Virginia · ProbateVirginia estate home sale: the executor's power, the certificate of qualification and the one-year creditor rule

When a Virginia will devises real estate to be sold and no one other than the executor is appointed to sell it, the executor has the power to sell and convey it and to receive the proceeds; unless the will clearly says otherwise, an administrator with the will annexed has the same power if no executor qualifies or the executors die, resign or are removed (Va. Code §64.2-521). Anyone conducting business in good faith with a personal representative who presents a currently effective certificate of qualification may presume that the representative is properly authorized, and must accept or reject the certificate within seven business days after it is presented; a wrongful refusal can bring a court order and attorney fees, but refusal is allowed for listed reasons such as actual knowledge that the authority has ended or a good-faith belief of financial exploitation (§64.2-520.2). When heirs or devisees sell the real estate themselves, an heir or devisee who sells real estate that is an asset for the decedent's debts is liable for its value, with interest, to the creditors. The real estate itself isn't liable to them if the sale was made more than one year after the death, the conveyance was bona fide and, at the time, no suit for administration of the real estate had been started and no report of the creditors' debts filed. A sale within one year after the death isn't valid against creditors – unless no such suit was started and no such report filed within that year, in which case it is treated as if made after the year (§64.2-534).