The House Was in the Estate Plan. So Why Can’t the Family Sell It?

I see this more often than most families would expect.

A parent passes away. The family knows there was a will or a trust, and everyone agrees about who is supposed to receive the house. They assume the sale or transfer will be fairly straightforward.

Then someone looks at the deed.

Maybe the house was never transferred into the trust. Maybe a relative who died years ago is still listed as an owner. Sometimes the property is owned by an LLC, but the estate plan does not clearly address what happens to that LLC interest.

Suddenly, a house everyone thought was “taken care of” cannot be sold without additional legal work, delay, and expense.

The difficult truth is that putting your wishes in writing does not, by itself, clear title.

The Documents May Be Fine, and the Plan May Still Fail

Estate planning is often treated like a project with a finish date. You sign the will, create the trust, put the documents somewhere safe, and check it off the list.

But signing the documents is only part of the work.

A trust generally controls property that was actually transferred into it. A will may say who should receive individually owned property, but the executor may still need to go through Surrogate’s Court before being able to act. Joint owners, old liens, prior deaths, and business ownership can all complicate what looked simple on paper.

This is why I tell clients that the real question is not simply, “Do you have an estate plan?”

The better question is, “Will your estate plan work with what you actually own today?”

Real estate is often where we discover that the answer is no.

Look at the Deed, Not Just the Binder

A meaningful estate plan review should include the ownership records, not just the planning documents.

Who is named on the deed? If the property is supposed to be in a trust, was it ever transferred? If an LLC owns it, who owns the LLC interest? Has an owner died since the deed was prepared? Does the person you chose have the authority needed to maintain, manage, or sell the property?

Those may sound like technical questions. For the family trying to sell a home after a death, they become very practical ones.

Take out your estate-planning binder, but do not stop there. Find the current deed for every property you own and compare the names on it with the plan you signed.

If they tell two different stories, or if you are not sure what you are looking at—address it now. Waiting usually means leaving the detective work to your family.

Call Reena Gulati PLLC at 516-570-4016 to schedule an estate plan and real estate review. We can help you find ownership gaps while there is still time to correct them, so your family receives the property you intended rather than a legal problem they never expected.