The first call with an executor: slower is faster

Speed wins most seller leads. Probate is the exception. The person on the phone has a court order, an attorney, siblings, and usually a dead parent. If your first call sounds like a sales pitch, you'll lose the deal to someone who sounded like they had time.

I learned this the expensive way, and most of what follows came from calls that went badly.

Who you're actually talking to

An executor or administrator isn't an owner in the usual sense. They're a fiduciary. Their job is to collect the estate's assets, pay its debts and distribute what's left, and they can be personally liable if they do it carelessly. That's why they move cautiously and why they keep saying "I need to check with the attorney."

Treat that as a good sign. An executor who checks with counsel is one whose sale will close.

Before you dial

Look up what you can. Probate filings are public, and in most counties you can see the case number, the date letters were issued and the attorney of record. If the estate is in Fresno, for example, the Fresno County Superior Court site lists how to search case records. The county assessor will show you the parcel, its size and the current assessed value, and the Fresno County Assessor has the property search.

You're not trying to impress anyone with research. You just don't want to ask questions the court file already answers.

The first five minutes

Open with condolences and mean them. Then ask permission to ask a few questions. Something like: "I buy houses in the area, and I'd like to understand where the estate is in the process so I don't waste your time. Is now an okay moment?"

Then ask, and mostly listen:

• When were you appointed, and is an attorney handling the estate?
• Do you know whether the court granted full or limited authority?
• Is anyone living in the house right now?
• Are the other heirs on board with selling?
• What has to happen with the house before you can close the estate?

That last question is the one that tells you what they actually need. Sometimes it's speed. More often it's simplicity: one buyer, no repairs, no cleanout, a closing date the attorney is happy with.

What not to do

Don't quote a price on the first call. You haven't seen the house, and an executor who hears a number will repeat it to five siblings, who will each remember it differently.

Don't ask them to sign anything quickly. If the sale needs court confirmation, a fast signature doesn't speed anything up, and it makes you look like you don't understand the process.

Don't go around them to an heir. It gets back to the executor every time.

When someone is living in the house

Plenty of estate houses aren't empty. A grandchild moved in to help, a sibling never moved out, or the parents rented a room or the whole house. That changes your timeline more than almost anything else.

An executor can't just change the locks. A relative living there with permission may need to be asked to leave formally, and a paying tenant keeps the protections of their tenancy. California's Tenant Protection Act stays with the house too: rent increases are capped for most rentals, and a tenant who has been there a year generally can't be asked to leave without a reason the law recognizes. The California Attorney General's tenant page summarizes those rules in plain English.

Ask about occupants on the first call, and if there is one, ask whether you'd be buying with them in place. Plenty of investors do. Others price in the time it'll take for the house to be vacant. Either way, it's better to know before you make an offer than after.

Put it in writing

After the call, send a short email that summarizes what you heard and what you'll do next. Copy the attorney if they gave you the address. When you make an offer, put it in writing with the price, the closing timeline, who pays which costs, and a line saying you'll take the property as it is, contents included.

Written offers travel well. An executor can forward them to siblings in three states without retelling anything.

Following up

Estate timelines run in months. Follow up on a schedule the executor agrees to, not one your CRM invents. A check-in after the inventory and appraisal is filed is natural. So is one after the Notice of Proposed Action period ends, or before a confirmation hearing.

If you want a framework for the conversation with motivated sellers in general, a first-call script built for motivated sellers is a decent starting point, though with executors I'd cut the pace in half. And the California courts' probate pages are worth reading so you understand what the executor is dealing with.

The investors I know who do well with estates aren't the fastest callers. They're the ones whose name the executor remembers three months later, when the house finally can be sold. If you work the Central Valley, Fresno-area seller leads are a reasonable place to start.

This is general guidance on working estate leads, not legal advice. Follow the estate attorney's lead on anything procedural.