Does a Miami condo go through probate when the owner dies?

Yes, unless the deed or a trust is written so that it does not. Florida real property in a person's own name passes at death through a Florida probate proceeding, even when the owner lived elsewhere and had a will there; for a non-resident the Florida case is an ancillary proceeding on top of the one at home. Title that is vested as tenants by the entirety or as joint tenants with right of survivorship passes to the survivor without probate. Title held by a revocable trust passes under the trust's terms without a court. An enhanced life estate deed passes it to named beneficiaries at death and lets the owner keep control during life. The choice is made before the contract, because the buyer the developer closes with is the buyer the contract names, and re-vesting after closing is a second deed with its own costs and questions. This page sets out the mechanics; counsel chooses.

Whenever the owner's name alone is on the deed and nothing passes it automatically. Probate is the court process that confirms the will, appoints a personal representative, settles the estate's debts and transfers the title to the heirs. In Florida it has a summary form for small or old estates and a formal form for the rest; a condominium at the prices Miami's new towers publish sits in the formal one. The proceeding takes months, is public, and costs the estate court fees and the fees of a Florida lawyer the personal representative must retain. During it the home cannot be sold or refinanced without the court's authority, and the association fee, the insurance and the property tax keep coming due. A buyer who reads that sentence usually asks the next question, which is how to keep the home out of it. Read LLC, trust or personal name, estate tax exposure for non-resident owners and the first year of owning a Miami condo.

Two proceedings instead of one. Real property is governed by the law of the place it sits, so a Florida condominium owned in a New Yorker's or a Londoner's own name is administered in Florida regardless of where the will was written and where the main estate is settled. The Florida case is called ancillary administration: the family's lawyer at home opens the main estate, and a Florida lawyer opens the Florida one to pass the condominium, with the home will admitted here if it meets Florida's formalities. For a foreign owner the estate tax question sits beside the probate one and is a different problem: probate is the court process, the tax is the federal charge on the asset, and a structure that solves one does not necessarily touch the other. Read owning from abroad, a foreign buyer using a US LLC, from offer to recording and can a foreigner buy property in the United States.

Completely, and it is decided on the deed. A married couple taking title together is presumed in Florida to hold as tenants by the entirety, and the survivor owns the whole without probate. Two or more owners who are not spouses can take as joint tenants with right of survivorship if the deed says so in words, with the same result at the first death and probate waiting at the last. Tenants in common hold stated shares that each pass by will or by law, which means probate for each share. One owner alone, in a personal name, is the case that goes to court. The developer's contract has to allow the vesting the buyer chooses, and the title company writes the deed from the contract, so the family that wants survivorship names both buyers before the reservation rather than at the closing table. Read how a married couple goes from offer to recording, how siblings co-owning a Miami condo go from offer to recording and who can live in your Miami condo besides you.

Keep the home out of court by moving the transfer out of the will. A revocable living trust takes title to the condominium, the owner controls it as trustee during life, and at death the successor trustee passes it under the trust's terms, privately and without a proceeding; the developer's contract has to allow the trust to be the buyer or to take an assignment, and the trust has to be drafted to hold Florida real property and to satisfy the association's approval rules. An enhanced life estate deed, which Florida practice calls a Lady Bird deed, keeps the owner on title with the full right to sell or mortgage during life and passes the home to named beneficiaries at death by the deed itself, which suits a single owner who wants one document rather than a trust. Each has costs, each has a lender's and an insurer's view, and a foreign owner's home jurisdiction may read either differently from Florida. Read when a trust buys pre-construction, buying a Miami condo through an entity and owner's title insurance on a new Miami condo.

The rules on who can inherit. Florida's constitution restricts how a homestead, the primary residence of a Florida resident, may be devised when the owner leaves a spouse or a minor child: the home passes to them by the constitution's own rule, and a will that says otherwise is overridden to that extent. A second home is not a homestead and the restriction does not apply, so the question only reaches the household that has moved to Miami full time and filed for the exemption. It is the one place where the estate plan written at home can be defeated by Florida law, and it is read with Florida counsel the year the household becomes resident. Read does buying a Miami condo make you a Florida resident, primary residence, second home or investment and homestead at Rivage.

Keeps billing, and waits for a deed. The association's fee runs against the home whatever the owner's situation, so an estate that is slow pays late fees and, in time, faces the association's lien. Where the condominium documents give the association an approval right over transfers, the heir or the trust's beneficiary may have to be approved like any buyer, and the estoppel certificate the eventual sale needs states what the estate owes. An owner who will be abroad for months at a time names, on the association's form, someone who can be reached, and keeps the deed, the trust and the policy where that person can find them. Read does a Miami condo association have to approve you as a buyer, what a condo estoppel certificate tells a Miami buyer and can the building enter your Miami condo when you are away. The desk reads the contract's vesting clause and the association's approval rules with the buyer before the reservation; the structure is counsel's.