Selling a Memorial Home As-Is After a Death in the Family

Who signs the contract when a house is sold out of an estate?

The estate's personal representative signs, and the file has to show where that authority comes from. Texas Estates Code Section 306.007 makes letters testamentary or of administration, issued under the court's seal by the clerk of the court that granted them, sufficient evidence of the appointment and qualification of the personal representative of an estate and of the date of qualification.

Two routes produce that authority. In an independent administration, Texas Estates Code Section 402.052 gives an independent executor and an independent administrator the same power of sale a personal representative has in a supervised administration, without the requirement of court approval, unless limited by the terms of a will, and Texas Estates Code Section 402.053 says a purchaser who is not a devisee or heir, dealing with the representative in good faith, need not inquire into that power where the will grants it, where the appointing order grants it, or where the representative provides the sworn affidavit recorded in the deed records stating that the sale is necessary or advisable for a purpose the section describes. In a court-supervised administration, Texas Estates Code Section 356.001 provides that, except as provided by that chapter, estate property may not be sold without a court order authorizing the sale, and Texas Estates Code Section 356.557 requires a proper deed that refers to and identifies the court order approving the sale.

Whichever route the estate is in, the title company writes its own requirements for that file on Schedule C of its commitment, so ask for that list in writing before the property is listed. This site's page on letters testamentary and what a title company needs carries the authority and title material in detail.

Does an estate have to complete the Texas seller's disclosure notice?

Texas Property Code Section 5.008(a) states the general rule: 'A seller of residential real property comprising not more than one dwelling unit located in this state shall give to the purchaser of the property a written notice as prescribed by this section or a written notice substantially similar to the notice prescribed by this section which contains, at a minimum, all of the items in the notice prescribed by this section.'

Section 5.008(e) opens with the words 'This section does not apply to a transfer', and then lists eleven of them. Item (5) reads: 'by a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent's estate, guardianship, conservatorship, or trust.' Two neighbours on that list matter to an estate property. Item (1) covers a transfer 'pursuant to a court order or foreclosure sale', which is where a court-supervised sale sits. Item (6) covers a transfer 'from one co-owner to one or more other co-owners', which is the shape of a sale from one co-owner to another.

Whether a particular seller is a fiduciary in the course of an administration is a legal question, and the attorney working on the estate is the person who answers it for a specific sale. What the statute supplies is the wording above, quoted from the section itself.

The contract has a box for it. Paragraph 7B of the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale) carries three boxes and instructs the parties to check one box only. Box (3) reads: 'The Seller is not required to furnish the Seller's Disclosure Notice under the Texas Property Code.'

One duty runs on whichever box is checked. Texas Occupations Code Section 1101.652 lists grounds on which the commission may discipline a license holder for conduct while engaged in real estate brokerage, and two of them are about defects: Section 1101.652(b)(3) covers a license holder who makes a material misrepresentation to a potential buyer concerning a significant defect, including a latent structural defect, known to the license holder that would be a significant factor to a reasonable and prudent buyer in making a decision to purchase real property, and Section 1101.652(b)(4) covers one who fails to disclose to a potential buyer a defect described by Subdivision (3) that is known to the license holder. The exemption in Section 5.008(e) reaches one form, and Section 1101.652 reaches the license holder's own conduct.

What if the estate is not exempt, or gives the notice anyway?

Many estates deliver the notice whatever the exemption might allow. The form is TREC's Seller's Disclosure Notice, prepared by the Texas Real Estate Commission in accordance with Texas Property Code Section 5.008(b), and the copy to work from is the current version on TREC's site.

The notice opens with occupancy: 'Seller ___ is ___ is not occupying the Property. If unoccupied, how long since Seller has occupied the Property? ______' An estate meets that question on the first line of the form.

Section 5.008(d) answers the problem that follows. The notice shall be completed to the best of seller's belief and knowledge as of the date the notice is completed and signed by the seller, and where the information required by the notice is unknown to the seller, the seller shall indicate that fact on the notice, and by that act is in compliance with this section. A representative who never lived in the house answers to the best of that representative's own belief and knowledge, using what the estate's records establish, and marks unknown the information that is unknown, which is the compliant answer the statute describes.

Timing has its own rule. Section 5.008(f) requires the notice to be delivered by the seller to the purchaser on or before the effective date of an executory contract binding the purchaser to purchase the property, and where a contract is entered without the seller providing the notice required by that section, the purchaser may terminate the contract for any reason within seven days after receiving the notice. Paragraph 7B(2) of the contract mirrors that: the parties write a number of days after the Effective Date for delivery, and where the buyer does not receive the notice, the buyer may terminate at any time prior to the closing with the earnest money refunded, while a delivered notice gives the buyer 7 days after receipt or until prior to the closing, whichever first occurs.

Two clusters of items usually need work on a Memorial Villages file. Item 9 asks whether the seller is aware of 'Room additions, structural modifications, or other alterations or repairs made without necessary permits or not in compliance with building codes in effect at that time' and of 'Any notices of violations of deed restrictions or governmental ordinances affecting the condition or use of the Property'. The flood items ask about present flood insurance coverage, previous flooding due to a failure or breach of a reservoir or a controlled or emergency release of water from a reservoir, previous water penetration into a structure due to a natural flood event, location wholly or partly in a 100-year floodplain, any claim for flood damage filed with an insurance provider including the National Flood Insurance Program, and any assistance received from FEMA or the U.S. Small Business Administration for flood damage.

Does a death in the house have to be disclosed?

