“Only three of the five of us want to sell. Why can’t I sell it?” I hear some version of that on the phone all the time. If you are asking do all heirs have to agree to sell an inherited house in Texas, you probably have a brother or a sister who keeps saying no, or who will not say anything at all.
I’m Raul Bolufe. My company buys inherited houses and the shares of individual heirs across Texas. I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It is what we have seen on our deals.
This is the long answer to do all heirs have to agree to sell, with three real houses where some of the heirs sold first and the rest took their time. Every story comes from our own files. Names are changed.
Do all heirs have to agree to sell an inherited house?
No. Not for your share.
Yes. For the whole house.
Those are two different sales, and most families who ask do all heirs have to agree to sell do not know the first one exists.
To sell the entire house to a normal buyer, every owner has to sign. That is the sale your family is stuck on. But your piece of the house is yours. On our deals, an heir can sell that piece by themselves, with a notary, with nobody else’s signature on the paper. That is the sale my company does every week.
So when somebody asks me do all heirs have to agree to sell, my first question back is simple. Sell what? The whole house, or your part of it?
Why can’t three of five heirs sell the whole house?
Here is how I answer do all heirs have to agree to sell when it comes up on the phone.
When your mother passed without putting the house in anyone’s name, it did not go to “the family.” On our deals, it went to specific people in specific pieces. Five kids, a fifth each. If one of those kids had already passed, that piece went down to their children.
Nobody owns a bedroom. Nobody owns the kitchen. Each of you owns a slice of the whole thing.
Three of you own three slices. You can sell those three slices. What the three of you cannot do is sell the two slices that belong to your brother and sister, because those are not yours.
A normal buyer wants the whole house. A bank will not lend on three fifths of one. A title company will not insure it. So a regular sale needs all five signatures, and that is why the realtor told you no.
Here is what we do instead. We buy the three shares from the three of you. You get paid, and you are out of it. Then we own three fifths of the house, and the other two heirs have a new co owner. Us. Dealing with them becomes our job.
That is the real answer to do all heirs have to agree to sell. Not for the three of you to get out. Only for a normal buyer to get in.
What if my siblings don’t want to sell?
Then you can still sell yours. They keep theirs.
That is the part of do all heirs have to agree to sell that people have a hard time believing. Your brother saying no does not freeze your share. It only freezes the sale he is describing, which is a sale of the whole house.
Here is what usually happens after you sell to us.
- We contact the other heirs. We are now a fellow owner, so we explain where things stand and make them the same kind of offer.
- The outside attorneys we work with send a letter. That letter is often what makes it real for people.
- Most people come around. Once they understand the house is going to be sold one way or another, they would rather be paid for their piece.
- If somebody ignores everything, the outside attorneys we work with ask a court to sort out who owns what. That is the last step, not the first.
How does selling your share work when the others say no?
On our deals, when the answer to do all heirs have to agree to sell is no for your share, it goes like this.
- We pull the title report. We get title reports back fast because of our own team. It shows who owns what, and whether there are liens.
- We build the family tree. Every heir, every share. Often the family’s guess is wrong by one or two people. Here is what an affidavit of heirship is in Texas, if you have never heard of one.
- We make you an offer for your share. Not the whole house. Your piece.
- A mobile notary comes to you. Your kitchen table, your job, a hospital room. Nobody drives to the courthouse.
- Your deed records at the county. Then you get paid.
Once you sell to us, liens and violations become our problem. We call, we negotiate, we pay. Property taxes and IRS liens are different. Those get paid, not negotiated. But you are not the one paying them.
Here is the longer version of how to sell your share of an inherited house in Texas.
Walnut Ave, Odessa: one sister sold and the other two followed
Three sisters. Their mother passed and left a house in Odessa and a will that said if the house ever sold, the money would be split three ways.
One of the sisters, I’ll call her Tina, moved in and caught up the taxes out of her own pocket. It lasted a few months. Her sisters made it impossible to stay. She moved out, a family friend moved in, and ten years went by with nobody speaking to anybody.
Tina still owned a third of that house the whole time. But no realtor lists a third of a house, and her sisters were not going to buy her out.
