Do You Need An Affidavit of Heirship?
Hi, it’s Nick with Sell My San Antonio House. If you’ve recently inherited a property and you’re looking to sell that property, you might have been told you need to now get affidavits of heirship in order to be able to sell it.
What is that? An affidavit of heirship is a legal instrument that allows the transfer of real property from someone who has passed away to the heirs of that person.
Why do you need to do it? You want to do it because what that allows you to do is keep a clean chain of title from one person to another, from one owner to the next owner. And that way, if you wanted to sell it now, or you wanted to sell it down the road, or also, if the people that you’re then going to sell it to later want to sell that property, all the way back up you’re going to have a clean chain of title, which is very important when you’re looking to sell a property.
What do you need to do to get an affidavit of heirship completed? They’re usually completed by an attorney, but should you run out and go find an attorney, and ask them to do them? You can, but it might not be the best idea if you’re planning to sell it soon. Because when you go to sell it, you probably sell through a title company, that title company has underwriters, and those underwriters are going to want certain things in that affidavit of heirship.
Also, they probably have their own attorneys who will help you prepare them just the way that they want them so that you know that they’re going to be good for that particular sale of the property. So before you run out and do that you might figure out your entire process and see if the title company that you’re planning to work through has their own folks and wants them a certain way just so you don’t have to do it more than once.
What else do you need? You’re going to need two disinterested witnesses. What does that mean? It means two people that knew the person that passed away, could talk about the family history, and know the heirs of that decedent. They also have to be disinterested. What does that mean? It means they can’t be somebody who would benefit from the transfer of the title or from the sale of that property. So if you’re the one inheriting it, you are not disinterested, but a neighbor, or a longtime friend of the family, or someone else that would not benefit from the sale or transfer, those will be disinterested. They also would have to have known the person that passed away for a long time. It usually has to be over 10 years. Again, that’s a requirement of the title company, but most of them will require that they knew them over 10 years and that they knew the heirs and the person that passed away.
Next, you’re just going to get those forms completed, the attorney will draw up the affidavit, the people who are the disinterested witnesses will sign in front of a notary and that then allows you to create that clear chain of title and transfer the title from the person that passed away to the heirs.
Last, those documents get recorded with your local county clerk, and you have the property transferred to the heirs. Now the heirs can then sell the property.
Affidavits of heirship can seem a little overwhelming, but once you know what you’re doing and you follow through the steps, it’s definitely something that most people can get done, and it will help you sell a property if you’ve inherited and there’s not a will, or you’re not going to go through the entire probate process. If there’s anything we can do for you, please give us a shout, (210) 201-6644, or through the website sellmysanantoniohouse.com.