Executor'S Deed: Fill & Download for Free

Great question.There are two legal documents in play here. One is the Will itself and the other is the Deed of the property. A Will stipulates how an estate is to be disbursed upon death. A Deed identifies ownership of real property and is the governing document.So….. if your grandmother had a restriction recorded on the Deed and filed with the Clerk of Court in your county and that Deed Restriction specified that the property be kept in the family, then no you cannot sell the property to anyone outside of the family. However, if the Deed does not have a Deed Restriction recorded, then yes, you can legally sell the property. In that case, the question is, will the Probate Judge order that the Restrictive Covenant be placed onto the Deed when the estate is probated? If the Judge adds the Restrictive Covenant, then you are back to no, you cannot sell the property outside the family.Adding to the complexity of this situation, what if the Executor of the will decides to sell the property to pay off debts on the estate and sells it to someone outside the family before the estate is fully probated? Mmmmmm this could get messy. It could be argued that the Executor did not perform his/her duty as the Executor if he/she did something contrary to what was spelled out in the will. Depending on the size of the estate, I could see a huge lawsuit in this situation.Let’s make it even more interesting…… what if you have Power of Attorney and your Grandmother is still alive but not able to attend to her affairs by herself (thus the reason she gave you POA)? What if you sold the property before she passed and the will was even read? Legal? Yes. Moral? Probably not.Want to make this even more interesting? What if you married the person you wanted to sell the property to? That would satisfy the stipulations of the will.The larger question here is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind of person who tries to do good or are you the kind of person who takes advantage of others?Might I remind you of the “Laws of Reciprocity” if you are a Godly man or “What Goes Around Comes Around” if you are a worldly person. My suggestion would be to do the right thing and abide by your Grandmother’s wishes.UPDATE: Several have suggested that the “Rule Against Perpetuities” would prevent a person from putting such restrictions on their property as to prevent the transfer of ownership to anyone other than a relative. While I agree this could present some challenges in this situation, there are limitations to the Rule Against Perpetuities. Examples are a 21 year period in which the rule may not apply or may be delayed after the death of the original owner. Another example is the unlimited time period an Executor has to administer the will and disburse proceeds. This could take years, decades or longer should the Executor choose to do so. There is also the fact that while a provision in a Will or Deed may not be legally enforceable, that may not prevent a person from putting it in there anyway. A court would have to rule on it as enforceable or not (creating further delays in disbursement of proceeds). Bottom line is, yes there are “Rules Against Perpetuities” which can be pushed, avoided, ignored or followed. The courts will ultimately make the final decision if parties to the will (or Deed) are contested. I guess the Attorney’s are the winners here.Here is a link with more details on “Rules Against Perpetuities”. Read all the way down to learn what happened to Batman’s Batcave after he passed.

I’m not sure what information you are actually looking for but the deed may not be as old as you think. A deed is a document drawn up to transfer ownership interest in real estate. If ownership transfers, even within a family via inheritance a deed is drawn and recorded. In this case it would be an executors deed. So someone could have lived or had an interest in a property for many years and the deed of record might be a year old. If you are looking for properties that have been in the same family for 100 or more years the age of the deed is probably not the way to look.

State laws vary but generally after probate the property is deeded via an executor/executrix deed to the beneficiary(s). The new deed is recorded and then they can sell the property. I am getting ready to list such a property in my area and the tax records reflect and executors deed transferring the title to the property.