Florida Right of Survivorship: How Joint Accounts and Joint Property Pass at Death

The Florida right of survivorship decides who owns an account or a piece of property the moment a co-owner dies: the surviving owner takes the whole asset automatically, outside probate, no matter what the will says. What almost nobody is told is that Florida runs the rule in two opposite directions — a joint bank account is presumed to carry a right of survivorship under Fla. Stat. § 655.79, while a Florida deed carries none at all unless it expressly says so under Fla. Stat. § 689.15.

Written and reviewed by Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq., Florida Bar No. 107002. Lorenzo Law represents families in probate, homestead and probate litigation matters throughout Florida.
Last reviewed: September 2026.

Please read first. This article explains general principles of Florida law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Florida statutes are amended every year and court decisions change the law — the statutes and cases discussed here are current as of the review date above and may have changed since. The outcome of any survivorship question depends on the specific documents, account records and facts involved, which no article can evaluate. Do not act or refrain from acting on anything here without speaking to a lawyer about your own situation.

What Is the Florida Right of Survivorship?

Survivorship is really a rule about timing. It operates at the instant of death, by operation of law, before the probate estate comes into existence — which is why a will arrives too late to reach it, and why a signature card signed at a teller window outranks an estate plan drafted over weeks.

What makes Florida genuinely confusing is that the rule runs in opposite directions depending on the asset. For a bank account, survivorship is presumed unless the paperwork says otherwise. For a deed to real estate, survivorship does not exist unless the deed expressly creates it. Same state, same year, opposite defaults — and almost every article on this subject states one of those rules as though it were the whole law.

We at Lorenzo Law litigate these disputes. What follows is the complete Florida framework: the statutes, the cases, the four kinds of joint account and what separates them, how a survivorship designation is challenged and defended, and the traps that turn a well-intentioned bit of estate planning into a lawsuit between siblings.

Why survivorship matters more than most people expect

A right of survivorship is the most powerful document nobody reads. A signature card signed at a teller window in four minutes will override a will drafted over four weeks. A single word on a car title — or versus and — decides whether the vehicle needs probate. A deed that says “to my two children” instead of “to my two children as joint tenants with full rights of survivorship” sends half the house through the estate of whichever child dies first, to people the other child may never have met.

These are not exotic scenarios. They are the ordinary fact patterns of Florida probate.

Florida’s Two Opposite Default Rules: § 689.15 and § 655.79

Start here, because everything else follows from it.

Fla. Stat. § 689.15 — real estate and general personal property. The statute is a single sentence and it abolishes the common-law presumption outright:

“The doctrine of the right of survivorship in cases of real estate and personal property held by joint tenants shall not prevail in this state; that is to say, except in cases of estates by entirety, a devise, transfer or conveyance heretofore or hereafter made to two or more shall create a tenancy in common, unless the instrument creating the estate shall expressly provide for the right of survivorship; and in cases of estates by entirety, the tenants, upon dissolution of marriage, shall become tenants in common.”

Silence defeats survivorship. A Florida deed to two people with no survivorship language creates a tenancy in common, and the deceased owner’s share goes through probate.

Fla. Stat. § 655.79(1) — deposit accounts. The Legislature flipped the rule:

“Unless otherwise expressly provided in a contract, agreement, or signature card executed in connection with the opening or maintenance of an account, including a certificate of deposit, a deposit account in the names of two or more persons shall be presumed to have been intended by such persons to provide that, upon the death of any one of them, all rights, title, interest, and claim in, to, and in respect of such deposit account … vest in the surviving person or persons.”

Here silence creates survivorship. And the presumption is strong: § 655.79(2) says it operates “notwithstanding the absence of proof of any donative intent or delivery, possession, dominion, control, or acceptance on the part of any person.”

This is the single most useful thing on this page, so here it is asset by asset.

Asset	Default when the document is silent	Governing statute
Florida real estate, two or more owners	Tenancy in common — no survivorship	§ 689.15
Florida real estate, married couple	Tenancy by the entireties — survivorship presumed	§ 689.15 (entireties exception); § 689.11
Bank deposit account, two or more names	Survivorship presumed	§ 655.79(1)
Bank deposit account, married couple	Tenancy by the entireties	§ 655.79(1), second sentence
Account opened as a convenience account	No survivorship — balance goes to the estate	§ 655.80(2)–(3)
Vehicle title reading “A or B”	Survivorship — even for spouses	§ 319.22(2)(a)1.a.
Vehicle title reading “A and B”	No survivorship — both signatures required	§ 319.22(2)(a)1.b.
Securities registered in TOD form	Beneficiary takes at death	§§ 711.50–711.512
Bank account with a POD designation	Beneficiary takes on the last owner’s death	§ 655.82(3)

Read that table twice. A deed and a bank account signed on the same afternoon, by the same two people, with the same silence about survivorship, produce opposite results when one of them dies.

The Five Ways Property Is Co-Owned in Florida

Nearly every dispute we handle comes down to identifying which of these five things the parties actually created — which is often not the one they thought they created.

	Joint with right of survivorship	Tenancy by the entireties	Tenants in common	Convenience account	POD account
Who can be an owner	Anyone	Married couple only	Anyone	Principal plus agents	One or more parties plus beneficiaries
Who owns it during life	All owners	Both spouses own the whole	Separate divisible shares	The principal alone	The party or parties alone
What happens at death	Survivor takes all	Surviving spouse takes all	Decedent’s share goes to their estate	Balance goes to the personal representative	Beneficiary takes on the last party’s death
Probate?	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Creditors of one owner	Can reach that owner’s interest during life	Cannot reach it — only joint creditors of both spouses	Can reach that owner’s share	Principal’s creditors reach it	Party’s creditors reach it
In the elective estate?	Yes — § 732.2035(3)	Yes, at one-half — § 732.2035(3)	Yes, via the probate estate	Yes, via the probate estate	Yes — § 732.2035(3)
Governing statute	§ 655.79 / § 689.15	§ 655.79(1); § 689.11	§ 689.15	§ 655.80	§ 655.82
How it is challenged	§ 655.79(2): fraud, undue influence, or contrary intent	Rebutting the entireties presumption; wrongful transfer	Rarely challenged — it is the default	Proving the account was in fact a convenience account	Undue influence, capacity, forgery

Do Joint Bank Accounts Have Right of Survivorship in Florida?

Yes — presumptively. Under § 655.79(1), a deposit account in two or more names is presumed to vest in the survivor at death unless a contract, agreement or signature card expressly provides otherwise.

Three consequences follow, and each one surprises somebody.

You do not need the words “right of survivorship”

The presumption arises from the account being in two names, not from any particular phrase. In In re Estate of Herring, 670 So. 2d 145 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996), a grandfather had a six-month certificate of deposit retitled to read “Herbert H. Herring or Robert J. Herring.” No words indicating survivorship appeared on the certificate. His will then purported to leave all his certificates of deposit to someone else. The First District held the grandson, as survivor, was presumed to own the CD under § 655.79, that the presumption had not been rebutted, and that the CD therefore was not an asset of the estate.

Note what that case also settles: § 655.79(1) expressly includes “a certificate of deposit,” so a CD in two names carries the same presumed survivorship as a checking account.

That is the opposite of the deed rule, where the magic words are mandatory.

