Selling a House in Probate
in Orange County

The Short Answer

Can You Sell a House During Probate in Orange County?

Yes. Once the Ninth Judicial Circuit appoints a personal representative and the clerk issues letters of administration, estate property in Orange County can be listed and sold during administration rather than after it. If the will grants a specific power of sale, the personal representative may sell without a separate court order (Fla. Stat. 733.613). Protected homestead is the exception that matters most: the decedent's primary residence typically passes straight to the heirs, who sign the listing and sell it themselves. The process is state law. What changes in Orange County is where you file, what it costs, and how the region's largest probate docket moves.

Where Your Case Lives

The Busiest Probate Division in Central Florida

Probate filings in Orange County go through the Orange County Clerk of Courts Probate Division at the Orange County Courthouse, 425 N. Orange Avenue, Suite 335, Orlando, FL 32801, reachable at 407-836-2057. Cases are heard in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, which covers Orange and Osceola counties and serves more than two million residents, making this the highest-volume probate division in the region. Filings are submitted electronically through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal.

Volume shapes how the docket runs. The circuit requires certification checklists to accompany proposed orders for opening formal administration, closing it, summary administration, and determining homestead status, so files that arrive complete move and files with gaps sit. Florida law still requires the person holding the original will to deposit it with the clerk within 10 days of learning of the death (Fla. Stat. 732.901). In Orange County that deposit is free, with a $6 charge only if you want a receipt.

Opening the Estate

What Probate Costs to Open in Orange County

Clerk filing fees currently run approximately $400 for formal administration and approximately $345 for summary administration, with a lower fee for very small estates, and publication of the notice to creditors adds roughly $100 to $250 depending on the newspaper. Fees change, so confirm the current schedule with the Orange County Clerk of Courts before filing. Attorney fees are separate and are typically the larger number; Florida sets presumptively reasonable rates by estate value, and your probate attorney will quote them up front.

The estate's largest cost is usually not a fee at all. It is the carrying cost of a vacant house, often $2,000 to $3,500 a month for a typical Central Florida estate home and more in the county's gated communities once HOA and landscaping are counted, plus the vacant-home insurance restrictions that can void coverage after 30 to 60 days. Our net-to-estate calculator puts numbers on what waiting costs.

New for 2026

Florida Doubled the Summary Administration Limit

Effective July 1, 2026, Florida raised the summary administration threshold under Fla. Stat. 735.201 from $75,000 to $150,000 in non-exempt probate assets. The change applies to decedents who pass away on or after July 1, 2026, and it means more Orange County estates qualify for the faster track that skips the appointment of a personal representative and resolves by court order. Homestead, retirement accounts, life insurance, and other non-probate assets do not count toward the cap, so an estate can hold a valuable Winter Park or Windermere home and still qualify when the home is protected homestead. For deaths before July 2026, the prior $75,000 limit may still control. Which track applies is a legal call your probate attorney makes; what we contribute is the documented property value that petition needs.

The Property Side

Selling Estate Homes Across Orlando's Luxury Markets

Orange County holds most of Central Florida's luxury estate property: the Winter Park Chain of Lakes, Isleworth and Keene's Pointe in Windermere, Bay Hill and the Dr. Phillips corridor, Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, Baldwin Park and College Park in Orlando, and the golf cart district and Horizon West side of Winter Garden. These are the markets where mispricing an estate home costs the most, and where a beneficiary reviewing the file later will ask exactly one question: what supported the price?

That is the standard we build every file to. A documented, comp-supported valuation, complete marketing records through Premier Sotheby's International Realty's global network, and a written trail from list to close. Sean and Barb have each testified in court as expert witnesses in contested property matters, so the file is prepared as if it will be examined, whether or not it ever is. The six steps of a Florida probate home sale on our main guide cover the path from letters of administration to delivering proceeds to the estate, and with Premier Sotheby's offices on Dr. Phillips Boulevard, Park Avenue in Winter Park, and Shoreside Way in Winter Garden, we are minutes from most of the homes involved.

Winter Garden and Windermere deserve a specific note, because families searching for help selling a house in probate there are often dealing with newer construction in communities we know house by house, including Canopy Oaks, where Sean has been the top listing agent since the community's first phase. If the home was the decedent's protected homestead, the heirs sell rather than the estate, and our homestead overview explains why that distinction decides who our client is. And if the personal representative lives out of state, we handle the ground work locally: securing the property, coordinating vendors, managing showings, and walking the file to a mail-away or remote-notarization closing.

For Probate Attorneys

An Orange County Referral You Can Defend

If your practice files in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, you already coordinate hearing time through JACS and build orders to the circuit's checklists, and you know a referral is only as good as the file it produces. We work at your direction, keep you copied, keep first-time fiduciaries calm, and deliver pricing documentation built to evidentiary standards. Discretion is the default for high-net-worth families, and our complimentary date-of-death valuation analysis gives your personal representative a defensible starting number for stepped-up basis and the estate accounting, usually the same business day.

Keep Exploring

Next Steps

This is general information, not legal advice. Probate procedure, fees, and pace vary by case and docket, and clerk fee schedules change. Work with a Florida probate attorney; Sean & Barb are real estate advisors and coordinate with counsel at every step.