Selling an Inherited House in Florida: 2026 Law and Timelines

Selling an inherited house in Florida almost always runs through a probate proceeding: summary administration under section 735.201, Florida Statutes for estates that qualify, or formal administration under chapter 733 for the rest. The exceptions are title that already passed at death, such as survivorship ownership, trust title, or an enhanced life estate deed, and homestead, which often descends to the family outside the estate entirely. Once the right person holds authority to convey, the house can be sold as-is on any timeline, including a fast cash closing.

How does selling an inherited house in Florida work?

Work backwards from the deed. A title underwriter insures the sale only when the seller can show how title moved from the decedent to whoever signs. In Florida that happens four ways:

• by operation of law outside probate: survivorship ownership, trust title, or an enhanced life estate deed;
• by an order of summary administration under section 735.201, Florida Statutes;
• by letters of administration and a deed from the personal representative under section 733.613, Florida Statutes; or
• by descent of protected homestead to the spouse and lineal descendants under section 732.401, Florida Statutes.

How fast you can close, and who signs the deed, follow from which path applies.

When can you sell an inherited house in Florida without probate?

You can skip a probate proceeding when the decedent's title arrangement already moved the house at death. Three patterns do that, and protected homestead is a partial fourth, covered below: it descends by operation of law under section 732.401, Florida Statutes, although underwriters usually still want an order determining protected homestead status or an open probate file to confirm who took it.

Survivorship ownership

If the deed created a joint tenancy or a tenancy by the entirety, the survivor owns the whole property the moment the co-owner dies, and selling is a matter of recording a certified death certificate. But under section 689.15, Florida Statutes, a conveyance to two or more people creates a tenancy in common unless the document expressly states a right of survivorship, except in cases of estates by the entirety, which section 689.15 expressly excludes from the anti-survivorship rule; Florida case law separately presumes that a conveyance of real property to a married couple creates a tenancy by the entireties with survivorship even without those words, and a tenancy in common leaves the decedent's share stuck in the estate.

Trust title

If the house was deeded to a revocable trust during life, the successor trustee sells under the trust instrument and the specific trustee powers in section 736.0816, Florida Statutes, with the general powers in section 736.0815. No court is involved; the title company will ask for the pages showing the trustee's authority.

Enhanced life estate deeds

A lady bird deed, meaning an enhanced life estate deed, keeps a life estate and the power to sell in the owner during life and shifts the remainder at death. The remainder beneficiary records the death certificate and sells. One limit matters before you rely on that path: if the property was homestead and the owner was survived by a spouse or a minor child, the homestead restrictions in section 732.4015, Florida Statutes, and Article X, section 4, of the Florida Constitution still apply, and Florida title underwriters commonly decline to insure a sale by a non-spouse remainder beneficiary in that situation without the spouse's joinder or a court order determining homestead status.

A will alone never carries title: it takes effect only through an estate proceeding, formal administration under chapter 733 or summary administration under chapter 735, and heirs who sign a deed with nothing behind it cannot deliver marketable title.

Which probate proceeding does the estate need?

Summary administration fits estates that are small or long-ago; formal administration handles the rest.

Summary administration

Summary administration is the short, paperwork-only proceeding under section 735.201, Florida Statutes. It is available in two situations, and either one is enough:

• the probate assets, after subtracting property exempt from creditors, of which homestead is the big one, do not exceed $150,000; or
• the decedent has been dead for more than 2 years.

The dollar test measures the probate estate, not the family's whole balance sheet; homestead value drops out because it is exempt. The $75,000 figure in older guides was correct until July 1, 2026, when chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida, raised it to $150,000. The act carries no applicability clause tying it to date of death, so for a decedent who died before July 1, 2026 confirm with the clerk and counsel which threshold the court will apply. In a testate estate, the will also must not direct administration under chapter 733.

How the sale actually happens:

• The petition for summary administration may be filed by any beneficiary or the person nominated as personal representative in the will, and must be signed and verified by the surviving spouse, if any, and the beneficiaries, except that a beneficiary who will receive a full distributive share under the proposed distribution need not join, and must instead be served with formal notice of the petition (s. 735.203(1)). Venue is the Florida county where the decedent was domiciled; if the decedent had no Florida domicile, venue is any county where the decedent's property is located, under section 733.101(1)(b), Florida Statutes.
• No personal representative is appointed; the court enters an order of summary administration stating who owns what.
• A certified copy of the order, recorded in the county where the house sits, plus the death certificate, is what a title company underwrites.
• Every person to whom the order assigns an interest in the house signs the contract and the deed. One missing signature stalls the closing.

