Miami Beach Probate Lawyer: Condos, Co-ops and HOA Debt

When you need a Miami Beach probate lawyer, the first question is not about the court — it is about the building. Almost every Miami Beach estate is an apartment, and a Miami Beach probate lawyer who reads declarations, proprietary leases and estoppel letters will see problems in your file that a general probate practice never looks for.

A condominium on Collins, a co-op on West Avenue, a unit in a Mid-Beach building that just got its recertification notice. And that single fact — that the property is a unit in a building rather than a house on a lot — changes the probate more than anything else about the estate.

It changes who owes the maintenance while the case is open. It changes whether the property is protected homestead. It changes whether the association has to approve the person inheriting it. It changes whether an $80,000 special assessment lands on the estate before anyone can sell.

This page is about probate of Miami Beach property specifically. If you want the general Florida picture, start with our Miami probate attorney page. If you are dealing with a unit on the Beach, read on.

Inheriting a Miami Beach condo means inheriting its unpaid assessments

This is the single most expensive surprise in Miami Beach probate, and it catches almost everyone.

Under §718.116(1)(a), Florida Statutes, a unit owner — “regardless of how his or her title has been acquired” — is liable for assessments coming due while they own the unit, and is “jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for all unpaid assessments that came due up to the time of transfer of title.”

Read that phrase again: regardless of how title has been acquired. Inheritance is a way of acquiring title. So is a devise under a will. So is an order of summary administration.

Here is the part that surprises even careful families. The words “heir,” “devisee,” “estate,” “personal representative,” “decedent” and “death” do not appear anywhere in §718.116. The Condominium Act simply does not treat death as a special event. Whatever your mother owed the association on the day she died, the estate owes, and so does whoever ends up with the unit.

The condo safe harbour protects lenders, not the estate

Somebody will tell you there is a cap — twelve months of assessments, or one percent of the original mortgage. There is. It is in §718.116(1)(b)1., and it applies to a first mortgagee that acquires title by foreclosure and that joined the association as a defendant in the foreclosure action.

It is a mortgagee safe harbour. There is no heir safe harbour. A family reading about the twelve-month cap and assuming it applies to them is reading a provision written for lenders.

Assessments that accrue while the Miami Beach estate is open

• Interest. If the declaration does not set a rate, §718.116(3) applies 18 percent per year.
• A late fee of up to the greater of $25 or 5 percent of each delinquent instalment.
• Payments are applied in reverse of what you would expect — interest first, then late fees, then costs and attorney’s fees, and only what is left reduces the assessment itself. A partial payment by a well-meaning heir barely touches the principal.
• If the unit is rented, §718.116(11)(a) lets the association demand the tenant pay rent directly to the association until the unit’s obligations are current. No court order required. For an estate relying on rental income to carry the unit, that is a serious problem.

Estoppel certificates and what the condo association can charge an estate

The one tool that turns an open-ended inherited liability into a fixed, enforceable figure is the estoppel certificate under §718.116(8).

On written request, the association must issue it within 10 business days. It must itemise everything owed, with the per-diem rate at which it keeps accruing. And critically:

An association waives the right to collect any moneys owed in excess of the amounts specified in the estoppel certificate from any person who in good faith relies upon it, and from that person’s successors and assigns.

That is the whole point. Get the certificate, and the number on it is the number.

The mechanics matter:

• It expires. Thirty days if delivered by hand or electronically, thirty-five if sent by regular mail. On a probate timeline, a certificate obtained too early can expire before the estate can convey.
• The fee is capped at $250 where nothing is delinquent, plus $100 for delivery within three business days, plus $150 if there is a delinquency. If the association blows the 10-business-day deadline, it may not charge a fee at all.
• It names the owner as the association’s books show them — which, on an inherited unit, is the deceased person. Expect to reconcile that with letters of administration or the order of summary administration before closing.
• It discloses whether the association must approve a transfer, and whether there is a right of first refusal. Read that line before you sign anything.
• It lists every other association the unit belongs to. On the Beach this is not a formality. Master associations, recreation associations and hotel-condo structures mean two or three separate estoppels, each with its own fee and its own arrears.