The presumption is contractual, not a gift

This matters enormously in litigation, because it removes the arguments families instinctively reach for. Section 655.79(2) says the account vests in the survivor “notwithstanding the absence of proof of any donative intent or delivery, possession, dominion, control, or acceptance.” The Florida Supreme Court confirmed in In re Estate of Combee, 601 So. 2d 1165 (Fla. 1992) that the joint-account statute eliminated the requirement of showing a gift inter vivos, and that the presumption had not been rebutted by clear and convincing evidence. (Combee construed § 658.56, Florida Statutes (1987), a predecessor of § 655.79 whose operative language is materially the same.)

So “Dad never meant to give my sister anything” is not, standing alone, an argument. It has to be converted into one of the three statutory routes below.

If the two names are a married couple, it is probably not a joint account at all

Section 655.79(1) closes with a sentence most articles skip: “Any deposit or account made in the name of two persons who are husband and wife shall be considered a tenancy by the entirety unless otherwise specified in writing.” That is a different form of ownership with different creditor consequences. See the entireties section below.

How to Tell Whether Your Joint Account Has Right of Survivorship

This is the question we are asked most often, usually by someone who is looking at online banking and cannot find the answer there. They cannot find it because it is generally not in online banking. It is on the signature card or the deposit agreement — the document signed when the account was opened, which the bank keeps and the customer almost never does.

What the labels on a signature card actually mean

What the card says	What it means in Florida
Joint With Right of Survivorship · JTWROS · Joint Tenants WROS · JT TEN WROS	Survivorship. Survivor takes the balance. § 655.79
Multiple-Party Account With Right of Survivorship	Same — this is the statutory phrasing used in § 655.82(1)
Joint — Tenants in Common · Joint Without Survivorship	No survivorship. The decedent’s share is estate property, and any POD designation on it is ineffective under § 655.82(4)
Joint — Husband and Wife · Tenancy by the Entireties	Entireties. Survivorship plus protection from the creditors of one spouse alone
Convenience Account · Agency Account · Authorized Signer · Attorney-in-Fact	No survivorship. The named person is an agent, not an owner. § 655.80
Payable on Death · POD · In Trust For · ITF · Totten trust	Beneficiary designation. Takes effect on the death of the last surviving party, not the first. § 655.82
Nothing at all — just two names	Survivorship is presumed under § 655.79(1). Silence favors the survivor

What to ask the bank for, in writing

Ask in writing for: the signature card or deposit agreement in effect on the date the account was opened; every subsequent signature card or account-change form; the account type code and its meaning in the bank’s own documentation; the date each owner was added; and the date-of-death balance. If the account has been through a bank merger, ask for the predecessor institution’s card as well — that is where the original titling lives, and it is where a lot of cases are won.

Note the bank’s label is evidence, not law. The legal effect is decided by § 655.79, § 655.80 and § 655.82 and by what a court finds the parties actually intended — not by the marketing name on a product brochure.

The Third District proved the point in Larkins v. Mendez, 363 So. 3d 140 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023). The decedent had updated his signature card by checking the box marked “multiple-party account with right of survivorship.” The card had a separate box for a convenience-account designation, and that box was not checked. On paper it was as clean a survivorship account as a bank can produce. After a four-day trial the probate court nevertheless found it was a convenience account and an estate asset, and the Third District affirmed — holding that the trial court’s inquiry “was not limited to the holder’s express intent as manifested by the signature card.”

Joint Account With Right of Survivorship and a POD Beneficiary: Who Gets the Money?

This is one of the most common real-world configurations and one of the least explained. A mother adds her son to her checking account as a joint owner with right of survivorship, and separately names her daughter as the payable-on-death beneficiary. Then the mother dies. Who gets the money?

The son does. Fla. Stat. § 655.82(3) answers it directly:

“(a) On the death of one of two or more parties, sums on deposit in the account belong to the surviving party or parties.
(b) On the death of the sole party or the last survivor of two or more parties, sums on deposit belong to the surviving beneficiary or beneficiaries.”

Survivorship operates on the first death. The POD beneficiary is next in line, not first in line. And § 655.82(2) confirms the beneficiary has no rights at all while any party is alive: “A beneficiary in an account having a pay-on-death designation has no right to sums on deposit during the lifetime of any party.”

What happens	Who gets the money	Authority
One of two joint owners dies; a POD beneficiary is named	The surviving joint owner. The POD beneficiary gets nothing yet	§ 655.82(3)(a)
The last surviving owner then dies	The POD beneficiary	§ 655.82(3)(b)
Two or more POD beneficiaries survive	Equal undivided shares, with no survivorship among them	§ 655.82(3)(b)
No POD beneficiary survives the last party	The estate of the last surviving party	§ 655.82(3)(b)
The account is titled tenants in common with a POD designation	The POD designation is ineffective; the decedent’s share is estate property	§ 655.82(4)
Surviving owner wants to change the POD beneficiary	They can. As the sole remaining party they control the designation	§ 655.82(1)–(3)

Does a POD beneficiary override right of survivorship in Florida?

No. On the first death, survivorship controls and the POD designation is dormant.

Can the surviving joint owner change or remove the POD beneficiary?

Yes. Once the other owner dies, the survivor is the sole party to the account and may change the beneficiary, remove the designation, or move the money entirely. This is exactly why naming a POD beneficiary behind a joint owner is unreliable estate planning: the plan survives only as long as the survivor chooses to leave it alone.

What if the POD beneficiary dies before the last account owner?

The designation lapses as to that beneficiary. If none survives, the funds belong to the estate of the last surviving party — which is a probate asset. Section 655.82(3)(b) also provides that where two or more beneficiaries take, there is no right of survivorship among them unless a depository agreement written between December 31, 1994 and July 1, 2001 says otherwise.

Is right of survivorship the same as naming a beneficiary?

No, and the difference is ownership. A joint owner with right of survivorship owns the account now — they can withdraw everything today, and their creditors can reach it. A POD beneficiary owns nothing until the last party dies. If your goal is to pass money at death without giving anyone access during your life, a POD designation does that and a joint owner does not.

Payable-on-Death (POD) Accounts in Florida

A payable-on-death account — also called a POD account, an in-trust-for or ITF account, or a Totten trust — is a deposit account owned entirely by the depositor during life, with a named beneficiary who takes the balance at death. Florida governs them at Fla. Stat. § 655.82.

POD accounts do a specific job well. They pass money outside probate without giving the beneficiary any lifetime access, any withdrawal right, or any exposure of the funds to the beneficiary’s creditors or divorce. For a parent who wants a child to receive money at death but not to have the debit card today, a POD designation is almost always the better instrument than adding a joint owner.

Three limits are worth knowing:

• A POD designation on a tenants-in-common account is void. Section 655.82(4): “A pay-on-death designation in a multiple-party account without right of survivorship is ineffective.”
• Outstanding checks still get paid. Under § 655.82(5), the beneficiary’s ownership is subject to requests for payment made before death, and the beneficiary is personally liable to the payee of an unpaid request, up to a proportionate share of what they received.
• A POD designation can be attacked like a will. It is a will substitute, and Florida courts have set POD designations aside for undue influence. In Keul v. Hodges Blvd. Presbyterian Church, 180 So. 3d 1074 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015), the First District rejected the argument that a POD designation “cannot, as a matter of law, be invalidated for undue influence,” and affirmed the invalidation of a POD on $333,497.56 in credit union accounts obtained by the decedent’s “neighbor, friend, paid caregiver, attorney in fact and health care surrogate” days before death. It also affirmed the trial court’s authority to order the funds returned to the estate.

