Key Takeaways
- Florida has two types of probate: summary administration (estates under $150,000 in probate assets, or decedents deceased more than two years) and formal administration (everything else). The timeline and cost differ significantly between them.
- Your Florida homestead property is generally not a probate asset — it passes outside of probate to qualifying heirs, which means many estates qualify for the faster summary process even when the home is worth several hundred thousand dollars.
- Summary probate typically takes 3 to 6 months; formal probate averages 9 months to a year — and can stretch to years when complicated by missing assets, creditor disputes, or family conflict.
- One of the biggest causes of delay and added cost is digital banking — families can’t locate assets because statements go to an email account no one can access after death.
- Waiting two years and one day after death before opening probate can eliminate all creditor claims entirely — a strategy worth knowing before you rush to file.
“How long is this going to take, and how much is it going to cost?” Those are the two questions estate planning and probate attorney John Marshall hears most often when families come to him after losing a loved one. And while the honest answer is “it depends,” there’s a lot more structure to that answer than most people realize.
In a recent episode of Trust Me, It’s Complicated, Marshall — who serves families acrossThe Villages,Wildwood,Leesburg,Lady Lake,Fruitland Park,Minneola,Sumter County, andLake County through Marshall Law — walks through exactly how Florida probate works, how long each type takes, what makes it take longer, and what families can do right now to make the process smoother for the people they’ll eventually leave behind.
First Things First: Testate vs. Intestate
Before any probate question can be answered — timeline, cost, or anything else — you need to know whether the deceased had an estate plan.
Dying intestate means dying without a Will or Trust. When that happens, the Florida Probate Code decides who inherits. The default order goes to spouse first, then lineal descendants, then parents, then siblings (and if a sibling has already died, their share passes to their children, and so on down the line). The result can be assets going to people the deceased barely knew or actively didn’t want to benefit — with no say in the matter whatsoever.
Dying testate means dying with a Will or Trust. That document controls who receives what and, critically, who is in charge of handling the estate.
This distinction matters beyond just who inherits. In a testate estate, the Will names a personal representative — what most other states call an executor. The court can appoint that person without notifying any other beneficiaries, which saves time. In an intestate estate, the law dictates a priority order for who can serve, and if multiple people at the same tier want the role, the court gets involved — adding pleadings, hearings, and delay.
Florida also has specific eligibility rules for who can serve as personal representative: they must be either a family member (in any state) or a Florida resident. Non-family friends from out of state don’t qualify. They also cannot be under 18 or a convicted felon.
Summary Probate: The Faster Path
If the value of the probate estate is $150,000 or less — or if the decedent has been deceased for more than two years — the estate qualifies for summary administration, the simpler of Florida’s two probate processes.
Marshall tells clients to expect three to six months for summary probate. That’s a wider range than it sounds, and here’s why.
What’s Actually a Probate Asset?
Before assuming an estate is too large for summary administration, it’s worth understanding what counts toward that $150,000 threshold. Your Florida homestead — your primary residence — is generally not a probate asset. Under Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution, homestead property passes outside of probate to qualifying heirs: a spouse, children, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, or stepchildren.
So if someone dies with $100,000 in the bank, a $20,000 car, $5,000 in household goods, and a $400,000 home — the probate estate is $125,000. The home is handled through a separate petition called a Petition to Determine Homestead Status of Real Property. The court order that comes back functions as the deed, relates back to the moment of death, and gets recorded in the public record. It typically comes through around the same time as the summary administration order.
This means a lot of Villages-area families who assume their estate is too large for summary probate are wrong about that — the home often doesn’t count.
Why Summary Probate Takes Longer Than Expected
The biggest culprit today is digital banking. Twenty years ago, every bank statement came by mail. You’d wait a few weeks after a death, the statements would arrive, and you’d have a complete picture of the estate. Today, most seniors receive their statements by email — and once they’re gone, if no one has the password or access to their inbox, those accounts essentially disappear.
Marshall’s firm is currently handling a summary probate estate that has required three amended petitions because assets kept surfacing after filing. Every amendment means re-drafting the petition, re-serving all beneficiaries (usually by certified mail or FedEx, since FedEx delivers evenings and weekends at a similar cost), and starting certain timelines over. By the third amendment, multiple creditors who had seen the earlier filings submitted claims — adding another layer of work.
Because of this pattern, Marshall Law now waits two to three months after death before filing for summary administration. Other firms file immediately after death, which can seem faster but often results in exactly these amendment cycles — which end up costing more in attorney time, service fees, and delays than the wait would have.
Tracking down beneficiaries adds time too. Marshall currently has a summary probate case where one heir moves constantly — the office tracks her through Facebook posts, sends certified mail to wherever she surfaces, and regularly gets it returned with no forwarding address.
The Creditor Question — and the Two-Year Strategy
Summary probate requires that all known creditors be identified, listed, and paid before distribution. And “creditors” is broader than most people think. It’s not just credit cards or outstanding loans. It’s medical bills, ambulance fees, hospital charges, and any liability from accidents — someone can die in a car accident they caused, and their estate becomes responsible for damages.
Here’s something most families don’t know: two years after a person dies, all creditor claims are permanently barred. After that point, it doesn’t matter what anyone was owed — there’s no mechanism to collect it from the estate.
This creates a legitimate strategic option. Marshall is currently handling a summary probate where the creditor claims actually exceed the value of the estate — meaning if they proceed now, the beneficiaries receive nothing. His advice to the family was to wait. Rent the property, let two years pass, and then every dollar goes to them. They chose to move forward for closure, losing everything in the process.
Waiting isn’t always right, but it’s always worth knowing the option exists before rushing to file.
