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Selling a house you inherited
An inherited house in Oregon usually cannot be sold until the personal representative has court authority through probate, or the estate qualifies for a simple estate affidavit. Full probate takes a minimum of four months. Heirs are not required to clear the house out before selling.
Most people who call us about an inherited house are not in a hurry to sell. They are in a hurry to stop thinking about it.
There is a house twenty minutes away, or two thousand miles away, with your parent’s handwriting still on the kitchen calendar. A utility bill keeps arriving. One sibling wants to keep it. Another wants it gone. Here is what actually has to happen, in order.
First: can you legally sell it yet?
Usually not right away. A house that was in your parent’s name at death cannot be sold until someone has legal authority. That authority comes from one of three places.
If there is a trust
If the house was held in a living trust, you may skip probate entirely. The successor trustee can typically sell without a court process. Check the deed first — a lot of people set up a trust and then never actually moved the house into it. It is common, and expensive to discover late.
If the estate is small enough
Oregon has a simple estate affidavit that is far faster than full probate. Per the Oregon Judicial Department, it applies when the fair market value of the estate is $275,000 or less, with no more than $200,000 attributable to real property and no more than $75,000 to personal property. That $200,000 real property cap is the catch — Portland’s median sale price is well above it, so in most of this metro the house alone disqualifies the estate.
If it needs full probate
The court appoints a personal representative who then has authority to sell. Per the Oregon State Bar, probate takes a minimum of four months. More detail on how probate affects a sale.
Useful thing to know: you can do everything except close while you wait. Get a number, understand your options, line the sale up. Then close the week authority comes through instead of starting from zero.
Interior of an inherited home in Portland awaiting sale.
The tax part that usually works in your favor
This is the piece people are most relieved to hear. Inherited property generally receives what is called a stepped-up basis, which means the tax basis resets to the value at the date of death rather than what your parent originally paid. If they bought in 1978 and it is worth many times that now, you are generally not facing capital gains on the whole increase.
How it applies to you specifically depends on the estate, the timing, and how the property was held. Talk to a CPA before you sell, not after. It is usually a single short conversation and it can be worth a great deal of money.
One practical step either way: get a date-of-death appraisal if you do not already have one. It establishes the basis and the estate likely needs it anyway.
What if the siblings do not agree?
Everyone with an ownership interest has to sign. There is no way around that and we will not try to find one.
What usually breaks the logjam is a real number. Most family arguments about an inherited house are actually arguments about an imaginary house. One person has a Zillow estimate. Another has a feeling. Nobody has an actual offer. Put a real figure on the table next to a real repair estimate and the conversation changes fast.
We will give you that number without pressure and without calling your siblings. Use it however you want, including as leverage to buy them out yourself.
You do not have to clear the house out
Take the photographs. Take the documents. Take the jewelry and anything anyone in the family has asked for. Leave the rest. We buy houses full — furniture, clothes, forty years of paperwork in the basement, a garage nobody has opened since 2011. If it is genuinely packed, that has its own page on selling a full house, but the answer is the same.
The number of people who spend three weekends and $2,000 on a dumpster before calling us is high. None of it changed our offer.
What if it needs work?
Almost all of them do. A house someone lived in for thirty years and could not maintain for the last five is the single most common inherited house there is.
In Portland that usually means a specific list: original electrical, galvanized supply lines, a sewer lateral at end of life, and often a buried heating oil tank. Panel replacement runs $2,500 to $7,500 here, a repipe runs $190 to $315 per linear foot, and oil tank decommissioning runs $1,400 to $4,000 with clean soil. Those add up fast, and they are exactly the items that make a financed buyer’s lender balk. Full cost detail on the repairs page and on selling as-is.
And if the house is in good shape and the estate can wait three months? List it. You will net more. We say that regularly.
What if there are debts against it?
Reverse mortgage, unpaid property taxes, a lien, a Medicaid estate recovery claim. All common. None fatal. They resolve at closing out of the proceeds.
One urgent exception. Reverse mortgages have a clock that starts when the borrower dies, and heirs often find out late. If there is one on the house, call the servicer this week and find out the deadline.
Where we buy inherited houses
Across Portland and the metro. Most inherited calls come from neighborhoods where people bought decades ago and stayed: Parkrose at a 1945 median build year, Cully at 1949, St. Johns at 1954, and Lents at 1956. Also Gresham and everywhere else we work: areas we buy.
Questions people ask
Can I sell before probate is finished?
You can get offers and sign a contract. Closing generally waits until the personal representative has court authority. Full probate takes a minimum of four months in Oregon.
Does the house qualify for the simple estate affidavit?
Only if the estate is $275,000 or less with no more than $200,000 in real property. Most Portland houses exceed that on their own, which means full probate.
What if my siblings and I disagree?
Everyone on title has to sign. We will not pressure one heir to push the others. What we can do is give you a real number so the family conversation is about something concrete.
Do I have to clear out my parent's belongings?
No. Take what matters and leave the rest. We handle it and it is already in our number.
Will I owe capital gains tax?
Often much less than people fear, because inherited property generally gets a stepped-up basis to the date-of-death value. How it applies to you depends on your situation, so talk to a CPA before you sell.
General information about selling inherited property in Oregon, not legal or tax advice. Talk to an estate attorney and a CPA before making decisions about an estate.
Sources: Oregon Judicial Department (simple estate affidavit thresholds), Oregon State Bar (probate timeline). Last verified: September 2026.