Inherited a House With a Mortgage or Liens in Florida?

1. The Mortgage Stays With the House, and You Did Not Sign It

A mortgage is a lien on the property that secures a loan your parent signed. When your parent dies, the lien stays on the house, and the loan does not become your personal debt. You never signed the note, so the lender’s protection is the house itself.

Federal law (the Garn-St Germain Act) generally prevents a lender from enforcing a due-on-sale clause on a transfer to a relative that results from the borrower’s death. The protection covers homes with fewer than five dwelling units, and it applies to private lenders as well as banks. In practice, the lender cannot demand the full balance simply because your parent died and the house came to you.

The lender can still foreclose if the payments stop. Florida law lets a mortgage holder enforce its lien without filing a claim in the probate case, and the 2-year cutoff that ends most claims against an estate does not touch a recorded mortgage. So the practical rule is to keep the payments current while you decide, send the servicer a death certificate, and ask to be recognized as a successor in interest.

Two details change the picture. A reverse mortgage comes due after the borrower’s death on its own schedule, so call that servicer in the first week and ask for the payoff figure and the deadline. And a will decides who bears the mortgage only if it says so specifically. Under Florida law, a person left a mortgaged property takes it subject to the mortgage unless the will shows an intent to pay the loan from the rest of the estate, and a general instruction to pay debts does not count.

2. What If the House Is Worth Less Than the Loan?

An underwater house is the estate’s problem before it is yours. If the house sells for less than the loan, or the lender forecloses and recovers less than it is owed, the shortfall is a debt of your parent’s estate. The lender can file a claim in the probate case like any other creditor. The claim is paid only from estate assets, it sits in the last class of Florida’s eight-class payment order with ordinary debts, and it is barred if not filed within the probate deadlines and in any event 2 years after the death.

The step that turns an underwater house into your problem is accepting it. An heir who moves in, rents it out, or signs a listing agreement has accepted the property, and with it the carrying costs that keep running every month. An heir who wants no part of it can refuse with a disclaimer, which is covered in the options below.

If the heirs are siblings and disagree about whether to keep a mortgaged house, the heirs-property rules and buyout rights on our page about inheriting a house in Florida apply.

3. Unpaid Property Taxes and Tax Certificates

Property taxes are a lien on the house, and the Florida Constitution’s homestead protection has never covered them. When taxes go unpaid, the county sells a tax certificate, and the buyer of that certificate is effectively paid back, with interest, by whoever later redeems it.

The deadline that matters is the tax deed. Two years after April 1 of the year the certificate was issued, the certificate holder can apply for a tax deed, and the county must apply on certificates it holds on property assessed at $5,000 or more. The clerk then publishes notice once a week for 4 weeks and sells the house at public auction. A tax deed wipes out nearly every private interest in the property, including the family’s ownership. Only liens held by a government unit that remain unpaid after the sale proceeds are paid out survive it.

If the auction brings more than the certificate holder’s bid, the surplus goes to the clerk, who notifies the people who held an interest. Lienholders who do not file a claim within 120 days lose their share, while the former owner’s own claim is treated differently. Four years after a tax deed issues, the former owner and anyone claiming through that owner can no longer sue to challenge it. Our page on quiet title after a tax deed covers that side of the process.

An inherited house also loses your parent’s homestead exemption and assessment cap, so the next tax bill is often higher than the last one your parent paid. Plan for the increase before you decide to keep the house.

4. Code Enforcement Liens on a Vacant House

A house that sits empty during probate draws code complaints about overgrown yards, pools and damaged roofs. Florida’s code enforcement law allows fines of up to $250 a day for a first violation and $500 a day for a repeat violation, and larger counties and cities may authorize up to $1,000 a day for a first violation. A certified copy of the fine order, once recorded, becomes a lien on the land where the violation exists and on other property the violator owns.

A code fine lien cannot be foreclosed against a homestead, and the Florida Constitution does not let such a lien attach to a homestead at all. The homestead rule protected your parent while he or she lived there. The homestead protection depends on the property being the residence of the owner or the owner’s family, so an inherited house that nobody lives in may not carry the same protection going forward. Keep the grass cut and the pool secured, and search the county records for recorded fine orders before anyone closes a sale.

5. HOA and Condo Liens You Can Inherit Personally

Association assessments are the one debt that can follow a house onto the new owner personally. Florida law makes a condominium unit owner or an HOA parcel owner liable for assessments that come due during his or her ownership, regardless of how title was acquired, and jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for all unpaid assessments that came due up to the transfer of title.

