My Parent Died: How to Sell an Inherited House in Columbus

Your mom or dad just passed, and now their house is somehow your problem, and you honestly have no idea what you're allowed to do with it. Here's the plain answer: in Ohio you generally cannot sell a deceased parent's house in Columbus until the estate is opened in probate and the court names an executor or administrator. Once that person is appointed, there are three legal routes to sell their house, and the right one depends on what the will says. Pick wrong and a sale can stall for months while a house near the region's $350,000 median value sits empty, with insurance, utilities, and property taxes bleeding out the whole time.

I'm Adam Geuy, and I'm a REALTOR, not an attorney. So let me walk you through what families actually go through, in the order it happens.

What's the very first thing I have to do?

Before anyone can sign a listing agreement, somebody has to be legally in charge of the estate. That means opening probate in the county where your parent lived and getting appointed as executor (if there's a will that names you) or administrator (if there isn't). Central Ohio estates run through the county probate court, a division of the Court of Common Pleas: Franklin for most of Columbus, plus Delaware, Licking, Fairfield, Union, Madison, and Pickaway depending on the address.

Two clocks start the moment you're appointed. Ohio law gives you three months to file the estate inventory, which lists the house among the assets (ORC 2115.02). Separately, creditors have six months from the date of death to bring claims against the estate (ORC 2117.06). That second clock is why most estates can't fully close before roughly six months, even a clean one with no fighting. So you plan the sale around those windows instead of getting blindsided by them halfway through.

Can I sell the house before probate is finished?

Usually yes, and this is exactly where families get stuck, because there isn't one rule. There are three routes, and they are not interchangeable.

1. The will grants a power of sale. If your parent's will authorizes the executor to sell real property, Ohio law says no probate court order is required to sell (ORC 2113.39). This is the cleanest path. The will does the heavy lifting, and you can list close to a normal sale.

2. No power of sale, but everyone agrees. If the will is silent, or there's no will at all, you can still sell without a court land-sale action when the surviving spouse and all the heirs or devisees consent in writing, as long as the price is at least 80 percent of the appraised value in the approved inventory (ORC 2127.011). That 80 percent floor is real, so the inventory appraisal matters more than most people realize.

3. Nobody agrees, or the estate needs court supervision. Then you file a land sale proceeding, a court action asking for authority to sell the real property (ORC 2127.04). It's slower and more formal, but it exists precisely for the messy cases.

Here's the catch: you often can't tell which route you're on by reading the will yourself. The language is technical, and the gap between a vague "may sell" and an express power of sale is worth months. That's a job for a probate attorney, not for me.

Do I need a probate attorney, or can I just call a Realtor?

You need both, and the order matters. I'm a REALTOR, not an attorney, and I'll never pretend otherwise. The attorney tells you which of those three routes your estate is on and keeps you out of personal liability. That one conversation is what turns this from a fog into a checklist.

Here's the part nobody warns you about. Some probate attorneys will happily handle the legal side and then hand your listing to a Realtor friend of theirs, as a favor between the two of them, not a decision you actually got to make. So call me first. If you don't already have a probate attorney, I'll connect you with an excellent one. It costs you nothing, and you still get to pick your own agent. I'm on your side here, and I'd rather walk you to the right attorney than let the listing get quietly traded away.

What will the estate owe in taxes when we sell?

Less than most people fear. Ohio repealed its estate tax for anyone who died on or after January 1, 2013 (ORC 5731.02), so there's no Ohio estate tax and no Ohio inheritance tax on your parent's house today.

The bigger factor is federal, and it usually works in your favor. Under the stepped-up basis rule (26 U.S. Code 1014), inherited property gets a new cost basis equal to its fair market value on the date of death, not what your parent paid decades ago. So if they bought the place for $60,000 in 1978 and it's worth $340,000 now, that pre-death appreciation generally isn't taxed as a capital gain. You'd only owe on gains above the date-of-death value after you inherit it. That's exactly why a solid date-of-death valuation matters, and why I'm not your CPA. Get one to run your specific numbers.

