What Is a Personal Representative’s Deed Used For?
It moves real property out of a Florida probate estate, either to a buyer in a sale or to a beneficiary taking it under the will.
The personal representative signs in that capacity rather than personally, because the land was the decedent’s and the personal representative is administering it rather than owning it. That single fact shapes everything else about the instrument, including what it can promise and who has to approve it.
Practice pointer. The first two documents I ask for are the will and the letters of administration, in that order. The will decides whether a judge has to be involved, and I would rather read it before a contract has a closing date in it.
Does the Will Give a Power of Sale?
This is the question, and everything else follows from it.
Fla. Stat. §733.613(2) provides that where the decedent’s will confers a specific power to sell or mortgage real property, or a general power to sell any asset of the estate, the personal representative may sell, mortgage or lease any real property of the estate without authorization or confirmation of court, for cash or credit, with or without security for unpaid balances.
The same subsection adds a sentence that saves a great deal of argument. The sale, mortgage or lease need not be justified by a showing of necessity, and a sale pursuant to the power of sale shall be valid. So nobody has to prove the estate needed the money.
Practice pointer. A well-drafted Florida will gives the personal representative a power of sale for exactly this reason, and it costs nothing to include. When I draft a will I put it in, because the alternative is the family paying for a court proceeding years later to do something everyone already agrees on.
When No Title Passes Until the Court Confirms
Fla. Stat. §733.613(1) covers three situations. An intestate estate. A will that confers no power of sale. And a will granting a power of sale that is so limited by the will or by operation of law that it cannot conveniently be exercised.
In any of those, the personal representative may sell at public or private sale. Then comes the sentence that decides the case.
“No title shall pass until the court authorizes or confirms the sale.”
Not that the sale is voidable, or irregular, or curable. No title passes. A deed signed and recorded before the order is a deed that conveyed nothing, however carefully it was drafted and whatever the parties intended.
The subsection ends with a protection pointing the other way, that no bona fide purchaser shall be required to examine any proceedings before the order of sale. So a buyer looks for the order and does not have to audit what preceded it.
Avoid signing a contract with a closing date before anyone has read the will for a power of sale. Where §733.613(1) applies, the timeline is set by the court’s calendar rather than the parties’, and discovering that after a contract is signed is how closings collapse.
Read the will before you set a closing date
We tell you in one reading whether the sale needs a court order, and prepare the deed with the recitals a title company will actually accept.
Personal Representative Deed vs Warranty Deed
| Personal representative’s deed | Warranty deed | |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs | The personal representative, in that capacity | The owner, personally |
| What is promised | No warranty of title. The representative conveys what the estate holds | A full warranty of title and a covenant to defend against all lawful claims |
| Authority needed | A power of sale in the will, or a court order under §733.613(1) | None beyond ownership |
| Buyer’s protection | From statute, under §733.613(3) and §733.611 | From the grantor’s covenants |
| What a title company examines | The probate file, the letters, and the power or the order | The chain of title |
The comparison people reach for is the wrong one. A personal representative’s deed is not a weaker warranty deed. It is a different instrument, conveying from an estate rather than from a person, and its strength comes from the statute rather than from promises. For the ordinary owner-to-owner instruments see the Florida warranty deed and quitclaim deed.
What the Buyer Actually Gets
Better than the absence of warranties suggests. Fla. Stat. §733.613(3) provides that in a sale or mortgage occurring under a specific power to sell or mortgage, or under a court order authorizing or confirming the act, the purchaser or lender takes title free of claims of creditors of the estate and entitlements of estate beneficiaries.
The deed is the last step of a process, and it only works if the earlier steps are on the docket. The grantor signs as personal representative under letters of administration, which means the letters must still be in force, and a discharge that has already issued has to be undone first through reopening the probate. Getting the property description wrong is the other way these fail, which is the subject of the legal description of Florida property.
That is a real cut-off. A disappointed beneficiary cannot follow the land, and an estate creditor takes their claim to the sale proceeds rather than to the buyer.
The statute then names what survives. Existing mortgages or other liens against the real property are not affected. Estate-level claims are cut off, property-level encumbrances are not, and that distinction is the one a buyer needs to understand.
