The short answer is that the vehicle can usually be moved before the title is formally in your name. What a transport carrier needs is not proof of ownership but someone with authority to release the vehicle and someone to sign for it.
The title transfer and the transport are separate processes on separate timelines, and it helps to stop thinking of them as one problem.
What the carrier actually needs
For a standard domestic shipment, the requirements are the same as for any vehicle:
Access to the vehicle, meaning keys and a clear path to where the truck can park.
Someone present at pickup to walk around the vehicle with the driver and sign the condition report.
Someone present at delivery to do the same.
Accurate condition details so the right equipment is dispatched.
Carriers do not typically ask for a title on a domestic truck shipment. They are moving the vehicle, not transferring ownership of it.
The exception is a shipment by sea, to Hawaii, Alaska, or internationally, where ownership documentation is required at the port. If that is your situation, sort out the estate paperwork first, because a port will ask for it.
Who can authorize the release
This is the question that actually matters, and it is a legal question rather than a transport one.
Generally the person with authority is the executor or personal representative named in the will, or the administrator appointed if there is no will. In some situations, particularly for smaller estates, states provide simplified procedures that give a surviving spouse or next of kin authority without full probate.
What that means practically:
If you are the executor or administrator, you can arrange the shipment and release the vehicle.
If you are not, coordinate with whoever is before booking anything.
If the estate is contested or the authority is unclear, resolve that first. A vehicle moved out of state while ownership is disputed is a complication nobody needs.
Estate law varies by state and situations differ enormously. An estate attorney or the probate court handling the matter is the right source for who has authority in your specific circumstance. That is the boundary of what this article can usefully tell you.
The car has probably been sitting
Inherited vehicles have often been parked for months, sometimes longer, and that changes what the carrier needs to know.
It may not start. A battery that has sat for six months is usually dead. That alone does not stop the shipment, but the carrier needs to know.
The three questions carriers actually ask: does it roll, does it steer, does it brake? All three yes and the vehicle can be winch-loaded onto most equipped carriers even if the engine will not turn over. Any one of them no, most often seized brakes on a car that has sat a long time, and it needs different equipment.
Tires may be flat or dry-rotted. If they hold air and the wheels turn, it can usually be winched. Missing wheels is a different situation.
Check where it is parked. A car in a garage behind other vehicles, or on a soft or overgrown surface, needs to be moved to an accessible spot before a truck arrives.
Disclose all of this at booking. A standard carrier that arrives to find a vehicle that will not roll cannot take it, and the shipment goes back for re-dispatch. Our guide to transporting a vehicle that does not run covers what to check and what to tell the coordinator.
Before the truck arrives
Empty it. Beyond the usual reasons, personal effects in a family member's vehicle are frequently the things people most want to keep, and nothing inside a shipped car is covered. Go through it properly first, including the trunk, the glovebox, and under the seats.
Take the plates or check your state's process, and handle the DMV notification the estate requires.
Remove the toll transponder and any garage remotes.
Photograph the vehicle thoroughly before pickup. Every panel, the wheels, the interior, and the odometer. If you cannot be at the delivery end, whoever receives it will need those photographs to compare against.
Leave about a quarter tank of fuel, or whatever is in it if the car will not start.
If you cannot be there
Common in this situation, since the vehicle and the family are often in different places.
Designate an adult at each end who can be present. Give the transport company their names and phone numbers when you book. Brief them: they will inspect the vehicle with the driver and sign a condition report, and that signature governs any damage claim.
A neighbor, a family friend, a realtor handling the property, or a relative all work. What does not work is leaving keys somewhere for the driver to collect, because nobody signs and there is no record of the vehicle's condition when it left.
Vehicles from an estate often need a conversation about condition and access before a quote is useful, particularly if the car has been sitting. Talk through the details and the right equipment can be arranged, or read about vehicles that need special handling if the car is not running. ---