Texas Property Code Section 5.008(c) reads: 'A seller or seller's agent shall have no duty to make a disclosure or release information related to whether a death by natural causes, suicide, or accident unrelated to the condition of the property occurred on the property or whether a previous occupant had, may have had, has, or may have AIDS, HIV related illnesses, or HIV infection.'

The qualifier inside that sentence carries the answer. The accident category is limited by the words 'unrelated to the condition of the property', so an accidental death connected to a condition of the property sits outside what the subsection releases.

The subsection lifts a duty, and it leaves answering available to a seller who chooses to answer. It also leaves the license holder's grounds under Texas Occupations Code Section 1101.652 exactly where they were, because those grounds are about a significant defect known to the license holder that would be a significant factor to a reasonable and prudent buyer. Whether a particular death falls inside Section 5.008(c) is decided on facts, by the attorney the estate retains.

What does selling as-is actually change?

Paragraph 7D of the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale) supplies the definition: 'As Is' means the present condition of the Property with any and all defects and without warranty except for the warranties of title and the warranties in this contract.

The same paragraph states what agreeing to it leaves intact: a buyer's agreement to accept the Property As Is under Paragraph 7D (1) or (2) 'does not preclude Buyer from inspecting the Property under Paragraph 7A, from negotiating repairs or treatments in a subsequent amendment, or from terminating this contract during the Option Period, if any.'

There are two As Is boxes. Box (1) is Buyer accepts the Property As Is. Box (2) is Buyer accepts the Property As Is provided Seller, at Seller's expense, shall complete listed specific repairs and treatments, and the form prints its own warning in that blank: 'Do not insert general phrases, such as subject to inspections that do not identify specific repairs and treatments.'

Two seller obligations run through a sale in current condition anyway. Under Paragraph 7A the Seller shall permit Buyer and Buyer's agents access to the Property at reasonable times, and Seller at Seller's expense shall immediately cause existing utilities to be turned on and shall keep the utilities on during the time this contract is in effect. Lender required repairs sit in Paragraph 7E, where neither party is obligated to pay for them unless otherwise agreed in writing, the contract terminates with the earnest money refunded where the parties do not agree to pay, and where the cost exceeds 5 percent of the Sales Price the buyer may terminate with the earnest money refunded.

Where does the option period sit in the current contract?

In the contract carrying TREC No. 20-19 and the date 05-04-2026 on its face, the termination option is Paragraph 5B, inside Paragraph 5, which is earnest money and termination option. Property condition is Paragraph 7, with the disclosure boxes at 7B and the As Is boxes at 7D.

Under Paragraph 5B the Seller grants Buyer the unrestricted right to terminate the contract by giving notice of termination to Seller within a stated number of days after the Effective Date, which the paragraph calls the Option Period, and notices under that paragraph must be given by 5:00 p.m. (local time where the Property is located) by the date specified. Where the buyer gives notice of termination within the time prescribed, the option fee will not be refunded and any earnest money will be refunded to the buyer.

Paragraph 5 sets conditions on that right. Where no dollar amount is stated as the option fee, or the buyer fails to deliver the option fee within the time required, the buyer shall not have the unrestricted right to terminate under that paragraph, and the contract adds that time is of the essence for it and strict compliance with the time for performance is required.

An estate seller cares about that window because it is where the work happens. A buyer who has checked an As Is box does the inspecting during the option period, and that is the stretch in which a sale in current condition most often changes shape, through a subsequent amendment or through a termination notice delivered on time.

What belongs on the file before a Memorial Villages estate property is listed?

Start with the parcel's Harris Central Appraisal District account. It lists the taxing units, the recorded exemptions and the reported living area that any price per square foot rests on.

Then the village's own permit records for anything built or added. Each of the six villages (Hunters Creek, Piney Point, Hedwig, Bunker Hill, Spring Valley and Hilshire) is an incorporated city that issues its own permits, reported living area can omit unpermitted additions, and item 9 of the notice asks about room additions, structural modifications, or other alterations or repairs made without necessary permits.

Then the flood plain answer for the address, because the notice's flood items ask about floodplain location, previous flooding, a flood damage claim and assistance from FEMA or the U.S. Small Business Administration. Floodplain status is decided parcel by parcel.

Then the estate's own authority documents, in whichever form the route produced them: the letters, a power of sale in the will, the appointing order, a recorded affidavit, or the order approving the sale.

The pool of closed sales a price rests on is small: 204 homes sold across the six villages in the trailing twelve months as of October 2026.

What can this page not tell you?

Four questions stay open, and each one belongs to somebody holding the file. Whether the fiduciary exemption applies turns on whether the seller is a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent's estate, and the attorney working on the estate answers that, as they do whether any of the other ten transfers on the Section 5.008(e) list fits the sale.

Whether a particular death falls inside Section 5.008(c) turns on the qualifier in that subsection applied to facts. What a sale in current condition gives up in price here is read off closed sales of similar age, lot size and condition inside the same village.

What a title company will require comes from that company. The promulgated Form T-7 in the Texas Department of Insurance Title Basic Manual says Schedule C of the Commitment lists these requirements that must be satisfied or the Company will refuse to cover them, and the list is written for one file, so ask for Schedule C in writing.

The contract described above carries TREC No. 20-19 and the date 05-04-2026 on its face. Form numbers change without notice, so confirm the current version on TREC's own form page, and take the Seller's Disclosure Notice from the current version on TREC's site. The statutes and promulgated forms above are the general rules; advice on a specific sale comes from an attorney the estate retains.