Convenience Accounts: The Florida Statute Almost Nobody Cites

Here is the most useful section on this page.

The most common true story behind a disputed joint account is not a gift. It is: “Mom put my brother on the account so he could pay her bills when she couldn’t get to the bank.” Florida has a statute written for exactly that arrangement, and it is almost never invoked.

Fla. Stat. § 655.80(1) defines a convenience account as a deposit account “in the name of one individual (principal), in which one or more other individuals have been designated as agents with the right to make deposits to and to withdraw funds from or draw checks on such account.”

Then § 655.80(2) does the work:

“All rights, interests, and claims in, to, and in respect of, such deposits and convenience account and the additions thereto shall be those of the principal only.“

And § 655.80(3) says where the money goes when the principal dies: to the guardian of the principal’s property, to a person designated in a court order under § 735.206, to a person designated by letter under § 735.301, or to the personal representative of the deceased principal’s estate.

In plain terms: a convenience account carries no right of survivorship whatsoever. The agent is a helper, not an heir. The balance is an estate asset.

The distinction that decides these cases

Be precise here, because this is where most writing on the subject goes wrong. Section 655.80 governs an account that was opened as a convenience account under that section. It does not, by its own force, convert an ordinary joint account into a convenience account after the fact.

So if the account was opened in ordinary joint form with a survivorship signature card, the argument is not “this was a § 655.80 account.” The argument is that the § 655.79(1) presumption should be rebutted under § 655.79(2) because the parties’ actual intent was an agency arrangement — with § 655.80 supplying the legal shape of what they meant to create. Florida courts allow parol evidence for exactly this inquiry. In Caputo v. Nouskhajian, 871 So. 2d 266 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004), the Fifth District held that parol evidence the decedent intended joint bank accounts to pass through her estate was admissible, and — a point with real practical bite — that communications between the decedent and her own attorney about that intent were not protected by the attorney-client privilege. In these disputes the decedent’s estate planning lawyer and their file are usually discoverable, and they are often where the case is decided.

What a successful convenience-account claim looks like

Larkins v. Mendez, 363 So. 3d 140 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), is worth studying because it is a Miami-Dade probate case that went to trial and was affirmed on appeal, on a signature card that said the opposite.

The decedent had opened a BB&T account with his wife in 1997. In 2006, after her death, he added the one son who lived locally and updated the signature card by checking “multiple-party account with right of survivorship.” A convenience-account box existed on the same card and was left unchecked. He died intestate in January 2016 with three sons as beneficiaries. The son on the account spent essentially all of the money and argued the balance had passed to him by survivorship.

After a four-day bench trial the probate court found the account was a convenience account and therefore an estate asset. The evidence the court credited is a template for these cases:

• A brother testified the father had said the account would be split three ways, and that the son was added only to help pay bills and manage finances in his elder years.
• The son on the account admitted the funds all came from his father, and that he had withdrawn nothing for personal use during his father’s lifetime.
• A neighbor testified the decedent told him the account was to be split among the three sons after his death — and had taken contemporaneous notes of that conversation, admitted into evidence, expressly stating the son’s name was “put on for convenience.”
• The account records showed several large withdrawals only after the father died.

The Third District affirmed, holding that the trial court’s inquiry into whether the account was a convenience account “was not limited to the holder’s express intent as manifested by the signature card,” and that clear and convincing evidence established the holder intended a convenience account. It also held that applying a common-law unities-of-title analysis to an account was error, though harmless.

Larkins is not an outlier. Four decades earlier, in Constance v. Constance, 366 So. 2d 804 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), a father sued his daughter after she emptied three joint accounts. The Third District affirmed an order requiring her to pay the money back — holding the trial court could do so “on evidence which rebutted existence of a joint tenancy even though [the] signature card on each account stated in unmistakable terms that all money therein was joint property.“

Three lessons. The signature card is powerful but it is not the end of the inquiry — and that has been true in Florida since at least 1979. The presumption of joint ownership between co-signatories is strong, but it “may be rebutted by one of the co-signators establishing an equitable ownership to the entire proceeds of the account.” Constance, 366 So. 2d at 807. And the single most valuable piece of evidence in Larkins was a neighbor’s contemporaneous handwritten note — a reminder that these cases are built from ordinary people who heard the decedent explain what they meant.

Evidence that an account was really for convenience

• Source of funds. Every dollar came from the decedent; the joint owner never deposited anything.
• Timing. The joint owner was added late in life, often after a diagnosis, a fall, or a hospitalization.
• Use. Account activity is entirely the decedent’s household spending — utilities, insurance, groceries, caregivers — with nothing personal to the joint owner.
• The rest of the estate plan. A will or trust dividing everything equally among four children, alongside an account that would give one child everything, is powerful evidence of contrary intent.
• Contemporaneous statements. What the decedent told the banker, the accountant, the estate planning attorney, the other children.
• Who drove the process. Whether the joint owner selected the account type, filled in the card, or spoke for the decedent at the branch.

On that last point, note the limit. In Davis v. Foulkrod, 642 So. 2d 1129 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994), the Fourth District reversed a finding of undue influence where the survivor’s only role was suggesting two institutions — one of which the decedent rejected outright — even though she also drove him to all his appointments. Presence is not procurement.

Tenancy by the Entireties Bank Accounts in Florida

When the two names on a Florida account belong to a married couple, the account is presumed to be held as a tenancy by the entireties, not as an ordinary joint account. Section 655.79(1): “Any deposit or account made in the name of two persons who are husband and wife shall be considered a tenancy by the entirety unless otherwise specified in writing.”

Entireties ownership is a different animal. Each spouse owns the entire account rather than a half share. That produces two consequences:

1. Survivorship is automatic and complete. The survivor does not inherit a half — they simply continue to own the whole.
2. Creditor protection. Property held as tenants by the entireties cannot be reached by a creditor of one spouse alone — “only the creditors of both the husband and wife, jointly, may attach the tenancy by the entireties property.” Beal Bank, SSB v. Almand & Associates, 780 So. 2d 45, 53 (Fla. 2001).

The six characteristics of a Florida entireties account

Beal Bank identified six characteristics of a tenancy by the entireties: (1) unity of possession — joint ownership and control; (2) unity of interest — the interests in the account must be identical; (3) unity of title — the interests must have originated in the same instrument; (4) unity of time — the interests must have commenced simultaneously; (5) survivorship; and (6) unity of marriage — the parties must be married at the time the property became titled in their joint names. A joint tenancy with right of survivorship shares all of these except the unity of marriage.

