All three are legitimate.
Inheriting a home means making a decision most people have never had to make, usually at the worst possible time. This page walks through what that decision actually rests on — before it gets made by default.
Talk it through with AmandaInheriting a home is not one decision. It's a series of them, and the first one is the one nobody explains: do you keep it, rent it, or sell it?
All three are real options. Families keep homes for good reasons and sell them for good reasons, and there is no version of this where one answer is correct for everyone. What is true for everyone is that the decision rests on facts most heirs haven't checked yet — what the property taxes will actually be next year, whether the community even allows leasing, whether the roof is insurable, what the estate attorney's timeline requires, and what the other heirs want. Some of those facts change the math completely. A few of them are time-sensitive.
Amanda Sweetz helps Palm Beach County families work through that decision before it gets made by default.
Keep it. Rent it. Sell it. Which one is right depends on facts most people don't know to check yet — and a few of them are on a clock.
Someone moves in, or the family holds onto it. What decides this door is mostly the tax picture — what the bill looks like once the assessment resets, and what the exemption does and doesn't do for a new owner.
The house becomes an investment. Before anything else, this door depends on whether the community will allow it at all — the fastest question here, and the one almost nobody asks first.
The home goes to market and the proceeds are distributed among the heirs. The selling paths for an inherited property — traditional listing, as-is, cash — are laid out in full on the probate side of the site.
If the estate is still in probate, start here. That side of the site covers the legal process — what has to happen in court, in what order, and on whose timeline. This page picks up where that leaves off: what to do with the house itself.
Not ready to read all seven factors? Answer six short questions and get a personalized list of what to ask your attorney and your CPA — no recommendation, no calculation. Build your question list →
Helping a parent move to senior living rather than settling an estate after a death? That's a different situation with its own guide — see how Amanda helps with a senior transition →
Seven facts. Most heirs haven't checked any of them yet, and a few of them are on a clock.
If your family held this home for a long time, the property taxes you grew up hearing about are not the taxes you'll pay. Florida's Save Our Homes cap limits how fast a homesteaded property's assessed value can rise, so after decades the assessed value sits far below what the home is actually worth — and the tax bill reflects the lower number.
When the property changes hands, that protection comes off. The assessed value resets toward market value and the tax bill follows it up. For a long-held Palm Beach County home, the increase can be dramatic. It is the single most common surprise in an inherited home, and it is the fastest one to check. Amanda pulls both figures from the county record so you're deciding with the real one.
Florida's homestead exemption belongs to the owner who lives in the home as a permanent residence. If you inherit a house and don't move into it, you don't have the exemption — and if you convert it to a rental, you can't have it.
This lands in the same tax cycle as the Save Our Homes reset, which is why the first bill after an inheritance is so often the moment the plan changes. Two protections come off at once. And if you do move in, you may be able to establish your own homestead going forward, but you don't inherit the decades of capped assessment your family built up. That benefit doesn't transfer.
Inherited homes in Florida tend to be older homes, and Florida insurance carriers look hard at roofs. If the roof is aging, coverage can get expensive, conditional, or unavailable — and that single fact reshapes every option in front of you.
No insurance means no financing, which means keeping it or renting it becomes a cash proposition and selling it means a narrower buyer pool or a price adjustment. It's not a detail to handle later. It's a gate. Amanda establishes roof age and condition at the first walkthrough and connects you with an insurance agent who can quote the property as it actually stands — before you build a plan on top of an assumption.
Florida's post-Surfside inspection and reserve requirements have moved through several rounds of legislation, and older buildings across Palm Beach County have been working through inspections and reserve studies. Some of those have produced significant special assessments.
Here's the part that catches heirs: an assessment can be scheduled and voted long before it appears on a statement. If you're reading the maintenance fee and assuming that's the cost of ownership, you may be reading an old number. Amanda requests the association's inspection status, reserve study, budget, and recent meeting minutes as a standard step — because on a condo, that packet often decides the question before anything else does.
Many Palm Beach County communities restrict leasing. Some require an owner to hold the property for a set period before renting it at all. Some cap how many units can be leased at once and keep a waitlist. Some set minimum lease terms or require association approval of every tenant.
This is the fastest question to answer and the one nobody asks. Heirs routinely spend weeks pricing a rental, scoping repairs, and interviewing property managers before discovering the community won't allow it. Amanda reads the actual governing documents — not the summary — and confirms eligibility in the first week. If Door 2 is closed, you find out immediately and spend your energy on the doors that are open.
Inherited property generally gets a basis adjustment — usually called a stepped-up basis — to its value as of the date of death. In plain terms: if you sell at or near that value, there's typically little or no capital gain to reckon with. That changes if you convert the home to a rental and sell later — then you're looking at appreciation since the date of death, plus recapture of the depreciation you took along the way.
Neither of those makes renting a bad decision. Plenty of families rent and are glad they did. But it means the decision has a tax consequence attached to when, not just what, and most heirs don't learn that until the window has closed behind them.
Whatever you decide, one thing should happen early: establish what the home was worth on the date of death, while the comparable sales are still close at hand. Your CPA needs that number to support your basis, and it gets harder to document as time passes. Amanda can provide a date of death valuation. Take it to your CPA — this is their question, and Amanda will say so.
This is the most common version of an inherited home, and it is the one almost nobody writes about: one heir wants to keep the house, two want to sell it, one of them is living in it, and one is in another state trying to figure out whether they're being told the whole story.
Most of the time, the disagreement isn't really about the house. It's about information. The local heir knows what the roof looks like and the out-of-state heirs don't. Somebody has a number in their head from a neighbor's sale three years ago. Nobody has seen the tax reset. Amanda's first job is to put the same set of facts in front of every heir at the same time — condition, value, taxes, insurability, leasing eligibility, carrying costs, and the estate attorney's timeline. A surprising number of family disagreements dissolve at that point, because they were never disagreements about values. They were disagreements about facts.
Where there's a real difference in what people want, she'll provide a neutral valuation for a buyout conversation and coordinate with the estate attorney. Where co-owners genuinely cannot agree, Florida law provides a court remedy — that is a legal question and it belongs with the estate attorney. Amanda won't take sides between heirs, and she won't push the family toward a sale. That's not what she's there for.
The same starting point regardless of which door you end up walking through: get the facts on the table, in writing, before anyone commits to anything.
Amanda handles everything through lease signing — pricing, eligibility, make-ready, screening, and execution. From there she hands you off to a property manager she trusts and steps back. She doesn't manage properties, and she'd rather tell you that up front than learn it later.
Amanda coordinates the work — she walks the property, prioritizes what actually returns value, lines up vendors, sequences the trades, and runs the punch list. She's paid by you, not by them. No contractor pays her anything, and she'll tell you which vendors she's worked with before so you can judge that for yourself.
Amanda is an active Florida Registered Paralegal. That means she reads the documents fluently and knows what your attorney and CPA need. It does not mean she gives legal or tax advice, and she won't. What she'll do is make sure you walk into those conversations knowing which questions matter.
Legal fluency, not legal advice.
No listing pitch and no push toward any one door. A conversation about your situation, what the facts say, and what's worth checking first.
Book a ConsultationOr call (561) 406-4557 · amandasweetz@kw.com
This page is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Every probate situation is unique. Please consult with qualified professionals for guidance specific to your circumstances. Amanda Sweetz is a licensed real estate agent, not an attorney.