Your Heirs Have Nine Months to Find $332,800

The wire leaves an account in Bogotá or Mexico City. The deed is signed in front of a Florida notary public, whose job is to witness signatures and nothing more, and recorded in the Miami-Dade public records in one individual's name.

Nobody at that table has a professional reason to raise what happens if the buyer dies.

Colombia accounts for 23% of Miami new construction sales to global buyers. Mexico, 20%. And 51% of South Florida's international buyers pay cash, with no mortgage and no bank asking questions.

On a $1,000,000 condo held in a nonresident's own name, the federal estate tax is $332,800, and it comes due nine months after the death. In cash.

The arithmetic is short. Table A of the Form 706 instructions puts the tentative tax on $1,000,000 at $345,800. Against that, a nonresident who is not a US citizen claims a credit of $13,000. Not the $15,000,000 exemption that shelters a US citizen in 2026.

26%first taxable dollar26%first taxable dollarThe 18% You Will Never Pay

Almost every article on this subject, including several written by Miami law firms, says the rate runs from 18% to 40%. For a nonresident that is false in practice.

The $60,000 exemption does not arrive as a deduction. It arrives as a $13,000 unified credit. And $13,000 is exactly what Table A charges on $60,000, so the credit swallows the 18%, 20%, 22% and 24% brackets whole before the first dollar of real tax appears. The first taxable dollar above $60,000 is taxed at 26%.

There is no on-ramp. A nonresident enters the schedule halfway up.

Then there is the second uncomfortable fact. Fifteen countries have an estate tax treaty with the United States: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. None is in Latin America. The six countries that buy the most new construction in Miami are all off the list.

The Heir Does Not Pay. Whoever Holds the Keys Does

The estate pays, before anything is distributed. That reads like a textbook distinction until you see how the IRS decides who has to file the return.

Section 2203 of the Internal Revenue Code provides that if no executor is appointed, qualified, and acting in the United States, "every person in actual or constructive possession of any of the decedent's property is considered an executor and must file a return."

The daughter who keeps the keys. The property manager who collects the rent and takes his commission out of it. Neither of them signed anything.

The lien runs on the other side. Section 6324(a)(1) attaches to the gross estate for ten years from the date of death, and 6324(a)(2) makes anyone who receives or holds the property personally liable up to its value on the day of death. That is why the bank goes stiff and the title company starts asking for documents. The liability reaches them.

6 to 12 monthsuncontested ancillary administration6 to 12 monthsuncontested ancillary administrationA Probate in Bogotá Does Not Move a Miami Deed

Section 734.102 of the Florida Statutes requires an ancillary administration, a second probate on top of the one in the decedent's own country, whenever "a nonresident of this state dies leaving assets in this state."

In Miami-Dade that means the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, the most crowded docket in the state, with its own forms and its own electronic filing. Lawyers who practice there estimate six to twelve months when nobody contests anything, and eighteen or more when somebody does.

There is a floor that does not compress. Notice to creditors is published within ten days of the letters of administration issuing, and it opens a three-month claims window (section 733.702). That quarter runs whether or not a single creditor exists.

Since July 1, 2026, and only for deaths on or after that date, summary administration covers estates up to $150,000, double the previous threshold, under chapter 2026-57 of the Laws of Florida. The median price a foreign buyer pays for a home in the United States is $494,400. Not close.

Something else in that same law does help. New section 733.6125 lets the personal representative sue, with costs and fees, any institution that refuses to recognize valid letters. If anyone has ever told you the Miami bank cannot speak to you, there is now someone to sue.

Yes, You Can Sell Before Probate Closes

This is where informal advice goes wrong most often, including advice from people who charge for it.

The statute is explicit. The ancillary personal representative may "sell, lease, or mortgage local property" and "raise funds for the payment of debts, claims, and devises" (section 734.102(7)). Selling the condo is, in practice, the ordinary way an estate finds the money for month nine.

The sale does not wait for the file to close. It waits for the letters.

And if the will confers an express or general power of sale, section 733.613(2) permits a sale "without authorization or confirmation of court." Without that power, 733.613(1) is blunt: no title passes until the court authorizes or confirms the sale. One well drafted paragraph in a will is worth months on the calendar and costs what it costs to draft a paragraph.

There is a third party at the table. Title underwriters commonly want evidence that the section 6324 lien has been addressed, and without it there is no closing, however good the personal representative's letters are.

12 to 18 monthsthe irs wait12 to 18 monthsthe irs waitThe Certificate That Takes 12 to 18 Months, and How to Avoid Needing It

When a US institution runs into a deceased nonresident owner, it asks for the transfer certificate, commonly called Form 5173: the document by which the IRS releases each asset from the estate tax lien. Without it, the institution takes on liability of its own.

The IRS publishes its issuing time for the estate of a nonresident who is not a US citizen, in the cases where no Form 706-NA had to be filed: twelve to eighteen months from the day it receives complete documentation. For the estate of a US citizen who lived abroad, six to nine. The IRS does not explain the difference.

The way out sits on that same page, and almost nobody reads it: a transfer certificate is not required for property administered by an executor or administrator appointed, qualified and acting within the United States.

Read that again. The Florida probate the family is trying to avoid is exactly what erases the IRS wait on the condo.

The decedent's brokerage account is a different story. There the certificate is still needed.

The Form 4768 Extension Does Not Buy Time to Pay

This is where nearly everyone relaxes, serious advisors included.

