Can you sell a house during probate in Texas? Usually, yes — once someone has been given authority by the court to act for the estate, and provided the type of administration allows it without a further order. Which of those applies to your family's estate is the probate attorney's call. This page is the other half of the job: the paperwork side, in the order a title company will ask for it. It is not legal advice. The attorney owns the legal side, the title company owns the closing, and this list is what sits between them.
If you want the map of the four Texas probate routes and where each one stalls, that's our probate house-sale guide. If the estate's house is in Houston and you're weighing a cash sale, the probate page explains how our offer waits on the court. This checklist serves both.
1. Authority: who is allowed to act for the estate?
Nothing else on this list matters until this is settled. A house owned by someone who has died belongs to their estate, and the only person who can sign a contract or a deed for the estate is the one the court has appointed — an executor if there was a will naming one, an administrator if there wasn't, or wasn't one who could serve. The court's proof of that appointment is a document called Letters Testamentary (with a will) or Letters of Administration (without). The title company will want a certified copy, and it will want it to be recent.
Who to ask: the probate attorney, who files the application; the clerk of the court that granted it. In Harris County that's the County Clerk's probate courts.
2. Power of sale: does the will (or the order) allow the house to be sold?
Being appointed is not automatically the same as being allowed to sell real estate. Many Texas wills grant the executor an express power to sell property; when they do, an independent executor can usually proceed without going back to the court. When the will is silent, or there is no will, the answer depends on the type of administration and may require a court order. Read the will for the words, then let the attorney tell you what they mean for a sale.
Who to ask: the attorney. The title company will tell you what it needs to see — the will, the order, or both.
Can the executor sell without all the beneficiaries approving?
Often, yes. An independent executor whose will grants a power of sale generally doesn't need each beneficiary's consent to sell the house, though the attorney will tell you what notice the beneficiaries are owed and the executor always owes them a fair sale. Without a power of sale, or in a dependent administration, the court's approval comes into it. In every case the attorney reads the will and tells you; the title company tells you whose signature it needs.
3. Type of administration: independent or dependent?
This is the fork that shapes everything after it. In an independent administration — the common Texas route — the executor or administrator operates with little court supervision, and a sale can typically move on the ordinary timeline once the authority and power-of-sale questions are settled. In a dependent administration the court supervises, and selling the house becomes a formal sequence with an application, an order, a report of the sale and a confirmation. A sale absolutely can happen in a dependent administration; it happens on the court's calendar, and every party to the contract needs to know that going in.
Who to ask: the attorney, who will know from the Letters which kind you have.
4. If it's dependent: the court's steps and the appraisal question
Ask the attorney to walk you through the sequence before you sign anything with a buyer, because the contract has to be written to survive it. The court may want evidence of the property's value; whether that means a formal appraisal is a question for the attorney and the court, not for a buyer. One caution: you may read online that Texas requires a probate sale to bring a fixed percentage of appraised value. That rule belongs to another state's probate code. Ask your attorney what applies to your estate rather than trusting a page that doesn't say which state it's describing.
Who to ask: the attorney, exclusively.
5. Everyone who has to sign, or consent
The title company builds this list from the will, the court's orders and the county's records — not from the family's understanding of who owns what. Depending on the route, it may need only the executor's signature, or it may need heirs and beneficiaries to sign or consent. Get the list early and in writing. A sibling in another state can sign in front of a notary there and send the documents in; what stalls closings is discovering the missing name in closing week, not the distance.
Who to ask: the title company, once it has the Letters and the will.
6. The property file
These are the items that have nothing to do with probate and everything to do with closing any house. Gather what exists; don't manufacture what doesn't.
| Item | Who provides it | Who to ask if it's missing |
|---|---|---|
| Deed and legal description | county real property records | the title company pulls it |
| Property-tax status and any delinquency | county tax office | the title company orders the payoff; see our tax-lien section |
| Mortgage, HOA and other liens | each lienholder's written payoff | the title company; an attorney for anything disputed |
| Homeowner's insurance on a vacant house | the insurance agent | the agent — many policies change when a house sits empty |
| Survey, if one exists | the decedent's papers or the prior closing | the title company will say whether a new one is needed |
| Keys, utilities, HOA contact | the family | nobody — just find them |
| Contents | the family decides what to keep | a buyer who takes the house with contents (we do) removes this line entirely |
7. A contract that fits a probate sale
A retail buyer's contract is written for a living seller on a fixed schedule. A probate sale needs terms that bend the other way. Whoever the buyer is, look for these:
- No financing contingency. A buyer whose loan approval can expire is a buyer who may not be there when the court is finally ready. A contract with no financing contingency removes that clock.
- A closing date tied to the court, not the calendar. The contract should say plainly that closing follows the estate's authority to sell, and should let the estate walk away without penalty if that authority is never granted.
- As-is, contents included. An estate house is rarely show-ready. A buyer who prices the condition in, and takes what's left inside, saves the family the two jobs they dread most.
- Written in the estate's name. The seller on the contract is the estate, signed by the person holding the Letters, in that capacity. The attorney should read it before it's signed — every time.
- The buyer's own terms disclosed in writing. Whoever it is, ask how the price is set, whether it can change after signing and on what grounds, and whether the contract may be assigned. Get the answers in the document, not in a phone call.
Our own purchase agreements are written this way because they have to be; see how a sale with us actually runs.
8. Closing day
The person holding the Letters signs the deed in their capacity for the estate, and the deed recites where that authority comes from — the recital is what a future title examiner looks for. Liens and taxes are paid from the proceeds on the settlement statement, and what remains is paid as the attorney directs, which in most estates means to the estate rather than to individual heirs. Ask the attorney where the money goes before closing, not after; it's a common surprise and an easy one to prevent.
The short version
- Letters in hand, certified and recent.
- Power of sale confirmed — in the will, or by order.
- Independent or dependent, and what that means for the timeline.
- If dependent, the court's sequence written into the contract.
- The title company's signature list, in writing, early.
- The property file gathered; nothing invented.
- A contract with no financing contingency and a court-shaped closing date.
- The attorney reads the contract; the attorney says where the proceeds go.
If the house is in Houston and a cash sale is on the table, we'll put a written offer in front of the estate whenever the family is ready and let it wait on the court — that's the whole approach, described on the probate page. Nothing is owed if the family decides to keep or list the house instead.