Updated September 2026
If you've inherited a house in Alabama, you usually can't list it the week after the funeral. Someone has to have the legal authority to sign the deed first. In most families, that means the probate court names a personal representative, and that person signs for the estate. Once that piece is in place, selling an inherited home works a lot like any other sale, with a few extra steps around creditors, taxes, and family.
When families call me about an inherited house, the first question is almost always, "Can we just sell it?" Usually, yes. Here's the order things tend to happen in, and what the Lee County Association of REALTORS® ALL AREAS market data means for local sellers right now.
The Bottom Line
- Someone needs legal authority to sell. That's usually a personal representative appointed by the probate court, holding letters from the court.
- Creditors get a window. Alabama law generally gives them six months after letters are granted, or five months from the first published notice, whichever is later.
- Federal estate tax rarely applies to a single home. The IRS basic exclusion is $15,000,000 for deaths in 2026.
- Get a date-of-death appraisal. Heirs generally inherit at a stepped-up basis, and that appraisal is how you document it.
- Resale homes sold faster this July than last, with more competition around them. The July 2026 numbers are below.
Who has the right to sell an inherited house in Alabama?
Being named in the will, or being next of kin, doesn't by itself let you sign a deed. The buyer's title company will want to see who holds legal authority for the estate before anyone closes.
Here's how that usually shakes out:
- There's a will. The will names an executor. The probate court in the county where your loved one lived admits the will and issues letters testamentary. That's the paper that says this person can act for the estate.
- There's no will. The court appoints an administrator and issues letters of administration. Alabama's inheritance rules decide who the heirs are.
- The house passed outside probate. Some deeds pass a home straight to a surviving co-owner. Your attorney can tell you whether probate is needed for the house at all.
Can the personal representative sell without a separate court order? It depends on what the will says and what the court allows. Some wills give the personal representative a power of sale. Others don't, and then the court may need to sign off. That's a question for an Alabama probate attorney, and it's worth asking before you pick a list date.
When nobody went through probate
This one catches families off guard. Grandparents passed years ago, nobody opened an estate, and now the house belongs to a whole branch of the family tree at once. That's often called heirs' property.
Every co-owner generally has to sign, or the title has to be cleared another way, before a title insurer will let the sale close. If one cousin three states away won't return a call, the sale waits. Start that conversation early, and bring in an attorney who handles heirs' property.
Alabama's creditor window and why it affects your timing
Under Alabama's statute on claims against a decedent's estate, claims must be presented within six months after letters are granted, or within five months from the first published notice to creditors, whichever is later.
Why does a seller care? The personal representative usually needs to know what the estate owes before handing money to the heirs. Depending on the estate, the house may be listed during that window. Ask your attorney whether sale proceeds should be held until claims are settled.
My read: families who plan for that wait have much calmer closings than families who promised everyone a check by Thanksgiving.
Taxes on an inherited house
Nothing in this section is legal or tax advice. It's the lay of the land so you know what to ask your CPA or estate attorney.
Federal estate tax
The IRS lists the basic exclusion amount at $15,000,000 for deaths in 2026 and $13,990,000 for deaths in 2025. An estate generally has to be larger than that before federal estate tax comes into play. For most families selling a home around Auburn or Opelika, it isn't the tax that matters.
Stepped-up basis
Generally, an heir's cost basis in an inherited home is its fair market value on the date of death, not what your parents paid for it decades ago. If the house sells close to that value, there may be little taxable gain.
That's why I encourage families to order a date-of-death appraisal from a licensed appraiser early. It's much harder to reconstruct a year later. Your CPA will thank you.
If someone moves in before selling
Sometimes an heir moves into the house for a while first. The IRS home-sale exclusion lets you exclude up to $250,000 of gain, or up to $500,000 on a joint return, if you meet both an ownership test and a use test. For ownership, the IRS says you must have owned the home for at least 24 months out of the last five years before the sale.
How that plays out for an inherited house is a question for your tax pro. Just don't assume the exclusion applies because the house was "in the family."
The July 2026 market: what an inherited house is up against
An inherited house is almost always a resale home, often well loved and a little dated. So the question is how resale homes are selling, and how much competition they face.
The Lee County Association of REALTORS® (LCAR) July 2026 housing stats for ALL AREAS put the residential median sold price at $406,260 (Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2026 housing stats, ALL AREAS), up from $387,150 in July 2025. That's 4.9% higher, by my math.
Competition grew faster than prices. LCAR's ALL AREAS report showed 834 homes on the market in July 2026, compared with 650 in July 2025. That's 28.3% more, by my math.
Chart 1. Homes on the market, LCAR ALL AREAS, July 2025 vs July 2026. Source: Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2025 housing stats, ALL AREAS; Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2026 housing stats, ALL AREAS.
Sales went the other way. ALL AREAS closed 239 residential sales in July 2026, down from 260 in July 2025, a drop of 8.1% by my math. New listings rose to 291 from 265, up 9.8%.
Divide homes on the market by that month's sales and you get a rough supply figure. By my rough math, that's about 3.5 months of supply in July 2026, up from about 2.5 in July 2025. Buyers have more to choose from than they did a year ago.
