The Florida probate process for a house, step by step

Why the house cannot be sold the day after the funeral

When someone dies owning real estate in their own name in Florida, that property does not transfer to the family automatically. It transfers through probate, the court process that identifies the estate’s assets, pays its debts, and then hands what remains to the people entitled to it. Until a court says who has authority to sign, a deed signed by a grieving son or daughter conveys nothing a title company will insure.

This is the piece that catches families off guard. The keys are in your hand, the mortgage is still being drafted from somebody’s account, the taxes come due in November, and legally you cannot sell. Understanding which version of the process applies to you is what tells you whether that wait is three weeks or the better part of a year.

Formal administration and summary administration are very different animals

Florida offers more than one path, and the difference in time and cost is enormous.

• Formal administration is the full process. The court appoints a personal representative, letters of administration are issued, creditors are notified by publication and given a window to file claims, an inventory is filed, and only then can the estate distribute or sell. It commonly runs several months at a minimum, and longer if a claim or a family dispute shows up.
• Summary administration is the short path. It is generally available when the value of the estate’s non-exempt assets falls under the statutory threshold, or when more than two years have passed since the death, which is the version most families with an old, forgotten house end up using. There is no personal representative appointed in the usual sense, and the court can enter an order determining who takes the property, sometimes in weeks rather than months.

The two-year rule surprises people. A house that has sat empty since a death in 2022 may be far quicker to clear than one from a death six months ago, because the creditor period has already run. If you have been avoiding the problem for years out of dread, the passage of time may have quietly solved part of it. A Florida probate attorney can tell you in one conversation which path your situation qualifies for, and that conversation is worth having before you plan anything else.

Only the personal representative can sign

In a formal administration, the personal representative appointed by the court, called an executor in other states, is the only person who can sign a contract and a deed for the estate. Not the oldest child, not the person who lived there, not the one paying the taxes. Their authority comes from the letters of administration, and a title company will ask to see them.

How much freedom that person has depends on the will and on the court. Some wills grant broad power to sell without further permission. Otherwise the sale may need court authorization, sometimes with notice to the beneficiaries. This is not an obstacle so much as a scheduling fact: it means a buyer has to be comfortable with a closing date that depends on a judge’s calendar. We are, because we do this regularly and can wait, but a retail buyer with a rate lock expiring usually is not.

When the heirs do not agree

The most common reason an inherited Florida house sits empty for years is not law, it is arithmetic between siblings. One wants to sell now, one wants to keep it as a rental, one lives in it and cannot buy the others out, and one cannot be reached at all.

Where co-owners cannot agree, Florida law provides a partition action: any co-owner can ask a court to divide the property or, far more often with a single house, order it sold and the proceeds split. It works, and it is a blunt instrument. It costs money, the fees come out of everyone’s share, it can take many months, and a court-ordered sale rarely fetches what a negotiated one does. Most families that go down this road wish they had bought each other out or taken a clean sale earlier.

A cash sale often defuses this, for an unglamorous reason: it produces one number, on one date, that everyone can evaluate at the same time. There are no repair negotiations to argue about, no financing to fall through, and no six-month listing during which resentments compound. We are happy to speak with every heir and their attorney so nobody feels steamrolled by whichever sibling made the call.

Homestead, the property tax reset, and the step-up basis

Three financial facts shape what an inherited Florida house is actually worth to you.

Homestead protection. Florida’s constitution gives a homestead special treatment: it is largely shielded from the claims of the deceased person’s creditors, and it passes to the surviving spouse and descendants under specific constitutional rules rather than simply following the will. That protection is valuable, and it usually requires a court order determining that the property was in fact the homestead. It also constrains who inherits what if there is a surviving spouse or a minor child.

The tax bill changes. The homestead exemption and the assessment cap that kept a long-time owner’s property taxes low do not follow the house forever. Once the property changes hands and is no longer the qualifying homestead, the assessed value resets toward market value. Families who budgeted around the deceased owner’s old tax bill are routinely stunned by the new one, especially on a house held for decades in a neighborhood that appreciated.

The step-up in basis. For capital gains purposes, inherited property generally receives a basis adjusted to its fair market value as of the date of death, rather than the price the deceased owner paid. In practice that often removes decades of appreciation from the taxable calculation, and an heir who sells reasonably soon after the death may owe little or nothing on the gain. We are not accountants and this is not tax advice, so confirm the numbers with yours, but the takeaway is that inheriting a house and being handed a huge tax bill are not the same thing, and fear of the second should not stop you from doing the first sensibly. A date-of-death appraisal is worth ordering while it is easy to get.

The properties that skip probate entirely

Not every inherited house goes through the court at all. Property held in a revocable living trust passes under the trust, and the successor trustee can usually sell without probate. So can property held with a right of survivorship, or transferred by an enhanced life estate deed, sometimes called a lady bird deed, which names a beneficiary who takes title at death. Those transfers can be handled in days rather than months.

If you are not sure which situation you are in, the deed itself will tell you, and pulling it from the county recorder is free. It is the first thing to check, because the answer determines whether your next call is to a probate attorney or straight to a title company.

What the waiting actually costs

An empty inherited house is not a neutral asset parked in place. It bleeds, quietly, every month:

• Property taxes and any remaining mortgage keep running, and a lender does not pause because the borrower died.
• Insurance gets harder and more expensive. Most standard homeowners policies restrict or void coverage once a home has been vacant for thirty to sixty days, which means moving to a vacancy policy that costs materially more. In Florida, where roof age and wind coverage already drive premiums hard, an empty older house can become genuinely difficult to insure at all.
• HOA or condo dues accrue whether anyone lives there or not, and an association can pursue unpaid assessments against the property on its own schedule.
• Empty houses deteriorate faster. Humidity and a switched-off air conditioner produce mold in a South Florida summer, small roof leaks become ceiling collapses, and vacant properties attract copper theft, vandalism, and squatters, all of which are far more expensive to fix than to prevent.

None of that argues for panic. It argues for a decision. Whatever you choose, choose it on purpose rather than by letting another hurricane season pass.

Selling it as it stands

We buy inherited South Florida houses in whatever condition they are in, with the furniture still in them, and we coordinate with the estate’s attorney so the closing lands when the court allows it. You do not clear the house out, you do not repair anything, and you take what matters to you and leave the rest. If it helps to see how the offer is calculated first, read what makes a cash offer fair, then the details on our inherited house page or our cash offer page.

And the honest counterweight: if the house is in good shape, the heirs agree, and nobody needs the money quickly, list it. A clean, updated, empty home in a desirable neighborhood will usually net more on the open market than any cash buyer will pay, and we will tell you so. Where we earn our place is the other house, the one with a bad roof, a full garage, four heirs in three states, and a tax bill nobody wants to keep paying. If that is the one you inherited, call (786) 940-9908 and we will give you a straight range before you spend a dollar on it.

This page is general information about how sales like these usually work in Florida, not legal or tax advice. Landlord-tenant and probate rules change, and your case turns on your own paperwork, so talk to a Florida attorney or your accountant before you act.