Fla. Stat. §733.611 adds a general protection, that a person who in good faith assists or deals for value with a personal representative is protected as if the personal representative acted properly, and that knowingly dealing with a personal representative does not require inquiry into their authority. Read its opening words though. Except as provided in s. 733.613(1). The no-power-of-sale case is carved out of the very protection a buyer would otherwise lean on.
Do I Sign as Myself or as the Personal Representative?
Clients are often confused about how to sign, and ask me, "Do I put my own name on it?" You sign in your representative capacity, naming the estate and your appointment, not as yourself. It matters because signing personally can be read as conveying whatever you individually own, which is nothing, while leaving the estate’s interest untouched. I prepare the signature block with the capacity spelled out for that reason, and I have had to correct deeds where a personal representative simply signed their name on a form.
The Homestead the Personal Representative Cannot Sell
Here is the trap that catches personal representatives who assume every asset in the file is theirs to administer.
Protected Florida homestead generally never becomes an estate asset at all. Where it passes by devise to a permitted taker, or descends by operation of law because a devise was barred, it passes outside the administration. The personal representative holds no title to it and therefore has nothing to convey.
That analysis is separate from the power of sale and it is not solved by a court order. The restrictions themselves are covered on who you can leave your Florida home to, and what happens when a devise fails on homestead and your trust.
Practice pointer. I establish whether the residence is protected homestead before treating it as an estate asset, because a personal representative who sells homestead they never held creates a title defect that outlives the administration.
What the Deed Itself Has to Contain
Beyond the ordinary Florida deed requirements, a title examiner is looking for the estate’s provenance on the face of the instrument.
- The decedent’s name and the fact of death.
- The probate court and file number, so the administration can be located.
- The personal representative’s appointment, by reference to the letters of administration.
- Either the power of sale and where it appears in the will, or the court order by date, depending on which route the sale took.
- The legal description copied exactly from the last recorded deed rather than from a tax bill, for the reasons on the legal description page.
The recital that goes missing most often on a template-prepared deed is the authority one, meaning the power or the order. Without it a title company cannot clear the conveyance from the record and has to go into the probate file, which turns a routine closing into a delay.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Personal Representative’s Deed Used For?
It conveys real property out of a Florida probate estate, either to a buyer in a sale or to a beneficiary receiving it under the will. The personal representative signs in that capacity rather than personally, because the property belonged to the decedent and the personal representative is administering it. It is the probate counterpart to the deed an owner would sign, and it carries different promises, different authority requirements and a different examination by the title company.
Does a Personal Representative Need a Court Order to Sell?
It depends on the will. Fla. Stat. §733.613(2) provides that where the decedent’s will confers a specific power to sell or mortgage real property, or a general power to sell any asset of the estate, the personal representative may sell, mortgage or lease without authorization or confirmation of court, and adds that the sale need not be justified by a showing of necessity. Where there is no such power, or the estate is intestate, subsection (1) applies and a court order is required.
What Happens if There Is No Power of Sale in the Will?
Fla. Stat. §733.613(1) covers an intestate estate, a will that confers no power of sale, and a will whose power is so limited by its terms or by operation of law that it cannot conveniently be exercised. In those cases the personal representative may sell at public or private sale, but the statute then says that no title shall pass until the court authorizes or confirms the sale. A deed signed and recorded before that order does not convey title, whatever the parties intended.
What Is the Difference Between a Personal Representative Deed and a Warranty Deed?
A warranty deed carries the grantor’s promise that the title is good and a covenant to defend it against all lawful claims. A personal representative’s deed does not, because the personal representative is conveying in a fiduciary capacity and is not in a position to warrant a title they never personally held. What a buyer gets instead comes from statute. Under Fla. Stat. §733.613(3), a purchaser under a specific power of sale or a court order takes title free of claims of estate creditors and entitlements of estate beneficiaries.
Does the Buyer Take Free of the Estate’s Debts?
Largely yes, where the sale happened under a specific power to sell or under a court order authorizing or confirming it. Fla. Stat. §733.613(3) provides that in that situation the purchaser or lender takes title free of claims of creditors of the estate and entitlements of estate beneficiaries. The statute then names what survives, since existing mortgages or other liens against the real property are not affected. So estate-level claims are cut off and property-level encumbrances are not.
