Understanding the probate process for selling a home
Published September 4, 2026
Read transcript
Hi, my name is Jeremy Barzycki. I'm a real estate professional who focuses on clients who have inherited a property or who are going through the probate process. I am not an attorney, so this isn't legal advice — I just want to give you a little information about how the probate process works, very generally.
In step one, you file a petition with the court. That petition is filed where the decedent lived at the time of their passing. Once that petition is filed, at that first court hearing the court will assign a personal representative, or administrator, over the estate.
Once that person is decided, they'll collect a list of everything the decedent owned — bank accounts, savings accounts, house information, furniture, jewelry, anything of value.
There's also what's called a creditor period. Once probate is filed, that's three months in the state of Indiana. That gives creditors a period of time to collect whatever debts are owed to them. Once those debts have been paid, whatever's left of the estate — whether money or personal belongings — is distributed among the heirs.
I'm also asked a lot whether the house needs to go through the probate process before it can be sold. That answer is a little more complex, but to keep it simple: sometimes yes, and sometimes no.
In the state of Indiana, you have what's called a supervised estate and an unsupervised estate. In an unsupervised estate, the personal representative, or administrator, can sell assets, belongings, and the home without needing a judge's approval at every step. A supervised estate looks a little different, and most of the time that happens when family members aren't getting along and nobody can agree on anything — which makes things more difficult and adds to the timeline. But in an unsupervised estate, yes, you absolutely can sell without going back to the judge every time.
You don't have to call somebody right away — you can take your time. But if you want to have that conversation, you can always reach out and we can talk about whether that makes sense for you. If you want to talk about your situation more, or if you have more questions, I hope this video was helpful, but feel free to reach out to me anytime.
“Probate” is one of those words that shows up right when you have the least energy to decode it. In general terms, probate is the court process that confirms who’s legally allowed to act on behalf of someone’s estate — which includes deciding what happens to a home they owned.
This page is meant to give you the shape of the process, not the specifics. The specifics depend on the estate, the county, and Indiana law, and getting them wrong can cause real problems, so those parts are marked clearly below for verification rather than guessed at.
The general shape of it
- Someone is appointed (by the court, or sometimes named in a will) to act on behalf of the estate.
- That person gathers and accounts for what the estate owns, the home included.
- Debts and expenses tied to the estate are addressed.
- What’s left, including the home or its proceeds, goes to the heirs.
Selling the home can happen at different points in that process depending on the situation — sometimes it needs court approval, sometimes it doesn’t.
The parts that need a verified answer, not a guess
Whether a home sale during probate needs a judge’s approval depends on how the estate is being administered. Most estates qualify for what Indiana calls “unsupervised administration” — once the personal representative is officially appointed by the court, they can list, negotiate, and close on the house without going back for a judge’s sign-off at every step. Court approval only becomes necessary under “supervised administration,” which typically comes up when heirs disagree or the will requires closer oversight, and it can stretch the timeline from a typical five to nine months out to nine to eighteen months or more.
One number worth knowing: Indiana lets estates with $100,000 or less in personal belongings, things like bank accounts and vehicles, skip probate entirely through a simplified affidavit. A house almost always still requires an estate to be opened before it can be sold, though, so this threshold rarely applies on its own when a home is involved.
Probate is filed in the county where the person who died was living at the time — not where the heirs live, or where the property happens to be. Across Lake, Porter, Newton, Jasper, and LaPorte counties, that means the process looks a little different county to county: in Lake and Porter counties it typically runs through Superior Court, while in the smaller counties — Newton, Jasper, and LaPorte — it’s often handled through Circuit Court instead.
The underlying process is the same everywhere in Indiana, since it’s governed by the same state probate law regardless of county, so the requirements don’t change from one county to the next, just the pace. A smaller county with one court handling everything can sometimes move a case faster than a busier courthouse, but either way, most families should expect a similar general timeline: a matter of months, not weeks, before a home can close.
Where an agent fits into this
None of this requires hiring a real estate agent right away, and it’s fine to wait until you have a clearer picture. When you do reach the point of deciding whether and how to sell, we can walk through what that looks like for your situation specifically — including how a sale interacts with whatever stage probate is at.
For the parts of this that are legal rather than practical, we’ll always point you toward an attorney rather than guess.