How to sell your share of an inherited house in Florida — even when the other heirs won’t sell

How you ended up owning a fraction

When a parent dies owning a house and leaves it to more than one child — by will, or by Florida’s intestate rules when there is no will — the children become tenants in common. Three children, three undivided one-third interests. No one owns a particular bedroom; everyone owns a share of all of it. Each co-owner has the right to use the whole property and a duty to share expenses in proportion to their interest. That arrangement works until someone wants out, or someone stops paying, or someone moves in and won’t leave.

Your right to sell your share

A tenant in common may sell, give, or mortgage their own undivided interest without the consent of the other co-owners. The deed simply conveys “an undivided one-third interest.” The buyer steps into your place as a co-owner with your siblings. Nothing about their shares changes.

What you cannot do alone is sell the whole house — that takes every owner’s signature, or a court. Which is where partition comes in.

Partition — and Florida’s heirs-property protections

Any co-owner of Florida real estate can file a partition action under Chapter 64 of the Florida Statutes. The court either divides the land (rare for a house) or orders it sold and the proceeds split by ownership share, after adjusting for who paid taxes, insurance, and repairs and who collected rent. Since 2020, Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (§§ 64.201–64.214) adds protections when the house came down through a family: the court orders an appraisal, the other co-owners get a 45-day right to buy out the share of whoever asked for the sale at its appraised value, partition in kind is preferred where it is possible, and if the house is sold it goes on the open market through a licensed broker — not to the highest bidder at an auction.

Those rules are good for families, and they also mean nobody — not a sibling, not us — can use a partition case to take a house for less than it is worth. Partition is still slow, public, and expensive, and it is a lawsuit against your own family; most families never file one. They just stay stuck.

Selling your share to a buyer who is willing to be the one in that position changes the math. You get paid and step away. We become your siblings’ co-owner and take on the conversation with them, the carrying costs for our share, and, if it ever comes to it, the partition — in which your relatives keep every protection the heirs-property law gives them, including the right to buy us out at appraised value. In our experience it rarely gets that far: once a professional co-owner is at the table, the other heirs usually decide to sell too, and we buy their shares as well.

Short version: if you want the house sold, we pay for the probate and get the attorney working within 24 hours — call or text (727) 353-6206, or use the form.

What is a partial interest worth?

Less than the same fraction of the whole house’s value, and it is worth being honest about why. A one-third interest can’t be lived in alone, can’t be financed by a bank, and comes with two co-owners who may not cooperate; the buyer takes on the carrying costs and the risk of a partition case. So an interest trades at a discount to its arithmetic share. Our offers show the math: the as-is value of the house, your fractional share of it, and the adjustment for the co-ownership situation. If the other heirs decide to sell to us as well, that adjustment shrinks, because we are then buying a whole house rather than a piece of one.

When can a share be sold?

• After probate, once the order of summary administration or the personal representative’s deed has put the house in the heirs’ names — this is the simple case.
• Protected homestead passes to the spouse or descendants at the moment of death; an heir’s interest can be conveyed once the court enters an order determining homestead (and we can sign now and close when it’s entered).
• During formal administration, before distribution, your interest has vested but is still subject to the administration. We can sign an agreement now to purchase it once the estate distributes it, and pay the probate costs in the meantime.
• Before probate has started at all: we open it. We pay for the probate, and as soon as title vests we close on your share.

Buyouts between siblings

If one sibling wants to keep the house, the clean solution is for them to buy the others out at a fair price. That requires cash or a mortgage in their name, and a deed. We’re happy to help families do this instead of selling to us — sometimes we buy the shares of the siblings who want out and sell the whole house back to the one who wants to stay. There is no obligation to involve us; call us anyway and we’ll tell you how it’s usually done.

Three typical situations

One sibling lives in the house and won’t leave or pay

The others own two-thirds of a house they can’t use, and the taxes are in arrears. We buy the two-thirds, and we deal with the occupant — respectfully, and with the legal process if needed.

One heir needs money now; the others want to “wait for the market”

We buy the one share now. The other heirs keep theirs, with us as their new co-owner, and can sell to us whenever they decide.

Heirs scattered across the country, no one in charge

We buy from each heir as they’re ready, one at a time, with mobile notaries wherever they live. Nobody has to coordinate anyone else.

Questions people ask