Not always. Whether every heir has to agree before an inherited California home is sold depends on who holds the legal authority to sell. A successor trustee, or an executor or administrator acting under the court's authority, can often sell without every heir's signature. When several heirs hold title together directly, all of them must sign to sell the whole property.
California property guideUpdated October 17, 2026General information, not legal or tax advice
Most people facing this question are standing between a house that has to be dealt with and a family that has not yet settled on what to do with it. Perhaps a sibling hopes to keep the home, another lives out of state and wants it sold, and someone is quietly paying the property tax and the insurance in the meantime. Before anyone can talk sensibly about price or timing, the family needs one answer. Who actually gets to say yes? This page walks through that answer for California real estate, what a written agreement among heirs can and cannot do, what the law provides when heirs disagree, and how the taxes and the ways to sell fit around it.
Who Actually Holds Authority to Sell Inherited California Property
Authority to sell an inherited house comes from a legal role, not from a family vote. That role is created by a document or a court order, and the person who holds it is the one who signs the deed and the purchase contract.
Four roles come up most often. An executor is the person a will names to manage the estate. An administrator is the person the probate court appoints when there is no will or no executor able to serve. Both are called the personal representative, and neither can act until the court issues them a document called letters. Under Probate Code section 8400, a person has no power to administer the estate until appointed and issued letters, whether or not the will names them executor. The one exception is that a named executor may pay funeral expenses and take necessary measures to maintain and preserve the estate before then. A successor trustee is the person a trust names to take over managing trust property after the person who made the trust dies. A co-owner is someone who holds title to the property directly, in their own name, alongside others.
Two other words describe who receives property, not who manages it. An heir is a person who inherits under California's rules when there is no will. A beneficiary is a person a will or trust names to receive property. Being an heir or a beneficiary, without holding one of the four roles above, does not give anyone the power to sign a deed or a sale contract for the estate or the trust.
This page concerns real property, meaning land and the buildings on it. The house's furniture, cars and bank accounts are personal property, and California law often treats the two differently.
When All Heirs Must Agree — and When One Person Can Act Alone
Four common situations answer the question differently. Which one applies turns on two facts: how title was held when the owner died, and, in a probate, what authority the court granted.
A house held in a trust. The successor trustee generally has the power to sell, and that power is the trustee's alone. The trust document sets the trustee's powers. If it requires beneficiaries' consent for a sale, that requirement controls. The trustee's duties run to all of the beneficiaries, yet the signature on the deed is the trustee's.
A probate with independent administration authority. The Independent Administration of Estates Act lets the court give a personal representative authority to act with less court supervision. Under Probate Code section 10580, a personal representative granted that authority must give a notice of proposed action before taking an action without court supervision, where the provision granting the power requires it. Notice is a chance for heirs and beneficiaries to respond. It is not a request for permission. Under Probate Code section 10503, the court-confirmation requirements, such as publication of notice of sale, court approval of agents' and brokers' commissions, sale at not less than 90 percent of appraised value and the court's examination into the necessity for and advantage of the sale, do not apply to a sale made with that authority. What happens if someone who receives the notice objects is a question the estate's attorney can answer for the particular estate.
A probate without that authority, or with limited authority. Under Probate Code section 10308, except as section 10503 provides, every sale of estate real property must be reported to and confirmed by the court before title passes to the buyer. That holds even if the will directs or authorizes the sale. Here the court's confirmation governs, not the family's agreement. The steps are explained further in selling during probate in California.
Heirs who hold title directly as tenants in common. A tenant in common owns an undivided share of the whole property. Selling the entire house takes every co-owner's signature on the deed and the contract. This is the situation where the heirs' agreement is most directly required.
What a Written Agreement Among Heirs Covers
California has no statutory form called an "heirs agreement." What families call one is a private contract among co-owners or beneficiaries. They write it down so that everyone is working from the same terms before a buyer appears.
Such an agreement typically addresses these subjects:
The property. It identifies which property is being sold.
Price decisions. It sets a minimum acceptable price, or describes how the group will decide on an offer.
Proceeds. It explains how the money will be divided among the heirs.
Signing. It names who may sign documents for the group.
Carrying costs. It explains how property taxes, insurance and utilities are shared while the house is held or on the market.
Objections. It says what happens if one heir later changes their mind.
