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Hello everyone, this is the trusted podcast and I’m your host, Blake Johnson. Thanks for tuning in. Last time we talked about, uh, how to do, how probate court works. If you’re not doing a, if you’re not selling property through the probate court, if you don’t have to go through that auction process. And today we’re going to flip that. We’re going to talk about what happens if you do have to sell any items, um, through the estate, uh, whether it’s, you know, there’s not money to pay creditors claims, so you have to liquidate things or siblings aren’t getting along. So we can’t just distribute it out and have them try and work it out together Trust Attorney Las Vegas. So we just need to get it sold before and everybody just gets money, which is usually the easiest way to get that stuff resolved. So, uh, what does that look like?
Well, the, the, the probate, uh, values are still the same. You know, it’s a set aside. If it’s more than $25,000 or any real property and less than a hundred thousand dollars of the net estate, uh, the summary administration is more than a hundred thousand dollars and then less than $300,000. And the full probate is anything $300,000 and over. And that just helps distinguish, you know, how long noticed accreditor, creditor periods are. And if we can help, you know, kind of move things along a little bit quicker. So recap, um, there’s no notice to credit or a period required for publication for a set aside. Uh, if there’s a summary, it’s a 60 day notice to creditor period. And then if it’s a full probate, it’s a 90 day notice to creditor period. Now let’s say that, um, you know, during that nose to creditor period, a few people with Medicaid made a claim or a hospital or you know, uh, any other creditors made claims against the estate.
And so we have to pay those and there’s not enough cash in the, the estate bank account to pay that. So what’s, what do we do there? What we have to start selling assets. So we look at things, you know, uh, you know, if there’s [inaudible] personal property that can be sold, gold, silver, that kind of stuff. Um, you know, we can do an estate sale for uh, all the furniture and everything in the, in the house. Um, that’s pretty easy. There’s some really good companies that can help assist and handle that pretty much, you know, for you, uh, you just give them access to the house that goes through. They take pictures of everything and um, you know, some of them do a sell online, some of them let them come into the house and they take care of that. Whatever the net is, they take a percentage and then the rest goes into the Trust Attorney Las Vegas.
That’s one option. Um, you know, if there’s like vehicles, obviously you can try and sell it private party and then, um, the judge has to okay the sale because, um, to get the new title, the judge has to sign off on that order for that. So not necessarily maybe the easiest one to get that done. And then same thing with real property is you can sell the house, but we have to get that approved. And this is the most complicated one. So the sale of real through the probate process, obviously it’s gonna usually net the most cash. And in most cases, most people don’t want to receive a house so they just want to sell it. So the process is there after you get an administrator or personal representative appointed cause you have to have someone who can act on behalf of the estate and that’s that representative.
Uh, then you list the house on the market, use a realtor just like you would if it was your own house. And you, you know, get a buyer and they make an offer, you accept the offer and it needs to be subject to probate court approval. That’s a big thing. And your closing period is not going to be 30 days. You need to put it at least 60 days out. Uh, it, and I would even Trust Attorney Las Vegas 90 just to be safe because you never know how backed up the probate court is going to be. So once that offers accepted, you give it over to the attorney and he’s going to um, publish, um, or petition the court for a return of sale, meaning that he, that there is an order granting the approval of the sale of that property by the probate court. And then he has to also notice everybody about a hearing.
We have to have a hearing, uh, have a, have a hearing in front of the judge, uh, to be able to approve that. Let anyone come and make any claims, um, against the property if they have an issue with that. Or, uh, the main reason we have to do that is we have to open it up to auction. So even if you have a regular buyer at fair market value price, uh, in order to try and protect the estate, we want to give anybody an opportunity to overbid on that. And whatever the sales price was that was agreed to between the buyer and the seller, uh, the opening bid to upset bid that is $5,000 more than that. Uh, and then each bid thereafter has to go up by in increments of $1,000. So, you know, if you’re trying to pull a fast one on the court and sell it, um, you know, well below market value just to, you know, sell it to yourself, we call it self dealing.
That’s really not appropriate. May get you in trouble there. But let’s say, you know, you’re selling it to a cousin, a friend, and you want to sell it a low value. Well, they’re most likely not gonna get that house because when it goes back to auction in front of there, there’s a lot of real estate investors that come to probate court. And if they S and they check the list and they look at the properties and say, Hey look, that’s undervalued by $25,000, I’m going to bid $6,000 more. And if I get Trust Attorney Las Vegas that house, then that’s a good deal for me still. And then they have the right to buy the house. So if you are doing something like that, have the buyer come, they’re going to most likely have to bid and get that price increase if they want to keep the property. Uh, if he, if it’s fair market value, typically they don’t bid on those because they don’t, you know, there’s not any money to be made on there, but you never know.