How the entireties presumption is defeated

Beal Bank held that “[i]f the signature card of the account does not expressly disclaim the tenancy by the entireties form of ownership, a presumption arises that a bank account titled in the names of both spouses is held as a tenancy by the entireties as long as the account is established by husband and wife in accordance with the unities of possession, interest, title, and time and with right of survivorship.” The creditor then bears the burden of disproving it. Two later decisions refined this:

• Storey Mountain, LLC v. George, 357 So. 3d 709 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023) — the 2008 amendment to § 655.79(1) superseded Beal Bank‘s rule that a disclaimer had to appear on the signature card itself. Any writing, including a broader account agreement incorporated by reference, can now negate the presumption.
• Loumpos v. Bank One, 423 So. 3d 856 (Fla. 2025) — decided December 11, 2025, and the newest word on the subject. A wife had a default judgment against her. Her husband opened an account in his name alone, and months later the couple executed new signature cards designating the account “Ten by Enty.” Her judgment creditor tried to garnish it, arguing the common-law unities of time and title were missing because the account had started as his alone. The Florida Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the second sentence of § 655.79(1) “authorizes a joint spousal bank account to be held as a tenancy by the entireties even if the account was originally established by one spouse,” and that the 2008 amendment “established a presumption in favor of a tenancy by the entireties that is not defeated by an absence of the unities of time and title.” It quashed the Second District’s contrary decision at 392 So. 3d 841 and approved Versace v. Uruven, LLC, 348 So. 3d 610 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022).

A word of caution on citing Beal Bank. Its core rule — that only creditors of both spouses jointly may attach entireties property — is untouched and remains good law. But its bank-account analysis has been overtaken by statute: the 2008 amendment to § 655.79(1) superseded the signature-card requirement (Storey Mountain), and Loumpos removed the unities of time and title as obstacles. For deposit accounts, § 655.79(1) is the operative authority; cite Beal Bank for the substantive creditor rule and for the six characteristics, not for the account-titling test.

The practical effect of Loumpos is significant and it is new: a Florida married couple can convert an existing individual account into entireties property simply by retitling it, and the resulting creditor protection does not fail because the account did not begin that way.

Note also what § 689.15 does at the end of a marriage: on dissolution, tenants by the entireties “shall become tenants in common.” A divorce, standing alone, converts the estate and destroys the survivorship right.

Can one spouse move entireties money without the other?

No — and the difference from an ordinary joint account is stark. Sitomer v. Orlan, 660 So. 2d 1111, 1113–14 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), draws the line: “in a tenancy by the entirety neither spouse may sever or forfeit any part of the estate without the assent of the other, so as to defeat the right of the survivor.”

An ordinary joint account is far more fragile. There, “a joint owner’s withdrawal of funds from a joint bank account terminates the joint tenancy nature of the funds and severs the right of survivorship as to the funds withdrawn.” An entireties account is not: the non-severability doctrine “preserves the entireties status of funds even after one spouse renames an account or transfers money from it without the consent of the other” — which is precisely why a non-consenting spouse can chase those funds into a third party’s hands, and why an ordinary joint owner generally cannot. And in Wallace v. Torres-Rodriguez, 341 So. 3d 374 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022), the Third District held that a constructive trust is the proper remedy to recover tenancy by the entireties assets wrongfully transferred by one spouse during the marriage without the other spouse’s consent. The husband there had moved roughly $2 million in cash out of entireties marital assets, part of an alleged $5 million; the court rejected the transferee’s “change of position” defense both as waived and because she was not without notice. [Citation and holding verified from the Westlaw opinion, 1 Sept 2026 — confirm no negative subsequent history]

Can a Right of Survivorship Be Challenged in Florida?

Yes. A joint account with right of survivorship can be challenged in Florida, and the statute that says so is the one most articles on this subject never quote. Fla. Stat. § 655.79(2):

“The presumption created in this section may be overcome only by proof of fraud or undue influence or clear and convincing proof of a contrary intent.”

Read the structure. There are three routes and they are disjunctive. Fraud is one. Undue influence is a second, standing on its own. Clear and convincing proof of a contrary intent is a third.

What standard of proof applies to each route

Families are routinely told they must meet a clear-and-convincing standard no matter what they allege. The accurate answer is narrower: the standard is settled for one of the three routes and unresolved for the other two.

Settled: the contrary-intent route carries clear and convincing evidence. Every reported Florida decision applying § 655.79(2) has involved a contrary-intent challenge, and the courts have uniformly applied that standard. In re Estate of Combee, 601 So. 2d 1165 (Fla. 1992); Davis v. Foulkrod, 642 So. 2d 1129 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Larkins v. Mendez, 363 So. 3d 140 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023).

Open: whether the fraud and undue influence routes carry it too. No Florida appellate decision has resolved this, and a court could go either way. Challengers argue from the sentence structure: the modifier “clear and convincing” sits immediately before “proof of a contrary intent,” which on one reading leaves fraud and undue influence to whatever standard governs those claims generally. What governs undue influence generally in Florida is the greater weight of the evidence, not clear and convincing. The Florida Supreme Court said so in Cripe v. Atlantic First National Bank of Daytona Beach, 422 So. 2d 820, 823 (Fla. 1982) — itself a joint bank account case: “The trier of fact determines the question of undue influence, the standard of proof required of the moving party being the preponderance (greater weight) of the evidence.” The Third District applied that same preponderance standard to a § 733.107(2) undue-influence case as recently as 2021. Hannibal v. Navarro, 317 So. 3d 1179 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021); see also Hack v. Janes, 878 So. 2d 440 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004).

The counter-argument is real and a surviving owner will make it: § 655.79(2) says the presumption “may be overcome only by” the three routes, and that word may signal a uniformly elevated bar meant to protect account designations from easy challenge. Until a Florida court decides it, this is an argument to be briefed, not a rule to be assumed.

One further point that cuts the challenger’s way. Fla. Stat. § 733.107(2) superseded the common-law burden framework: once a prima facie case of undue influence is established, the presumption shifts the burden of proof — not merely a burden of production — to the beneficiary to prove the absence of undue influence.

The grounds for challenging a Florida joint account

Ground	What must be shown	Authority
Fraud	Misrepresentation or concealment that induced the titling	§ 655.79(2)
Undue influence	A substantial beneficiary occupying a confidential relationship who was active in procuring the account	§ 655.79(2); In re Estate of Carpenter, 253 So. 2d 697 (Fla. 1971); Cripe, 422 So. 2d 820 (Fla. 1982)
Contrary intent	Clear and convincing evidence that the parties intended something other than survivorship	§ 655.79(2); Combee, 601 So. 2d 1165 (Fla. 1992)
Convenience or agency arrangement	The joint owner was added as a helper, not an owner	§ 655.80; Larkins v. Mendez, 363 So. 3d 140 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023)
Lack of capacity	The depositor did not understand the transaction when the account was retitled	General Florida law
Forgery	The signature card was not signed by the depositor	General Florida law
Breach of fiduciary duty by an agent	An attorney-in-fact under a power of attorney retitled the account to himself	§ 709.2114
Exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult	Statutory exploitation — a predicate for treble damages	§ 825.103(1); § 772.11

What undue influence actually requires

Florida’s framework comes from In re Estate of Carpenter, 253 So. 2d 697 (Fla. 1971): a presumption of undue influence arises where a person who is a substantial beneficiary, and who occupies a confidential relationship with the decedent, was active in procuring the transaction. Carpenter sets out seven non-exclusive criteria for active procurement, at 253 So. 2d at 702: (a) presence of the beneficiary at the execution; (b) presence of the beneficiary when the testator expressed a desire to make a will; (c) recommendation by the beneficiary of an attorney; (d) knowledge of the contents by the beneficiary before execution; (e) giving of instructions to the drafting attorney by the beneficiary; (f) securing of witnesses by the beneficiary; and (g) safekeeping of the instrument by the beneficiary afterward. The Court was explicit that these “cannot be considered exclusive,” that supplementation is expected, and that a contestant need not prove all of them.