The association can foreclose while the estate is still open

Families assume that opening a probate freezes everything. It does not.

The association’s lien under §718.116(5)(a) relates back to the recording of the original declaration — so in priority terms it predates the decedent’s ownership entirely. The association may foreclose it “in the manner a mortgage of real property is foreclosed” under §718.116(6)(a).

And the probate creditor deadline does not stop it. §733.702(4)(a) expressly excludes from the claims bar “a proceeding to enforce any mortgage, security interest, or other lien on property of the decedent.” Failing to serve the association may cost it an unsecured deficiency claim. It does not save the unit.

There is a one-year clock — a recorded claim of lien is ineffective after a year unless enforcement begins — and it is extended only for bankruptcy. Probate is not on the list. A formal administration in Miami-Dade routinely runs longer than a year. An association can finish a foreclosure before an estate finishes probate.

Where the estate has leverage against a Miami Beach association

Section 718.116(6)(b) says no foreclosure judgment may be entered until at least 45 days after the association gives the owner written notice of its intention to foreclose. If the association skipped that notice and the arrears are paid before final judgment, it recovers no attorney’s fees or costs.

In assessment cases the fees are frequently larger than the assessments. That defect is worth finding. And on an inherited unit there is often a second issue worth raising: a notice mailed to a deceased owner, at a unit where nobody lives, delivered to nobody.

Co-ops are treated completely differently, and Miami Beach has plenty of them

Miami Beach still has a real stock of cooperative buildings, particularly the older ones west of Alton and along the bay. If the apartment is a co-op, most of what people believe about Florida homestead is wrong.

A co-op owner does not own real estate. The corporation holds title to the building; the owner holds shares plus a proprietary lease. Since In re Estate of Wartels, 357 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 1978), Florida treats that interest as personal property.

And here is the trap. §196.041(1) gives a co-op tenant-stockholder beneficial title in equity — but only “for the purpose of homestead exemption from ad valorem taxes and for no other purpose.”

So the owner receives a homestead exemption on the tax bill every single year and reasonably concludes the apartment is homestead. For probate, it is not. The Third District Court of Appeal — the court that governs Miami-Dade — has followed Wartels in Phillips v. Hirshon, 958 So. 2d 425 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007), and again in Walters v. Agency for Health Care Administration, 288 So. 3d 1215 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). In Walters the court certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court, so the issue is not closed forever — but in Miami-Dade today, the rule is that a co-op is not protected homestead for purposes of devise and descent.

Two apartments on the same street get opposite answers because one building is a condominium and the other is a cooperative.

Why co-op shares are personal property, not Florida real estate

• The value counts in full toward the summary administration ceiling, with no homestead subtraction.
• It is exposed to creditors in a way protected homestead is not.
• But it can be planned around more easily than real estate. Shares are securities, so a co-op interest can carry a transfer-on-death registration — something Florida does not allow for a house, since there is no transfer-on-death deed here. Whether a particular building permits it depends on the proprietary lease and the share transfer restrictions, so it has to be read, not assumed.
• The board still has to approve the transfer. Nothing in Chapter 718 or Chapter 719 exempts an inheritance from association approval. In Sunshine Villa Apartments v. Snyder, 335 So. 2d 841 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976), transfer of the certificate and the proprietary lease conveyed ownership but not the right to occupy without board approval. An heir can own the apartment and still be told they cannot move in.

Miami Beach condo recertification starts at 25 years, not 40

If you learned this as the “40-year recertification,” that is out of date, and the difference matters to an estate holding a unit.

