Whether probate must finish first
The estate has to have legal authority to convey the property. Where probate is open, that usually means an appointed personal representative with power of sale, which many wills grant directly and which a court can otherwise authorise. Some states offer a small estate affidavit that avoids full probate below a value threshold. Others transfer automatically where a transfer-on-death deed or a properly formed joint tenancy already existed. We take on parcels mid-probate regularly, and the practical question is not whether probate has closed but who currently has authority to sign.
When several heirs share ownership
Where land passes to multiple heirs, each holds an undivided interest, and a sale of the whole generally needs all of them to sign. In practice this is the most common reason inherited-land sales stall — not disagreement about price, but one heir who is unreachable, estranged, or simply slow to respond. If one or more heirs will not participate, a partition action is the legal remedy, though it is slow and expensive. It is far better to establish early who must sign than to discover a missing signature at closing.
Heirs' property, and why it is worth acting on
Where land has passed down for generations without probate, ownership can fragment across dozens of descendants, each holding a fractional interest. This is heirs' property, and it is a well-documented cause of involuntary land loss, historically falling hardest on Black landowning families in the South. Any single co-tenant can force a sale of the whole, sometimes far below market value. Many states have now adopted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which gives other co-tenants a right to buy out the party forcing the sale and requires an open-market listing rather than a courthouse auction. If this describes your family's land, it is worth getting advice sooner rather than later.
Taxes are usually better than people expect
Inherited property generally receives a stepped-up basis to its fair market value at the date of death. That means if you sell near that value, the taxable gain is often small or nil, regardless of what the original owner paid decades earlier. This surprises people, and it frequently makes selling less costly than assumed. We are not tax advisers and you should confirm your own position with an accountant, but the step-up is worth knowing about before you decide.
Unpaid taxes since the death
Property taxes do not pause because an owner died, and notices often keep going to the deceased's old address. It is common for two or three years of delinquency to have accrued before anyone in the family notices. That does not need to be cleared before selling — the county is paid from the closing proceeds and the balance is distributed to the estate or the heirs.