Pre-probate vs probate vs inheritance deed: what each record contains

What is pre-probate?

Pre-probate is not a record. It is a stage: the owner has died, but nobody has opened an estate in court yet. In that window the house usually still sits in the dead owner's name on the county tax roll, the tax bill keeps coming, and the family is deciding what to do.

Sources for this stage are outside the property record: obituaries and funeral notices. Property records only show hints, such as a tax bill that is still mailed to the owner, or a balance that starts to go unpaid. Be careful and respectful here: the family is grieving, and a first contact should offer help, not pressure.

What is probate?

Probate is the court process that proves a will (if there is one), names an executor or administrator, pays debts and passes property to heirs. It happens in the county probate or surrogate court. The public file normally shows the case number, the filing date, the name of the person who died and the person in charge of the estate.

Whether the house appears in the file depends on the state and the county. Some courts publish a searchable index; others only let you look cases up one by one. Small estates in many states can skip the full process. That is why a list of every probate case in a county is rare, and why we say "probate" only where a county really publishes it.

What is an inheritance deed?

An inheritance deed is any recorded deed that moves a house because of a death. It is filed with the county recorder or clerk, so it is a public land record in every county. Common forms are an executor's or fiduciary deed, a certificate of transfer, an affidavit of survivorship or of death, a deed of distribution and a transfer-on-death deed. Most show no price (a $0 transfer).

The deed names who received the house and the date. That date is what investors watch: heirs who live far away and inherited a house in the last year often decide within a year whether to keep it.

The three records side by side

• Pre-probate: no filing. Found through obituaries and a tax roll that has not changed. Tells you an owner died.
• Probate: a court file in the county probate court. Tells you who is in charge of the estate and, in some counties, which property is involved.
• Inheritance deed: a deed in the county recorder's land records. Tells you who owns the house now and when it moved.

What LeadCounty counts

LeadCounty counts inheritance deeds from each county's recorded deeds and shows them as the Inheritance deed list. A separate Estate / heirs owner list marks houses whose owner of record is still an estate or heirs. Where a county publishes probate filings, they are added and named as such on the county page. Counts and the exact county source are on each county page, refreshed weekly.