Settling an estate in Florida
An executor in Florida has to work through the Circuit Court (Probate Division) and a long list of tasks that have nothing to do with the court. This page sets out what Florida law actually requires at each step, with the section it comes from and the date we last read it.
- Probate court
- Circuit Court (Probate Division)
- Small-estate shortcut
- Estates of $150,000 or less may qualify for a simplified small-estate procedure (personal property only — it will not transfer real estate).
- Creditor claim period
- 3 months
- Typical timeline
- 6–12 months
- State death tax
- None — no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax
Immediate
Obtain certified death certificates
Florida certified copies come from the Department of Health’s Bureau of Vital Statistics in Jacksonville, or from the county health department where the death occurred. Ask specifically for copies with cause of death where an insurer or a court needs it — Florida issues both versions, and the one without cause of death is the default. Getting the wrong kind means ordering again and waiting again.
Fla. Dept. of Health — Bureau of Vital Statistics·last read 2026-08-17
Locate the will (or confirm there is none)
Florida sets a hard deadline most people never hear about. Whoever holds the original will must deposit it with the Clerk of the circuit court within 10 days of learning the person has died — that duty applies to the custodian, not just the executor, and it applies whether or not probate is opened. The clerk keeps the original for at least 20 years. If you are holding a parent's will, this clock is already running.
Fla. Stat. § 732.901·last read 2026-08-17
Short-term
Claim the family allowances you are entitled to
Florida gives two separate things and puts a hard deadline on one of them. Under Fla. Stat. § 732.403 the surviving spouse, and the lineal heirs the deceased was supporting or was obliged to support, may be allowed a family allowance of not more than $18,000 in total, and it is not chargeable against any benefit or share otherwise passing to them unless the will provides otherwise. Under § 732.402 they also take exempt property: household furniture and appliances up to $20,000 as at the date of death, two motor vehicles, qualified tuition programs and certain teacher retirement benefits. That is in addition to the protected homestead and to anything passing under the will or by intestacy, and it is exempt from every claim against the estate except a perfected security interest. The deadline is the trap. A petition to determine exempt property must be filed by the later of four months after service of the notice of administration, or forty days after any proceeding affecting the estate ends. Miss it and the right is waived. One limit sits in another part of the chapter. Under § 732.802 a killer, and under § 732.8031 a person convicted of abuse, neglect or exploitation of an elderly person or a disabled adult, is entitled to no benefits under the will of the deceased or the Florida Probate Code. Both the family allowance and exempt property are granted by that code, so on the face of those sections both are forfeited along with the share.
Fla. Stat. §§ 732.402, 732.403, 732.802, 732.8031·last read 2026-08-27
Notify beneficiaries and keep them informed
Florida’s Notice of Administration is not a courtesy — serving it starts a clock that protects you. Under Fla. Stat. § 733.212, an interested person served with it has three months to object to the will’s validity, the venue or the court’s jurisdiction, and after that they are barred. The three months can be extended only where you misstated the deadline yourself — not for non-disclosure or any other reason. Serving everyone promptly and keeping proof of service is therefore in your own interest, not just theirs.
Fla. Stat. § 733.212·last read 2026-08-17
Determine if probate is required
Two separate doors into summary administration, and people routinely miss the second: the estate is small enough, or the person has been dead more than two years — in which case the value does not matter at all. On the figure: Fla. Stat. § 735.201 tests the value of the entire estate subject to administration in Florida less property exempt from creditors’ claims, which includes the constitutional Homestead — so the family home comes out of the count and the test is net, not gross. The limit rose from $75,000 to $150,000 by CS/HB 1337, chapter 2026-57. The consolidated statutes still showed $75,000 when this was checked, because they predate the change. Which limit applies to you is a question published summaries got wrong, so here is the answer from the act itself: the only temporal provision in chapter 2026-57 is “This act shall take effect July 1, 2026“ — there is no clause tying it to the date of death. And § 735.201 asks whether summary administration may be had “when it appears“ that the value does not exceed the limit, which is a test applied when the petition is considered. So the figure in force when you file governs, whenever the person died. Confirm with the clerk before relying on it — a court could read it differently — but do not assume an older death is stuck with $75,000. On counsel, be precise about which route you are on, because the common summary overstates it. Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a) binds every PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE unless they remain the sole interested person — and a summary administration does not appoint one. What still points to a lawyer here is Rule 5.530(a)(1), which requires the petition to give “the name and office address of each petitioner’s attorney”, so expect to need one and ask the circuit court in your county. There is one Florida route that plainly does not: disposition of personal property without administration under Rule 5.420, for exempt property and reimbursement of funeral and last-illness expenses, which names no attorney at all and where 5.420(c) says that on request “the clerk shall assist the applicant in the preparation of the required writing.” If the estate is small enough for that, ask the clerk about it before you retain anyone.