So it’s always good to have the buyer there if they really want the house to be able to bid. Um, on that property during the probate court, we call it a bid sell. Uh, is is what the term is in the industry. It’s really just an auction process that the probate commissioner uses to be able to make sure that, um, the best value is, has gotten for the estate at that point. So let’s say you did have a fair market offer, uh, with the, uh, the estate selling the house to a regular buyer and it comes back and nobody bids on it. And so the judge approves that sale. And, um, if nobody objected during that hearing, and if you had the, the order submitted on time, the probate commissioner gives you an order assigned order that day, you can go record it and then close the next week.
Pretty simple and easy to do. Now on the flip side, if you had an undervalued and somebody’s, uh, upset, does an upset bid on you and they win the property, then we’ve got to submit a new order, the court get it approved and then, um, hopefully within two weeks, then, you know, the person closes on that. Now the nice thing is that the properties, however it’s being purchased during, um, the, uh, from the original offer and acceptance, um, the person who upsets bid is they’re taking the property as is. And so they need to close. They have to, they, they do have some time to get financing. Uh, but typically if they’re doing an upset bid like that, they’ve got, you know, pretty much a hard money lenders there. So it’s almost like they have cash to, to be able to close those transactions quickly.
So there’s usually not too much of a delay, but if it’s somebody who can’t get financing, um, and it, and it falls out, then we have to go back, get a new buyer, go get it approved again, and it starts that process over. So you can see how this really drags out that probate timeline, uh, if, if, if there’s multiple properties, you know, each one of those has to go through the same process Trust Attorney Las Vegas. So that’ll drag it out. And then if you have, you know, upset bids, you know, that can drag out the process as well. Instead of having an order received that day, it might be another two, three weeks before you get that order back and just delays closing. That’s why I say if you have an offer and it’s accepted, I would put that closing at least 90 days out just to be safe.
Especially because, you know, you may not get a hearing for, uh, you know, 30 to 40 days just because the probate courts, so backed up right now. Uh, and then after all the properties are sold, um, then it’s just like the, the other pro a regular probate, then we, we pay all the creditors claims, then we petitioned the court to, um, pay all the attorney’s fees, the personal representative or administrator fees, and then to distribute the estate equally. Or if, if there’s no errors, then, uh, or if there’s no will, it’s equally amongst whoever the heirs are. If there is a wilderness, however the will says it is, and then the judge has another hearing, make sure there’s no objections to how that’s going to be handled. It’s approved then, um, you know, he grants that order and you know, the money’s distributed. If there’s objections and you know, we handle those, resolve them, and then eventually it does get resolved and taken care of.
So that’s what a probate, uh, process looks like. If you have to sell property, uh, through the estate, uh, as much as possible, I would recommend you sell it outside of probate. But that’s all dependent on, you know, if there’s money to pay creditors claims and attorney’s fees, if there’s money to, um, or if the air’s all get along and are willing to, to be joint owners on a house. Those are the kinds of things that you have to deal with and look at to see if it makes sense to do it this way. So most attorneys are gonna recommend to you that you always have to sell it through the court process. And why is that? Because they’re gonna make more money, you know, more hearings, you know, at least one or two more hearings that they have to go to. They have to draft more documents.
So it’s a, it’s a lot more profitable for us as a probate attorneys to be able to, uh, sell property through, uh, the probate court. But it’s not necessarily the best thing for you, the client or the heirs. So, uh, you know, here at trusted, we take the approach of helping people out, making sure they, that we do what’s right for the client. And so we want you to know that you do have options and you don’t have to sell it through Trust Attorney Las Vegas the PR, the court process, unless there’s not money to pay creditors. And then obviously we have to just, you know, settle those first before the judge will, um, you know, distribute property. So hopefully that helps you guys, uh, know what your options are. And on the flip side, you can avoid probate. And you know, that sounds messy. You know, you should talk to an estate planning attorney, get your, um, your assets into a trust now, or at least have named beneficiaries on everything so that you can avoid that whole court process. Thanks for listening today as we’ve talked about probates and we’ll talk to you next time.
