Probate authority is the first question on every estate lead

When an executor tells you they want to sell their mother's house, the most useful thing you can ask is not about condition or price. It's this: what authority did the court give you?

The answer decides how the sale happens, how long it takes, and whether another buyer can take the house from you at the last minute. I've watched investors spend weeks on estate deals that were never going to close on their terms because nobody asked.

Two kinds of authority

California estates that go through probate usually run under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. When the court grants letters, it grants either full authority or limited authority under that act, and the difference matters a lot for a buyer.

With full authority, the personal representative can sell real property without asking the court to confirm the sale. They still have to give the heirs and other interested people a Notice of Proposed Action, and the Probate Code says that notice has to go out at least 15 days before the action is taken. If nobody objects, the sale goes forward like an ordinary one, with escrow and a closing date you negotiate.

With limited authority, or when the representative chooses to go through the court anyway, the sale has to be confirmed at a hearing. That's where things get interesting.

What happens at a confirmation hearing

A court-confirmed sale is not final when you and the executor sign. The court sets a hearing, and at that hearing anyone can show up with a higher bid. The code spells out how much higher. The first overbid has to be at least 10 percent more on the first $10,000 of your price and 5 percent more on the rest.

On a $400,000 accepted offer, that works out to $1,000 on the first $10,000 plus $19,500 on the remaining $390,000, so the first overbid has to reach $420,500. After that, the judge usually takes bids in smaller increments until one buyer stops.

There's a floor, too. A private sale can't be confirmed unless the price is at least 90 percent of the appraised value, based on an appraisal done within a year of the hearing. In probate that appraisal usually comes from the court-appointed probate referee. If the house is in rough shape and the referee's number assumed otherwise, the math can get tight.

Who puts a number on the house

In a California probate, the house usually gets its value from a probate referee, an appraiser the court assigns from a panel for that county. The referee's figure goes into the inventory and appraisal filed with the court, and it's the number the 90 percent floor is measured against.

Referees often work from records and comparable sales, and they may not walk through every room. If the house has a failed sewer line, a foundation problem or fire damage the appraisal didn't account for, the floor can sit above what the property is really worth as-is. That's not a reason to walk away. It's a reason to send the executor and the attorney photos and a contractor's estimate early, so they can decide whether a new appraisal makes sense before a hearing.

Each county court publishes its own probate procedures and calendars. If you're working estates in the Valley, the Fresno County Superior Court site is where local rules and hearing information live, and most other counties have an equivalent page.

How to price for it

If the sale needs confirmation, assume you might be overbid. That changes two things.

First, decide your true ceiling before the hearing and write it down. Investors who haven't done that tend to bid on adrenaline in a courtroom, and they regret it.

Second, think about whether your first offer should leave room. Some buyers come in near their ceiling so the 10 and 5 percent jump scares off casual bidders. Others come in lower and plan to bid at the hearing. Neither is wrong, but you should choose on purpose.

Also budget for time. Hearing dates depend on the county's calendar, and the house often sits empty while you wait. If you're paying for insurance on a vacant property or holding money on a short-term loan, add that to the cost of the deal.

Questions to ask on the first call

You won't always get clean answers, especially from an executor who's new to all of this. These are worth asking anyway:

• Were you appointed with full or limited authority under the IAEA?
• Has the probate referee filed an inventory and appraisal yet?
• Is there an attorney handling the estate, and can we include them on emails?
• Are there other heirs, and do they know the house is being sold?

The last one matters even with full authority. An heir who objects to a Notice of Proposed Action can force the sale into court, and you're back to a hearing.

Where an investor fits

Probate deals are slow, but they're often clean. Many estate houses are owned free and clear, so there's no lender payoff to chase and no foreclosure clock running. What you're really competing on is patience and paperwork. Buyers who send written offers, copy the attorney and follow the court's timeline end up with these houses.

If you're sourcing estate leads, you can pull them from the court index yourself or buy them. CalOffers' probate category lists them by county with the authority question still open, which is honest, because that's the part only the executor can answer.

For a general overview of the process from the family's side, the California courts' probate pages are worth bookmarking. And if you want to see where leads like these come from before you spend anything, read how the CalOffers feed works.

This is general information about California probate sales, not legal advice. Every estate has its own order and its own attorney.