I sold my deceased brother's home 21 months after he passed. Does the estate qualify for the $250,000 exclusion? TurboTax Business does not mention this at all.

[MinhT · Accepted solution]

No, as the property was inherited, you do not qualify for the home sale tax exclusion.

However, you benefit from the stepped-up basis rules for inherited property. And in most cases, this will reduce your taxable capital gain.

When you inherit property after the owner dies, you automatically receive a "stepped-up basis". This means that the home's cost for tax purposes is not what the now-deceased prior owner paid for it. Instead, its basis is its fair market value at the date of the prior owner's death. In most cases, this will usually be more than the prior owner's basis.

The bottom line is that if you inherit property and later sell it, you pay capital gains tax based only on the value of the property as of the date of death.

[re2boys]

Did you sell it after you had title or did the estate sell it?  If the estate, it still gets the stepped up basis for calculating the tax return.

[harry_young]

The estate sold it.  Title was never transferred to the beneficiaries..