When someone that you love dies, you may potentially inherit assets from their estate. Few belongings will have more personal or financial value than someone’s home, and many testators choose to leave their primary residence or investment properties to the people closest to them.
Learning that your grandmother or favorite aunt left you a house in Florida can be an exciting and humbling realization. Your gratitude for their generosity may even help you deal with your grief at their passing. Still, there will undoubtedly be practical concerns that temper your excitement about your inheritance, like figuring out how to assume title for the property.
How do you actually become the owner of record for the property after you inherit real estate in Florida?
A deed is necessary to transfer ownership
Typically, to officially become the new owner of the property, you will have to execute a deed. Occasionally, this is something a testator addresses before they died.
If you lived together, you may have already been added to the title as a joint tenant with rights of survivorship. In that scenario, you inherited ownership of the property as soon as your loved one died. If they already executed and gave you a deed to transfer the property at their death, you may be able to record that deed shortly after their passing.
Otherwise, you will need to work with the probate courts or the representative of the estate to execute a quitclaim deed taking the property from the deceased individual’s name to yours. After properly executing a deed and having it recorded by the county recorder’s office, you will then officially be the owner of record for that property.
Will there be taxes involved?
There could be some tax liabilities associated with your inheritance of the property. The overall value of the home and the way that the testator transfers title will determine what taxes may apply to this transfer. Once you assume ownership of the property, it will be your obligation to ensure the property and pay taxes on it, just as it would be with a property acquired through a standard real estate transaction.
Understanding the rules that apply to real estate during estate administration can give you the knowledge and patience necessary for the process.