Isn't this just an estate sale?

No, and the two get mixed up constantly. An estate sale is the sale of the personal property inside the house: the furniture, the tools, the china, the collectibles. A probate sale is the sale of the real property, the house itself, handled through the probate process. Different events, different buyers, sometimes different days. I break the whole thing down in Estate Sale vs Probate Sale: What's the Difference in Columbus?, and if you want to know how to choose the right agent for this exact situation, start with Who's the Best Realtor for Probate and Estate Sales in Columbus?.

How do I even know what the house is worth?

This is where I earn my keep. Three generations of German carpenters raised me, and I read a house the way they taught me. I call it the carpenter read. An inherited house has usually been lived in and loved for thirty or forty years and not touched since. A lot of agents walk in, see dated, and knock $40,000 off the price in their head on the spot. I walk in and check whether the bones are honest: the roofline, the foundation, the additions, what's cosmetic and cheap to fix versus what's structural and real. That read is the difference between leaving money on the table and pricing it right.

And right now, pricing it right pays. The Columbus REALTORS report for May 2026 put the central Ohio median sale price at $350,000, up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, with supply still tight at 2.0 months, well under the four to six months that would signal a balanced market. Prices are climbing, but buyers here are patient and selective. Average days on market actually ticked up a day from the year before, to 29. This isn't a market where anything with a sign in the yard flies off in a weekend. It's one where a correctly priced, well-presented estate home gets rewarded, and a wrongly priced one gets quietly passed over while the estate keeps paying to hold it. As Columbus REALTORS president Gloria Alonso Cannon put it, "central Ohio buyers are active and ready."

Here's what I'll do for you

Send me the address of your parent's house. I'll pull the parcel-level numbers and give you a real valuation range for that exact property, plus a seller net sheet that shows what the estate would actually walk away with after costs. That's the number your family is really asking about, and I'll get it to you free, no obligation, whether you're weeks into probate or just starting to think about any of this.

You can also start with the inherited a house guide for the full walkthrough.

Call or text me at 937.239.2919, or grab a time at calendly.com/adam-geuy. When you're ready, we'll do this at your pace.

Adam Geuy, Realtor - NextHome Experience
ABR, PSA, SRS | License #2020007964
937.239.2919 | calendly.com/adam-geuy

Each office is independently owned and operated.

Sources

• Columbus REALTORS Central Ohio Housing Report, May 2026. Median sale price $350,000 (up 4.3% YoY), 2.0 months supply, average days on market 29 (up 1 day YoY), and the Gloria Alonso Cannon quote. Reported May 2026.
• Ohio Revised Code 2115.02. The estate inventory must be filed within three months of appointment. Current statute, verified July 2026.
• Ohio Revised Code 2117.06. Creditor claims must be presented within six months of the decedent's death. Current statute, verified July 2026.
• Ohio Revised Code 2113.39. A will's power of sale lets the fiduciary sell real property without a probate court order. Current statute, verified July 2026.
• Ohio Revised Code 2127.011. Sale without a land sale proceeding when all heirs/devisees consent in writing and the price is at least 80% of appraised value. Current statute, verified July 2026.
• Ohio Revised Code 2127.04. The land sale proceeding, a court action for authority to sell estate real property. Current statute, verified July 2026.
• Ohio Revised Code 5731.02. Ohio estate tax repealed for deaths on or after January 1, 2013. Current statute, verified July 2026.
• 26 U.S. Code 1014 (Cornell Law LII). Stepped-up basis to date-of-death fair market value for inherited property. Current federal statute, verified July 2026.
• Probate Mastery, "Estate Sale vs. Probate Sale Explained". Plain-English distinction between selling personal property (estate sale) and real property (probate sale). Accessed July 2026.