Heirs Property

What is Heirs Property?

Let’s say that James passes away without a will and leaves behind a tract of land. No one ever opens up a probate estate for his property. Years later, one of his family members wants to sell the property, or timber it, or draw on the equity in the house, they may run into issues because they don’t have the legal authority to make any of these decisions.

When someone dies and leaves property behind that isn’t distributed through the probate process to their heirs, it remains “hung up” until probate is completed. If more than 10 years pass after a person dies, the land in their estate can no longer be probated. An action called a Petition to Determine Heirs must be filed. This is a formal proceeding to legally name the owners of the property and move it from the “hung up” status to be distributed to the proper family members.

If James passed away and had 4 adult children and now 2 of them are deceased, the surviving children will need to be named, along with the children of his deceased children (his grandchildren). If real property is not probated for many years, there may be grandchildren or even great-grandchildren that have to be named in the lawsuit!

Many people think that if they have been paying the taxes on heirs property for a number of years, that they have a superior claim to the property over the other family members, but this is just not the case. The property must be distributed either through the probate estate or the Petition to Determine Heirs and the legal heirs will have to be named.

So, when is the best time to deal with heirs property? The sooner the better! If you are paying the taxes on a parcel of property that is not in your name, schedule a consultation with us to see what your options are.