A probate lead is a court filing. Someone has died owning a house, the estate has to pass through the court before the house can change hands, and the petition that opens the case is a public record naming the person who died, the person asking to be put in charge of the estate, and usually the lawyer who filed it. That is the lead: a document with three names on it and a property address somewhere inside. It is not a seller, not yet, and the value of the list depends on understanding which of the three names can eventually sign a listing agreement and when.
The pre-foreclosure opener argues that a list built on a public record should be understood as a record before anyone writes a script for it. Probate is the other list where that is true, and the record here is stranger than a notice of default, because the owner of the house is dead and the person you will speak to may not have any authority yet.
The three names
The decedent. The person who died. Their name is on the deed and, in most purchased data, their phone number is still attached to the property. That number now rings in the house they lived in, and the person who answers is a widow, a son who moved back in to handle things, or nobody. There is no version of a prospecting call to that number that goes well, and there is no legal theory under which the decedent gave consent to anything. Strip it from the record before the list reaches a dialer. This is the single most important operational rule on a probate list and the one that vendor lists quietly ignore.
The petitioner, who becomes the personal representative. The person who asked the court to be put in charge. If the will named them, they are usually called the executor; if there was no will or the will named nobody able to serve, the court appoints an administrator. Both are personal representatives, and until the court issues the document that appoints them, generally called letters, letters testamentary, or letters of administration depending on the state and the situation, they have no authority to sell anything. A petition is a request. Letters are the answer. The date the letters issue is the date a listing becomes signable, and a call made before that date is a call to someone who cannot yet act.
The attorney of record. Most probate petitions are filed by a lawyer, whose name and phone number are on the first page. The attorney represents the personal representative in the court proceeding, and in practice is often the person who knows whether the house will be sold, when, and by whom. Nothing in the calling rules stops an agent from contacting the representative directly, and the rules that restrict lawyers from contacting represented parties bind lawyers, not agents. Routing the first contact through the attorney is nonetheless a choice many agents make, because it is courteous, because the attorney fields these calls professionally, and because an attorney who has three probates a month and no agent they trust is worth more than any single listing.
Heirs are not sellers
The name agents most often get wrong is the one that is not on the filing at all. An heir, a child or sibling who stands to inherit, may be the person answering the phone, the person most interested in selling, and the person who called you back, and unless they are also the appointed personal representative they cannot sign a listing, accept an offer, or convey the property. Estates with several heirs and one representative are the ordinary case, and an agent who spends a month working with the heir who wanted to sell discovers at the listing appointment that the sister in another state holds the letters and has a different plan.
So the first question on any probate contact, before anything about the house, is who the personal representative is and whether letters have issued. The answer sorts the record. A representative with letters is a seller who can act. A petitioner without letters is a seller in a few weeks. An heir is a source of information and, with luck, an introduction.
Full authority, limited authority, and what the sale looks like
How the house gets sold depends on state law and on how much authority the court gave the representative, and California’s two-tier system is the clearest illustration of a distinction that exists in some form in many states.
Under California’s Independent Administration of Estates Act, a representative granted full authority can sell real property without a court hearing, by giving the interested parties a notice of proposed action under Probate Code 10580 and proceeding if nobody objects. That sale looks like an ordinary listing with an extra notice period and an extra signature line. A representative with limited authority cannot do that. Probate Code 10501(b) lists the sale of real property, its exchange, and the grant of an option on it among the actions that require court supervision, which means the accepted offer goes to a confirmation hearing where other bidders may appear. Under Probate Code 10311, an overbid at that hearing has to exceed the original offer by at least ten percent of the first ten thousand dollars and five percent of the rest, and the buyer who wrote the first offer can lose the house in the courtroom.
Two consequences for the agent. The authority level is on the letters, and it should be in the record before the listing conversation, because it determines whether you are marketing a normal sale or a sale with a hearing and an overbid in it, which changes the buyer pool, the timeline, and the way offers are written. And the representative’s attorney is the person who knows which one it is, which is another reason the attorney is on the record.
Other states run on different statutes with the same underlying question: can this representative sell without going back to the court, or not. Learn your state’s answer once. It does not change often.
| Term | What it means | What it tells the agent |
|---|---|---|
| Petition for probate | The filing that opens the case | A house may be sold, months from now; nobody can sign yet |
| Decedent | The person who died; the name on the deed | Their phone number is removed from the list before dialing |
| Executor / administrator | The personal representative, named in a will or appointed without one | The only person who can sign a listing, once letters issue |
| Letters (testamentary or of administration) | The court’s document conferring authority | The date they issue is the date the seller can act |
| Heir or beneficiary | Someone who will inherit | A source of information; cannot sign |
| Attorney of record | The lawyer who filed the petition | The routing choice for first contact; knows the timeline and the authority level |
| Full authority | Independent administration; sale by notice, no hearing | An ordinary listing with a notice period |
| Limited authority | Sale requires court supervision | A confirmation hearing and possible overbid; a different buyer conversation |
| Notice of proposed action | The written notice that precedes a sale under full authority | A short delay built into the timeline |
| Confirmation hearing | The court date at which a supervised sale is approved and overbids taken | The buyer can lose the house in the room; write the offer accordingly |
The calling rules do not soften
A personal representative is a private individual whose number is either on the National Do Not Call Registry or is not, and the do-not-call rules apply to them exactly as to any homeowner. There is no bereavement exception in either direction: grief does not make a call unlawful that would otherwise be lawful, and the fact that an estate has a house to sell does not make a call lawful that the registry forbids. Scrub the representative’s number. Honor a stop request instantly and for the whole company.
Representatives are also, very often, not local. The child who was named executor lives two states away and is handling the estate by phone and email, which means the calling hours and, in practice, the state rules follow them, not the property, exactly as the absentee owner piece describes. The county on the filing tells you where the court is. The representative’s address on the same filing tells you which clock to use.
What the list is for
A probate list is small, it is slow, and it is one of the few seller sources in which the sale is frequently required rather than merely considered: an estate with several heirs and one house usually has to turn the house into money. That makes it worth the work of reading filings, and it makes the agent who understands letters, authority levels and confirmation hearings unusually valuable to the representative and the attorney, both of whom are dealing with a process they did not choose.
The call itself, what to say to a representative who has just been handed an estate, is a separate piece, and it depends on everything above being in the record first: which of the three names you are calling, whether letters have issued, what authority they carry, and which number you have already removed. The prospecting hub covers how any seller list fits into a week of calling. Probate is the one list where reading the document correctly is most of the job.