Miami-Dade County’s recertification programme, created by Section 8-11(f) of the Code of Miami-Dade County, was overhauled on 1 June 2022 to fold in the new state milestone inspection law. The current triggers:

• Coastal condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more storeys, built 1998 or later — recertification at 25 years, then every 10 years.
• Other buildings built 1993 or later — 30 years, then every 10 years.
• Coastal condo and co-op buildings built 1983 to 1997 — due by 31 December 2024, then every 10 years.

All of Miami Beach is coastal. The City of Miami Beach administers the county programme, and its own written procedure states the requirement as “30 years or older, 25 years for condominiums and cooperatives which are three (3) stories or taller.” Because the city’s public webpage still describes it as 30 years, owners get inconsistent information. Confirm your building’s actual due date with the city rather than assuming.

The state layer behind this is §553.899, which sets milestone inspections at 30 years but expressly allows a local agency to require them at 25 years where local conditions — including proximity to salt water — justify it. Miami-Dade took that option for coastal buildings. The 25-year trigger on the Beach is the salt-water provision in action.

Miami-Dade recertification and the state milestone inspection are one inspection

A common and expensive misunderstanding. Miami-Dade’s published inspection guideline states that the county recertification programme is synonymous with the state milestone inspection programme and combines Phase One and Phase Two into a single inspection.

Your building is not paying for two structural inspections. It does need both a structural and an electrical report for county recertification, where the state milestone inspection is structural only.

Miami Beach recertification notice deadlines: two years, one year, 90 days

Miami Beach posts notice on the building two years before the due date, again at one year, and again at 90 days. Once the final notice issues, the report is due within 90 days.

Miss it and the consequences are not theoretical: a civil violation notice issued without further warning, penalties escalating to a maximum of $10,510, referral to the Unsafe Structures Unit, and — the sentence worth reading twice — the building must be vacated upon issuance of an unsafe structures violation notice, with demolition possible. Miami Beach runs unresolved cases to its Special Master and from there to the county’s Unsafe Structures Board.

Structural integrity reserve studies can no longer be waived

Alongside recertification, §718.112(2)(g) requires a structural integrity reserve study for buildings three habitable storeys or higher, covering roof, structure, fireproofing, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, exterior painting, windows and doors, plus any item costing over $25,000 to replace.

Since 31 December 2024, owners in a unit-owner-controlled association may no longer vote to provide no reserves or reduced reserves for those components. The Miami Beach tradition of waiving reserves every year is over for structural items.

For an estate, all of this converts into one thing: a special assessment. And a special assessment is an ordinary assessment under §718.116 — the estate owes the ones that come due while it holds the unit, and the heir is jointly liable for the ones that came due before transfer.

There is also a Miami Beach-only obligation worth knowing about: buildings of five or more storeys must file an annual maintenance log, with deadlines staggered by neighbourhood and by odd or even address — North Beach odd addresses by 31 January, Mid-Beach odd by 31 March, South Beach odd by 31 May, and the even addresses at 31 July, 30 September and 30 November respectively.

What the estate must disclose to a Miami Beach condo buyer

When the estate sells, §718.503(2)(a) requires the seller to give the buyer the association’s governing documents, the most recent financial statement and budget, the inspector-prepared summary of the milestone inspection report, and the association’s most recent structural integrity reserve study. The buyer then has a statutory window to cancel.

You cannot quietly sell past an unfunded structural problem. Plan for the disclosure rather than being surprised by it.

Homestead on a Miami Beach condo, and the $150,000 rule

A condominium unit is real property — §718.106(1) says a condominium parcel “is a separate parcel of real property” — so unlike a co-op, it can be protected homestead.

That matters enormously for how the estate is administered. Under §735.201, Florida’s shortened probate route — summary administration — is available where the estate subject to administration in Florida, less property exempt from creditors’ claims, does not exceed $150,000, or where the decedent has been dead more than two years. That ceiling was raised from $75,000 on 1 July 2026 by Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida.