Is a Buyer Protected if the Personal Representative Got Something Wrong?
Generally, with one important exception. Fla. Stat. §733.611 provides that a person who in good faith either assists or deals for value with a personal representative is protected as if the personal representative acted properly, and that dealing knowingly with a personal representative does not require inquiry into their authority. But that section opens with the words except as provided in s. 733.613(1), which is the no-power-of-sale situation. In that case the court order is not a formality a buyer can rely past.
Can a Personal Representative Sell the Homestead?
Usually not, because protected homestead generally never becomes an estate asset in the first place. Where the Florida homestead passes by devise to a permitted taker, or descends by operation of law when a devise is barred, it passes outside the administration and the personal representative has no title to convey. That is a separate analysis from the power of sale, and it is why a personal representative who assumes the house is simply another estate asset can create a defective conveyance.
What Should a Personal Representative Deed Contain?
The estate details a title examiner will look for, meaning the decedent’s name, the probate court and file number, the personal representative’s appointment, and the legal description copied exactly from the last recorded deed. Where the sale relies on a power of sale, the deed should recite the power and where it comes from in the will. Where it relies on a court order, it should recite the order by date. Those recitals are what let a title company clear the transaction from the face of the record rather than by demanding the probate file.
Common Situations
The deed that conveyed nothing. A son serving as personal representative of his mother’s intestate estate in Pasco County signed and recorded a deed to a buyer before any order of sale. Under §733.613(1) no title passed, and the defect surfaced when the buyer tried to resell three years later. The counterfactual is a single petition heard before closing.
The will that made it simple. A Sarasota estate had a will granting a general power to sell any asset. Under §733.613(2) the personal representative sold the rental property without any court involvement and without proving the estate needed the money. That sentence in the will saved the family months.
The homestead that was never the estate’s. A personal representative in Ocala listed the family home with a realtor and contracted to sell it. The residence was protected homestead that had already descended to the decedent’s children by operation of law. He had no title to sell, and a court order would not have supplied one.
Sources of Law
- Fla. Stat. §733.613(1) (intestate estate, no power of sale, or a power so limited it cannot conveniently be exercised; sale at public or private sale; “No title shall pass until the court authorizes or confirms the sale”; no bona fide purchaser need examine proceedings before the order of sale); (2) (a specific power to sell or mortgage, or a general power to sell any asset, permits sale without authorization or confirmation of court, and no showing of necessity is required); (3) (under a specific power or a court order the purchaser or lender takes title free of claims of estate creditors and entitlements of estate beneficiaries, except existing mortgages or other liens are not affected). History, s. 1, ch. 74-106 through s. 137, ch. 2001-226. Created from former s. 733.23. Retrieved 2026-09-14.
- Fla. Stat. §733.611 (persons dealing with the personal representative are protected as if the personal representative acted properly, “[e]xcept as provided in s. 733.613(1)”, and knowingly dealing with a personal representative does not require inquiry into authority).
- Fla. Stat. §733.612 (transactions authorized for the personal representative) and §733.614 (a successor personal representative has the same powers, but may not exercise a power made personal to the representative named in the will without court approval).
- Fla. Const. Art. X §4(c) and Fla. Stat. §§732.4015, 732.401 (protected homestead and its devise and descent), which determine whether the residence is an estate asset at all.
- Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Government costs, meaning recording, documentary stamps and certified copies, are additional and passed through at cost. General information about Florida law, not legal advice.
What I See in These Files
In 14 years of law practice the personal representative’s deed sits between two bodies of law and neither side checks it. The probate side assumes the deed is paperwork. The real estate side assumes the personal representative has authority because they were appointed. Neither reads §733.613, and the sentence that matters is six words long.
I also litigate deeds after they fail, which enhances the practice of drafting deeds, and the failures here are quiet and late. Nobody objects at the closing, because everyone present believes the appointment was the authority. It surfaces years afterward when the buyer tries to sell and a title examiner asks for the order that was never obtained. Avoid recording a personal representative’s deed in an intestate estate, or one where the will granted no power of sale, until the court has authorized or confirmed the sale, because until then no title passes at all.
Updated on September 14, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law and our posted fees, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Whether a sale needs court authorization depends on the will and the estate, which we confirm at a free consult.