Selling Land Held in a Trust: A Plain Guide

A lot of vacant and inherited land is owned by a trust rather than by a person. Maybe a parent put the family acreage into a living trust for estate planning, or an estate settled the property into a trust for the heirs. If you are the one now responsible for it, the question is usually the same: can land held in a trust actually be sold, and who gets to sign? The answer is yes, and the process is more routine than it sounds.

Who has authority to sell

Land in a trust is sold by the trustee, the person or institution named to manage the trust's property. The authority to sell comes from the trust document itself, which almost always gives the trustee the power to sell real property. If there is more than one trustee, they typically need to act together. If the person who created the trust has died, the successor trustee named in the document steps in. The key point: you do not need to take the land out of the trust first in order to sell it. The trust can sell directly.

What the title company will want to see

Because the trust is the owner of record, the title company confirms the trust's authority before closing. In most states that means some combination of:

• The trust document, or a shorter certification of trust that many states allow in place of the full document, naming the current trustee and confirming the power to sell.
• Proof of who the acting trustee is, including a death certificate if a successor trustee has taken over.
• The trustee signing the deed in that capacity, as trustee of the trust, rather than as an individual.

This is standard work for a title or escrow company. It adds a document or two, not a different kind of transaction.

Trust, probate, and inherited land

One reason people put land in a trust is to avoid probate, the court process that otherwise clears title after a death. If the parcel is properly held in a trust, you often skip the probate step entirely, which can make a trust sale faster than selling the same land through an estate. If the land did not make it into the trust before the owner died, it may still need probate; our guide on selling inherited land covers that path. Either way, the title company flags which applies early, so it does not surprise you at closing. For the broader picture of what sets the schedule, see how long it takes to close on land.

Selling from another state

Trustees are frequently out of state, especially when they are adult children handling a parent's property. That is not a problem. A trust land sale can be signed and closed remotely through a title company the same way any other land sale is.

The takeaway

Land in a trust is sellable by the trustee, often without probate, and usually without taking the property out of the trust first. The extra work is a certification of trust and the right signature, which a title company handles as a matter of routine.