Formal Probate: The Four-Phase Process
When the probate estate exceeds $150,000, or when the assets are simply unknown and you need court authority to compel banks to disclose information, formal administration is required.
Marshall tells families to expect nine months to a year. He has closed formal probate cases in six months under ideal conditions, and he has one that’s been open for six years.
Formal probate moves through four distinct phases.
Phase 1: Opening Probate and Appointing the Personal Representative (1–4 months)
The process begins by petitioning the court to appoint a personal representative. In a testate estate with a clearly nominated candidate who meets Florida’s qualifications, this is usually straightforward — the court handles it without notifying other beneficiaries, and Marshall says this goes smoothly about 99% of the time.
The wildcard is the Will itself. To be admitted to probate in Florida without additional proceedings, a Will must include what’s called a self-proving affidavit — a statement confirming it was properly executed. Many other states, including Ohio and Michigan, don’t use them.
Marshall is currently handling a case where the client died in Michigan with Wills from 2001. To get those Wills admitted, his office had to track down the original drafting attorney (now retired, but reachable through the firm that bought his practice), have a commissioner appointed, bring the attorney in to sign an oath under that commissioner, get the oath back, and file it with the court. That process alone added two to two and a half months – and the cost of proving the Will cost nearly as much as the underlying summary probate proceeding.
This is why Marshall consistently tells anyone who moves to Florida: update your estate plan with a Florida attorney. Out-of-state documents don’t just need minor tweaks — they can add months and hundreds or thousands of dollars to the probate process.
Phase 2: Asset Collection and Creditor Identification (4 months minimum)
Once the personal representative is appointed, they must immediately publish a Notice to Creditors in a local newspaper — once a week for two consecutive weeks. The claims window stays open for three months from the date of first publication. Known and reasonably ascertainable creditors (anyone whose debt is discoverable through bills, statements, wallet cards, or public records) must also receive physical copies of the notice.
One month after the claims period closes, the personal representative files a Statement of Creditors and objects to any claims that appear invalid or inflated. A common one Marshall sees: medical providers billing the probate estate at full retail rates instead of going through Medicare or the decedent’s insurance first. Objecting to those claims typically eliminates them — providers are contractually required to accept what Medicare pays.
Simultaneously, a complete inventory of all estate assets must be filed with the court.
This phase takes a minimum of four months just to run the creditor claims period. Asset identification issues, insurance delays, illiquid holdings, or investigations into cause of death can push it to six, eight, or nine months.
Phase 3: Paying Creditor Claims and Cleanup
Once assets are collected and creditors are identified, valid claims must be paid — but not necessarily at face value.
Marshall routinely negotiates creditor claims down before paying them. If a creditor filed a $5,000 claim, his office may offer $2,500 to $3,000 in exchange for written confirmation and payment within 30 days. Many – but not all – creditors accept. But every dollar negotiated down is a dollar that stays with the beneficiaries, and it’s worth the attempt before writing any checks.
This phase also involves cleaning up any lingering administrative issues before the estate can formally close.
Phase 4: Closing the Estate
The final phase requires either a waiver of final accounting signed by all beneficiaries, or a full formal accounting if any beneficiary demands one — their legal right.
Most beneficiaries will sign the waiver when shown what they’ll receive. But when someone demands a full accounting, the estate must document every asset and every expenditure from date of death through closing. Beneficiaries then have 30 days to file an objection after receiving it.
If an objection is filed, the objecting party has 90 days to set a hearing — not have one, just schedule it. And Florida court calendars are backed up. Marshall recently had a matter where a party defaulted in May; the hearing date is mid-October. Five months of waiting, with nothing anyone could do to move it faster.
One more wrinkle: the final tax return. If someone dies in February, you can’t file their return until the following March or April — you need a full year’s worth of W-2s and 1099s. That tax filing has to be completed before the estate can fully close, which can add additional months depending on when the person died.
Probate Isn’t Always the Enemy
Marshall is direct about something the estate planning industry doesn’t always say out loud: probate is not always something to be avoided.
For estates around $150,000 to $200,000, especially for clients in their mid-to-late seventies or older, the cost of establishing and funding a full Trust may not be justified. A well-planned Will, combined with a few practical steps, can make probate go smoothly and cost-effectively. Those steps include telling family members where your accounts are, how your statements are delivered, and how to access your email after you’re gone.
The reason probate becomes expensive and painful is almost always the same: nobody planned for it, nobody communicated, and the family is starting from scratch while grieving.
For larger or more complex estates, a Trust avoids probate entirely — but even trust administration takes four to six months in practice, and typically distributes about 80% of assets initially while taxes are sorted out. It’s faster and more private than probate, but it’s not instant.
The right answer — Trust, Will, or something in between — depends on the specific assets, the family situation, and what will actually serve the people left behind. That’s not a decision to make based on a general rule. It’s a conversation.
Is Your Current Plan Actually Ready for Florida?
If you moved to Florida from another state and haven’t updated your estate planning documents, you may be carrying an out-of-state Will or Trust that doesn’t meet Florida’s requirements — one that could add months, cost, and court proceedings to an already difficult time for your family.
If your documents are old, if the attorney who drafted them never really dug into your situation, or if you simply don’t know whether what you have will work the way you intend it to — that’s worth finding out now, while there’s still time to fix it.
Attorney John Marshall and the team at Marshall Law have spent years helping families across The Villages, Wildwood, Leesburg, Lady Lake, Fruitland Park, Minneola, Sumter County, Lake County, and Citrus County build estate plans that actually work in Florida — and handle the probate process efficiently when the time comes.
Call Marshall Law at (352) 432-8859 or schedule a consultation online today. The money you worked your whole life to earn deserves a plan — not a probate proceeding that consumes it.