I have worked with a number of clients over the years who were the executors of a loved one's will.  When an executor wants to sell some real property, there are some rules in the Probate Code that she needs to think about.  The rules are generally more cumbersome than those for a trustee of a trust who wants to sell some real estate.  I wrote about that in an earlier post. Sometimes a client is the administrator of the loved one's estate.  This happens when a person dies with neither a trust nor a will. Whether the client is the executor or the administrator, he has to follow the rules in the Probate Code for selling real estate through [...]

I often meet with trustees who want to sell the family house that is in the trust.   This is frequently the parents' house, and the surviving children don't want to own and manage the house together. The trustee usually has the power to sell real property without getting anyone's permission, but I generally recommend that a trustee obtain the agreement of all the trust's beneficiaries.  If not everyone will agree, then the trustee can submit a petition to the Probate Court requesting approval of the sale. Taking these steps protects the trustee from a potential lawsuit by one of the beneficiaries.  If the trustee just sells the house, a beneficiary can always complain that she got too low a price, or paid [...]