Mom is moving. The house has to sell, and the timing is not up to you.

The date belongs to the community, so we work backward from it

Assisted living and memory care placements move fast once a bed opens, and the deposit is usually due before the house is anywhere near sold. Tell us the move-in date on the first call. We build the closing around it, and if the community's date slips, ours slips with it.

If the sale needs to fund the placement, say that too. It changes the order we do things in and it is not something to be embarrassed about. It is the single most common reason families call us.

Who can actually sign, and the court step most families do not expect

This is where these sales stall, and it is worth understanding before you are under time pressure.

If your parent still has capacity, they sign and nothing else is needed. If they signed an Illinois power of attorney for property while they still had capacity, the agent signs; title will want to read the document first, because not every POA actually grants authority to convey real estate and finding that out in week three is painful.

If there is no POA and capacity is already gone, the family generally needs a guardianship through the Probate Division at the Daley Center. The part almost nobody is told in advance: a guardian of the estate cannot sell the ward's real estate on their own authority. They have to petition the court for permission first, and that is a hearing on the court's calendar, not a form. So the sequence is appointment, then petition, then order, then closing — and the community's move-in date does not care about any of it.

We can go under contract while that is sorted and close when the authority is in hand, at the same number. What we will not do is push a signature from somebody who should not be signing.

This is not legal advice. An elder law attorney is genuinely worth the money here, and we are glad to give you names with nothing attached.

The tax bill goes up the year she moves out

A detail that catches families a year later, when the house is empty and nobody is expecting a bill.

The Cook County Senior Exemption requires the owner to occupy the property as their principal residence. Once your parent moves into a community, that stops being true, and the exemption is prorated for the portion of the year they actually lived there. Cook County also bills a year in arrears, so the consequence does not show up immediately — it shows up on a bill that lands long after the move, for a house generating no income and no longer carrying the break that made its taxes manageable.

Insurance moves the same direction. Most homeowner policies restrict or drop cover once a property has been vacant for a set period, so the family can be carrying an empty, under-insured house through a Chicago winter while they decide what to do. None of that is a reason to panic. It is a reason not to let the house sit for a year by default.

Sixty years of belongings

Take the photographs, the papers, the jewellery and anything with a story attached. Leave the rest, including the furniture, the garage, the basement and the things nobody in the family wants to be the one to throw away. We handle the cleanout and it costs you nothing.

If there are items you want set aside rather than hauled, point at them and we will keep them separate. Nobody should have to sort a parent's whole house in a week while also moving them.

No showings, and no strangers walking through

A listing means photographs of your parent's home on the internet, lockboxes, and strangers walking through a house somebody still thinks of as theirs. One visit from one person, and then a closing, is a kinder version of this for everybody involved.

We are not agents, and sometimes an agent is the right answer

People searching for help with a parent's house often look for a seniors real estate specialist, which is an agent designation. We are not that. Sold House LLC is not a brokerage and we do not represent anybody — we are the buyer, and we think you should know which one you are talking to.

That matters because sometimes listing genuinely nets more. A well-kept house in a neighbourhood where buyers compete, with sixty to ninety days available and nobody under pressure, usually does better on the open market even after commission. We run that comparison before you decide, and when listing wins we say so and hand you names. Where we are usually the better answer is when the date is fixed, the house needs work, or the family cannot face months of showings.

You can check the closing-cost side of that comparison with the Illinois transfer tax calculator .