Ginsberg Shulman, PL — Board Certified Estate & Elder Law AttorneysGinsberg Shulman, PL — Board Certified Estate & Elder Law Attorneys

Probate Attorneys — Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, FL

Fort Lauderdale Probate Attorneys

When someone dies in Florida, their estate usually has to pass through probate — the court-supervised process of collecting what they owned, paying what they owed, and distributing what’s left to the people entitled to it. We handle probate administrations in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties every week: as board-certified specialists, it’s a core part of what we do, not a sideline.

If you’ve just lost someone and a bank, a title company, or a court notice has told you “you’ll need to open a probate,” this page walks through what that actually means — the two kinds of Florida probate, how long it takes, what it costs, and what the personal representative actually has to do.

What Is Probate in Florida?

Probate is the legal process that moves assets out of a deceased person’s name. It exists because a dead person can’t sign a deed or close a bank account — someone needs legal authority to act for the estate, and creditors and beneficiaries both need a forum where their rights get sorted out in the right order. Our step-by-step guide to Florida probate walks through the whole process.

Not everything goes through probate. Assets with a surviving joint owner, accounts with valid beneficiary designations, life insurance payable to a named person, and assets held in a properly funded trust all pass outside the process. Probate handles what’s left — the assets titled in the decedent’s individual name with no built-in transfer mechanism. (This is also why your will doesn’t control your IRA — beneficiary designations trump the will.)

Formal vs. Summary Administration

Florida has two main flavors of probate.

Summary administration is the short form. It’s available when the probate estate is worth $150,000 or less (not counting exempt property; the limit doubled from $75,000 effective July 1, 2026), or when the person has been dead for more than two years. There’s no personal representative — the court enters an order distributing the assets directly. It’s faster and cheaper, and for small, clean estates it’s usually right.

But summary administration has traps. The people who receive assets under the order remain personally liable for the decedent’s lawful debts, up to the value of what they received — and you give up the right to contest creditor claims. If the debts are uncertain, if the assets can’t all be identified and valued up front, or if the family isn’t on the same page, the “cheap” option can get expensive.

Formal administration is the full process under Chapter 733: the court appoints a personal representative, creditors get a defined window to make claims (and the estate gets the right to fight the bad ones), and distributions follow a supervised order of operations. It takes longer, but it cuts off creditor claims and produces clean title. When there’s real money, real debt, a business, or real family tension, formal administration is usually the right call.

Choosing between them is a judgment call, not a form-filling exercise — it’s one of the first things we work through with you. We’ve written a deeper comparison of formal vs. summary administration.

How Long Does Probate Take in Florida?

Longer than families expect, and the timeline is mostly set by law, not by how fast anyone works:

  • Getting appointed: after the petition is filed, it typically takes a few weeks for the court to appoint the personal representative and issue Letters of Administration. Until Letters issue, nobody has authority to touch anything.
  • The creditor period: once notice to creditors is published, creditors get three months to file claims. Distributions before that window closes expose the personal representative personally. This three-month floor is why no Florida formal administration finishes in six weeks.
  • Active administration: most straightforward formal administrations run six months to a year and a half — marshaling assets, filing the inventory, resolving claims, dealing with taxes.
  • Closing: the final accounting, distribution, and discharge usually add one to three months at the end.

Summary administrations are much faster — often a couple of months — when they fit. For the phase-by-phase breakdown, see how long probate takes in Florida.

What Does a Personal Representative Actually Do?

The personal representative (Florida’s term for executor) is the person legally in charge of the estate. The job, roughly in order: locate and deposit the original will, get appointed, open an estate bank account, gather and secure the assets, publish and serve notice to creditors, file the inventory, evaluate and pay (or fight) claims, handle tax filings, and finally distribute and close the estate.

Two rules keep personal representatives out of trouble: never mix estate money with your own, and never distribute early. Both are personal-liability traps, and both are the first things a court looks at when something goes wrong. Florida also restricts who can serve — out-of-state personal representatives must be close family, and felony convictions disqualify. Our FAQ on who can serve as personal representative in Florida covers the eligibility rules.

We represent personal representatives through the whole process — the PR makes the decisions; we make sure the process is done right and the PR stays protected. New PRs should start with our personal representative checklist.

Common Probate Problems We Handle

Trust Administration

If the decedent had a funded revocable trust, the successor trustee administers the trust instead of (or alongside) a probate — a parallel process with its own notice requirements, accountings, and deadlines. That work is covered on our trust administration page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is probate required if there’s a will?

Usually yes. A will doesn’t avoid probate — it controls who gets the probate assets. Avoiding probate takes lifetime planning: trusts, titling, and beneficiary designations.

Do I have to use a lawyer for Florida probate?

For formal administration, yes in nearly all cases — Florida court rules require the personal representative to be represented by an attorney unless the PR is the sole interested person.

Can I be personal representative if I live out of state?

Only if you’re a close relative of the decedent — spouse, child, parent, sibling, or certain other family. A non-relative friend who lives outside Florida cannot serve.

What if the estate has more debt than assets?

Florida has a priority order for claims, and some assets — the homestead, exempt property — are protected from most creditors even in an insolvent estate. Don’t pay anyone until the priorities are sorted; that’s a personal-liability mistake.

Talk to a Board-Certified Probate Attorney

You’ll work directly with a board-certified attorney from the first call — no associates, and the attorney you meet is the attorney who handles your matter. Call (954) 839-8705 or schedule a consultation, and bring whatever documents you have; we’ll tell you honestly whether you need a formal administration, a summary administration, or no probate at all.

From the Blog

Reviewed by David A. Shulman, Florida Bar Board Certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates. Last reviewed July 20, 2026.