On the threshold element, Carpenter adopted a deliberately wide definition from Quinn v. Phipps, 93 Fla. 805, 113 So. 419 (1927): a confidential relationship “embraces both technical fiduciary relations and those informal relations which exist wherever one man trusts in and relies upon another,” and “need not be legal. It may be moral, social, domestic, or merely personal.” An adult child who handles a parent’s banking is well inside that definition.

Carpenter itself held that although the presumption arose, the burden of proof was not shifted to the proponent — she bore only a burden of coming forward with a reasonable explanation, after which the presumption “vanishes from the case.”

That is no longer the law. In 2002 the Legislature added § 733.107(2):

“In any transaction or event to which the presumption of undue influence applies, the presumption implements public policy against abuse of fiduciary or confidential relationships and is therefore a presumption shifting the burden of proof under ss. 90.301-90.304.”

The history is worth knowing, because it runs in a circle. Before 1971 the Florida Supreme Court had “consistently held that the burden of proof shifts to the proponent when the presumption of undue influence arises.” Carpenter changed that to a vanishing presumption. Section 733.107(2) changed it back.

The Third District applied the current rule squarely in Hannibal v. Navarro, 317 So. 3d 1179, 1182 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021): “under the amended statute … the alleged wrongdoer bears the burden of proving that there was no undue influence,” citing Hack v. Janes, 878 So. 2d 440, 443 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004). The Carpenter factors survive as the test for active procurement; its burden mechanics do not.

Two refinements matter for accounts specifically.

Each account is analyzed separately. In Cripe v. Atlantic First National Bank of Daytona Beach, 422 So. 2d 820 (Fla. 1982), the Florida Supreme Court held the district court “should have applied the Carpenter test to the two transactions separately.” The result split: survivorship was upheld as to a $12,700 checking account and a $10,900 account, which reflected a genuine bargained-for arrangement in exchange for managing the decedent’s apartment business and personal care — but a $32,000 certificate of deposit funded with condemnation proceeds went to the estate, because by then a confidential relationship existed and the survivor had obtained the survivorship rights “by affirmative request or suggestion” while providing nothing beyond routine paperwork. (Cripe construed § 659.291, Florida Statutes (1979), another predecessor of § 655.79.)

Donative intent is not the question, and proximity is not procurement. In Davis v. Foulkrod, 642 So. 2d 1129 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994), the Fourth District reversed a finding of undue influence over five joint survivorship accounts. The trial court had relied partly on the fact that the survivor “would drive the decedent back and forth to all necessary appointments.” The appellate court found the evidence that she “either procured the transfers, or played any other role in the actual decision to make them, is thus nonexistent” — the decedent alone initiated the transfers, and bank representatives testified he did all the talking and understood the consequences. A lack of donative intent did not overcome the statutory presumption.

Can siblings fight a joint bank account left to one child?

Yes — and it is the fact pattern we see most. The path runs through § 655.79(2). Where an aging parent added one child to the accounts, that child handled the banking, and the will divides everything equally, there is usually a genuine claim for undue influence or contrary intent. The evidence is the same evidence listed in the convenience-account section above.

What is not enough, standing alone: unfairness. Florida law permits a parent to leave one child more than another. The claim has to be that the titling did not reflect the parent’s own free choice, or did not reflect what the parent actually meant the account to be.

Remedies: Constructive Trust, Conversion, and Civil Theft

Winning the ownership question is only half of it. The money has usually already been withdrawn.

Constructive trust

A constructive trust is the primary remedy. It arises solely by operation of law, and it is “a remedial device with dual objectives: to restore property to the rightful owner and to prevent unjust enrichment.” Provence v. Palm Beach Taverns, Inc., 676 So. 2d 1022, 1025 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), quoting Abreu v. Amaro, 534 So. 2d 771 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988). The classic Florida formulation is older still: a constructive trust is “one raised by equity in respect to property which has been acquired by fraud, or where, though acquired originally without fraud, it is against equity that it should be retained by him who holds it.” Quinn v. Phipps, 93 Fla. 805, 113 So. 419, 422 (1927).

Provence also states the elements and the burden, and both matter:

“To impose a constructive trust, there must be (1) a promise, express or implied, (2) transfer of the property and reliance thereon, (3) a confidential relationship and (4) unjust enrichment. … The person seeking to impose a constructive trust must prove these elements by clear and convincing evidence.”

Two practical consequences. First, a constructive trust can follow the money into whatever the withdrawn funds were used to buy. Second, because it is an equitable remedy, “the enforcement of a constructive trust is tempered by equitable defenses, including laches and estoppel” — which is not theoretical. In Wadlington v. Edwards, 92 So. 2d 629 (Fla. 1957), the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of a constructive trust where the claimant knew of the situation before her husband’s death in 1935 and made no move for more than twenty years. Delay defeats this remedy.

Conversion

Where a joint owner withdraws funds beyond their actual authority, conversion lies. In Columbia Bank v. Turbeville, 143 So. 3d 964 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014), a granddaughter who was also a branch manager at the bank had been added as a joint holder on her grandmother’s accounts “to help her grandmother and father manage these accounts.” She never deposited any money of her own. When the grandmother moved to remove her, she went to a branch, withdrew $671,696.57, and deposited it into her own personal account. The First District reversed the dismissal of the resulting claims, holding the allegations were sufficient to state causes of action for conversion and for breach of fiduciary duty.

Two notes on how far Turbeville reaches. It was decided at the pleading stage — the court held the claims could be brought, not that they had been proved. And the account holder there was still alive. It is strong authority that joint-holder status is not a blank check to take the money, which is the principle that matters here; it is not a post-death survivorship case. [Citation and holding verified from the Westlaw opinion, 1 Sept 2026 — confirm no negative subsequent history]

There is also a remedy for the very common situation where the money has already been moved on to someone else. In Joseph v. Chanin, 940 So. 2d 483 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), the Fourth District held:

“where a joint tenant in a bank account wrongfully transfers funds to a third party, the other joint tenant may maintain a cause of action for conversion against the third party who (1) holds the identifiable funds and (2) refuses a demand to restore the funds to the other joint tenant.”

There, one joint owner had taken more than his share out of a pooled account and used it to fund a separate account naming his daughter as beneficiary. The surviving joint owner demanded the money; the daughter refused; a jury found conversion and awarded the full $48,720.52.

Two things make this useful. The claim runs against the recipient, not only the account holder — so it survives the account holder’s death. And it turns on two concrete facts a client can usually establish: the funds are still identifiable, and a demand was made and refused. Make the demand in writing, and date it.

An important limit

These claims are fact-specific, and Florida law is not uniform on how far they reach. In Sitomer v. Orlan, the Fourth District reversed a jury instruction that had told the jury transferred funds could be recovered from third parties if the accounts were joint tenancies with right of survivorship, explaining that a joint owner’s withdrawal “severs the right of survivorship as to the funds withdrawn,” and that the continuation of an interest in funds after an unauthorized withdrawal “is a feature unique to tenancies by the entireties.”

