Do you want to buy your sibling out of inherited real estate?

For many parents planning their estate, their home will be their biggest asset. It is surprisingly common for parents to leave their home to all of their children jointly.

While your parents may have known that you weren’t going to live in the house together, they might have imagined that you would fix it up together to sell it or possibly work together as landlords who rent the property out to someone else.

Whether you hope to fix the house up and sell it, live there yourself or treat it as a rental unit, you may not want to handle the process with your siblings. How do you buy other heirs out of inherited real estate?

Get professional help to determine the fair market value

An essential first step is determining what the property is actually worth. A real estate professional can do a market comparison analysis to determine what similar properties are worth in your community.

Once you know what it is worth, you can then determine what is fair and reasonable. An even split of that value among all of the siblings sharing it is usually appropriate. However, if you or your siblings have contributed financially to its upkeep since your parents died, you may need to factor that money in to the offer you make.

What will you do if your sibling says no?

Before you make an offer to purchase the house or even start talking about it with your co-owners, you need to decide what strategy you want to take. Will you continue to pursue the issue if your sibling doesn’t agree? Will you ask them to buy you out if they don’t want to sell?

Knowing how to respond regardless of what answer you receive will make it easier for you to handle this process without endangering your relationships with your co-owners. An experienced real estate attorney can help.