Fla. Stat. § 735.201; ch. 2026-57 § 14; Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a), 5.420, 5.530(a)(1)·last read 2026-09-15
Legal Process
File a petition with the probate court
Florida probate runs through the Circuit Court’s probate division — but before anything else, note that Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a) requires a personal representative to be represented by a Florida attorney unless they are the sole interested person. That is not a recommendation; you generally cannot file this yourself. Budget for counsel from the start rather than discovering it at the courthouse.
Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a)·last read 2026-08-17
Inventory all assets and debts
Florida requires the inventory within 60 days of the Letters of Administration being issued — measured from the Letters, not from the death or the filing. It is one of the tighter inventory deadlines in the country.
Fla. Prob. R. 5.340·last read 2026-08-17
Publish notice to creditors
Florida runs two different clocks and you must respect both. Unknown creditors have three months from the first date of publication. A creditor you know about has 30 days from the date you serve them directly — so serving a known creditor late extends their window rather than shortening it. Everything is barred two years after the death regardless of notice. You have a deadline of your own too: object to a claim within four months of first publication, or 30 days from the claim, or it is deemed allowed.
Fla. Stat. §§ 733.702, 733.710·last read 2026-08-19
Administration
Identify and close digital accounts
Florida has its own chapter for this — Fla. Stat. ch. 740, the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. Two limits matter in practice. It reaches only electronic records, not the underlying asset: it can get you into the account, it does not by itself transfer what the account holds. And it does not override a platform’s terms of service or give a fiduciary rights the deceased did not have. Access to the content of messages still depends on what they consented to. One more point, and in your actual order of work it belongs first: check for an online tool before you check the will. Under Fla. Stat. § 740.003 the opening question is not what the will says. Some providers offer a tool that lets the user name who may receive their account — Google’s Inactive Account Manager, Facebook’s Legacy Contact and the like. If the user actually used it, that direction overrides a contrary direction in a will, trust or power of attorney. That holds so long as the tool let them change or delete it at any time. Only where there is no online-tool direction does the will, trust or power of attorney govern, and only where there is neither does the provider’s terms-of-service agreement decide. So look at the accounts before you look at the paperwork — it is quick, it is free, and it can settle the question outright.
Fla. Stat. §§ 740.003 et seq. (ch. 740)·last read 2026-08-19
Financial Settlement
Pay valid debts and expenses
Florida ranks claims in eight classes under Fla. Stat. § 733.707, and the surprise is at the end of the section rather than in the list. Class 1 is costs, expenses of administration and the compensation of the personal representative and their attorneys. Class 2 is reasonable funeral, interment and grave marker expenses — whoever paid them, a guardian, the representative or anyone else — capped at an aggregate of $6,000. Class 3 is debts and taxes preferred under federal law, claims under §§ 409.9101 and 414.28, and claims in favour of the state for unpaid court costs, fees or fines. Class 4 is the reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last 60 days of the last illness. Class 5 is the family allowance. Class 6 is arrearage from court-ordered child support. Class 7 is debts run up after the death by continuing the deceased’s business, and only to the extent of that business’s own assets. Class 8 is everything else, and the section says expressly that it takes both the excess over the $6,000 funeral cap and any last-illness bills falling outside the 60-day window. Where the estate cannot pay a class in full, the creditors of that class are paid ratably in proportion to their claims. Now subsection (3), which catches families out. Where the deceased held a right to revoke a trust at their death, that portion of the trust is liable for the expenses of administration and the obligations of the estate, to the extent the estate itself is insufficient. A revocable living trust is not a wall between the creditors and the assets.
