Probate leads: where to find them and when to mail
By Josh MillerUpdated 5 min readProbate leads come from the court where the estate is filed, usually the county probate or circuit court, and the person to write to is the personal representative named in the case, not the person who died. Most list tools carry probate thinly or not at all, so the reliable source is the court docket itself, checked every week.
Probate is the list every investor course tells you to mail, and almost nobody mails well. The house belongs to someone who died. The person who can sell it is someone else, often grieving, often living in another state, and usually waiting on a court.
Where probate leads actually come from
An estate case is opened in the court of the county where the person lived. Depending on the state, that's a probate court, a surrogate's court, an orphans' court or the circuit court. The case file names three people you need:
- The decedent: the owner who died. Match the name to the county's property records to find the house.
- The personal representative: the executor or administrator. This is your letter's addressee.
- The estate's attorney: often the person who decides how the house gets sold.
Many courts have an online case search. Some only let you search by name, which is useless for finding new cases, and some need a visit. That's the work that makes probate a less crowded list.
Why most list tools come up short
The licensed property data most investors buy carries probate thinly. When we tried to measure probate county by county from it, no county had enough matched cases to read honestly. That's why we pull probate filings from the court dockets directly instead of a data reseller.
We do have a ranking from a different source. In one client's market in Tennessee, with the market and the years held the same for every list, we ranked each list by how often its houses sold. Probate came in below a foreclosure filing and a tax sale, and above code violations, vacant houses, obituaries and divorce. A real list, worth working, not the gold mine the courses describe.
When to mail
Probate moves on the court's clock. The personal representative usually can't sell until they're appointed, and some states require court approval or notice to heirs before a sale. Three things follow:
- Don't mail in the first weeks. A letter about selling the house, days after a death, reads as a vulture. Most investors who work probate wait at least a month after the case opens.
- Mail across months. The decision to sell often comes after the family has seen the house, the repairs and the carrying costs. Write several times over the year.
- Write to the representative's address. The house is often empty.
See when each list sells in your county.
What to say
Lead with help, not price. The representative is managing a house they didn't choose, often from far away: the utilities, the insurance on a vacant house, the cleanout, the siblings. A letter that offers to take the house as-is, clean it out and close on the court's timeline answers the questions they actually have.
Before death, there's often a different list
Many inherited houses never go through probate at all: transfer-on-death deeds, joint ownership and small-estate affidavits move them outside court. How to find inherited houses without an obituary scrape.
Questions investors ask
Where do I find probate leads?
In the probate court records of the county where the person lived. Many courts have an online case search; others need an in-person or written request. Search new estate cases filed each week and pull the decedent's name, the personal representative and the attorney.
Who do I send a probate letter to?
The personal representative (also called the executor or administrator) named in the case, at their own address. They're the one with authority to sell, once the court allows it. Writing to the deceased's address usually reaches an empty house.
Can an estate sell a house during probate?
Often, yes, with the court's permission or under the powers the court grants the personal representative. The rules differ by state, and some sales need court confirmation, so expect the timeline to run months.
Do probate leads sell better than other lists?
In one client's Tennessee market, ranked on the same years, probate ranked below foreclosure and tax sale and above vacant houses, obituaries and divorce. County-by-county rates aren't measurable from licensed data, because its probate coverage is thin.