Selling a House in Probate In Little Havana? We Can Buy Your House For Cash.

No will, and a second probate nobody had noticed

A triplex in Little Havana in need of repairs, and three siblings who had come into it when their parents died. There was no will.

Without one, the estate has to go through probate before anybody has the authority to sell. That much they were expecting. What came out of the discovery was that there were two probates to complete, not one.

This is worth explaining, because it catches families constantly. When both parents have died, the first death often went unhandled. Nothing looks wrong at the time — the surviving parent carries on living in the house and life continues. But the first parent’s interest never actually passed anywhere. So when the second parent dies there are two estates sitting on the same property, and both have to be opened before anyone can sign a deed. People find this out at the worst possible moment, which is when they have already decided to sell.

Two probates take longer than one, and a property does not pause while they run. The taxes were falling behind.

So we paid the up-front costs to get the probate started, because nothing moves at all until somebody funds the filing. And we covered the back taxes as they came due through the process rather than only at closing — a long probate with unpaid taxes accruing underneath it is exactly how a family loses the asset they are in the middle of inheriting.

Then we got two of the units rented.

That one needs saying properly, because it is not the usual arrangement. We did not own the building. The probates were still running. But a triplex standing empty through a long probate produces nothing for the people waiting on it while the costs carry on regardless. Two tenanted units meant the family had income during the wait — money coming in to help carry the property and their own bills, instead of a year of outgoings with nothing against them.

None of that was a favour and none of it was clever. It is the difference between a family waiting out two probates with an empty building draining them, and a family waiting out two probates with the building paying for part of it.