SELL INHERITED HOUSE FAST COLORADO: THE CLOCK STARTS ONLY AFTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY HOURS.

The floor is a statute, not a feeling. One hundred twenty hours, then the clock starts.

Fast, for an inherited house, has a real number under it, and the number is not zero. Colorado's registrar cannot grant informal probate of a will, and cannot informally appoint a personal representative without one, until 120 hours, five days, have elapsed since the decedent's death (VERIFIED, C.R.S. 15-12-303(1)(h) for a will and C.R.S. 15-12-308(1)(h) for an intestate appointment). That floor exists for every estate, whether the family is ready on day one or day sixty, and no fast agent or motivated buyer changes it.

One exception moves the floor further out, not closer in. If the decedent was not domiciled in Colorado, the registrar generally delays the appointment order until 30 days after death, unless the personal representative already appointed at the decedent's home state applies here, or the will itself selects Colorado law (VERIFIED, C.R.S. 15-12-307(1)). Most Colorado real estate belongs to a Colorado resident's estate, so this rarely applies, but it is worth checking early if the person who died lived somewhere else.

Once 120 hours have passed, the application (JDF 910 with a will, JDF 916 without) and the Acceptance of Appointment (JDF 911) go to the registrar, not a judge, and Letters (JDF 915) issue without a hearing. The delay most families feel from there is paperwork, not a second statutory wait.

The affidavit everyone has heard of does not reach the house. Ever.

A modest estate makes people reach for the small estate affidavit, and that instinct is half right. C.R.S. 15-12-1201 lets a successor collect personal property, funds on deposit, tangible items, an instrument evidencing a debt, once the estate's fair market value, after liens, stays at or below the year of death threshold, adjusted for inflation each year (VERIFIED). What it does not do is move real estate. Colorado Judicial's own guidance is direct on this: the affidavit works only when you do not have to transfer any real estate, and JDF 999 does not carry title to a house under any circumstance (VERIFIED, coloradojudicial.gov).

So a house is never the fast path's shortcut. If the estate includes a house, an appointment, informal or formal, is the only route to a signature the title company will accept, no matter how small the rest of the estate is. Anyone told otherwise is being sold a shortcut that does not exist under Colorado law.

Once Letters issue, the sale itself is fast. Before that, an emergency has its own path.

Here is the genuinely fast part. C.R.S. 15-12-711 gives the personal representative an owner's power over estate property the moment Letters issue, without notice, hearing or a further court order, and C.R.S. 15-12-715 reaches the Colorado Fiduciaries' Powers Act, which names the power to sell and convey real property outright (both VERIFIED). Listing, pricing against the Denver metro's 51 day median clock from August 2026 (VERIFIED, FRED MEDDAYONMAR19740, on /data/days-on-market), contracting and closing can all happen the same week Letters issue, well before the estate itself is anywhere near closed.

For the narrow case where even that floor is too long to wait, a real emergency, a house facing foreclosure, condemnation or imminent loss, Colorado has a separate tool. A court can appoint a special administrator without notice when it finds an emergency exists, and in a formal proceeding can hand that administrator the full power of a general personal representative, sale included, unless the order limits it (VERIFIED, C.R.S. 15-12-614 and C.R.S. 15-12-617). The lighter version, an informal special administrator appointed by the registrar on JDF 924, can only collect and preserve the property until a general personal representative qualifies; it cannot sign a deed (VERIFIED, C.R.S. 15-12-616). That distinction matters: the fast informal path protects the house, the slower formal path can sell it.

Send Robert the date of death, whether a will exists, and whether the house is vacant, and the sequence starts from the actual statutory floor instead of a guess. Most estates need nothing more exotic than the informal path; the emergency path exists for the rare estate that does.