Part II grants an automatic six-month extension of time to file. Nothing has to be explained, and the IRS answers only if it denies the request. Part III is a different animal: a discretionary application under section 6161 to postpone payment, no longer than twelve months at a time, requiring a written showing that paying is "impossible or impractical," and possibly a bond.

The instructions put it in one line: an extension of time to file doesn't extend the time to pay. Interest runs from the original due date either way, and an application filed after that date "will generally not be considered." A family that finds out in month ten has arrived late at the only door it had left.

Regulation 20.6161-1(a) describes this exact case without meaning to, in its example of liquid assets "located in several jurisdictions and aren't immediately subject to the control of the executor."

Section 6166 installment payments are no help either. They were written for interests in closely held businesses. A vacation condo is not a business.

35% to 40%of the condo's value35% to 40%of the condo's valueThe Other Bill: a $401 Filing Fee and $30,000 in Legal Fees

At full schedule that consumes close to 40% of the condo's value. With negotiated fees and a personal representative who waives compensation, which is what usually happens when the representative is one of the children, it drops to roughly 35%.

That schedule is not mandatory, and it is worth knowing before the first meeting rather than after. Section 733.6171(2)(b) requires the attorney to deliver a written disclosure, signed by the personal representative, stating that "there is not a mandatory statutory attorney fee for estate administration" and that the fee "is subject to negotiation." One Miami firm advertises formal administration from $8,500 flat. The distance between that number and the $30,000 the statutory schedule presumes is a fifteen-minute conversation most families never have.

The examples assume the simplest case: no treaty, no deductible debt, no other US assets, and the property held in an individual's own name. Figures verified in August 2026 against the instructions revised September 2025.

The Mortgage Does Not Subtract What You Think

The owner of a $1,000,000 condo carrying a $600,000 mortgage assumes the taxable estate is $400,000. Only nonrecourse debt is deductible in full.

Recourse debt is prorated by the ratio of US assets to the worldwide estate, so a $10,000,000 global estate holding a $1,000,000 condo deducts one tenth: $60,000 of the $600,000. Section 2106(a)(1) and regulation 20.2053-7.

15%withheld on the gross price15%withheld on the gross priceSell to Pay, and FIRPTA Arrives

FIRPTA is triggered by the sale, the estate tax by the death, and both can land on the same condo in the same year.

The buyer withholds 15% of the gross price, not of the gain, and remits it on Form 8288 within twenty days of the transfer. On a $1,000,000 sale that is $150,000 walking out of the closing.

It is almost never owed. Section 1014 resets the property's basis to fair market value at the date of death, so a sale shortly after the death leaves little gain or none, and the withholding is credited back later on Form 1040-NR. In the meantime the money sits at the Treasury instead of in the account that has to pay the 706-NA.

The way to avoid lending the Treasury $150,000 is Form 8288-B, the application for a reduced withholding certificate, which the IRS normally acts on in about ninety days. Ninety days you need before the closing, not after.

Two False Friends: Homestead and the LLC

Florida calls several different things homestead, and none of them helps here. The constitutional exemption from forced sale (article X, section 4(a)(1)) covers property "owned by a natural person" and is "limited to the residence of the owner or the owner's family." An LLC is not a natural person, and a unit used three weeks a year is nobody's residence.

The assessed-value exemption in section 196.031 requires good-faith permanent residence as of January 1. One is creditor law, the other is Florida property tax, and the estate tax is federal. Effect of either one on the federal estate tax: zero.

The single-member LLC blocks nothing either. To the IRS it is a disregarded entity, and the real estate is treated as owned directly by the nonresident. There is contrary authority, but Pierre v. Commissioner, 133 T.C. 2 (2009), decided a gift tax valuation question, not estate tax situs, and nobody has carried that reasoning across to the estate tax.

A US corporation is no better, because its shares are themselves US-situs property. A foreign blocker does block the estate tax, and imports in exchange the 21% federal corporate tax, the state tax, FIRPTA on disposition, and up to 30% branch profits tax.

Then comes the detail that ruins all of them: personal use. An owner occupying the structure's property can be treated as taking a taxable dividend (G.D. Parker, Inc., T.C. Memo. 2012-327), so holding the arrangement together sometimes means paying rent to yourself. The irrevocable trust has the same problem by a different route: if the grantor keeps using the property, section 2036 pulls it back into the taxable estate.

Every structure that genuinely works fights the reason you bought the condo.

9 monthsreturn and payment due9 monthsreturn and payment dueThe Problem Is Not the 35%. It Is Month Nine

Put the pieces on a calendar. The death. Two or three months of certificates, apostilles and translations. The ancillary petition. The letters. Publication and the three-month claims period. And in month nine the return and the money come due together, with the beneficiaries in another country and another currency, against an asset that does not sell quickly without a cut to the price.

That is not a tax problem. It is a liquidity problem with a date on it.

The Form 706-NA instructions settle it in a single sentence, in the passage where the IRS explains where property is considered to be located: "Proceeds of insurance policies on the decedent's life are property located outside the United States." The death benefit on a policy insuring a nonresident decedent does not enter the US taxable estate, and it pays in cash.

Our practice is limited to that one thing, life insurance. The structures and the 706-NA belong to your attorney and your accountant. We put the numbers on the table and you decide.

The IRS does not accept square footage. It accepts a same-day wire, or a check payable to United States Treasury that travels with the return to Florence, Kentucky. That envelope goes out in month nine, whether or not there is a buyer for the condo.

This article is general information for educational purposes. It is not legal, tax or accounting advice, nor an offer of any product or service. Every situation turns on its own facts. Consult your attorney and your accountant before making decisions.