The writing matters. Under Civil Code section 1624, an agreement for the sale of real property, or of an interest in it, is invalid unless it, or a note or memorandum of it, is in writing and signed by the party to be charged. If an agent signs, the agent's authority must also be in writing and signed by that party. The same section says that an ephemeral electronic message, such as a text or an instant message, is not enough to form a contract to convey real property unless it is followed by a written confirmation meeting the section's requirements. For siblings coordinating by group text across several time zones, that point is worth knowing.
A signed agreement among heirs does not create authority to convey title. The deed is still signed by whoever holds that authority as a trustee, a personal representative or a title-holding co-owner. An agreement also cannot force a reluctant heir to sign. That situation is the subject of the next section. An estate attorney, or the estate's or trust's own attorney, can review an agreement before anyone signs it and say how it fits the authority that actually exists.
Selling Inherited Property When Heirs Disagree: The Partition Option
Partition is the court proceeding California law provides when co-owners of real property cannot agree on what to do with it. Families rarely want to reach this point. It helps to know the law has an answer when talking has stopped working.
Code of Civil Procedure section 872.210 says who may bring a partition action. The same section bars an action between spouses or putative spouses to partition their community or quasi-community property under that title. A partition case is filed in the Superior Court.
Partition generally takes one of two forms. In partition in kind, the court physically divides the property among the owners, which is seldom practical for a single-family home. In partition by sale, the court orders the property sold and the proceeds divided among the co-owners. California has also adopted the Partition of Heirs Property Act, which gives co-owners who inherited their shares additional procedural protections in some partition cases.
That is what the law provides. A contested partition is a dispute, and it is handled by an attorney who litigates trust and probate cases. The same is true where an heir suspects a trustee or an executor of misconduct.
Simplified Procedures: When Probate May Not Be Required
California offers shorter routes for some estates. Each one changes who ends up holding title, and so changes whose agreement a sale needs. The Judicial Council of California names them by what they cover: the affidavit for collection or transfer of personal property, the petition to determine succession to the decedent's primary residence, the affidavit for real property of small value, and the spousal or domestic partner property petition. The first concerns personal property, so a house usually passes through one of the others or through probate.
Under Probate Code section 13151, when a decedent's primary residence in California does not exceed a gross value limit that is adjusted periodically, and 40 days have passed since the death, the successor may petition the Superior Court for an order that they have succeeded to it. The successor must deliver notice of the petition to each heir and devisee named in it within five business days of filing. Under Probate Code section 13200, no sooner than six months after the death, a successor to real property of small value may file an affidavit with the Superior Court, with a probate referee's inventory and appraisal and a certified death certificate attached. Both limits change over time. The California Courts and each county's Superior Court publish the current figures.
These procedures pass the property to the people entitled to it. Once title is in several heirs' names, they are co-owners, and the tenants-in-common rule described above applies to a sale.
A transfer on death deed works similarly. It is a recorded deed that passes real property at death outside probate. Under Probate Code section 5652, multiple beneficiaries generally take as tenants in common in equal shares, and the property passes subject to liens and other recorded limits and without a warranty of title.
Basis, Taxes, and the Step-Up: What Heirs Should Know Before Selling
Taxes are often what siblings argue about quietly, so one federal rule is worth stating clearly. Basis is the starting figure used to measure gain or loss when property is sold. Under 26 U.S.C. § 1014(a), the basis of property acquired from a decedent is generally its fair market value at the date of death. The statute also provides alternatives: the value at the alternate valuation date if an election under section 2032 is made, the value determined under section 2032A if that election is made, or, to the extent the exclusion in section 2031(c) applies, the decedent's own basis.
In plain terms, gain or loss on a sale is generally measured from that date-of-death value, not from what the parent paid decades ago. Whether a particular sale produces taxable gain, and how it is reported by the estate, the trust or each heir, depends on the sale price, the costs of sale and other facts. A CPA, an enrolled agent or a tax attorney reviews that income-tax and basis question.
Property tax is a separate matter. Proposition 19 changed California's parent-child exclusion from reassessment. For transfers on or after February 16, 2021, the exclusion is Rev. & Tax. Code section 63.2. It covers a parent's principal residence passing to a child, and grandparent-to-grandchild transfers in limited cases. The home must become the child's principal residence within one year, and the child must file for the homeowners' or disabled veterans' exemption within a year. The claim is due within three years of the transfer, before the property is transferred to a third party, or before an eligible transferee stops occupying the home, whichever is earlier. Alternatively, it is timely if filed within six months after a notice of supplemental or escape assessment is mailed. A sale to an outside buyer ends that window. The county assessor's office handles exclusion claims and reassessment questions.
