In this guide we'll walk you through the process of uploading probate records into REISift. We'll cover how to gather the necessary data, format it, and the upload steps.
Gathering Probate Records
Probate records can be pulled from the court records, probate court or public records in your county. Check to see if there is an online portal available and create a login to access the records. Look for documents called the Petition for Administration. These documents contain essential information you'll need.
Note: Not all counties have an online portal, if your county does not have this information available online, try contacting them directly.
For more information on how to pull county data, check out our First to Market Challenge where we teach how to pull records from the county and marketing strategies to ensure you are the first to reach homeowners.
Formatting Probate Records
Once you have your probate documents, format them as follows:
Columns to Include:
Date Pulled and Date Filed Probate: These are not necessary for the upload but are useful for tracking when probate was filed and when the data was pulled.
Parcel ID: Include the parcel ID for the property.
Name: Include a column for the full name and separate columns for first and last name. We recommend uploading the PR (personal representative) name if available, instead of the deceased owners name so you can skip trace and contact the PR.
Mailing Address: Include separate columns for Mailing Street, Mailing City, Mailing State, Mailing Zip.
Property Address: Include separate columns for Property Street, Property City, Property State, Property Zip
Additional Information (optional):
Property use
land use
square footage
bed/bath count
Notes Section:
Case number
decedent’s name (current owner who passed away)
petitioner’s name
any other relevant details
Phone Numbers (if available). Label the columns as Phone 1, Phone 2, etc. If you have the phone type, label as Phone 1, Phone type 1, Phone 2, Phone type 2, etc.
For more on uploading phone numbers, see:Tags: Any tags you may want to add (e.g., formal administration, townhouse, week pulled from county data).
Once the file is formatted, save or export as a csv.
Download a Probate Template here: Probate Upload Template
Uploading the File to REISift
After you've formatted the csv, select Upload File towards the bottom left of the page and select Add Data
If you have already have a Probate list in your account, select Adding records to an existing list in REISift.
If this is your first time uploading records, select Add a list not in REISift yet so you can create the Probate list.
You'll also want to fill out the information under the Let's Stay Organized section to help track when and where you purchased the list, and the skip tracing information.
When mapping, please review the automap fields. If there are any other fields you want to include on upload, you can manually map them by dragging and dropping.
On the review step, please review the information and if everything is correct, select Finish Upload.
You can view a breakdown of the upload from the Activity -> Upload section of your account.
Handling Existing Records
If you have existing records with the deceased person listed as the owner, after uploading to add the new records, reupload and select Add data -> Swap owner of existing property. This option will replace the existing owner information in your account with the new owner information you are including in the csv.
Follow the same steps as above and ensure all columns are mapped and the new owner information is mapped to the owner name and mailing address.
Note: Swap owners will not add new property records to your account. You will need to add the new properties in a separate upload. The New Records you see on the upload breakdown are the new mailing addresses that were added in the upload.
use the 'Swap Owner' option to update the owner information to the probate representative.
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