How to Sell Your House After Your Spouse Dies in Illinois

Article written by Illinois Attorney Kevin O’Flaherty

In this article we explain how to sell your house after your spouse dies in Illinois. The process for selling your house will depend on whether you owned it with your spouse in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship or as tenants in common, whether your house was in your spouse’s name individually, or whether your house was in a trust. The deed to your property will state which of these ownership methods applies.

Selling a Home Owned as Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship

Most married couples own their home through joint tenancy with rights of survivorship or tenancy by the entirety, which for our purposes boils down to the same thing: when one of the owners dies, the surviving owner will automatically take over the deceased owner’s ownership interest.

If you own your home in joint tenancy with right of survivorship, you will automatically have the right to sell your home without taking any further action to transfer the property into your individual name prior to sale.

Selling a Home Owned as Tenants in Common

When people own property as tenants in common, this means that when one of them…