The 2-year test exists because claims are already barred by then under section 733.710, Florida Statutes, making a clean transfer possible.

Formal administration

Formal administration is the full proceeding under chapter 733: a petition under section 733.202, admission of the will if there is one, appointment of a personal representative, and issuance of letters of administration. The house can be sold at any point during the administration, but two clocks control title risk.

The objection window. Notice of administration goes out to interested persons, and under section 733.212, Florida Statutes, objections to the validity of the will, the venue, or the jurisdiction of the court are barred unless filed within 3 months after service of the notice (section 733.212(3)); objections to the personal representative's qualifications are not governed by that bar.

The claims period. The personal representative must publish and serve notice to creditors under sections 733.701 and 733.2121, Florida Statutes. A claim is then barred unless filed by the later of 3 months after the first publication or 30 days after service of the notice on that particular creditor, all under section 733.702, Florida Statutes. Standing behind it, section 733.710 cuts off every claim 2 years after death whether or not anyone opened an estate, with narrow exceptions for recorded lienholders, such as a mortgage that can still foreclose.

For a buyer, that exposure depends on the path. Where the personal representative sells under a specific power to sell real property in the will, or under a court order authorizing or confirming the sale, section 733.613(3) gives the purchaser title free of claims of estate creditors and entitlements of estate beneficiaries, with existing mortgages and liens unaffected. Outside that protection, including heir deeds after a summary administration, closing before the claims period has run carries real title exposure, which is why many of those closings wait out the 3 months.

Who has authority to sell under section 733.613?

The personal representative's power to sell estate real estate comes from section 733.613, Florida Statutes, and it splits on the will's language.

If the will confers a specific power to sell or mortgage real property, or a general power to sell any asset of the estate, the personal representative may sell, mortgage, or lease estate real property without court authorization or confirmation, and the sale need not be justified by a showing of necessity (s. 733.613(2)). Separately, s. 733.613(3) gives the purchaser title free of claims of estate creditors and entitlements of estate beneficiaries only where the sale occurs under a specific power to sell or mortgage real property, or under a court order authorizing or confirming it; existing mortgages and other liens are not affected. Under a general power of sale alone, ask the underwriter whether court confirmation is still wanted.

If there is no usable power of sale, because the decedent died intestate, because the will is silent, or because the will grants a power that is so limited by the will or by operation of law that it cannot be conveniently exercised, the personal representative may still sell at public or private sale when it serves the estate's interest, but no title passes until the court authorizes or confirms the sale (s. 733.613(1)). The statute protects the buyer here: a bona fide purchaser is not required to examine any of the proceedings before the order of sale.

The practical check: pull the will from the clerk's probate docket and read it for the power of sale before assuming the personal representative can sign, and if it is missing, write the contract contingent on court authorization.

Why is a Florida homestead often not an estate asset at all?

Because the constitution and the Probate Code pull it out of the estate. Under section 732.4015, Florida Statutes, a homestead cannot be devised when the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child, except to the spouse when there is no minor child. If it is not validly devised, section 732.401, Florida Statutes, descends it by operation of law:

• Survived by a spouse and lineal descendants: the spouse takes a life estate, and the descendants take a vested remainder per stirpes. The spouse may instead record an election, within 6 months of death, to take an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common.
• Survived by a spouse and no descendants: the homestead descends as other intestate property.
• Survived by descendants and no spouse: it descends to the descendants.

Property held in a tenancy by the entirety or a joint tenancy with right of survivorship is not covered; section 732.401(5) sends that back to the survivorship rules above.

Two consequences follow. First, the personal representative frequently has no authority to sell the homestead at all, so the deed must come from the spouse and every lineal descendant, or after a petition under Florida Probate Rule 5.405 for an order determining protected homestead status, recorded with the death certificate. Second, protected homestead passes to the family free of most claims of the decedent's creditors under Article X, section 4, of the Florida Constitution, subject to narrow exceptions such as mortgages, tax liens, and liens for work on the property.

Count the takers before you commit: one adult child in another state, or an unlocatable heir, is the usual reason a homestead closing slips.

What taxes do you owe when you sell?

Usually not much, and the reason is the step-up in basis.