In plain terms, an heir who takes title to a condo with $18,000 of unpaid dues can be pursued for the full $18,000, even though the dues accrued while the parent owned it. The association also holds a lien on the unit or parcel to secure the assessments, and for an HOA the lien generally relates back to the date the community’s declaration was recorded (a first mortgage is treated differently).

Ask the association for an estoppel figure showing the full balance before anyone accepts the property. Where the arrears are large and the equity is thin, a disclaimer made before you accept the house avoids becoming the owner who owes them.

6. Medicaid Estate Recovery and Other Estate Debts

If your parent received Medicaid after age 55, Florida’s Medicaid agency can file a claim in the probate case for what it paid. Medicaid’s claim sits in the third of Florida’s eight classes of estate debts, ahead of ordinary creditors, and the personal representative must serve the agency with notice where the parent was 55 or older. Florida recovers through the probate estate, so a house that passed by a lady bird deed is outside that estate. A revocable trust is different. Florida law makes a revocable trust pay the estate’s debts, the Medicaid claim included, when the probate estate is too small to cover them. A homestead that passes to the heirs stays protected by the homestead exemption, not by the trust. The full rules are on our Florida Medicaid estate recovery page.

Credit cards, medical bills and personal loans are claims against the estate. Those claims are paid from estate assets, and a Florida homestead that passes to a spouse or heirs is protected from those unsecured creditors under the Constitution. Our page for someone whose estranged parent died in Florida covers the creditor deadlines in more detail.

One exception makes heirs answer for estate debts. When a small estate is closed by summary administration, the people who receive property are personally liable for a share of valid claims, up to the value each received (property exempt from creditors does not count).

7. Who Pays What, in One Table

8. Your Four Options

1. Keep it. Keep the mortgage current, pay the back taxes before a tax deed application, clear the association balance, and apply for your own homestead exemption if you move in. Where siblings share the house, one often buys out the others with a refinance.
2. Sell it. Where the house went through probate, the personal representative (or the heirs, for a protected homestead) signs the sale, and the mortgage, taxes and recorded liens are paid from the closing proceeds. Our guide to selling a house in probate explains who signs. Where the loan exceeds the price, the lender has to agree to accept less.
3. Refuse it. A disclaimer sends the house onward as though you had died first. The disclaimer must come before you accept the house or any benefit from it, it is barred if you are insolvent when you sign it, and for Florida land it must be recorded in the county where the property sits. Where there was no will, the disclaimed share usually passes to your own children, so they need to know what they would receive. The details are on our disclaiming an inheritance page.
4. Let the lender take it. If nobody wants the house and the equity is gone, the lender forecloses against the property. The heirs who did not sign the loan and did not take title lose the house and nothing else, and any shortfall is a claim against the estate.

The order matters. Accepting the house closes the refusal option, and taking title to a condominium or HOA property brings the unpaid assessments with it. Decide before you act on the property.

What Does It Cost to Sort Out an Encumbered House?

Summary administration, for estates of $150,000 or less after exempt property or a death more than 2 years ago, is a flat fee from $2,500. A routine formal administration is a flat fee from $3,500. A disclaimer, a lien review or a negotiation with an association or lender is a flat fee quoted at consult. A foreclosure defense or a fight among heirs is litigation, which is quoted per matter rather than as a flat fee. Court filing fees, publication and recording costs are additional and passed through at cost, and posted fees are honored for 90 days. See the full fee schedule or estimate statutory fees with our probate cost calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The situations below are illustrations of how the rules apply, not accounts of any client’s case.

The condo with back dues. A son inherits his mother’s condominium, worth $190,000, with a $170,000 mortgage and $22,000 of unpaid association assessments. If he accepts it, he becomes liable with her for the $22,000 and still owes the monthly payments to keep it. Because nobody has moved in or collected rent, he can still disclaim, and the unit passes as though he had died before her.

The tax certificate. Two sisters inherit their father’s house and find that he stopped paying property taxes. The first certificate was issued in a year whose April 1 was 22 months ago. The sisters have about 2 months before the certificate holder can apply for a tax deed, so paying the redemption amount comes before anything else.

The house nobody wants. A house owes more than it is worth, and the only heir lives in another state. The heir does not move in, sign a listing or collect rent. The lender forecloses against the house, and its claim for the shortfall is filed in the estate. The heir never signed the loan, so he loses nothing but the house.

