The First 90 Days A Field Guide for Families Who Have Inherited a Home

The first two weeks are the most expensive ones to rush through and the easiest ones to over-act in. Grief, logistics, and the sudden arrival of mail addressed to someone who has died all push toward the same instinct, which is to do something. Most of the something is irreversible. A house emptied too quickly loses items that turn out to matter. A verbal yes to a neighbor or an investor anchors a number that becomes hard to move off. A cleaning company hired in the first week can throw away the paperwork the estate needs.

The discipline in weeks one and two is the opposite of action. Secure the building, gather the paperwork, notify the right people, and commit to nothing. If a cash offer arrives in this window, the answer is a polite acknowledgment and a request for it in writing, filed away for later. Speed is not the strategy in the first two weeks.

Secure the building

• Call the insurance carrier this week. Most standard homeowners policies restrict or void coverage once a home sits vacant, commonly somewhere in the 30 to 60 day range. Ask specifically about a vacant-dwelling endorsement. This is the item on the whole list that can cost the most and it cannot wait for the court.
• Water off at the main, lines drained, heat held around 55 through the cold months. An uninsured burst pipe in February is the expensive version of this sentence.
• Utilities stay on for now, even with nobody living there, so the building does not deteriorate from being cold, damp, or unmonitored.
• Locks changed if appropriate, mail forwarded, valuables documented and secured, and someone walking the house weekly.

Gather the paperwork before anyone throws anything away

• The deed, the will or trust documents, recent tax bills, the insurance policy, any mortgage statement, and the utility accounts, all into one folder, physical or digital.
• The exact date of death, because two Massachusetts clocks run from it. Creditors generally have one year from the date of death to bring claims, and there is a general three-year limit on opening probate.
• Confirm whether the land is recorded or registered. Registered land clears through the Land Court certificate system and can add steps and time. It is one of the most commonly missed issues in Massachusetts estate sales, and finding out in week one is free.

Notify the right people

Retain or confirm the estate attorney. Give a tax professional a heads up that an inherited property is now part of the picture, even if there is nothing to file yet. Then send a short note to each heir, in writing, saying that no decisions about the house are being made yet and that there will be a conversation in the next 30 to 60 days once the basics are mapped. That single message prevents most of the family friction that shows up later, because it sets the expectation that the property gets discussed together rather than in side conversations.

One Massachusetts fact worth knowing in week one if a spouse survived: the surviving spouse may remain in the home for up to six months after the date of death without being chargeable for rent. That is a statutory right, not a courtesy, and it comes up fast whenever relatives start talking about how quickly to sell.

By week three the dust settles enough that the house can be looked at on its own terms rather than as a piece of the grief. This is the phase where the inheritance becomes something specific instead of something heavy. There are four facts to gather, and the order among them matters less than the discipline of having all four before the conversation about selling begins.

Fact one: the legal status, meaning who can actually sign

Most families assume probate is a formality and the house is already theirs to sell. Sometimes it is. Often it is not, and the gap between those two is where months disappear.

• Being appointed Personal Representative is not, by itself, authority to sell. Letters of Authority alone do not let anyone sign a deed to an outside buyer. A personal representative conveys to an arm's-length buyer only where the will granted a power of sale, or where the court issued a license to sell.
• Read the will for the power of sale clause, not just for whether a will exists. A Massachusetts will without an adequate power of sale leaves the estate needing that separate court license, the same as no will at all for selling purposes.
• Who signs depends on how title was held. In a trust, the successor trustee. Held jointly or as tenants by the entirety, the survivor once the death is documented in the title record. Through the estate, the personal representative, and only if authorized. In some situations every heir or devisee has to sign.
• If the personal representative was appointed in another state, that appointment alone generally does not convey Massachusetts real estate. There is a Massachusetts path for a foreign personal representative to get a license to sell, and the court looks for at least six months to have passed since the death. Out-of-state heirs should raise this in week three, not week ten.
• Ask about summary administration by name. The small-estate shortcut most people have heard of, voluntary administration, cannot transfer real estate at all. If there is a house, that path is off the table. There is a second, different small-estate procedure that is not categorically barred from real estate. Your attorney knows which one, if either, fits.