She reached out to us in the summer. She was in a hospital in Fort Worth at the time, hundreds of miles from the house, and she wanted this handled. So a mobile notary went to her room and she signed a deed for her third. No sisters on the call. She never stopped to ask do all heirs have to agree to sell. She just sold her third, and we paid her soon after it recorded.
Then we did what we always do. We owned a third of the house now, so we contacted the other two thirds. A couple of weeks after Tina signed, both sisters signed too. The family friend living there took cash to move out on a schedule that worked for everyone. We cleaned the house out and sold it. A little over a month from the first message to a sold house.
Both sides of a ten year feud left us five star reviews. Nobody had to sit in a room together. One sister moved first, and the rest followed.
If your family’s house is out in West Texas, here is how we buy inherited houses in Odessa.
Boss Gaston Road, Richmond: the others sold while one heir said it was all his
A house on Boss Gaston Road in Richmond, in Fort Bend County. It had been in the family a long time. When we pulled title, there was survivorship language on the deed, more than one heir, and back taxes owed to the county.
One of the heirs, I’ll call him Terry, was sure he owned the whole house. All of it. Every offer we made, he gave the same answer. He was not selling a share of anything, because to him there were no shares.
He was not lying. He believed it. But he owned a fraction.
The heirs who wanted out did not wait on him. They signed with us in the spring and they were paid. If the answer to do all heirs have to agree to sell were yes, they would have been stuck behind Terry for months.
Then came the part that was ours. The title team and the outside attorneys we work with spent months on the paperwork. We funded a tax loan and paid the county. Our money, not the family’s.
In July, Terry came around. What changed was not the offer. It was the math. He did not own 100 percent of the house, and the back taxes came off the top before anybody got anything. Once the number was about his real share, it stopped looking like an insult. We closed in August.
Nobody yelled. Nobody had to drag him anywhere. If you are asking do all heirs have to agree to sell when one of them says the whole house is his, this is your answer. The others got out first.
If the house you are stuck on is in the Houston area, here is how we buy houses fast in Houston. And if back taxes are part of your story, read how we handle an inherited house with back taxes in Texas.
West Columbia: the heirs signed in January, and the last relative signed later
A mother passed and left a small house in West Columbia, in Brazoria County, to her children. It had a six figure lien on it and a demolition order from the city. The family had decided their only option was to give the house to the city.
We made them an offer anyway. The heirs who wanted to sell signed in January, on the second try, after a storm knocked out the first one.
One relative did not answer anything. A certified letter sat at the post office for weeks with a notice on her door. So the outside attorney we work with sent a process server, and then filed a petition. A few weeks after the filing, she signed. She never wanted money. She had not believed she was an heir, or that any of this was real. Once it was real, she was done.
So, do all heirs have to agree to sell? Not on this house. The heirs who were ready signed months before the last relative did. The lawsuit, the lien and the demolition order were our problem, not theirs.
The lien settled for a small fraction. The demolition order was lifted. We sold the house in July.
What happens to the heir who will not sign?
When people ask do all heirs have to agree to sell, what they really want to know is what happens to the one who says no. Two things, and neither one is a punishment.
First, nothing happens to the heirs who already sold. They are paid and done. The holdout cannot undo a deed that has already been recorded.
Second, the holdout gets the same kind of offer everyone else got, from us, their new co owner. In our experience, almost nobody fights it all the way. They settle once it is real.
And a lot of holdouts are not greedy. In West Columbia, the last relative never wanted money. She did not believe any of it was real, and she signed once a court filing made it real.
Be kind to the holdout in your family. They are usually scared, or confused, or tired of the fight. They are not the villain. They just have not seen the paperwork yet.
Are there other ways out besides selling your share?
Yes. Even when the answer to do all heirs have to agree to sell is no for your share, selling your share is not the only way out.
Sell the whole house together. This is the one case where do all heirs have to agree to sell gets a yes. If every heir agrees, you can sell the whole thing. If the title is messy or the house needs work, we buy it as is. Here is how we buy inherited houses for cash in Texas.