In each of the decisions discussed above where a claim went forward, there was something more than an ordinary withdrawal by an ordinary joint owner — an entireties account in Wallace, a joint holder whose access had been granted for the original owner’s benefit in Turbeville, and an owner who took more than an agreed share in Joseph. Whether a particular withdrawal supports a claim depends on how the account was actually held and on what the withdrawing party was authorized to do. That is a question to put to a lawyer before a demand letter goes out.

Civil theft and exploitation of an elderly person

Fla. Stat. § 772.11 — now titled “Civil remedy for theft or exploitation” — provides treble damages, a $200 minimum, and attorney’s fees to a person injured by a violation of the theft statutes or by § 825.103(1), exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult. In these fact patterns the exploitation prong is often the better theory.

Three procedural requirements are strict and they trip people up:

• The standard of proof is clear and convincing evidence, not the greater weight.
• A written pre-suit demand is mandatory — “the person claiming injury must make a written demand for $200 or the treble damage amount.” Failing to send it is a recognized ground for dismissal.
• Punitive damages are not available on top of treble damages, and a defendant may recover fees against a claim lacking substantial factual or legal support.

Why civil theft usually fails against a joint owner — the co-owner privilege

Here is a limit that most discussions of this topic never mention, and it is dispositive far more often than the procedural requirements above.

Under Florida law, a co-owner of a joint account generally cannot steal from it. Theft under § 812.014(1) requires knowingly obtaining or using “the property of another.” Because a joint owner is in lawful possession of the joint property, the theft element fails.

The Third District has said so repeatedly. In Rosen v. Marlin, 486 So. 2d 623, 625 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986): “A co-owner of a joint bank account cannot be guilty of the theft of funds taken from the account since the co-owner is in lawful possession of the joint property,” citing Hinkle v. State, 355 So. 2d 465 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978), cert. dismissed, 359 So. 2d 1220 (Fla. 1978). See also Escobar v. State, 181 So. 2d 193, 195 (Fla. 3d DCA 1965). Rosen adds a related point worth remembering: “A dispute between two persons over the amount of money that one person is owed does not become a crime of theft.”

The one Florida case that came closest to allowing a civil theft claim in a joint account, Escudero v. Hasbun, 689 So. 2d 1144 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997), confirms the rule rather than creating an exception. The Third District agreed that “a co-owner of property cannot be held criminally liable for the theft of his/her own property” — but held the principle inapplicable there because the wife had sworn that, notwithstanding the bank’s depositor agreement, she had become the sole owner of the certificate of deposit by a later agreement. On that allegation, the husband would have been taking property of another.

Escudero makes the same point the convenience-account section makes, from the other direction: “as between co-signatories of a bank account, absent strong evidence of a contrary intent, there is a strong presumption of joint ownership” — but that presumption yields to proof of equitable ownership, because “equity regards substance and not form is a time-honored maxim by which the true ownership of property may be pursued, even though a deed or grant would bar the way at law.” Constance v. Constance, 366 So. 2d 804, 807 (Fla. 3d DCA), cert. denied, 376 So. 2d 70 (Fla. 1979).

The practical sequencing point. A § 772.11 claim against a surviving joint owner is not viable unless you first establish that the survivor was never a true co-owner of the funds. The civil theft claim is logically dependent on winning the ownership fight. Plead it accordingly — or plead conversion, which requires no felonious intent, no clear-and-convincing standard, and no pre-suit demand.

Who Can Sue Over a Florida Joint Account, and When

Two questions come up immediately: who brings the claim, and how long is there to bring it.

Generally, if the funds belong to the estate, the personal representative brings the action. Where the personal representative is the same person who took the account, that is an obvious conflict, and the court appoints an administrator ad litem under Fla. Prob. R. 5.120 to represent the estate. Where no probate has been opened and estate property needs protecting, a curator can be appointed under Fla. Prob. R. 5.122. And Fla. Stat. § 733.309 — the executor de son tort statute — makes “any person taking, converting, or intermeddling with the property of a decedent” liable to the personal representative or curator when appointed.

Can a beneficiary or heir sue without opening probate?

Often, yes — it depends on who you are suing.

A beneficiary or intestate heir is an “interested person” under Fla. Stat. § 731.201(23): “any person who may reasonably be expected to be affected by the outcome of the particular proceeding involved.” An heir who would benefit from recovering joint account funds qualifies, and under § 733.202 any interested person may petition for administration.

The distinction that matters is the target:

• A challenge to the account designation itself — fraud, undue influence, contrary intent — is normally brought inside a probate proceeding, by the personal representative or by an interested person who has petitioned for administration.
• A claim against the surviving joint owner personally — conversion, and civil theft where it is available — can be brought as an independent civil action without opening a probate at all, because it goes to that person’s own liability rather than to the estate.

How long is there to bring the claim?

Theory	Period	When it starts running
Conversion	4 years — § 95.11(3)(g)	The date of the wrongful withdrawal. For a post-death withdrawal, the date the survivor took the money
Fraud	4 years — § 95.11(3)(i)	Discovery rule applies under § 95.031(2)(a) — when the facts were or should have been discovered with due diligence — subject to a 12-year absolute repose
Undue influence (inter vivos transfer)	4 years (equitable actions)	Generally the date of the transfer, subject to the discovery rule where the influence was concealed. The death does not restart the clock — see the note below
Claims against the estate	2-year nonclaim bar	Jurisdictional, and it runs whether or not letters have issued. It does not bar a claim against the surviving joint owner personally

The trap is that a death does not reset the clock. In Gottesman v. Gottesman, 221 So. 2d 212 (Fla. 3d DCA 1969), an executor sued to set aside bank account transfers made about a month before the decedent died, alleging undue influence and misrepresentation. The Third District affirmed summary judgment for the defendant: the facts underlying the claim were known to the decedent before he died, so the cause of action had accrued during his lifetime, and the executor — who filed more than three years after the transfers — was too late. The decedent’s own disability, if any, would not have tolled it.

(Gottesman applied a three-year period under the statute then in force; the modern periods are four years. Cite it for the accrual principle, not the length.)

The practical consequence is one families do not expect: an heir does not get a fresh limitations period simply because the account holder has now died. If the decedent knew what happened and did nothing, the estate may inherit a claim that has already partly run.

As a practical matter, move quickly regardless. Bank records get purged, memories fade, and withdrawn funds get spent.

How a Florida Joint Account Dispute Actually Proceeds

Most articles stop at “you may have a claim.” Families want to know what actually happens, in what order, and how long it takes. Here is the shape of one of these cases.

Step 1: Secure the evidence, immediately

Before anything is filed, the documents have to be locked down. Written requests go to every institution for the signature card in effect at opening, every subsequent account-change form, statements covering the relevant years, and the date-of-death balance. Where the account has moved through a bank merger, the predecessor institution’s records are requested too. Medical records covering the period when the account was retitled are ordered in parallel, because capacity and susceptibility to influence are proved from them.

This is time-sensitive in a way people underestimate. Retention policies vary, branch-level records get purged, and the employee who opened the account moves on.

