Selling an inherited house

Who has authority to sell a house after someone dies in Florida?

In Florida, that authority runs through probate. Formal administration appoints a personal representative, who manages the estate's assets under the court's supervision. Summary administration is a shorter proceeding, open when the Florida estate subject to administration is worth $150,000 or less after excluding property exempt from creditors, or when the person has been dead more than 2 years, and the will does not direct formal administration. The 2025 statutes set that figure at $75,000.

Whether the personal representative needs a court order to sell depends on the will. Under section 733.613, a will that grants a specific power to sell real property, or a general power to sell estate assets, lets the representative sell without court approval. With no will, or a will that gives no usable power of sale, the representative can still sign a contract, but title does not pass until the court authorizes or confirms the sale. A buyer under a specific power or a court order takes title free of claims by the estate's creditors, though existing mortgages and liens stay attached.

Florida Probate Rule 5.030 requires every personal representative to be represented by an attorney admitted in Florida, unless the representative is the sole interested person. Hire the probate attorney before you sign a listing agreement, because the attorney's reading of the will and of the homestead question decides who signs the deed.

What changes when the house was a Florida homestead?

Homestead changes who owns the house the moment the owner dies. Article X, section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution says the homestead is not subject to devise when the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child, except that it may be left to the spouse when there is no minor child. A will that leaves it to anyone else in that situation does not control it.

When the restriction applies, section 732.401 sets the shares: the surviving spouse takes a life estate, and the descendants alive at the death take the remainder. The spouse may instead elect an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common, with the other half going to the descendants, but the election has to be made within 6 months after the death. It is irrevocable and is made by recording a notice in the county official records.

Protected homestead is not among the estate assets the personal representative controls. Section 733.608 lets the representative take possession only to preserve, insure, and protect it while its status is determined, with a lien for what that costs. Because the representative does not hold it, the people who took title under 732.401 are the ones who convey it, and that can include a guardian for a minor. Have the title agent and the probate attorney agree on the list of signers before the house goes on the market.

How does a Louisiana succession get to a sale?

In Louisiana the estate is a succession, and heirs become owners through a judgment of possession. Under Code of Civil Procedure article 3061, the court signs a judgment that recognizes the heirs, legatees, or surviving spouse in community and sends them into possession of the property. With that judgment in hand, the heirs sell in their own names like any other owners.

Some successions never go before a judge. Article 3421 defines a small succession as one where a Louisiana domiciliary left property with a gross value of $200,000 or less at death, or where the death was at least twenty years before the small succession affidavit is executed. Whether your succession qualifies, and whether the title company will insure a sale based on the affidavit, are questions for the succession attorney at the first meeting.

When the house has to be sold before the heirs are sent into possession, a succession representative sells it. In an ordinary administration, a private sale goes through a petition and published notice: for immovable property the notice runs at least twice, in the parish where the succession is pending and in the parish where the house sits, and anyone may oppose within seven days of the last publication. An independent administrator, named in the will or granted independent administration by the court, has the same powers under article 3396.15 without waiting out objections or going back to court.

A sale by the succession executor or administrator is exempt from the state Property Disclosure Document, though the federal lead paint rule still covers a pre-1978 house. Heirs selling in their own names to an unrelated buyer are not on the exemption list, so they complete the form on what they know. A Louisiana succession attorney decides which of these paths fits your family.

Do you pay capital gains tax on an inherited house?

Usually only on the gain after the date of death. Under section 1014 of the Internal Revenue Code, the basis of inherited property is generally its fair market value on the date of death, or on the alternate valuation date if the personal representative elects it. If an estate tax return was filed and you received a Schedule A of Form 8971, IRS Publication 551 says certain beneficiaries must use the value shown there as their starting basis.

Louisiana is a community property state, and that matters for a married couple's house. When one spouse dies, Publication 551 says the whole community property generally takes a new basis, the survivor's half included, as long as at least half of the community interest is includible in the decedent's gross estate. Florida is not on the IRS list of community property states, so ask the CPA how a jointly titled Florida house is treated.

Order a date-of-death appraisal from a licensed appraiser even when no estate tax return is due. Your basis rests on that number, and it is easier to document now than to reconstruct years later. Have a CPA review the appraisal and the closing statement before you file the return for the year of the sale.

How do you protect a vacant inherited house until it sells?

Call the homeowner's insurance carrier the same week. Tell them the owner died and the house is empty, read the policy's vacancy or unoccupancy wording, and ask in writing what has to change to keep the dwelling covered through closing. In Florida, the personal representative may insure a protected homestead while its status is decided and recover the cost through the lien section 733.608 allows.

Keep the power and water on. The air conditioning has to run to hold humidity down, and a buyer's inspector needs live utilities to test the systems. Set the thermostat in the high 70s, put the water heater on its vacation setting, and close the main water valve between visits if nothing in the house needs it.

Rekey the locks, collect every key the family handed out, forward the mail to the representative, and keep the lawn cut so the house does not read as empty from the street. Photograph every room before anything moves, and do not give away or sell contents until the representative or the heirs agree in writing on who owns them.