Sell Your Pinellas or Tampa House From Out of State — Without Flying Down

Why an empty Florida house is expensive to keep

Owning a house in Pinellas or Hillsborough County from a thousand miles away is a job you did not apply for. The costs are easy to list and hard to stop.

• Taxes. Florida property taxes are due November 1 and become delinquent April 1 (Fla. Stat. § 197.333). Miss them and a tax certificate is sold against the house; our tax deed guide explains where that leads. If the house was a parent's homestead, the exemption and the Save Our Homes cap come off for the tax year after the house stops being their residence, and the bill goes up.
• Insurance. Most homeowner policies treat a house as vacant after 30 to 60 days without occupants and contents, and vacancy provisions can cut off coverage. Vacant-dwelling policies exist but cost more. Read the policy or ask the agent before you assume you are covered.
• Hurricane season. Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, with the peak around September 10. Someone has to put up shutters, shut off the water, clear the yard and check the house afterward. After the 2024 storms, a lot of out-of-state owners learned how hard that is to arrange from a distance.
• The house itself. Florida humidity grows mold inside a closed-up house in weeks. A slow leak becomes a ceiling on the floor. Squatters notice a dark house and an overgrown yard; our vacant house page covers what that looks like in St. Petersburg.
• Code enforcement. Tall grass, a green pool and a tarp on the roof draw citations from the city or county. Under Fla. Stat. § 162.09, code fines can run up to $250 a day for a first violation and $500 a day for a repeat, and a recorded fine order becomes a lien on the house, whether or not the letter reached you.

Every month of this is money and attention. Selling to a buyer who can handle the whole thing without you flying down is usually the point at which people call us.

The remote walkthrough

We need to see the house once, for 15 to 30 minutes. From out of state, that usually works one of three ways:

• A neighbor, relative, friend or the tenant lets us in at a set time.
• You mail us a key or give us the code to a lockbox already on the door. A lockbox works if a neighbor can hand us a key.
• For a tenant-occupied house, we coordinate the visit with the tenant on proper notice.

We can send you photos from the walkthrough, so you see what we see, including whatever the years, the humidity or the last storm did. You get a written offer, typically within 24 hours, with the repair numbers and our math spelled out. If you would rather we look closely at the roof, the panel and the plumbing before you decide, we do that on the same visit.

Closing from another state or another country

You do not have to come to Florida to sell. The closing happens at a Pinellas title company, and your side of it is signatures.

• Remote online notarization. Florida has allowed online notarization since January 1, 2020 (ch. 2019-71). Under Fla. Stat. § 117.209, a Florida online notary can notarize your deed by audio-video call regardless of whether you are physically in Florida. You verify your identity on camera, sign electronically, and the notary completes it.
• Witnesses. A Florida deed needs two subscribing witnesses (Fla. Stat. § 689.01). Since 2020 the statute lets witnesses be present by audio-video technology, so the title company supplies them on the same call.
• Mobile notary. If you prefer paper, the title company sends the package to a mobile notary near you, who meets you at your kitchen table and overnights the originals back. If you are outside the U.S. and the online option does not fit, the title company will tell you what it needs, which may mean a U.S. embassy or consulate.
• Power of attorney. If a parent or spouse cannot sign, a Florida power of attorney signed by the principal with two witnesses and a notary (Fla. Stat. § 709.2105) can let someone sign for them. The title company has to approve it in advance, so send it early.
• Proceeds. Your money is wired from the title company's escrow account to your bank the day of closing, in the U.S. or abroad. Confirm wire instructions by phone with the title company, never by email alone; wire fraud targets exactly this kind of closing.

If you are a foreign seller: FIRPTA withholding

If you live abroad and are not a U.S. citizen or resident for tax purposes, the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act applies. The IRS generally requires the buyer to withhold 15 percent of the amount realized on the sale and send it to the IRS, and the buyer can be held liable if it does not. It is a prepayment toward your U.S. tax, not the tax itself; you file a return to settle up and may get some of it back. There is an exception when the buyer will use the house as a residence and the amount realized is $300,000 or less, and a seller can apply to the IRS for a withholding certificate that reduces or removes the withholding, which the IRS normally acts on within 90 days. We do not give tax advice. If this is you, talk to a CPA who handles non-resident sellers before we go to contract, and we will build the time into the closing.

Inherited, former home, old rental or snowbird house

The reason you own the house changes the paperwork, not whether we buy it.

• Inherited. If a parent died owning the house and the estate has not gone through probate, the house cannot be sold until it does. We pay for and handle the probate, and buying from out-of-state heirs is a normal part of what we do. Our companion site walks through it: selling an inherited Florida house from out of state.
• Your former home. You moved for work and the house never sold, or you rented it out and are done being a long-distance landlord. Belongings left in the garage are fine; we clear them.
• Old rental. We buy with the tenant in place, paying or not. The lease transfers, the deposit transfers at closing under Chapter 83, and the tenant becomes ours.
• Snowbird house. The winter place in Gulfport, Seminole or on the beaches that you stopped coming down to. Hurricane shutters, the overgrown yard, the roof the insurer is asking about: all of it is priced in and handled after closing.

We are 131 Cash Home Buyers, a St. Petersburg investment company at 2529 Central Ave, buying in Pinellas and Hillsborough County since 2018. $0 fees, $0 commissions, we pay the normal closing costs, and we close in as little as 7 to 14 days when title is clean, or on your date. Call or text (727) 353-6206 and tell us where you are and where the house is.

Related: Vacant house · Inherited or probate house · Tired landlord · all situations we buy

We are a cash home buyer, not a law firm. This page is general information about Florida law and local process, not legal advice. For advice on your situation, talk to a Florida attorney — we work with several and are glad to make an introduction.