Florida

In Florida a will does not necessarily decide who inherits the house: Article X, Section 4(c) of the state constitution forbids leaving homestead property by will where the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child, and the one exception is a devise to the spouse when there is no minor child.

A devise that breaks it is void, however carefully the will was drawn.

The property passes instead under Florida Statutes § 732.401, which gives the surviving spouse a life estate and the descendants a vested remainder.

The spouse can elect a half interest as tenant in common instead, but only within six months of the death, and the courts have held that deadline cannot be extended.

For anyone selling, that is the first thing to establish, because it settles who has to sign: a house everyone assumed went to one child may be owned for life by a widow with the remainder in the descendants, or held half and half because a form went in on time.

The tax resets at the same moment, and the new bill arrives the January after the death, which is a large part of why so many inherited Florida houses sit.

Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded assessment at three per cent or CPI, whichever is lower, so a house held in one family for decades can be assessed a long way below what it is worth, but that cap belongs to the owner and not to the house.

On a change of ownership the assessment goes back to just value and the benefit is lost rather than inherited, and an heir who does not move in comes under the ten per cent non-homestead cap with the school portion assessed on full market value every year.