Finding estates before probate is filed.

The question

When someone dies owning a home, the family usually needs probate or another court step before the property can be sold or transferred. Many families don't know that, and some wait months.

The attorney wanted a weekly answer to one question: who died recently in my area, owned real property, and still has nothing filed?

Doing it by hand means reading hundreds of obituaries, searching three appraisal districts and running a court search for every name. Nobody has the time.

What I built

A pipeline that runs the cheapest checks first, so slow and paid lookups only run on people who are still likely leads.

1. Obituaries

   Collected from [N] funeral homes across the three counties through their public listings: name, age, date of death, city and the "survived by" passage.

2. Property

   Each name is matched to the appraisal district rolls and graded by confidence. A middle name that lines up, or a surviving spouse on the deed, counts as high. Anything unclear goes to a person to review rather than being guessed.

3. Probate

   Instead of searching people one by one, the pipeline pulls every probate filing in the three counties for the period (2,078 cases from April to September 2026, in about three minutes) and matches them locally. A spot check against individual searches missed nothing.

4. Rank and rule out

   Every remaining estate is scored for urgency, and anything that doesn't need a lawyer is set aside with a written reason.

Ranking: who needs help first

A list of names isn't useful. A short list in order of urgency is.

Made to be checked

Every lead comes with its evidence and a step-by-step guide to confirm it in the public record in a couple of minutes. The attorney never has to take the pipeline's word for it.

Why 90 to 180 days after death

At one to two months, most families just haven't filed yet. By three months, no filing is a real signal. The window starts at 90 days, newest first.

Within the rules

The pipeline only uses public records and respects each source's terms and rate limits. It finds information; it doesn't contact anyone. Outreach is the attorney's decision, made under the state's solicitation and advertising rules, and lists are never shared between firms.

The same playbook, other practices

The method is the same every time: combine a few public sources, check cheapest first, rank by urgency, rule out with reasons and show the evidence. It fits other questions a firm might ask:

• Estate planning: which past clients have died, divorced or bought property since their plan was signed.
• Real estate: properties with a recent lis pendens or a title problem on record.
• Business law: clients whose company lost its good standing with the state.

If you have a question like that, I can probably build the answer.