Probate/Trustee List - Detached
Probate/Trustee List - Attached

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Purchasing a probate property can mean extra equity - and that's worth a day at the beach.

Buyers shopping for value also look to probate/trustee sales as possible value-hunting opportunities. In these situations, there is no homeowner per se. In the case of probate sales, the homeowner is deceased. The court acts as the homeowner in order to sell the property and distribute the proceeds. There are a few unique aspects to such a sale. Probate actions are exempt from the normal disclosure requirements. This makes sense because the court knows nothing about the property. When an offer is accepted, it must be approved by the probate court. Such contracts are subject to overbid situations where another buyer can come to the court and offer to pay more than the agreed-upon purchase price. The court will then have to decide what is the best course of action on behalf of the interests of the estate.

Sometimes a property is placed in a family trust. The owner (often an older person) may continue to reside at the home, but technically may not actually own it because the property is held in trust for its beneficiaries. If the parent dies, the family may decide to sell the property. The home won't be in probate court because the property wasn't owned by the individual who died; this can be a good thing because buyers don't have to worry about the overbid situation. But it is the Trust, not the beneficiaries, that sells the property, and hence, it is a Trustee sale.

In both of these situations, there is an entity selling the property (the court or the Trustee), and this may mean that the property can be purchased for less. For example, a probate property may have been marketed for several months, and when an offer finally comes in, the judge may decide that it is in the best interests of the estate to sell it at this price. This may be due in part by a desire to bring closure to the probate proceeding and to distribute the assets.

In the case of the Trustee sale, the executor of the trust may also be a relatively objective, neutral party. Though bound by a fiduciary duty to represent the interests of the Trust, there is room for judgment, and that judgment may be less prone to worry about getting $10,000 more for the property.