Federal capital gains: the step-up

Under 26 U.S.C. 1014, property acquired from a decedent takes a basis equal to its fair market value at the date of death, or the alternate valuation date if the estate elects one under 26 U.S.C. 2032. Federal gain on the sale is the difference between the sale price and that stepped-up basis, not what the decedent paid decades ago. Sell near date-of-death value and there is usually little gain; hold the house while it appreciates and gain accrues on top of the step-up. Get a date-of-death appraisal; it supports the basis on the return against the closing agent's 1099-S.

The Florida side

Florida has no personal income tax, so no state capital gains tax applies to the sale, and under current law it imposes no estate or inheritance tax on the estates of people who died after December 31, 2004, per the Florida Department of Revenue's estate tax page (https://floridarevenue.com/taxes/taxesfees/Pages/estate_tax.aspx); the no-income-tax rule comes from Article VII, section 5, of the Florida Constitution. What you will pay is documentary stamp tax on the deed: section 201.02, Florida Statutes imposes 70 cents per $100 of consideration, and consideration includes the amount of any mortgage, lien, or other encumbrance on the property, whether or not the buyer assumes the underlying debt, which surprises people in subject-to deals. Miami-Dade County is the exception: the Florida Department of Revenue applies 60 cents per $100 there, plus a discretionary surtax of 45 cents per $100 under section 201.031, Florida Statutes, which is not due on a document that transfers only a single-family dwelling.

One more catch: the decedent's homestead carried the Save Our Homes assessment cap under section 193.155, Florida Statutes. On a sale to an outside buyer the cap comes off and the property is reassessed at just value on the January 1 following the transfer, so taxes prorated at closing off the old capped assessment understate what the next owner will owe. Section 193.155(3) carries the cap over in limited cases, including a transfer by operation of law to a surviving spouse or minor child who keeps the homestead exemption.

Can you sell an inherited house as-is for cash?

Yes, and as-is cash sales are common for inherited property. Estates rarely fund renovations, heirs often live elsewhere, and the standard Florida as-is residential contract is built for this: the seller refuses to repair and the buyer takes the house as it stands. As-is does not mean silent about what you know, so answer disclosure questions honestly and say so when you do not know.

For heirs weighing a cash offer, the step-up in basis is the quiet factor: because federal gain is measured from date-of-death value, a fast sale near that value often owes very little tax, which weakens the usual reason to hold out. Compare the offer against carrying costs: insurance on a vacant house, taxes, maintenance, and the court clocks still running.

For investors talking to heirs, the probate path, not the buyer, sets the pace. A contract signed before anyone has authority is an option, not a sale. Tie your closings to the entry of the order of summary administration or the issuance of letters, and to court confirmation where section 733.613 requires it.

How long does it take to sell an inherited house in Florida?

The fixed clocks are statutory; everything else is docket time and title work.

Path	Governing clock	Who signs the deed	Typical span
Survivorship, trust, or enhanced life estate deed	None; record the death certificate	Surviving owner or trustee	Days to weeks once documents arrive
Summary administration (s. 735.201)	None fixed; court processing time	Everyone the order gives an interest in the house	Weeks to a few months by county docket
Formal administration, will has a power of sale (s. 733.613)	Claims bar the later of 3 months after first publication or 30 days after service on that creditor (s. 733.702)	Personal representative	Can close during the administration
Formal administration, no power of sale	Same, plus a motion and order authorizing sale	Personal representative, after the order	The row above plus one motion cycle
Protected homestead descent (s. 732.401)	Spouse's 6-month election window	Spouse and all lineal descendants	Weeks to months: a Rule 5.405 order identifies the takers, who then sign and record the deed

The 2-year cutoff in section 733.710 stands behind every row: after two years, summary administration is available regardless of estate size.

What to do next

• Order several certified death certificates. Every recorder, clerk, and title company wants one.
• Pull the deed and liens in the county's official records and check how title is held. The MyFloridaCounty records portal links out to the clerk's site for each participating county; several large counties, including Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach, are searched directly on the clerk's own official records site.
• Get the will from the clerk's probate division and read it for a power of sale.
• Count the homestead takers: spouse, every lineal descendant, any minor child.
• Run the section 735.201 numbers, probate assets minus exempt property, against the date of death.
• Put the timeline in front of a Florida probate lawyer before signing anything.

If you work these leads at scale instead of one at a time, estate.partners Pro pulls these county records daily and ranks them, so new probate filings and homestead orders surface before the listing does.

This is general information about Florida and federal law, not legal advice.