Sources of Law

• 12 U.S.C. §1701j-3(d)(5) (Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act; a lender may not exercise a due-on-sale option on a transfer to a relative resulting from the death of a borrower; residential property of fewer than five dwelling units). law.cornell.edu (retrieved 2026-05-27)
• Art. X, §4(a) and (b), Fla. Const. (homestead exempt from forced sale and judgment liens except for taxes and assessments, purchase, improvement and repair obligations, and labor on the realty; exemption limited to the residence of the owner or the owner’s family; inures to the surviving spouse or heirs). flsenate.gov (retrieved 2026-09-23)
• Fla. Stat. §733.608(2) and (3) (personal representative may take possession of unoccupied protected homestead to preserve and insure it; lien for sums spent), §733.702(4)(a) (claims rules do not affect enforcement of a mortgage or lien), §733.706 (enforcement of mortgages and liens), §733.707 (order of payment; Medicaid claims under §409.9101 in class 3; all other claims in class 8), §733.710 (2-year bar; recorded mortgages excepted) and §733.803 (specific devisee takes subject to encumbrance unless the will shows intent otherwise). (retrieved 2026-09-23)
• Fla. Stat. §733.2121(3)(d) (notice to the Agency for Health Care Administration where the decedent was 55 or older) and §409.9101 (Medicaid estate recovery). Fla. Stat. §733.707(3) (a trust the decedent could revoke at death is liable for the estate’s expenses and obligations to the extent the estate is insufficient, excluding under (3)(d) property that would not have been subject to claims) and §736.05053 (annotated)(1) (the trustee pays what the personal representative certifies). (retrieved 2026-09-23)
• Fla. Stat. §735.206(4)(e) (summary administration recipients personally liable for a pro rata share of claims, limited to value received, exclusive of exempt property). (retrieved 2026-09-23)
• Fla. Stat. §197.502(1) and (3) (tax deed application 2 years after April 1 of the year of issuance; county-held certificates on property valued at $5,000 or more), §197.512 (publication for 4 consecutive weeks), §197.552 (tax deed extinguishes interests except unsatisfied governmental liens), §197.582 (surplus; 120-day claim period for lienholders) and §95.192 (4-year limit on actions against a tax deed). (retrieved 2026-09-15)
• Fla. Stat. ch. 162, including §162.09 (fines up to $250 per day for a first violation and $500 per day for a repeat violation, up to $1,000 per day for a first violation where a county or municipality over 50,000 population authorizes it; recorded certified order is a lien on the land and other property of the violator; no foreclosure against homestead). Demura v. County of Volusia, 618 So. 2d 754 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993) (no code enforcement fine lien exists as to homestead property under Art. X, §4(a)). (retrieved 2026-08-13; opinion read 2026-09-15)
• Fla. Stat. §718.116(1)(a) and (5)(a) (condominium unit owner liable for assessments regardless of how title was acquired, and jointly and severally liable with the previous owner; association lien) and §720.3085(1) and (2) (homeowners’ association lien relating back to the recorded declaration except as to first mortgages; parcel owner jointly and severally liable with the previous owner). (retrieved 2026-09-23)
• Fla. Stat. §739.201 (disclaimed interest passes as if the disclaimant died immediately before), §739.402 (barred by acceptance or insolvency) and §739.601 (recording a disclaimer of real estate). (retrieved 2026-09-23)

The Lien Search Comes Before the Decision

I litigate these problems after they surface, which is a different job from preventing them, and the problem with an inherited house often surfaces at the closing table. A title search comes back with a recorded fine order, a tax certificate or an association lien, and the family learns about it the week they expected to be paid.

I walk heirs through the same sequence every time, and I have a few take-home points.

The first is to find out what is recorded before anyone accepts the house. A county records search and an association estoppel letter answer most of it. The mortgage payoff answers the rest.

The second is the association balance, which is the one debt an heir can take on personally by becoming the owner, and the one people least expect. A condominium with a year of unpaid dues can cost more to accept than it returns at sale.

The third is the tax certificate date. Families tend to treat back taxes as a line on the closing statement. The certificate date is a deadline, and two years after April 1 of that year someone else can ask for a tax deed.

Avoid moving into the house, renting it out or signing with a realtor while you are still deciding whether to keep it. Each of those can count as accepting the property, and accepting it ends the option to refuse it.

An honest limit belongs here. Whether a code fine lien survives on a house that stopped being anyone’s residence after the death is a question I answer from the specific records and the dates, and it is not always clean. I will tell you what I find and what it means for a sale, rather than assuming the answer.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. General information rather than advice on your situation.

Updated on September 23, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Deadlines and outcomes depend on your facts; past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.