You Inherited the House. Now What?

Your mom passed away in March. By June, you and your two brothers own a house together. Nobody planned for this. Nobody sat down and talked about it while she was alive. Now you're standing in her kitchen deciding what happens next.

CNBC covered this exact situation in a recent piece on inherited homes. The story follows families working through the same three options every heir faces. Sell it. Rent it. Keep it. Financial advisors interviewed for the piece made one point clear. There is no universal right answer. The right call depends on your family, your finances, and how honest everyone is willing to be with each other.

I've sat across the table from families in exactly this spot. Here's what actually matters when you're the one holding the keys.

The Tax Clock Starts Ticking Immediately

When someone dies, the home's cost basis resets to fair market value on the date of death. That reset works in your favor. It means you're not taxed on decades of appreciation your parents saw. You're only taxed on what happens after you inherit it. This is why getting an appraisal fast matters. Estate attorneys recommend doing it right after the owner passes. Wait six months and the market moves. The house appreciates. Now you owe capital gains tax on that gain, even though you never touched a dime of it. Families who sell close to that appraised value keep more of what they inherited. Families who wait, hoping the market climbs higher, sometimes hand a chunk of that gain straight to the IRS.

Siblings Rarely Want the Same Thing

This is where families get stuck. One sibling needs cash now. Another wants to hold the house as a rental. A third has a childhood attachment to the place and can't imagine selling. None of these positions are wrong. But a house cannot serve three different goals at once. If one sibling wants to keep the home, the honest path is a buyout. They pay the others for their share of the equity, based on a fair appraisal minus what it would actually cost to sell on the open market. Skip that step and you end up with resentment that outlasts the transaction by years. If nobody can agree, a temporary rental arrangement sometimes buys the family time to figure out the long-term plan without forcing a decision under pressure.

Keeping the House Costs More Than People Expect

A house is not a static asset. It's a bill you now own. Property taxes keep coming. Insurance premiums often increase after a policy transfers. Deferred maintenance surfaces fast once nobody's living there full time. A vacant home draws different insurance risk than an occupied one. Advisors quoted in the CNBC piece compared inheriting a home to managing a small business. You have to know what the property needs and have the cash flow to cover it. Sentiment doesn't pay the roofer.

Where This Usually Goes Wrong

Families don't fail because the math is hard. They fail because nobody had the conversation before grief showed up. Decisions made under deadline pressure, with siblings who haven't spoken about money before, produce the most expensive mistakes I see. A property sits empty for eight months while everyone avoids the conversation. Taxes and insurance keep accruing the whole time. By the time the family agrees to sell, they've paid for a decision they could have made in week two.

What To Do This Week

If you're the Personal Representative or the family member everyone's looking at, here's where to start.

1. Get the home appraised now. Don't wait for the market to "settle."
2. Get a clear number on what's owed. Mortgage, liens, back taxes.
3. Have the sell, rent, or keep conversation with every heir in the room, not over group text.
4. Bring in a real estate agent who has actually handled probate and estate sales before you list anything or sign anything.

That last one matters more than people think. Probate real estate isn't the same transaction as a normal resale. Court timelines, personal representative authority, and multiple heirs all change how the sale needs to move. An agent who hasn't done this before will slow you down and cost you money. If you're navigating this right now and want a second set of eyes on your specific situation, reach out. I've spent 27 years helping families through exactly this moment.

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