Probate: relatives of deceased want to sell home no will

[Kevin Polite]

Finally got the owners of a property to sell. It's 4 brothers who are the heirs. The parent have been deceased for many years, but the brothers kept paying the taxes and insurance. Deed is still in parents name.
However, I don't believe the property went through probate because the home was paid off. On my contract do I put the seller as "the estate of" and then let the title company do the rest?

[Account Closed]

Originally posted by Kevin Polite:

@dave t My understanding is that in Georgia if the only surviving members are the children of the deceased, is does not have to go to probate, but you must go through the legal process of first transferring title to the children. We are working on helping them find a suitable lawyer to do this first.

Kevin: Be careful about transferring that property to the four brothers via a simpler affidavit process. While it may be faster and cheaper, it increases potential title issues. It means when you go to close your purchase and get clear title, you're looking at possible tax liens and credit card judgments and child support judgments and BK filings etc against 4 people. In some cases, it makes more sense to bypass heirs and buy from the estate. You really have to know what you are dealing with when it comes the heirs' issues and debt versus the estate's issues and debt.

I'd be checking public records on all of four of them before I sent them to an attorney. Just saying.