Property Hasnt Gone Through Probate
greetings,
i had a title search done for a property i am interested in purchasing and the search revealed that it had not gone through probate yet. im just curious what are the consequences of buying a house that hasnt gone through probate. or is there a way to forego the probate process legally? thanks in advance for any responses.
Simple solution for any situation like this...get the title co's preliminary opinion as to how you go about taking title, who's gotta sign, etc.
They might levy a small fee on you, but it'd sure save a lot of time for you.
You can not get clear title to a house if the owner is deceased and his estate has not been probated (assuming his estate was not in a trust). You can certainly give money to someone, and they can give you a deed. But it is meaningless because nobody yet "owns" the property.
The estate must be probated. If it is not large it can take about six weeks and cost about $1300.
I had a property under contract and was the week of closing only to find out that the owners did not own the property. The were given the proeprty in the will, but the estate had not been probated. After about two months title was put into my sellers name and then one week before the second closing, find out that the seller had a personal judgemenet that now attached to the property. Now I am working with Ford Motor Credit Company to get a partial release. All this for a 25k shack.
Brenda
The above comments are correct. Provided the property is not in a trust, a probate is likely. In Arizona, there are some ways to get around this if the value of the property is very low, but I'm not sure about Florida.
...a good reminder that living trusts do have benefits...