Florida probate & inherited house questions, answered

Usually, yes — if the house was in the deceased person’s name alone. Florida does not let you transfer real estate with the small-estate paperwork used for bank accounts and cars, so a house almost always needs either summary administration (a shorter court process for estates worth $150,000 or less under the 2026 law, or when the person has been gone more than two years) or formal administration (the full process, with a personal representative). The exceptions are houses that pass outside probate: a revocable trust, a lady bird (enhanced life estate) deed, joint ownership with right of survivorship, or a surviving spouse on the deed. If you’re not sure which applies, tell us what you know and we’ll help you figure it out.

Yes. We sign a purchase agreement with the estate now, the estate’s attorney (we pay the fee) opens or finishes the probate, and we close as soon as the court authorizes the sale. You don’t have to wait until the estate is closed to get a firm price and a firm plan. If probate hasn’t started, the attorney is engaged within 24 hours of the signed agreement.

In almost every purchase, we pay the probate attorney’s fees, the court filing fees, and the cost of publishing the notice to creditors. The attorney represents the estate — its personal representative, usually one of the family — not us; we just pay the bill. It is not deducted from your proceeds and you never get an invoice. The only time we can’t cover it is a contested estate where litigation, not probate, is the real cost; we’ll tell you that up front.

Within 24 hours of a signed agreement, a Florida probate attorney is engaged, paid, and gathering what the petition needs. The filing itself follows as soon as the death certificate and the heir information are in hand — usually days, not weeks. We can move that fast because we do this constantly and keep the attorneys and the title company lined up. The court’s own timeline is what takes longer — see how long Florida probate takes.

Summary administration commonly takes about one to three months. Formal administration commonly takes six to twelve months, because the estate has to publish a notice to creditors and wait out a three-month claim period, then inventory, account, and close. Contested estates take longer. We can’t speed up the court, but we can make sure nothing sits on anyone’s desk — and we lock in your price on day one so the wait costs you nothing.

It depends on the house and on you. A cash offer is below full retail price in exchange for speed, certainty, no repairs, no clean-out, no months of showings — one walkthrough with us — and no probate bills. For a house in great shape with heirs who have time and money to carry it, listing can net more, and when that’s true we’ll say so — we put a net-to-net comparison in writing with every offer. For a house that needs work, has liens, has belongings in it, has heirs in three states, or just needs to be done, a direct sale can net closer to a listing than families expect, with far less stress.

Yes. Once title has passed to the heirs, each heir owns an undivided fractional interest as a tenant in common and can sell it without the others’ permission. We buy partial interests — a half, a third, a sixth — and pay you for your share now. We can also buy out some heirs today and the rest later when they’re ready. Florida’s heirs-property law (the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act) protects your relatives too: if co-ownership ever has to be resolved in court, they get the first right to buy out a share at appraised value, and any sale is on the open market rather than at auction. Read more on selling your share of an inherited house.

You are not alone — most of the estates we buy have at least one disagreement in them. We’ll talk with each heir separately if that helps, give everyone the same written offer, and answer every question honestly. If some heirs want to sell and others don’t, we can buy the shares of the ones who are ready. See selling with multiple heirs.

Florida’s intestate succession law decides: a surviving spouse first (the whole estate if all the children are also the spouse’s and the spouse has no children from another relationship; otherwise half), then children, then parents, then siblings and their descendants, and so on. The court confirms the heirs during probate. We explain it in plain English in who inherits a house in Florida when there’s no will.

No. Everything can be done remotely. A relative, neighbor, or lockbox gets us into the house for the walkthrough, the attorney handles the court, and you sign closing documents with a mobile notary wherever you live — we’ve closed with heirs in Europe. Your proceeds are wired by the title company. See selling a Florida house from out of state.

Yes — most families call us before anything is filed. The estate’s attorney (we pay the fee) prepares the petition that asks the court to appoint a personal representative (usually one of the heirs) and, in the same case, to authorize the sale. We can also help families where the person who died had no will and no one is sure who should serve.

