Sell a House With Title Problems — We Clear the Title

How a title search finds the problem

Before any house in Pinellas County changes hands, the title company pulls the chain of title from the Clerk's official records: every deed, mortgage, satisfaction, lien, judgment, lis pendens and probate order recorded against the property, going back decades. Then it compares that chain to who is trying to sell. When the two do not match, the title company issues a commitment with requirements it cannot clear, and a retail sale stops there.

The gaps we see most often in St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo and Tampa:

• Heirs' property. A grandparent or parent died, nobody opened a probate, and the children and grandchildren have been paying the taxes and living in or renting the house for years. Legally, the person who died still owns it.
• A missing co-owner. A sibling, ex-spouse or former partner is on the deed and cannot be found, will not sign, or has died with heirs of their own.
• An old mortgage never satisfied of record. The loan was paid off in 2009, the lender has been bought twice since, and no satisfaction was ever recorded. Fla. Stat. § 701.04 requires the lender to record one within 60 days of payoff, but that does not help if it never happened.
• Judgment liens. A certified copy of a judgment recorded in Pinellas County becomes a lien on the debtor's real property there for 10 years, extendable to 20 (Fla. Stat. §§ 55.10, 55.081). Old credit-card and medical judgments turn up on heirs' property constantly.
• Clerical errors. A deed with the wrong legal description, a misspelled name, a missing witness, or a notary block left blank.
• Divorce. The judgment gave you the house in 2012, but no deed from your ex was ever recorded, so the title still shows both of you; see our divorce page.

A title company is not allowed to guess. Each of these needs a document, a court order or a payoff before a policy can be issued, and that is the part we take on.

Heirs' property: probate, summary administration and partial shares

If the owner of record has died and the deed did not already pass the house to someone else (joint ownership with survivorship, a trust, or a lady bird deed), Florida requires a probate before the house can be sold, even when there is a will. The good news is that old deaths usually qualify for the faster form. Under Fla. Stat. § 735.201, summary administration is available when the estate, less exempt property, is worth $150,000 or less, or when the person has been dead more than two years. The dollar limit was raised from $75,000 on July 1, 2026 (ch. 2026-57). For a grandparent who died in 1998, the two-year rule applies regardless of value, and the court can enter an order distributing the house to the heirs in weeks rather than months. If there are two unprobated deaths in a row, a grandparent and then a parent, each estate is handled in order.

We pay for the probate on almost every inherited house we buy and hire the attorney, who represents the estate. Our companion site explains the Florida probate process step by step.

Two situations deserve their own mention:

• You only own a share. If you are one of five heirs and the others will not sell, we can buy just your fractional interest. You get paid for your piece and we become the co-owner who deals with the rest. See selling your share of an inherited house.
• Co-owners who cannot agree. Florida's Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, Fla. Stat. §§ 64.201 to 64.214, in force since 2020, applies when co-owners inherited from a relative and have no written agreement. Before a court can order the house sold, it orders an appraisal, gives the co-owners who did not ask for a sale 45 days to buy out the ones who did, prefers dividing the property to selling it, and generally requires any sale to be an open-market listing with a broker rather than a courthouse auction. It protects families from losing a house for a fraction of its value, and it also means a partition case takes far longer than a sale. Buying out the relatives who want out, or selling your share to us, is usually faster for everyone.

If an owner died and no family can be found, the house may be an unclaimed estate; our companion page on estates where no family came forward covers how those are handled.

Quiet title, curative deeds and old liens

Not every title problem needs a probate. Many are fixed with paper, and the rest with a lawsuit that is routine in Pinellas County circuit court.

• Clerical errors. A corrective deed signed by the original parties fixes a bad legal description or a misspelled name. If the parties are gone, Fla. Stat. § 95.231 treats a recorded deed that lacks a seal, a witness or a proper acknowledgment as valid after 5 years, absent fraud, and bars claims against a recorded deed after 20 years. Title companies rely on this constantly.
• An unreleased mortgage. The attorney tracks down the successor lender for a satisfaction or, where the loan is clearly paid and the lender is gone, files a quiet title action to have the court declare it discharged.
• A missing co-owner. Service by publication, a search for heirs, and if necessary a quiet title or partition action.
• Quiet title. Florida Statutes chapter 65 lets anyone claiming legal or equitable title sue to remove a cloud on it. Under Fla. Stat. § 65.061 the plaintiff deraigns title for at least 7 years from the recorded instruments, names everyone who might claim an interest, and asks the court for a judgment that is recorded and clears the record. An uncontested case moves faster than a contested one, and one with unknown heirs served by publication takes longer still.
• Judgment liens, back taxes, code liens, HOA dues. These do not need a lawsuit. They are paid from the purchase price at closing by the title company, and old judgments are often negotiable. Our liens and code violations page and HOA lien page go into detail.

How we buy a house with a title problem

Here is the difference between us and a listing. A retail buyer's lender will not fund until title is clear, so an agent will tell you to fix the title first, at your expense, and list afterward. We sign a contract with the problem in it.

1. You tell us what you know: who is on the deed, who died and when, what the title company said. We pull the Pinellas or Hillsborough records ourselves.
2. One 15 to 30 minute walkthrough, and a written offer typically within 24 hours. The offer is renovated value minus repairs, holding and resale costs and our margin, and the cost of clearing title is part of the math we show you.
3. We go under contract and hire a Florida real estate or probate attorney at our expense. The attorney handles the probate, the quiet title, the corrective deeds or the lien payoffs. You sign what is needed and otherwise go about your life.
4. We close at a title company as soon as the title can be insured. With a clean title that is as little as 7 to 14 days; with a summary administration or a quiet title, it is however long the court takes, and we carry the cost of waiting. Liens and back taxes come out of the price at closing.

We are an investment company, not a law firm, and nothing on this page is legal advice. For advice on your own title, talk to a Florida attorney; we work with several and are glad to introduce you. What we can say is that a title problem is not a reason you cannot sell. It is a reason to sell to a buyer who has done this before.

Related: Inherited or probate house · Divorce · Back taxes, liens & code violations · 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.