Fact two: the tax position

This is the fact that takes the most fear out of the room, and the one most families learn last.

• Step-up in basis. Under federal law, basis in inherited property is generally stepped up to fair market value at the date of death. Tax is owed on the gain above that value, not above what your parents paid decades ago. "We will owe tax on fifty years of appreciation" is almost never how it works.
• Massachusetts taxes long-term capital gain at a flat 5%, with an additional 4% surtax on total taxable income above a threshold that is adjusted every year. Classification questions are technical and belong with a tax professional.
• Massachusetts has an estate tax, not an inheritance tax. It is paid by the estate. The filing threshold is $2,000,000, and it is not indexed for inflation, so it catches more Massachusetts families every year. There is a credit that reduces the tax, which is not the same thing as the first dollars being exempt.
• An estate tax lien attaches to Massachusetts real estate automatically at death, with no notice to the family, even where no tax ends up being owed. If the estate is over the threshold, ask the attorney to get the release moving early, because on a house that goes under agreement before the estate tax return is filed, that release is the piece standing between the family and the closing table.
• The homeowner exclusion most people are thinking of does not usually apply here. The federal home-sale exclusion is for a primary residence you lived in, so most heirs selling an inherited house cannot use it.

Get the tax conversation into week three or four, not after a sale is already in motion.

Fact three: the family alignment

The conversation about the house is also a conversation about the family. Each heir has a different financial position, a different emotional connection to the home, and often a different opinion about what should happen. Co-heirs who inherit together usually hold as tenants in common, each with an undivided share, which in plain terms means no one of them can sell the house alone and any one of them can eventually force the issue in court.

That court backstop is a partition action, and it is slow, public, and costly, and it usually returns less to everyone than a negotiated plan would have. Massachusetts has not adopted the heirs-property protections some other states have, so do not assume a softer version applies here. Shared numbers early are the cheapest conflict prevention there is.

Set the first full family conversation for week four or five, once the legal and tax pictures are clear enough to share. Everyone on the same call at the same time. The agenda is not what to do with the house. The agenda is what each heir's situation, timeline, and honest position actually is. The what-to-do conversation comes later, with more information in the room.

Fact four: the honest read on the building

By the end of week six you want a clear picture of what the property actually is. Not a renovation plan. Not a wishlist. The systems, the major components, the deferred maintenance, the contents that still need sorting, and the realistic buyer pool for the house as it sits today. A walkthrough with someone who looks at homes for a living is worth more than three opinions from family members who have not been inside in years.

By the start of week seven you have the facts. The legal status is clear, the tax position is mapped, the family has had at least one real conversation, and the condition is understood. This is the phase where the path gets chosen with enough information that the choice holds up in a year, in five years, and at the next holiday.

Most inherited homes get sold on the open market by default, because that is the path most agents lead with. For plenty of properties that is the right call. For others, a different path produces a meaningfully better outcome. There are five worth comparing, and the right one is the one that fits the answers from the first six weeks.

Whichever two or three fit, each one gets a realistic net number, a realistic timeline, and an honest note on what it asks of the family between now and the close. The comparison is the document. The conversation about the comparison is the decision.

Three Massachusetts cost lines belong in any version of that sheet. The deed excise tax runs $4.56 per $1,000 of sale price in thirteen of the fourteen counties, which covers all of Greater Boston and the South Shore. Barnstable County is higher, and Dukes and Nantucket add a land bank fee on top. Unpaid property taxes, water, and sewer become municipal charges payable at or before closing. And any senior or veteran exemption the prior owner had was tied to that owner and generally ends at death, so the going-forward tax bill is not the one on the last statement in the kitchen drawer.

These three phases are not the only way to navigate the first 90 days, but they are the rhythm I have watched separate the families who land in a good place from the ones who carry regret about the house for years. The pause first. The facts second. The path third.

If you are at the very beginning, the next move is usually one of these three:

1. 1Make the insurance call from Phase One, today.
2. 2Confirm with the estate attorney whether the will contains a power of sale clause, this week.
3. 3Get the two-column net sheet from Phase Three built, so every conversation about the path after it has real numbers in the room.