Resale homes are still moving
Here's the encouraging part for heirs. LCAR split July sales into existing homes and new construction. Existing-home sales in ALL AREAS came in at 136 in July 2026, versus 142 in July 2025.
Those existing homes sold faster. Average days on market for existing homes fell to 41 in July 2026 from 50 in July 2025, which is 9 fewer days. New construction went the other direction, rising to 71 days from 59. Across all residential sales, average days on market was 54 in July 2026, the same as the 54 in July 2025.
Chart 2. Average days on market, existing vs new construction, LCAR ALL AREAS, July 2025 vs July 2026. Source: Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2025 housing stats, ALL AREAS; Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2026 housing stats, ALL AREAS.
My read: buyers are still showing up for resale homes that are priced right. They just have more options than they did last summer. An inherited house that's overpriced, or shown full of furniture and decades of paperwork, will sit next to a lot of alternatives.
If the house is at Lake Martin
The Lake Martin Area Association of REALTORS® reports association-wide residential sales: 75 (Lake Martin Area Association of REALTORS, July 2026) in July 2026, up from 63 in July 2025. These totals are not lakefront-only; they are separate from LCAR's ALL AREAS numbers.
Inheriting a lake house comes with its own list: docks, shoreline, seasonal timing. I walk through those in my guide to selling waterfront property on Lake Martin.
Pricing an inherited house
The date-of-death appraisal is about taxes. The list price is about today's buyers. The two numbers may land in different places, especially if the estate took a while to settle.
Online home value estimates are a starting point only and are not a formal comparative market analysis or appraisal. An algorithm doesn't know that the roof is original or that the kitchen was redone right before your mom got sick. I break down how I price a home in what your Auburn home is actually worth.
When you're weighing the net to the estate, factor in closing costs, repairs, and carrying costs while the house sits. I laid those out in the cost to sell a house in Alabama.
Clean out, fix up, or sell as-is?
There's no single right answer. Here's how I think about the three paths:
- Sell as-is. Fastest, least work, and often the choice when heirs live far away. Expect buyers to price in whatever they see.
- Clean out and refresh. Empty the house, deep clean, paint, handle the obvious repairs, tidy the yard. In my experience, this is where estates tend to get the most for the least effort.
- Renovate. It can pay off on the right house, but it uses estate money and time, and every heir has to agree on the budget.
Before any estate sale company or cleanout crew shows up, walk the house as a family and tag what everyone wants to keep. Somebody always wants the cast iron skillet. Somebody else discovers there were three of them.
Also call the homeowner's insurance company. A vacant house may need different coverage, and you want that settled before the house sits empty for months.
Selling when you live out of town
A lot of heirs aren't local anymore. That's OK. Much of the process can be handled from a distance: I can meet the appraiser, let in contractors, stage the rooms, and send you photos and video as things progress. Ask your closing attorney or title company early about remote signing options for everyone who has to sign.
Some families consider selling the house themselves to save money. I lay out the honest tradeoffs in FSBO vs. hiring an agent in Auburn. And if you have flexibility on timing, here's my take on the best time to sell a house in Auburn.
Keeping the family on the same page
The paperwork is rarely the hardest part. Grief, siblings, and a house full of memories can make simple decisions feel heavy.
A few things help:
- Pick one point of contact. Usually that's the personal representative. Everyone else gets updates from that person.
- Share the numbers. Put the appraisal, the pricing analysis, and the offers in front of everyone.
- Agree on a price floor in writing. Decide ahead of time which offers are worth accepting, so nobody is negotiating with each other at midnight.
My read: families who talk through the plan before the house hits the market tend to stay close after it closes. That matters more than any list price.
Talk it through with me
I'm Amy Cotney, a REALTOR® and licensed real estate salesperson (Alabama license #108235) with Roots Real Estate - Investment Development in Auburn. I help families across Auburn, Opelika, Lake Martin, and East Alabama sell homes they never planned to sell, and I'm here to guide you every step of the way. You can learn more about me here. If you're sorting out an inherited house, reach out. I'd love to help.
Nothing here is legal or tax advice. For your family's situation, talk with an Alabama probate attorney and a tax professional.
Figures are closed and listing data for the Lee County Association of REALTORS® ALL AREAS cut and the Lake Martin Area Association of REALTORS market as of July 2026, from those two associations. Market conditions change and past figures are not a prediction.
Sources
- Internal Revenue Service, "What's new: Estate and gift tax"
- Internal Revenue Service, Tax Topic: Sale of your home
- Code of Alabama, limitation on presentation of claims against a decedent's estate (onecle)
- Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2026 housing stats, ALL AREAS. Current report: https://www.leecorealtors.org/#stats
- Lee County Association of REALTORS®, July 2025 housing stats, ALL AREAS. Current report: https://www.leecorealtors.org/#stats
- Lake Martin Area Association of REALTORS, July 2026. Current report: https://www.lmaar.org/
- Lake Martin Area Association of REALTORS, July 2025. Current report: https://www.lmaar.org/