Fla. Stat. § 733.707·last read 2026-08-27
File required tax returns
Florida has no estate or inheritance tax in practice, and the piece worth knowing is what you no longer have to do. Chapter 198 is still printed in the statutes: § 198.02 imposes a tax on the estate of every Florida resident measured by the credit allowable under the federal revenue act for state death taxes. That is a pick-up tax, and once Congress replaced the federal credit with a deduction the measure went to zero. The Department of Revenue puts it plainly — a federal change eliminated Florida’s estate tax for people who died after 31 December 2004. Here is the part that catches people. Florida used to require an affidavit to show nothing was owed: Form DR-312, or DR-313 where a federal return was required, commonly filed to clear the way for a property transfer. Since 1 July 2023 the personal representative does not have to file either one. A great deal of guidance still in circulation says otherwise, so if an article or a title company tells you to lodge a DR-312, check the date on it before doing the work. Florida has no state income tax, so there is no Florida fiduciary income tax return either — unlike most states, the federal Form 1041 is the whole of it if the estate earns income. None of that removes the federal returns: the deceased’s final income tax return, and Form 1041 for income the estate itself earns during administration. And it does not help with property in another state, which may carry that state’s own death tax and its own filing.
Fla. Stat. §§ 198.02, 198.13; Fla. Dept. of Revenue — Estate Tax·last read 2026-09-09
Distribution
Distribute assets to heirs
Florida splits four ways under Fla. Stat. § 732.102. The spouse takes the entire intestate estate if there are no descendants, or if every descendant is also the spouse's and the spouse has no other descendants. The spouse takes one half if any of the deceased's descendants is not the spouse's, and also one half in the reverse case — all children shared, but the spouse has descendants from elsewhere. That second half-share catches people out, because nothing about the deceased's own family has changed. Three provisions can remove somebody from the picture, and two of them are unusual. Under Fla. Stat. § 732.802 a surviving person who unlawfully and intentionally kills, or participates in procuring the death of, the deceased takes no benefit under the will or the Probate Code, and the estate passes as if the killer had predeceased — a joint tenant who kills the other severs the joint tenancy, so no survivorship. Then § 732.805, which most states have no equivalent of: a surviving spouse found to have procured the MARRIAGE by fraud, duress or undue influence loses the rights that inure solely from the marriage — the elective share, the family allowance, preference in appointment as personal representative and inheritance among them. The exception is where the couple voluntarily cohabited as husband and wife with full knowledge of the facts, or otherwise ratified the marriage. If a late-life marriage is being questioned by the family, that is the section they mean. The third is § 732.8031, Florida’s elder abuse forfeiture. It catches a person convicted, in any state or foreign jurisdiction, of abuse, neglect, exploitation or aggravated manslaughter of an elderly person or a disabled adult, as those terms are defined in § 825.101. They take no benefit under the will or the Probate Code, and the estate passes as if they had predeceased. The conduct need not have been aimed at the deceased: it is enough that it was against another person on whose death the beneficiary’s interest depends. A conviction raises a rebuttable presumption rather than settling the matter outright. Without one the court may still decide it on the greater weight of the evidence, but the question is then narrower — whether the conduct caused or contributed to the death. A convicted joint tenant severs the tenancy, so there is no survivorship, and that reaches tenancy by the entirety and joint bank accounts as well. Before applying any of those shares, check who counts as a descendant, because § 732.108 is wider than the usual rule. An adopted person is a descendant of the adopting parent and not of the natural parents — with three exceptions, not one. Adoption by the spouse of a natural parent has no effect on the relationship with that natural parent or that parent’s family. Adoption by a natural parent’s spouse who married them after the other natural parent had died has no effect on the relationship with the deceased parent’s family. And adoption by a close relative, as defined in § 63.172(2), has no effect on the relationship with the families of the deceased natural parents. Subsection (2) covers a person born out of wedlock: a descendant of the mother always, and of the father where the parents went through a marriage ceremony even a void one, where he acknowledged paternity in writing, or where paternity “is established by an adjudication before or after the death of the father”. That last route carries a sentence worth knowing about: “Chapter 95 shall not apply in determining heirs in a probate proceeding under this paragraph” — Florida switches off its limitation periods, so there is no deadline of the kind several states impose. And under § 732.106 an heir conceived before the death but born after it inherits as if born in the deceased’s lifetime.
Fla. Stat. §§ 732.102, 732.106, 732.108, 732.802, 732.8031, 732.805·last read 2026-09-09
Close Estate
File a final accounting and close the estate
In formal administration you file a Final Accounting together with a petition for discharge and a plan of distribution, under Fla. Prob. R. 5.400 — the discharge is what actually ends your responsibility, so do not stop at distributing. Summary administration usually needs no formal accounting unless the court asks for one.
Fla. Prob. R. 5.400·last read 2026-08-17
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EstateMate is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Every note above cites the section it came from and the date it was last read, so you can check it yourself. Statutes change, and the right answer can turn on facts specific to your family — when something looks close to the line, talk to a Florida probate attorney.