Step 2: Open the probate, or get the right person appointed

If the funds belong to the estate, the estate has to have someone with authority to pursue them. If no probate is open, one is opened. If the personal representative is the same person who took the account, an administrator ad litem is appointed under Fla. Prob. R. 5.120, because a personal representative cannot be expected to sue himself. Where estate property needs protecting before any personal representative exists, a curator can be appointed under Fla. Prob. R. 5.122.

Step 3: Freeze the funds, if they are still there

This is the step families most often skip and most often regret. As covered above, § 655.83 means the bank will not hold the money on a letter. If there is reason to believe the account is about to be emptied, the motion for a freeze order or temporary injunction — naming the institution, with the account holder joined and served — goes on file at the same time as the complaint, not weeks later.

Step 4: The proceeding itself

Depending on what is being sought, the claim is brought as a petition to determine beneficiaries, as a civil action for constructive trust and conversion, or as an adversary proceeding within the probate.

Fla. Prob. R. 5.025 lists fourteen categories of proceedings that are automatically adversary. A challenge to a joint account designation is not one of them by name — but a petition to determine beneficiaries is (subsection (a)(5)), and that is in substance what a survivorship dispute asks the court to decide. So are proceedings to remove or surcharge a personal representative (a)(1), to revoke probate of a will (a)(7), to determine the amount of the elective share (a)(12), and to determine elective share contribution (a)(13).

Anything else can be declared adversary under Rule 5.025(b) — by the petitioner serving a declaration with the petition, or by a respondent within 20 days of service — or the court may declare it adversary on its own at any time under Rule 5.025(c). Once a proceeding is adversary, formal notice is required and it is conducted like a civil suit, with the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure applying.

One venue point worth knowing: a civil theft claim under § 772.11 is an independent tort, not an automatic adversary proceeding, and some circuits assign independent torts involving a personal representative or beneficiary to the circuit civil division rather than the probate division. It is often better pursued as a standalone civil action.

Discovery is where these cases are won: the bank’s records under subpoena, the branch employee’s deposition, the drafting attorney’s file, the medical records, and the account activity showing whose life the money was funding.

Step 5: Resolution

A meaningful share of these matters resolve at mediation, which Florida probate courts commonly order. The usual settlement architecture is a division of the disputed funds paired with mutual releases and, where necessary, an agreed order determining beneficiaries so the estate can close.

Where these cases are filed

Venue for the probate is the county of the decedent’s domicile at death, and the survivorship dispute normally follows the estate into that county’s circuit court probate division.

For our clients, that most often means the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Probate Division, the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Broward County, or the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County — though we appear in probate divisions throughout Florida, and a great deal of this work is done remotely for families who no longer live in the county where the estate is pending. Local practice differs in ways that matter: how a division schedules evidentiary hearings, whether a matter goes to a general magistrate, and how quickly an emergency freeze motion can be heard. Those differences are worth knowing before a petition is filed, not after.

Is a Joint Account Part of the Estate in Florida? Probate, Creditors and the Elective Share

The short answer everyone gives is “no, it avoids probate.” That is true and it is incomplete, and the incomplete part is where the money is.

Probate

A true survivorship account is not a probate asset. It vests in the survivor at the moment of death by operation of § 655.79, before the probate estate ever comes into existence. It is not controlled by the will, it is not listed on the inventory as an estate asset, and the personal representative has no right to possess it.

An account that is not a survivorship account is different. A tenants-in-common account, a convenience account, and a POD account with no surviving beneficiary all produce estate property. See our guides to which assets avoid Florida probate and to handling a bank account when someone dies.

Can creditors go after a joint bank account after death?

Generally, no — and this is a point on which a great deal of published material is simply wrong.

Fla. Stat. § 733.707(3) makes a decedent’s revocable trust liable for estate administration expenses and obligations when the probate estate is insufficient, and § 733.607(2) gives the personal representative a right of payment from that trustee. Those provisions reach revocable trust assets only. They do not reach joint accounts, POD accounts, or life insurance.

So unlike a revocable living trust — which § 733.707(3) makes liable to contribute — a joint survivorship account and a POD account carry no equivalent statutory contribution obligation.

That is not the end of the analysis, and other routes remain open. A transfer can be attacked as a fraudulent transfer under Chapter 726. A joint account may be found to have been a convenience account, which puts the money back in the estate and squarely within creditor reach. And a surviving spouse’s elective share, discussed below, reaches survivorship accounts directly. Whether any of these applies to a particular account is a fact question — worth asking a lawyer about rather than assuming the money is beyond reach, or that it is not.

For a married couple the protection is stronger still. Entireties property cannot be reached by a creditor of one spouse alone; only a creditor of both spouses jointly can attach it. Beal Bank, 780 So. 2d 45 (Fla. 2001). Our page on what happens to debt when you die in Florida covers the creditor hierarchy in full.

The elective share — the part nobody covers

Here is what almost no Florida page on this topic will tell you: avoiding probate does not avoid a surviving spouse’s elective share.

Fla. Stat. § 732.2035(3) sweeps into the elective estate:

“The decedent’s ownership interest in accounts or securities registered in ‘Pay On Death,’ ‘Transfer On Death,’ ‘In Trust For,’ or co-ownership with right of survivorship form.”

And the valuation rule is unusually aggressive. For an entireties account, the decedent’s interest is one-half. For everything else, it is “that portion of the accounts or securities which the decedent had, immediately before death, the right to withdraw or use without the duty to account to any person.” On the statute’s language, an owner of an ordinary unrestricted joint account can withdraw all of it without accounting to anyone, so the figure is the full balance rather than a fractional share.

The planning point is this: a Florida decedent who titles a large account jointly with a child, intending to keep it away from a second spouse, should not assume the elective share has been avoided. How a particular account is treated depends on its terms and on the facts, and it is a question to put to a lawyer before relying on the arrangement.

Timing gives some relief. Section 732.2075 applies the probate estate and revocable trusts first (Class 1), and only then reaches the recipients of § 732.2035(3) and (4) property (Class 2). The joint owner is reached, but not first. Our guide to the Florida elective share covers how the share is calculated and the deadline for making the election.

Note for real estate: joint tenancy and entireties interests in property other than accounts and securities enter the elective estate under § 732.2035(4) at a pro-rata fractional value — the value divided by the number of tenants. Subsection (4) expressly excludes anything already caught by (3), so accounts never fall there.

Exempt property and the family allowance

Those entitlements come out of the probate estate. Section 732.402 gives the surviving spouse (or, if none, the children) household furnishings up to a net value of $20,000, two motor vehicles under 15,000 pounds GVW, qualified tuition programs, and § 112.1915 death benefits. Section 732.403 allows a reasonable family allowance “not to exceed a total of $18,000.” A survivorship account that never enters the probate estate is not a source for either one.

Does a Will Override a Joint Bank Account in Florida?

No. This is one of the hardest conversations we have with families, and the answer does not change with how unfair the result feels.

A will governs the probate estate. A survivorship account never becomes part of the probate estate — it vests in the survivor at the instant of death under § 655.79. The will arrives too late to reach it. That is precisely why the Florida Supreme Court’s characterization in Combee matters: the presumption rests on contract, not on a gift or a testamentary transfer. The account passes because of the contract with the bank, and § 655.79(2) makes it effective even though the arrangement is “testamentary in nature” and “except for the provisions of this section, would or might otherwise be void or voidable.”