Someone has to find the heirs. We do exactly that — we use genealogists and private investigators to locate next of kin, sometimes abroad, and then help them through probate and buy the house. If you’re a distant relative, a neighbor, or a friend who was told “no family has come forward,” read how unclaimed estates work in Florida and give us a call.

We’ll give you a specific number after seeing the house, and we show the math: the value of the house after it’s fixed up, minus repairs, minus the carrying and selling costs we take on, minus our margin. Our offer is below what a perfect, empty, repaired house would list for — that difference pays for the speed, the certainty, the probate, and the work. We never charge fees or commissions, and we pay normal closing costs.

Florida has no estate tax and no inheritance tax. For federal purposes, inherited property gets a “stepped-up basis” to its fair market value on the date of death, so if you sell for roughly that value there is usually little or no capital gain. The estate itself may owe income tax if it sells for much more than the date-of-death value. We’re not tax advisors — please read taxes when you sell an inherited house and confirm with a CPA.

We pay the normal closing costs — title search, title insurance, settlement fee, recording — and we pay the probate costs. The estate pays off anything owed against the house at closing (mortgage, back taxes, liens) from the sale proceeds, exactly as it would in any sale.

Yes. Those are paid off from the purchase price at closing by the title company. If the debts are more than the house is worth, tell us — sometimes we can still make it work (a short sale, or a payoff negotiation), and sometimes the honest answer is to let it go, which we’ll tell you. See inherited houses with liens, reverse mortgages and other problems.

Quickly. A reverse mortgage becomes due when the last borrower dies. The servicer sends a due-and-payable notice and gives heirs 30 days to respond with a plan, and under HUD rules it must start foreclosure within six months of the death unless HUD approves extensions (two 90-day extensions are available while heirs are actively selling or arranging payoff — often about a year in practice, but not guaranteed). We can sign immediately, open probate within 24 hours, and coordinate with the servicer on the payoff and extensions so the house sells before the lender forecloses.

Florida’s Medicaid estate recovery program can file a claim in the probate estate for benefits paid after age 55. A house that qualifies as protected homestead passing to heirs is generally outside the reach of that claim; other property may not be. The attorney handles the claim inside the probate, and we’ve bought houses where this came up.

No. Take the photos, the letters, the things that matter to you, and leave the rest — furniture, clothes, the garage, all of it. We handle the clean-out after closing. Many families take weeks to go through belongings; we close on your schedule, not ours.

Yes. Roof leaks, mold, hoarding, termite damage, unpermitted additions, hurricane or flood damage — we buy as-is and we’ve bought far worse. Alex’s work on abandoned “zombie houses” in St. Petersburg has been featured on Tampa Bay 28 — twice.

We handle that too. Whether it’s a relative who won’t leave, a tenant with no lease, or squatters, we have experience with Florida’s squatter law (Tampa Bay 28 rode along with us the day it took effect) and with tenant evictions. You don’t have to get anyone out before you sell to us.

No. We buy single-family houses, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes, small apartment buildings, and commercial property. If you inherited a condo or a manufactured home, call us anyway — we’ll point you to a buyer who does.

Statewide. Our office is in St. Petersburg and most of the houses we’ve bought are in Pinellas, Hillsborough and the rest of Tampa Bay, but we buy inherited houses anywhere in Florida and handle everything remotely. See the counties we work in.

131 Cash Home Buyers is the trade name of 131 Realty Corp, a Florida corporation founded by Alex Jandick in St. Petersburg in September 2018. When you call, you talk to Alex. We have a 5.0-star Google rating, an office on Central Avenue, and three Tampa Bay 28 news features you can watch on this page. We buy directly — not an agent, not a national call center.

No. A conversation and a written offer are free, and you can take as long as you need. If you decide to list instead, keep the house, or go with another buyer, there are no hard feelings and no fees.

Yes. We work with several Florida probate attorneys and we’re happy to make an introduction regardless of what you decide about the house.