Protected homestead is excluded from the calculation — §731.201(33) puts it outside the property subject to administration. So:

• A Florida resident’s $900,000 oceanfront condo that passes to a spouse or heirs can be protected homestead, come out of the calculation, and leave an estate that qualifies for summary administration.
• A $200,000 co-op does not get that treatment, counts at full value, and may not qualify.
• A foreign owner’s pied-à-terre never qualifies as homestead — homestead requires Florida residency and a permanent residence. Full value counts.

Our page on summary administration in Florida works through the arithmetic in detail.

Ancillary probate for foreign and out-of-state Miami Beach condo owners

A large share of Miami Beach property belongs to people who live somewhere else — elsewhere in the United States, or in Latin America, Canada or Europe.

When that owner dies, the estate is administered where they lived, and Florida still needs its own proceeding before the unit can be sold or transferred. That is ancillary administration under §734.102.

The point that stops these cases before they start: the executor appointed at home is entitled to Florida letters only “if qualified to act in Florida” — and §733.304 lets a nonresident serve only if they are a close relative. A friend, a business partner, an accountant, a family solicitor or a trust company cannot be appointed here, whatever the will says. Our Florida ancillary probate page covers the whole procedure, and there is a separate federal estate tax question for non-citizens covered on our non-citizen estate tax page.

Selling an inherited Miami Beach condo, step by step

Most families come to us because they want to sell. The sequence matters, because doing it out of order costs weeks.

1. Establish authority. Letters of administration, or an order of summary administration. No association and no title agent will deal with you without it.
2. Order the estoppel certificate — and order one from every association the unit belongs to. Watch the 30-day clock against your closing date.
3. Get the date-of-death value. You need it for the estate, and the stepped-up basis usually means little or no capital gains tax on a prompt sale — the value resets at death rather than carrying the decedent’s original cost. This is how inherited property is taxed when sold: gain is measured from the date-of-death value, not from what your parents paid in 1988, so on a unit that has appreciated for thirty years the step-up does almost all the work of avoiding capital gains tax on inherited property. Sell promptly and there is often little gain at all; hold it for years as a rental and the gain accrues from the new basis. There is no time limit on selling inherited property, but the longer you wait the more of the appreciation becomes yours to be taxed on — and offers to buy an inherited house fast for cash in Miami are priced accordingly.
4. Collect the building documents the buyer is entitled to: governing documents, budget, financials, the milestone inspection summary and the reserve study.
5. Check the transfer approval requirement before you sign a contract, not after.
6. Then list it. With arrears fixed by the estoppel, disclosure ready and approval understood, the closing is ordinary.

If the heirs disagree about selling, that is its own problem with its own remedies, and it is better raised early than after a contract exists.

When siblings inherit a Miami Beach condo together

Most Miami Beach units come down to two or three siblings, and the argument is almost never about the law. It is about one of them wanting to keep it and the others wanting the money.

Why you need an appraisal for inherited property before anyone negotiates

Get a real valuation first. An appraisal for inherited property does two jobs at once: it establishes how to determine the fair market value of inherited property for a buy-out, and it fixes the date-of-death basis that decides what tax anyone pays on a later sale. Zillow is not that number, and neither is what the neighbour got last spring. In a building with mixed lines, views and assessments outstanding, the spread between units is enormous.

How to divide inherited property between siblings

Three mechanisms do most of the work. One sibling buys the others out, funded by cash or by a refinance of the inherited property to buy out heirs — several lenders write these specifically, and the loan closes once title has vested in the beneficiaries. Or the unit is sold and the proceeds divided, which is cleanest and most common. Or the co-owners keep it and paper the arrangement properly: who occupies it, who pays the assessments, how a milestone assessment gets funded, and what happens when one of them wants out.

When one sibling lives in the inherited condo and will not sell

This is the ugly version. A co-owner in possession generally cannot simply be locked out — a sibling who owns a share is not a tenant, so anyone asking how to evict a brother from inherited property is usually reaching for the wrong tool, and an ordinary eviction fails on that basis alone. What the others have instead is a partition action, and in the meantime a claim for their share of the rental value against an occupant who has excluded them, offset by what that occupant has actually paid in assessments, taxes and insurance.

