What Has to Exist Before Anybody Can Sign
A buyer needs every person with an ownership interest to convey it. On property that has passed through a family without recorded transfers, that list does not exist anywhere and has to be assembled.
Assembling it is the whole job. The framework is on our page covering heirs property and the Pinckney Act.
Piece One: The Recorded Chain
The Register of Deeds holds what has actually been recorded against the property: the last deed, any mortgages, any judgments and liens. That establishes the last point at which ownership was formally documented.
Frequently that deed names somebody who died decades ago, which is not a problem so much as the starting point.
Piece Two: Who Died, and What Happened
For each person in the chain who has died, whether there was a will, whether an estate was opened, and what the probate court did with it. That is county by county, wherever the person lived.
Where an estate was never opened, the property passed by intestate succession and the heirs hold it as tenants in common whether or not anybody recorded that fact.
How Far Back Does This Go?
Piece Three: The Living List
Everyone currently holding an interest, and their shares. Some will be easy to find and some will not, and some will not know they own anything.
This is the document that unlocks everything else: an insurance claim, a repair contract, a sale, and any agreement among the family about what to do.
What If Somebody Cannot Be Found?
Meanwhile, Do the One Thing That Needs No Signature
Secure the building. A covering on the roof and the openings closed up.
It costs a fraction of any repair, it preserves the framing that decides whether the property is repairable at all, and no family member needs anybody's authority to protect an asset they part-own. It is the only item that gets more expensive purely by waiting.
What We Do With Your Address
The recorded chain. What is on file at the Register of Deeds, and we tell you what we find whether or not you sell.
The parcel record. Jurisdiction, acreage and build year.
Local sale evidence. What the house would be worth repaired on your actual street.
The structure. What the framing appears to be and what a report would need to confirm.
What Comes Back
A written figure with each line visible: finished value, cost of the work, carrying cost and margin. Plus what the record shows about ownership, in plain terms, because that is frequently the most useful thing in the email.
Does the Figure Expire?
Then, Once Everybody Is Known
A conversation with all the owners rather than one of them. Where everybody agrees, a whole-property sale is straightforward and closes like any other.
Where they do not agree, that is a matter for the family and a lawyer, and possibly for the buyout and division provisions the Act sets out. It is not a matter for us and we will step back from it.
What Never Happens
No fee at any stage. No request that you clear the site, commission a report or repair anything first. No requirement that your claim be settled. No assignment of the contract to a third party. We do not buy fractional interests, we do not contact other owners ourselves, we have never filed a partition action, and we do not set deadlines on families doing title work.
Common Questions About the Process
How Long Does It Take?
Address to written figure is a few days. Getting to a closing depends entirely on the title work, which can be weeks or months.
Do I Need to Be in South Carolina?
No. Owners scattered across several states are the normal case here and remote signing is routine.
Some of the Family Will Not Engage.
Then say so at the start. It changes what is possible and it is far better raised early than discovered at a closing table.