Can I sell a business that I inherited without having run it myself?

Yes — as the owner of the shares or assets you inherited, you generally have the same right to sell as anyone else who owns the business, whether or not you've ever run it day to day. What changes is the practical challenge: buyers will expect you, as the seller, to stand behind representations about the business's finances, contracts, and history, and that's harder to do confidently when you weren't the one making decisions or keeping the records.

The nuance is making sure the inheritance itself is clean before you try to sell. If the business passed to you through an estate, you'll need to confirm the shares or assets were properly transferred — through probate or an estate trustee's authority, depending on how the estate was administered — before you can give a buyer clear title to what you're selling. Skipping that step is a common way an otherwise straightforward sale gets delayed.

Because you're relying more heavily on the people who did run the business — management, staff, the accountant — for the information a buyer will ask about, it's worth having a business lawyer review both the estate paperwork and the business's own records early, so you know exactly what you're able to sell and on what terms.