drives the whole negotiation. Ahmed Zamzam holds a Michigan real estate broker license and a Michigan builder license, and reads those questions directly rather than through a third party.
Zamzam Law is a law firm. The brokerage and builder licenses inform the legal work. They are not an invitation to transact with the firm.
How an inherited property matter runs
- Establish how title is heldDeed, chain of title, any trust or lady bird deed, survivorship language, and whether an estate was ever opened. This determines everything that follows.
- Open or correct the estateWhere no estate exists, one is opened. Where an old one was closed improperly or an heir was missed, that gets addressed before a buyer is involved.
- Get authority on the recordLetters of authority, court approval where administration is supervised, and notice to interested persons.
- Convey and recordA personal representative deed or a judgment, recorded with the register of deeds, so the next owner takes clean title.
Questions about inherited property
Do we have to go through probate to sell the house?
It depends on how title was held. A lady bird deed, a funded trust or survivorship language on the deed can move the property without probate. A deed in the deceased owner's name alone generally cannot be conveyed by anyone until someone holds authority. The deed answers this, and it can usually be checked the same day.
One sibling lives in the house and will not sell.
A co-owner cannot force the others to hold the property indefinitely. Partition exists for this. Most of these resolve by buyout or negotiated sale once the numbers, including the occupancy and the carrying costs, are actually on paper.
Our parent died years ago and nobody did anything. Is it too late?
These are common and they are workable. The complication is usually that a second owner has since died, or heirs have moved, or the taxes went delinquent. It gets harder with time rather than impossible, and the tax cycle is the part that runs on its own schedule.
The estate has a mortgage and the lender has started foreclosure.
Call rather than using the form. Foreclosure runs on statutory dates that do not pause because an estate is open. See Foreclosure for how those deadlines work.
Title does not move because the family agrees.
[PHONE]Matters with a closing date, a tax foreclosure date or a hearing already on the calendar are handled by phone.