8 Alabama Land Rules That Change the Day a Property Passes to Heirs

Losing a family member is hard enough without land paperwork to deal with.

For Alabamians who inherit property, a few rules start working the moment ownership changes hands.

Some are easy to miss.

These are the ones that could matter for your family’s land.

Note: This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Property laws and required timelines are subject to change.

1. Redeeming Land Sold for Taxes

A tax sale doesn’t have to end your claim to inherited land.

Section 40-10-120 names the owner’s heirs among the people who can buy the land back.

If the state bought it, you can redeem it any time before the title passes out of the state.

Three years is the limit when another buyer bought it.

A minor heir gets until one year after coming of age.

For land the state bought, you pay the county probate judge the sale price plus 8 percent interest.

You also owe the taxes due since the sale, with interest, and court officers’ fees.

If another buyer bought it, the bill can also include the buyer’s taxes and, for a home or land in an urban renewal area, the buyer’s insurance premiums and repair costs.

If you owe the buyer’s insurance or repair costs, you must reimburse them before January 1 of the next tax year or forfeit your right in the property.

2. Survivorship Only in Writing

Say a deed names you and your sister as joint tenants of a piece of land, meaning co-owners, and she dies.

Her share isn’t automatically yours.

Her share goes to you only if the deed provides for survivorship, per Section 35-4-7.

The deed can say so outright or use wording that makes the intent clear.

Otherwise, her share goes to whoever her will names or, if she left no will, to her heirs.

So her share can pass to her children instead of to you.

3. Five-Day Survival Rule

Alabama’s five-day survival rule can change which of your relatives inherit the land.

A relative who dies within five days of the owner counts as having died first.

The rule governs who inherits your family’s land when there’s no will, which the statute calls intestate succession.

Say your mother leaves land and no will, and your brother dies four days later.

He inherits nothing from her.

The same rule covers the $15,000 homestead allowance a surviving spouse can claim.

4. Disclaiming Inherited Land

You don’t have to take land you inherit.

You refuse it by filing a written disclaimer.

The nine months run from the owner’s death, for land you take outright.

You file it with the probate court in the county where estate proceedings have begun or could begin.

You also send a copy, by hand or by registered or certified mail, to the personal representative, the person managing the estate.

You can record a copy with the probate judge in the county where the land sits.

The land then goes to whoever would have inherited if you had died first, unless the owner provided otherwise.

Your disclaimer binds anyone who claims through you.

Psst! How well have you protected your family’s land? Run through this checklist and see how you score.

5. Staying on Inherited Land During Probate

You may be able to keep holding inherited land while the estate is still in probate.

The land can stay with the person likely to receive it, whether an heir or someone the will names, under Section 43-2-837.

It can stay unless or until the personal representative, the person managing the estate, decides the estate needs it.

That can change anytime.

If the representative asks you in writing for the land, that request is final proof in a possession lawsuit that the estate needs it.

6. Homestead Land for Spouse and Children

If your spouse died owning only modest property, the probate court can set it apart for you and any minor children.

This applies when the property doesn’t exceed the homestead exemption Alabama allows a surviving spouse and minor children.

Another condition is that no administration is granted on the estate within 60 days after the death.

If nobody’s objection succeeds, title passes to you and the owner’s children, adult and minor.

That holds when all the land the owner left in Alabama fits within the exemption.

You and any minor children keep exclusive possession, you for life and the children until they come of age.

Adult children share title but not possession while you are alive or any child is a minor.

No one can sell the land to divide it among the heirs during that time without your consent and the minors’ legal representative’s.

7. Family Buyout Right

A partition lawsuit asks a court to divide inherited land or sell it.

If your family’s land qualifies as heirs property under Alabama’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, you get a chance to keep it.

When a co-owner asks for a sale, you and the other co-owners who didn’t ask get first choice to buy out everyone who did.

You have 30 days after the court sends notice to say you want to.

The price is the whole parcel’s fair market value, as the court sets it, times the share of each co-owner who asked for the sale.

So a co-owner holding 25 percent gets 25 percent of the whole parcel’s value.

The court sets a payment date no sooner than 60 days after the notice period ends.

Section 35-6A-9 has the court weigh how long your family has held the land and who has paid the taxes and insurance before it divides or sells.

What Counts as Heirs Property

Alabama’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act covers land that you and your co-owners hold as tenants in common.

To count as heirs property, the land must meet three more requirements when someone files a partition lawsuit.

No written or electronic agreement covering all of you governs partition.

At least one of you got title from a relative by blood, marriage or adoption, living or deceased.

The family share must reach 20 percent in at least one of three ways.

Relatives together hold 20 percent of the interests, one person who got title from a relative holds 20 percent, or relatives make up 20 percent of the co-owners.