Partner with us and split it. On a house in Cleveland, one person had passed and there were three heirs, plus someone who had the right to live there for life. I bought out the person with the life rights. Then we partnered with the remaining heirs. We listed it together, my team handled everything, we sold it, and we split the profits with the heirs.
Buy out your sibling. If you want the house and your sibling does not, I wrote about how to buy out a sibling’s share of an inherited house.
Selling the whole house vs selling your share
Here is how do all heirs have to agree to sell played out on our deals, side by side. It is not legal advice.
| Selling the whole house to a normal buyer | Selling your share to us | |
|---|---|---|
| Who has to agree | Every owner. | Just you. |
| Who signs | Every heir, plus the paperwork to prove who they are. | You, in front of a mobile notary who comes to you. |
| What happens with the holdout | Nothing moves until they sign. | They keep their share, and dealing with them becomes our job. |
| Back taxes, liens, violations | Paid out of the sale, after everyone agrees. | Our problem once you sell. Property taxes and IRS liens get paid, not negotiated. |
| When you get paid | When the whole house closes. | After your own deed records. |
| What we saw | Families stuck for years waiting on one person. | Walnut Ave, Boss Gaston and West Columbia. The heirs who wanted out got out. |
What this means for you
- Do all heirs have to agree to sell your share? No. You need your brother’s signature to sell his share, not yours.
- When three of five want out, the three can sell their shares. A normal buyer needs all five. We do not.
- One heir moving first is often what gets the rest of the family moving. Walnut Ave is proof.
- You do not have to be near the house or near your family. A notary comes to you.
- The holdout does not lose anything. What they lose is the ability to hold everyone else in place.
- Once you sell to us, the back taxes, the liens, and whoever is living in the house become our problem.
The short version
- Do all heirs have to agree to sell the whole house to a normal buyer? Yes. To sell your share? No.
- Three of five can sell their three shares. Then we deal with the other two.
- Walnut Ave: one sister sold her third from a hospital bed. Her estranged sisters followed a couple of weeks later.
- Boss Gaston: the heirs who wanted out sold in the spring. The heir who said the house was all his came around in July.
- West Columbia: the heirs signed in January. The last relative signed after a court filing, and we sold the house in July.
- Your share is yours. Nobody can make you wait.
Frequently asked questions
Only three of the five of us want to sell. What can we do?
The three of you can sell your three shares to us. You get paid and you are out. Then we become a co owner with the other two, and dealing with them is our job.
What if my siblings don’t want to sell?
You can still sell your share. They keep theirs. For your share, the answer to do all heirs have to agree to sell is no. On our deals, most holdouts came around once a letter from the attorneys we work with made it real.
Do all heirs have to agree to sell if someone lives in the house?
Not for your share. On Walnut Ave, a family friend was living in the house when the first sister sold her third. The friend took cash to move out on a schedule that worked for everyone. Once you sell to us, whoever lives there becomes part of our job.
Do all heirs have to agree to sell if one heir ignores everything?
Then the heirs who want out can still sell. In West Columbia, one relative let a certified letter sit at the post office for weeks. The heirs who were ready signed in January anyway, and we dealt with her after that.
Will I get sued if I sell my share and my siblings do not?
That has not happened to the heirs who sold to us. When there was a court case on our deals, it was between us and the holdout, and the outside attorneys we work with handled it. The heirs who sold were already out.
If you own a piece of an inherited house and everybody keeps telling you do all heirs have to agree to sell, call or text me at 936-380-6384, or fill out the form. Tell me the address, who passed away, and how many heirs there are. I will tell you what we can do with your share, and you can decide from there.
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About the author
Raul Bolufe has bought and sold real estate since 2012, closed more than 800 deals, and paid more than 100 heirs for their share of inherited property across Texas and Florida. He hosts the Flipping Miami Podcast. More at raulbolufe.com.
Read next
- How to sell your share of an inherited house in Texas, even if the other heirs won’t
- How to Buy Out a Sibling’s Share of an Inherited House in Texas
- Probate Is Done. Can I Sell the House? One Heir in Woodbranch Did, and It Was Easy.