How to sell your parents’ home

There’s a difference between selling a house and selling your parents’ home. The buyer is buying a house. Your family is selling a home, with everything that comes with it: memories, opinions, siblings, paperwork, and sometimes a parent who isn’t ready.

Every family’s situation is different. What follows is the general shape of it in New York, the questions that tend to come up, and where an experienced broker makes the difference.

↓ See the flowchart: who can sell your parent’s home

Who has the authority to sell?

This is the first question, and it changes everything after it. A parent who can make their own decisions sells their own home, with the family’s help. When they can’t, someone needs the legal authority to sign: an agent under a durable power of attorney, or a guardian the court appoints. When a parent has passed, it’s an estate (see my guides to selling a house in probate and selling a house with no will).

The flowchart is general, and your family’s situation may not follow it. Call me early and we’ll sort out yours.

Timing matters more than most families expect. An appropriate power of attorney, signed while a parent is well, can save months. A guardianship takes time, and the court generally has to approve the sale. That’s why the most important thing I tell families is to call me early.

Six Points to Ponder

From the seminar, here are the six questions I ask every family to answer before the house goes on the market. The answers, and what to do about them, are where we spend our time together.

There are also six potential problems that tend to derail these sales, and some tips and techniques to tackle them. Those I cover in the seminar and one on one.

Keep it, move in, rent it, or sell it

Selling isn’t the only option. Some families keep the house, someone moves in (or back in), or it becomes a rental. Each path has its own costs, tax questions and family dynamics, and being a landlord is not for the faint of heart. I can help you evaluate the paths, and bring in your elder law attorney and accountant where they’re needed.

Beware transferring the house to a child, or to part of the family, without the right advice first. It can carry tax, Medicaid and title consequences that are hard to undo. It’s a longer conversation, and one to have before anything is signed.

Why families call me

1. Full-time since 2002, and handling estate sales since 2004. I’ve helped parents who were moving on and families after a parent passed, and I know the court-supervised side too.
2. Court-qualified. I’m on New York State’s Part 36 list, eligible for court appointments, for matters where a judge has to approve the sale.
3. I wrote and teach the seminar. I’m a New York State Approved Real Estate Instructor, and I earned the Seniors Real Estate Specialist (SRES) designation.
4. One point person for the whole family. Siblings near and far, the agent under the power of attorney, the guardian, the attorney, the care manager. I keep everyone appropriately informed, so the sale doesn’t stall on who said what.
5. The work around the sale. Cleanouts, repairs and securing a vacant house, with people I trust to get it done.
6. Once a client, you’re always part of the family. I build relationships that last, and some of mine go back more than 20 years.

Who you’d be working with

Diallo J. Stevens, Licensed Real Estate Broker, in full-time practice since 2002. I help families sell their parents’ homes in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, both Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and Westchester.

I’m happy to speak with you, even if you’re just starting to think about it.