Losing someone you love is hard enough without the legal side dragging on for months. But one of the most common things we see holding up an estate or trust from closing isn’t a big, complicated asset. It’s a small, often overlooked piece of land delaying estate settlement that nobody saw coming.
Why a Tiny Piece of Land Can Hold Up a Whole Estate
Here’s the frustrating part. This land is usually a small fraction of the total estate’s value, but it can end up being the thing everyone’s waiting on. Vacant land might have marketability issues, no road access, landlocked parcels, weird zoning, unbuildable lots, or it’s just sitting somewhere nobody’s ever tried to sell before. That makes it what’s called “highly illiquid,” meaning there’s no quick, obvious way to turn it into cash or transfer it cleanly.
An executor or trustee usually can’t distribute everything else and just leave the land in limbo. Most trusts and estates need every asset accounted for and either sold or formally transferred before things can legally close. So that one parcel, worth maybe a few thousand dollars in a much larger estate, ends up being the reason probate drags on for extra months.
What Executors and Trustees Can Actually Do
A few common paths people take:
- List it with an agent. Possible, but agents often aren’t interested in low value or hard to sell land, and it can sit for a long time.
- Try to sell it yourself. Time consuming, and still runs into the same marketability problems that made it illiquid in the first place.
- Sell it to a land investor. Usually the fastest path when the goal is simply to close the estate, not maximize every last dollar on a parcel that’s a small piece of the whole.
Throughout the years we’ve worked closely with trustees, estate executors, administrators, and probate attorneys to help liquidate these parcels and move the estate or trust toward closing. If a piece of land, or a few, is what’s standing between you and settling an estate or closing a trust, reach out and let’s talk through it. You can also submit your property information here.