Can you sell an inherited house before probate is finished in Georgia?

Often, yes. In Georgia, a house passes to the heirs the moment the owner dies — so your share is yours even before the estate is settled. You can usually sell your share before probate is done. Selling the whole house is harder: a title company wants proof of who’s in charge first. We buy your share now and sort out that paperwork on our side.

Who this is for

Maybe your dad died last month. He left the house to you and your sister. No one has been to court yet.

Maybe a parent died years ago. The estate was never settled. The house just sits there.

Maybe you need cash now. You do not want to wait a year for the court to finish.

If any of this sounds like you, this page is for you. It walks through heir property in Georgia and what you can sell right now.

Who owns the house before probate is done

Here is the part most people do not know. In Georgia, the house passes to the heirs the day the owner dies. You do not have to wait for the court. The moment your parent dies, their share of the house is yours.

There is a catch, and it is fair to say it plain. The house still owes the estate’s debts. Probate is the court step that pays those debts and names who is in charge. So your share is real, but it comes with the estate’s bills attached.

What this means is simple. You own a share now. You do not own it free and clear until the estate is settled.

What you can sell right now

You can sell your own share today. You do not have to wait for probate to end.

Each heir owns a piece of the house. The law calls this a tenancy in common. It just means a few people own the house at once. Your piece is yours to sell. You can sign it over by deed, even while probate is still open.

The buyer steps into your spot. They take your share the same way you held it, with the estate’s debts still attached. A normal buyer runs from that. We do not. This is the work we do.

What needs paperwork

Selling the whole house is harder. For that, a title company wants proof of who is in charge.

That proof is one of two things. The first is a court paper called letters testamentary or letters of administration. It just names the person the court put in charge of the estate. The second is an affidavit of heirship. That is a sworn paper that says who the heirs are. Families use it when probate is old or was never opened.

This is not legal advice, and the right paper depends on your case. But the rule of thumb is plain. To sell the whole house, you have to show who is in charge. To sell your own share, you do not.

What if probate was never opened

This is common. An owner dies. The years go by. No one opens probate. The deed is still in the dead person’s name.

The house did not go anywhere. By law, it passed to the heirs at the death. But the public record never caught up. To sell the whole house now, someone has to open probate or file an affidavit of heirship first. To clear the title all the way, a quiet title action may be needed.

You can still sell your own share without any of that. We take on the title cleanup after we buy.

Your realistic options

You have more than one path. Here they are, plain and fair.

• Open probate and sell the whole house. This works when the family agrees. It takes time and a lawyer. Every heir signs at the end.
• File an affidavit of heirship. This is a lighter paper. It can work when the heirs are known and no one fights. The title company looks it over and decides if they will insure the sale.
• Sell your own share to us now. You get cash now. You do not wait on the court or the other heirs. We take on the paperwork.
• Wait. You can do nothing for now. But the bills go on. Heirs can pass and split the shares further. The longer it sits, the more tangled it gets.

There is no one right answer. The best path is the one that fits your life. We lay it out with you, with no pressure.

What we do

We buy one heir’s share at a time. Here is how it works.

1. Tell us about the house. Just the address and a rough idea of who else is on the title. You do not need any papers to start.
2. We do the digging. We pull the title and check the estate. We find out what is open and what is not. We do this on our side.
3. We send a written offer. It is clear and plain. No tricks. You take it home and think it over.
4. You decide. We close. If you say yes, we draw up the deed and wire your cash. This takes about 30 days for a clean case.

The probate and the title cleanup become our job, not yours. You can sell your share and walk away.

Why we are safe to call

We buy houses with messy titles. That is our normal work. Open probate, a deed in a dead person’s name, a missing heir — none of it scares us off.

We work across Georgia, in Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, and Clayton counties. You reach us by form first. No one calls you out of the blue. We get back to you within 24 hours.

We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. If you want, talk to a probate lawyer too. We are happy to be one of the calls you make, not the only one.