Florida Real Estate
Title, homestead, probate, and a transfer into a trust are Florida questions. They are separate from the federal estate tax on U.S.-situs property, and they are separate from the tax and property law of the owner's home country. We advise on the Florida and U.S. side. We do not advise on real property located outside the United States.
Recalde Law Firm, P.A. is a Florida law firm with an office in Miami, Florida. We advise on United States law only. We do not practice Mexican law, and we do not give Mexican tax or succession advice. We do not practice the law of any other country. Formation of a non-U.S. entity, and the local law of that jurisdiction, are matters for local counsel. We handle the U.S. architecture: classification, the documents a U.S. custodian and a U.S. court will read, and coordination with the family's tax adviser.
A condominium or a house in Florida can be titled in an individual name, in an entity, or in a trustee. Each choice changes probate, homestead, and the federal tax file. Federal withholding on a sale by a foreign person is FIRPTA, which we do not restate here. The trust that may receive the property is discussed on Foreign Trusts.
A deed into an individual name is simple to sign and expensive to unwind. At death, Florida real property in an individual name is a probate asset in Florida unless a valid transfer has already moved it. An entity or a trustee on the deed avoids that probate only if the entity or the trust actually owns the property and the governing documents are in force. A company that was never funded, or a trust that was signed and never deeded, does not.
Florida homestead is a state-law status for a natural person who resides in Florida and uses the property as a home. It restricts devise when a spouse or a minor child survives, and a lifetime conveyance by a married owner generally needs the spouse's joinder. It is not the federal estate-tax credit for a nonresident who is not a U.S. citizen. A person who is not a U.S. citizen, and who actually resides in the Florida home, can still have homestead. See Florida homestead and transfers into a trust.
If the owner dies holding Florida real property in an individual name, a Florida estate proceeding is the ordinary path to a marketable title, even when a will exists in another country. Ancillary administration is a Florida proceeding. We coordinate it with the fiduciary. We do not administer the estate of the home country.
A trust is funded when the deed conveys the property to the trustee, in the form the Florida recording statute will accept, and the trust instrument authorizes the trustee to hold it. If the owner is married and the property is homestead, the spouse's joinder is part of that deed. The federal income-tax and estate-tax consequences of the transfer are the tax adviser's to model before the deed is recorded. See funding a foreign trust.
FIRPTA withholding on a disposition of a U.S. real property interest is a federal regime. We point to it. We do not rewrite it on this page. The English note is FIRPTA, USRPHC, and section 351. The Spanish note on gain is ganancias de capital en la venta de propiedad en Florida.
A Florida or Delaware limited liability company can be a useful title holder. It does not, by its label, decide U.S. estate tax. Income-tax disregarded status does not settle estate-tax situs of a foreign owner's single-member LLC interest. That question is not settled by the income-tax classification. A partnership interest is fact-specific. The Spanish note on that limit is una LLC no decide el impuesto al patrimonio.
A pattern we see for families from Mexico, Colombia, or Brazil is a Miami condominium deeded to one person, with a will signed at home and no Florida deed into a trustee. Families from Argentina, Peru, or Panama arrive with the same deed and a different home-country will. The Florida questions are the same: who holds title, whether the owner resides in the property so that homestead applies, what happens if the owner dies, and whether a transfer to a trustee is the right Florida document. Real property in the home country, and the succession law of that country, stay with counsel there. We do not explain those rules.
Federal estate tax on U.S. real property is a separate statute from Florida homestead and from Florida probate. For a decedent who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a U.S. domiciliary, the Code allows a $13,000 unified credit under section 2102(b), which is the credit the Form 706-NA instructions describe against the first $60,000 of the taxable estate, unless a treaty changes the credit. Situs of other asset classes, including deposits, is not the same rule as situs of real property. We do not flatten those classes on this page. The estate-tax engagement is wealth structuring for foreign nationals and U.S.-situs assets inside a foreign trust.
Para leer en español: bienes raíces en Florida de personas que no son US persons, cinco errores al comprar propiedad en Florida, si tiene propiedades en Miami y fallece, y el impuesto al patrimonio y el inversionista. Those notes stay as they were written. This page is where we coordinate them.
Realtors, private bankers, and family offices usually see the contract first. The Florida deed, the homestead affidavit, and the trust funding are legal work. We take that work. Investment advice stays with the adviser.
Counsel for wealth advisers · Homestead and transfers into a trust · Foreign trusts · Private wealth
Write as the family, or as the adviser. Tell us who owns the assets and what the documents currently say. We will schedule a conversation. No commitment required.