It resolves. It just resolves slowly and expensively, out of the same unit everybody is arguing over.

Miami Beach probate by neighbourhood: South Beach, Mid-Beach, North Beach, Fisher Island

Probate is a county-level process, but buildings are local, and the practical issues differ along the island.

South Beach (33139) is where the co-op question comes up most, alongside the smallest and oldest buildings — the ones where recertification and reserve funding hit hardest relative to unit values.

Mid-Beach (33140) is dominated by mid-century oceanfront condominium towers, most now well past the 25-year mark, several with substantial recent assessments.

North Beach (33141) has the largest concentration of older, smaller condominium associations, where a single structural assessment can exceed a year of maintenance.

Sunny Isles Beach (33160) and North Miami Beach (33162) sit just north of the city line and generate the same questions — searches for a probate lawyer in Sunny Isles 33160 or estate planning in Sunny Isles Beach land on the same body of condominium law, and we take those files too.

Fisher Island (33109) — reachable only by ferry, with mail addressed Miami Beach — is itself a condominium regime with some of the most demanding transfer approval requirements in the county. An heir there should expect the approval process to take longer than the probate.

Bal Harbour, Surfside, Sunny Isles Beach and Key Biscayne sit just beyond the city line but raise identical issues, and the Surfside buildings in particular carry the sharpest post-2021 scrutiny.

Where a Miami Beach probate case is filed in Miami-Dade County

Probate for a Miami Beach decedent is filed in the Probate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, at the courthouse downtown, not on the Beach.

The Eleventh Circuit publishes its own checklists on top of the statutes — including a separate one for summary administration where there is no will — and expects filings in the order it sets out. Get the current checklist before drafting anything, because a packet from another county is a model, not a form you can rely on here.

Abogado de sucesiones en Miami Beach

Buena parte de las familias que heredan un apartamento en Miami Beach maneja el asunto en español, y la sucesión de un condominio no es el momento para traducir términos legales sobre la marcha. Si busca un abogado de sucesiones en Miami, un abogado de herencias en Miami o simplemente quiere entender la ley de herencia en Florida, USA, atendemos en español de principio a fin.

Los temas que más nos preguntan son los mismos de esta página: quién responde por las cuotas de mantenimiento impagas del condominio, cómo funciona la herencia en Florida para extranjeros que son dueños de una unidad en la playa sin residir en Estados Unidos, y qué pasa con la homestead. Tenemos páginas en español sobre herencias en Florida y sobre la cuenta bancaria de un fallecido donde explicamos el proceso completo. Si necesita un abogado de sucesiones en el sur de la Florida que le explique todo en su idioma, llámenos. If you are searching in English for a Spanish-speaking probate lawyer in Miami, that is us — the whole file can run in Spanish, including the hearings.

Miami Beach probate FAQs: condos, co-ops and HOA debt

Do I need probate for a Miami Beach condo?

Usually yes, if the unit was in the decedent’s sole name with no surviving co-owner and no beneficiary designation. A condominium is real property, and only a Florida court order or a personal representative’s deed will move title. You do not need probate where the unit was held jointly with right of survivorship, by a revocable trust, or under an enhanced life estate deed. Whether you need the full formal process or the shorter summary administration depends on the value of the estate subject to administration less exempt property — a threshold that rose to $150,000 on 1 July 2026.

Who pays the condo or HOA fees after the owner dies?

The estate pays the ones that come due while it holds the unit, and under §718.116(1)(a) whoever takes title is jointly and severally liable with the decedent for everything unpaid before the transfer. The statute applies “regardless of how title has been acquired,” and nothing in it carves out heirs or estates. Interest runs at 18 percent if the declaration is silent, and payments are applied to interest and fees before principal. If the unit is rented, the association can require the tenant to pay it directly.

Can the condo association foreclose while the estate is in probate?

