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She got a letter from us and called. Her father had died and left her the house in Hillside, the one she grew up in and raised her own kids in, and she'd been living there ever since. She had the will. She'd never done anything with it.
A will doesn't move a house by itself. A court has to approve it and name somebody to act for the estate, and in New Jersey that can't even start until ten days after the death. Until it happens, nobody has the authority to sign. She'd always meant to get around to it, and then years went by and she hadn't.
Then the lender came looking. Her father had taken out a reverse mortgage, and a reverse mortgage comes due in full once the last borrower on it dies. The company wanted paying. She couldn't pay it, and she couldn't sell the house to pay it, because on paper she wasn't the owner. The house needed a lot of work by then too. Foreclosure started.
By the time she called, the sheriff's sale was about 90 days out. Getting named executor can take longer than that on its own, so she was on track to lose the house before she ever got the authority to sell it.
Two things had to happen at once. She had to get the legal authority to sign, and the sale had to close before the auction date. Neither one waits for the other, so we worked both from the day she called.
We've done enough of these to know which probate attorneys handle them quickly. She didn't have to go looking, call around, or work out who was any good at it.
The filing went in complete the first time, so nothing came back for a correction. She was named executor of the estate two weeks after she called us, which is when she could finally sign for the house.
The house needed real work. We bought it that way, so there was no contractor to book, no estimate to wait on and no repair bill to cover while the probate ran. We pay cash, so there was no mortgage approval holding up the closing either.
The reverse mortgage was paid off out of the closing, which ended the foreclosure. The auction never happened, and she still had equity left over when it was done.
Sell the house on a closing date she picked, before the sheriff's sale.
Clear the reverse mortgage out of the closing and walk away with about $40,000.
Skip every repair on a house that needed a lot of them.
Move into a new apartment, with both of her sons settled into theirs.
"It generally takes three to six months. But because we had all the paperwork and we found her a good attorney, we actually got it done in two weeks."
We buy inherited houses for cash while the estate is still in probate, and we work with your attorney on the timeline.
Selling a house in probate
Office Location
50 Park Place, Suite 301
Newark, NJ 07102
Office Location
50 Park Place, Suite 301
Newark, NJ 07102