Inherited a Pinellas House? Florida Raised the Small-Estate Limit

A family member passes away in St. Petersburg, Largo or Clearwater. The house is still there, the mail is still coming, and you live two states away. Somebody tells you the house "has to go through probate," and it sounds like a year of court dates before you can do anything.

Sometimes it is. Often it is not. And in 2026 Florida changed one of the rules that decides which path your family is on.

This post walks through what changed, what did not, and where an inherited house in Pinellas County usually ends up. It is written for heirs, not lawyers. Your probate attorney has the final word on your estate.

The short version

• Florida has a shorter, simpler court process called summary administration for smaller estates.
• In 2026 the Legislature raised the dollar ceiling that decides who qualifies (chapter 2026-57).
• A lot of pages that rank for this topic, and some printed handouts, still show the old figure. Read the current number on the statute itself, not on a blog.
• If the house was a homestead and there is a surviving spouse plus children, a separate rule decides who owns what. For a sale, that matters more than the probate path does.
• You can talk to a buyer while probate is still open. You just cannot close until the person with legal authority can sign.

What summary administration is

Florida has two main ways to settle an estate through the court. Formal administration appoints a personal representative, opens a creditor period, and runs until the court closes it. Summary administration is the shorter path: the court can order the property distributed without a full administration.

Florida Statutes section 735.201 sets the two doors into summary administration. Either one can qualify an estate:

1. The size door. The value of the entire estate subject to administration in Florida, minus property that is exempt from creditors, is at or under the dollar ceiling written in the statute.
2. The time door. The person has been dead for more than two years.

If there is a will, it also cannot direct formal administration.

The size door is the part that changed. The history note on the statute lists chapter 2026-57, and the 2026 edition of the Florida Statutes shows the new, higher ceiling. We are not printing the number here on purpose. Check it on the statute page, because that is the version the court will use.

Why the change matters for a Pinellas house

Pinellas houses have gone up in value a lot over the years. An estate with a house that sat comfortably under the old ceiling ten years ago may have been well over it last year. The higher ceiling pulls some of those estates back into the shorter process.

Two things to watch:

• What counts toward the ceiling. The statute measures the estate "subject to administration in this state" minus exempt property. Some property passes outside probate entirely, like accounts with a named beneficiary or a house titled jointly with a survivor. Some property may be exempt. What is in and what is out is a question for your attorney, not a guess from a website.
• Old information is everywhere. When a law changes mid-year, the search results catch up slowly. If a page or a handout gives you a figure, check whether it was written before the 2026 change.

The time door is worth remembering too. If the house has been sitting for more than two years since the death, summary administration may be open to you no matter what the estate is worth. We meet families in that spot often: the house sat empty because nobody wanted to start the process.

The homestead rule is the bigger deal for a sale

If the house was the homestead of the person who died, a different statute can decide who actually owns it, and that decides who has to sign when it sells.

Under Florida Statutes section 732.401, when a homestead was not left by will in a way the law allows, and the person is survived by a spouse and one or more descendants:

• The surviving spouse takes a life estate in the house, meaning the right to use it for the rest of their life.
• The descendants take what is called a vested remainder. They own it after the life estate ends.

The spouse has another option. Within six months after the death, and during their own lifetime, the spouse can elect to take an undivided one-half interest in the house as a tenant in common instead. The other half goes to the descendants. The statute allows that window to be extended only if a petition is filed with the court inside the same six months.

Why this matters when you want to sell: a buyer needs clean title from everyone who owns a piece of the house. With a life estate and a remainder, or a half-and-half split, that can mean the spouse and every child signing. Heirs spread across several states, a sibling who does not answer the phone, a spouse who wants to stay: those are the real reasons an inherited sale stalls, far more than the court process.

What we see happen with inherited houses in St. Pete

Most of the inherited houses we look at in Pinellas share a few things:

• Nobody lives nearby. The heirs are in New Jersey, Georgia, Ohio. Every trip down costs time off work.
• The house is full. Furniture, paperwork, a garage of tools. Nobody has decided what to keep.
• The house needs work. An older block ranch with original plumbing, a roof near the end of its life, a permit nobody closed. Sometimes storm water got in and nobody has opened the walls.
• The family does not agree. One sibling wants to rent it out, one wants to sell, one wants to wait.

Listing a house like that usually means cleaning it out, fixing what an inspector will flag, and keeping it mowed, secured and paid for until the lender of a retail buyer is satisfied. That is hard to manage from out of state, and it all comes out of the estate before anyone is paid.

How a direct sale works when there is probate

We buy inherited houses in Pinellas County directly from the family, as-is, with our own money. We are not agents and we do not list it. We do not sell our contracts to other investors. Here is how it usually lines up with probate:

1. You call us before probate is done. That is fine. We can look at the house and talk through a price on one property, on one call.
2. We sign with whoever has authority. That is usually the personal representative in a formal administration. In a summary administration it follows the order of the court. If heirs need to sign, we wait for all of them.
3. We close when the court allows. The title company checks that the right people are signing. If the house is a homestead with a life estate or a split, the title company sorts out who signs before closing.
4. You leave what you do not want. The stuff inside, the old car in the carport, the repairs. We buy it the way it sits.

Nothing about a direct sale replaces your probate attorney. What it removes is the cleanout, the repairs and the months of carrying an empty house while you wait for a buyer to get financing.

Questions to bring to your probate attorney

• Does our estate qualify for summary administration under the size door, the time door, or neither?
• What property counts toward the ceiling, and is anything exempt?
• Was the house a homestead, and does section 732.401 apply to it?
• If there is a surviving spouse, has the six-month election window run?
• Who will have to sign the deed when the house sells?

Bring the death certificate, a copy of any will, the deed, and the latest tax bill. Those four answer most of the first meeting.

For more on what happens after you take an offer, read what happens after you accept a cash offer. For how we work across Pinellas, see our Pinellas County page, and common questions are on the FAQ.

Inherited a house in Pinellas?

Tell us the address and where things stand with probate. We will tell you plainly what we can do. Use the cash offer form or call (727) 613-0241.