Required Sale or Requested Sale? Does the will say the property must be sold, and the proceeds divvied up? or does it request the sale? the latter would be precatory in nature, and non-binding. if it requires a sale, I’m not sure that it would be enforceable. if it were in the best interests of the beneficiaires NOT to sell, I can easily see a probate judge dismissing the required sale provision. that is a fairly unusual thing to put in a will.
if the property has been distributed from the estate to the beneficiaries (meaning the property is now formally titled in their names), you have to get all of them to get full title. You can deal with them individually if you want, but each individual can only deed you what he or she owns.
If a will states that a house is to be sold once the owner dies and the house is transferred into several people’s name after death of the owner and then they go to sell the house. If the other parties can not be found, can the house still be sold without them?
Last Will not required to be probated - Posted by John Merchant
Posted by John Merchant on June 20, 2007 at 09:59:29:
Many times the surviving heirs just agree amicably to ignore the Last Will and they just sit down and divvy up, or decide to sell, whatever property the deceased left them.
Probating a Will does cost fees, court costs and time and if there’s no real need, don’t do it.
A very close friend’s Dad died and he, his Mom and Brother did just this…and saved lots of attorneys fees and court costs and hassle in the process.