Questions we get from DC families

In most cases yes, once a personal representative has been appointed and holds Letters of Administration. The sale typically runs in parallel with the estate rather than waiting for it to close. What varies is whether your administration is supervised, which can add an approval or notice step — that's a question for your attorney about your specific case.

Not automatically, and plenty of simple estates are opened without one. The Office of the Register of Wills itself recommends consulting an attorney for more complicated estates, where the person seeking appointment isn't the one named in the will or the next of kin, or where legal advice is otherwise desirable. We have a network of independent attorneys we can refer you to if needed. We have no affiliation with, ownership interest in, or financial relationship with those attorneys, and we receive no referral fee from them.

Claims against an estate are generally barred unless presented within six months after first publication of the notice of appointment, which sets a practical floor. Straightforward, uncontested DC estates commonly run from roughly nine months to about a year and a half. Contested estates, unclear heirs, or a property that is slow to sell push that out further.

D.C. Code § 20-351 allows property valued at $80,000 or less to be administered as a small estate — a figure raised by the Strengthening Probate Administration Amendment Act of 2024. A great deal of what's online still cites the older $40,000 number. In practice, DC real estate usually pushes an estate past the threshold anyway.

No. We look at properties in that condition regularly and can tell you what the house is worth as-is and whether clearing it out would actually change the number. Sometimes it does and sometimes it genuinely doesn't — it's worth asking before you spend money on it.

It's the most common hard situation in probate real estate. Usually the disagreement is about information rather than money, and a neutral written opinion of value sent to every heir at the same time resolves a surprising number of them. Where it's a genuine legal dispute — someone occupying the property, or talk of partition — that needs a lawyer, not an agent.

Sometimes, and we'll tell you plainly when that's the case. Where we purchase a property directly we are acting as a principal buyer and not as your agent, and that role is disclosed to you in writing before any agreement. If your administration is supervised or the heirs are in conflict, we will usually recommend an open-market sale instead, because a documented, marketed sale is far easier for a personal representative to defend.

Some are legitimate and some are considerably below market. We'll price-check any written offer you've received at no charge, whether or not you ever work with us — it takes us about a day.

A personal representative generally must prepare a verified inventory within three months of appointment showing the fair market value of estate property as of the date of death. That's a different number from what the house is worth today, and it isn't the tax assessment. We prepare written date-of-death opinions of value for estates regularly. How the number is used on the estate's filings is a question for your attorney or CPA.

Yes, significantly. DC has some of the strongest tenant protections in the country, and certain rights can attach when a property is sold. This is not a situation to improvise in — it needs to be handled by people who know the current rules, and often by counsel.

Our probate focus is the District specifically — the Register of Wills, DC's rules, DC's neighborhoods. Serhant DMV LLC is licensed in DC, Maryland and Virginia, so we can help with property in the wider region, but this site is about DC probate because that's where the specialization is.

Nothing, and there's no obligation to list. A conversation, a walkthrough, and a written opinion of value are things we do for families who are a year away from deciding anything.