Yes. The probate creditor deadline does not stop it — §733.702(4)(a) expressly preserves proceedings to enforce a lien on the decedent’s property. The association’s lien relates back to the recording of the declaration, and the one-year deadline to begin enforcement is extended only for bankruptcy, not for probate. The estate’s real protection is procedural: no foreclosure judgment may be entered until 45 days after written notice of intent to foreclose, and if that notice was not given and the arrears are paid before judgment, the association recovers no attorney’s fees or costs.

Is a Miami Beach co-op protected homestead?

For probate purposes in Miami-Dade, no. A co-op owner holds shares and a proprietary lease, which Florida treats as personal property under In re Estate of Wartels. Section 196.041(1) grants co-op owners homestead treatment “for the purpose of homestead exemption from ad valorem taxes and for no other purpose” — so the annual tax exemption does not carry over to devise, descent or creditor protection. The Third District, which governs Miami-Dade, has followed that rule as recently as 2019, though it has certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court.

What is an estoppel certificate and who pays for it?

It is the association’s written statement of exactly what is owed on a unit, required within 10 business days of a written request under §718.116(8). It is binding: the association waives anything above the amount stated against a person who relies on it in good faith. It is valid 30 days if delivered by hand or electronically, 35 by mail. The fee is capped at $250 where nothing is delinquent, with $100 more for three-day delivery and $150 more where there is a delinquency — and nothing at all if the association misses the deadline. It is normally paid at closing out of the sale proceeds.

How does a milestone inspection or reserve assessment affect the estate?

It becomes an ordinary assessment, which means the estate carries it. On Miami Beach, coastal condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more storeys can be due for recertification at 25 years rather than 30, under the salt-water provision in §553.899 as adopted by Miami-Dade County. Since 31 December 2024 owners can no longer vote down reserves for structural components, so shortfalls now surface as assessments rather than being deferred. And when the estate sells, it must give the buyer the milestone inspection summary and the reserve study.

How much does probate cost in Florida?

It depends on the route far more than on the size of the estate. There are court filing fees, the cost of publishing notice to creditors, certified copies, and attorney’s fees. A summary administration on a single unit is a modest matter. A formal administration with a mortgaged condominium, association arrears, a pending sale and beneficiaries in three countries is not. Assessments continuing to accrue during the case are frequently the largest single cost on a Miami Beach estate, which is an argument for moving quickly rather than for choosing the cheapest route.

How long does probate take in Florida?

Summary administration is usually a matter of weeks once filed. Formal administration commonly runs six months to a year, and longer where there is a contested claim or a sale. On the Beach the specific delays are association approval of the transfer, obtaining estoppels from more than one association, and — in an ancillary case — waiting on authenticated documents from the home-state or foreign court.

Can I sell an inherited Miami Beach condo before probate is finished?

Not before you have authority. You need letters of administration or an order of summary administration before a title agent will close. Once you have that, a sale can and often should proceed during the administration rather than after it, because assessments keep running. The sequence is authority first, then estoppel certificates, then the buyer disclosures, then contract.

Do I need a lawyer for probate in Miami-Dade?

For a formal administration, yes — Florida Probate Rule 5.030 requires a personal representative to be represented unless they are the sole interested person. Summary administration does not appoint a personal representative, so the rule does not bite the same way, but the situations that go wrong without help are exactly the Miami Beach ones: association arrears, a homestead determination, a co-op, an heir who will not sign, or a nonresident executor who turns out not to qualify under §733.304.

Speak with a Miami Beach probate lawyer about your condo

If you have inherited a unit on the Beach, the questions worth answering first are narrow: what does the association say is owed, is the property protected homestead, and does anyone need to approve the transfer. Those three answers determine what the case costs and how long it takes.

Call (305) 224-6811 or reach us through the contact page. Tell us the building, roughly what the estate looks like, and whether the owner lived in Florida — and we will tell you which route applies before you commit to anything.