Ways to Sell Inherited California Property: A Fair Comparison
Once the family knows who can sign, the next question is how to sell. There are three broad paths, and each trades something for something else.
A listing with a licensed real estate agent puts the house in front of the open market. It often brings the most competition among buyers. It also means preparing the house, showings, a commission and waiting on a buyer's financing. For a family whose priority is broad exposure and the strongest price the market will bear, this path is built for that.
A sale by the owner without an agent avoids a listing commission. The person with authority to sell then handles pricing, showings, negotiation and paperwork, which is harder when that person lives far from the house.
A direct sale to a buyer who pays cash and takes the house in its present condition removes much of the preparation. The tradeoff is real. A direct offer often comes in below what the open market might pay, because that buyer is absorbing the repair work, the risk of what turns up and the expense of reselling. In return the seller gets less preparation, fewer showings and less dependence on whether a buyer's loan comes through. The two approaches are set side by side in cash offer versus listing.
Whoever the buyer is, the legal steps stay the same. A cash or direct sale does not avoid, skip, shorten or simplify probate, a court's confirmation, a required notice, a required disclosure, a lien or a tax. The authority and the court's role described above apply in full.
A house can be sold in its present condition, and an inherited house that needs repairs raises its own questions. On disclosure, Civil Code section 1102.2 says the article it belongs to does not apply to several kinds of sale, including sales ordered by a probate court and sales by a fiduciary administering a trust or a decedent's estate. The fiduciary exemption does not apply where the trustee is a natural person who is trustee of a revocable trust and was a former owner of the property or lived in it within the preceding year. The same section also exempts transfers from one co-owner to other co-owners. Whether any other disclosure applies is a question for the estate's or the trust's attorney.
Comparing written offers by estimated net proceeds is how a family tells which path fits. Net proceeds are the price less commissions, repairs, carrying costs, loan payoffs and closing costs.
When you’re ready
You Don’t Have to Work This Out Alone
If you’re dealing with an agreement among heirs about a sale, we’re here to talk it through.
Every inherited property is different. Call or send us a message, and we’ll listen. A direct offer is often lower than what the open market might bring, and asking for one does not commit you to selling.
2Tell us what’s going onAbout the property, in your own words.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can you sell your part of an inherited property?
A tenant in common can generally sell their own share without the others' consent, though buyers for a partial interest are hard to find. Selling the whole house takes every co-owner. While an estate is still open, Probate Code section 11604 lets the court look into the terms when an heir's share is distributed to someone it was transferred to.
How do you sell a deceased person's estate in California?
The answer depends on how the property was held. In a trust, the successor trustee sells. In probate, the executor or administrator sells after letters issue, with or without court confirmation depending on the authority granted. Where a simplified procedure applies, the heirs who receive title sell as co-owners. Each path is described above.
What happens when one heir wants to sell and another does not?
When heirs hold title together, a co-owner may bring a partition action in the Superior Court, and the court can order a sale and a division of the proceeds. A contested partition is handled by an attorney who litigates trust and probate cases.
Is there a time limit on selling inherited property in California?
No single deadline covers every inherited property. Probate carries its own timelines. For example, if the personal representative does not file a report and petition for confirmation within 30 days after a sale, the buyer may file them. The Proposition 19 claim deadlines are described above. Income-tax timing is a question for a CPA or an enrolled agent.
Can you sell property held in a trust after the owner dies?
Yes, generally. The successor trustee named in the trust may sell the trust's real property on the terms the trust document sets. The trustee's duties run to all of the beneficiaries, so what the trust says about the trustee's powers matters most.
Do all heirs have to agree to sell inherited property in California?
Not always. A trustee, or a personal representative with the authority described above, can act without every heir's signature, subject to any notice requirement. Heirs who hold title directly must all sign to sell the whole property. Even when consent is not legally required, families often find agreement practically important.
How is inherited property taxed when sold in California?
The basis is generally the date-of-death value, with the alternatives 26 U.S.C. § 1014(a) provides, so gain or loss is measured from that value. Whether a sale owes tax depends on the facts, and a CPA, an enrolled agent or a tax attorney reviews it. Property tax reassessment is separate and is handled by the county assessor's office.
What does a written agreement among heirs typically include?
It typically covers the property, how price decisions are made, how proceeds are divided, who signs, how carrying costs are shared and what happens if an heir objects. No statutory form exists for it, and it does not replace the legal authority to convey title. An estate attorney can review it before anyone signs.