A will that says “I leave my bank accounts equally to my three children” does not defeat a survivorship designation on an account. Nor does a later will, a codicil, or a letter of instruction. The only ways to change the outcome are to retitle the account during life, or to challenge the designation after death under § 655.79(2).

The same logic applies to a revocable trust. Pouring assets into a trust does not capture an account that passes by survivorship, because that account never becomes trust property.

Are Joint Bank Accounts Frozen When Someone Dies in Florida?

Usually not — but the mechanics are more specific than most people are told, and there is a statute nobody cites.

Fla. Stat. § 674.405(1) provides that a bank’s authority to pay is not revoked by a customer’s death “until the bank knows of the fact of death … and has reasonable opportunity to act on it.” Then § 674.405(2) adds the rule worth memorizing:

“Even with knowledge, a bank may for 10 days after the date of death pay or certify checks drawn on or before that date unless ordered to stop payment by a person claiming an interest in the account.”

So there are three phases. Before the bank learns of the death, the account operates normally. For ten days after the date of death, the bank may still honor checks drawn on or before that date. After that, the bank applies its own procedures — which for a survivorship account normally means removing the decedent and continuing the account in the survivor’s name on presentation of a certified death certificate.

What actually causes the account to lock is not death. It is a dispute.

How to Freeze a Disputed Joint Account in Florida

Families in this situation almost always start by writing to the bank. It accomplishes nothing, and the statute says so.

Fla. Stat. § 655.83 provides that notice of an adverse claim to a deposit account:

“does not obligate the institution to recognize the adverse claimant unless the adverse claimant also either: (1) Procures a restraining order, injunction, or other appropriate process having specific application to the institution issued by a court of competent jurisdiction in a cause therein instituted by such claimant wherein the person to whose credit the deposit or fiduciary account stands is made a party and served with process; [or] (2) Obtains in favor of the institution … a bond indemnifying the institution from any and all liability …”

So there are exactly two ways to freeze a disputed Florida account, and letters are not one of them:

1. A court order naming the bank, entered in a case where the account holder has been joined and served. In practice this means filing suit — or an adversary proceeding in the probate — and moving for a temporary injunction or a freeze order the same day.
2. An indemnity bond in a form, amount and with sureties the institution finds acceptable. On receipt, the bank holds the account pending agreement or a court order.

The practical lesson is that speed is everything. Every day between the death and the court order is a day the funds can be moved. If you believe a joint account is about to be emptied, that is a same-week problem, not a next-month problem.

How to Remove a Deceased Owner From a Florida Bank Account

For a genuine survivorship account, this is administrative rather than legal. No probate is required.

1. Order certified death certificates. Get several. Note that Florida issues a long form showing cause of death and a short form without it — banks generally accept the short form, and it is the one to hand over, since there is no reason to disclose cause of death to a financial institution.
2. Ask the bank for the date-of-death balance in writing, before anything changes. If a dispute later develops, this figure is the anchor for every calculation.
3. Decide: retitle or close. Retitling keeps the account number and the direct deposits and automatic payments attached to it. Closing and reopening breaks all of them. For a surviving spouse with Social Security or pension deposits routing to the account, retitling is almost always the better path.
4. Bring identification and the death certificate to the branch and ask specifically to have the deceased owner removed and the account retitled into the survivor’s sole name.
5. Stop using the decedent’s debit card and checks. Even where the money is lawfully yours, using the decedent’s own access devices after death creates avoidable exposure.
6. Return post-death federal benefit deposits. Social Security is not payable for the month of death, and post-death deposits are subject to reclamation. Do not spend them.

If the account was not a survivorship account — tenants in common, a convenience account, or a POD account whose beneficiary has died — the bank will require letters of administration, an order of summary administration, or a § 735.301 disposition without administration before releasing anything.

Right of Survivorship in Florida Real Estate

Everything above concerns deposit accounts. Real property runs on the opposite default, and this is where the most expensive mistakes are made.

What language a Florida deed needs

Under § 689.15, a conveyance “to two or more” creates a tenancy in common unless the instrument “shall expressly provide for the right of survivorship.” Silence is fatal. Two siblings take a deed “to Maria Lopez and Ana Lopez.” Maria dies. Her half does not go to Ana — it goes through Maria’s probate estate to Maria’s heirs.

Vesting	Language to use	What happens at death
Tenancy in common	“to A and B” — the default	Decedent’s share passes through their probate estate
Joint tenancy with right of survivorship	“to A and B, as joint tenants with full rights of survivorship, and not as tenants in common“	Passes automatically to the survivor, outside probate
Tenancy by the entireties	“to A and B, husband and wife” — survivorship is presumed	Passes automatically to the surviving spouse, with creditor protection against the debts of one spouse alone
Life estate	“to A for life, remainder to B”	Remainder vests in B, but A cannot sell or mortgage without B
Enhanced life estate (lady bird)	Life estate with a retained power to sell, mortgage and convey without the remainderman joining	Passes to the remainder beneficiary outside probate, with control retained for life

See our guide to the Florida lady bird deed and to Florida quit claim deeds for the drafting and recording mechanics.

Can one joint tenant sever a Florida joint tenancy without the other’s consent?

This is the question that separates a joint tenancy from an entireties tenancy, and the answers are different.

Yes — and a Florida joint tenant does not need a straw party to do it.

Florida follows the common-law unities analysis: a joint tenancy may be terminated “by any act which destroys one or more of its unities, provided the act of the joint tenant who severs his interest is such as to preclude him from claiming by survivorship any interest in the subject matter of the joint tenancy.” Kozacik v. Kozacik, 157 Fla. 597, 26 So. 2d 659, 661 (1946).

The older cases spoke of a conveyance “to a stranger,” and for years Florida practitioners used a straw-party transfer for that reason. That is no longer necessary. In Countrywide Funding Corp. v. Palmer, 589 So. 2d 994, 995–96 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991), the Second District held “a joint tenancy with right of survivorship can be … terminated and a tenancy in common created by a conveyance by one joint tenant of his interest to himself.” Its reasoning was practical: a strawman is “an acceptable method,” but there is “no point in requiring that property be conveyed twice when a single conveyance is just as effective and has the virtues of economy and efficiency.”

The Fourth District adopted that reasoning in Schlossberg v. Estate of Kaporovsky, 303 So. 3d 982, 986–87 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), and applied it squarely in Weisblat v. Feldman, 358 So. 3d 1238 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023). In Weisblat, a joint tenant issued a 2006 quitclaim deed to himself expressly stating that its purpose was to “terminate the Joint Tenancy with Right of Survivorship” and create a tenancy in common. He died in 2014. The Fourth District held the self-conveyance effective, reversed a summary judgment quieting title in the survivor’s successor, and stated plainly that Kozacik and Wittock v. Ramponi, 446 So. 2d 271 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984), “do not hold that rights of survivorship can only be terminated by conveyance to a stranger.”

But the act has to be complete, and a lawsuit is not enough. In Mercurio v. Headrick, 983 So. 2d 773, 774–75 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), the First District confirmed “the established and undisputed rule in Florida that only a complete, final conveyance or disposition of jointly held property severs a joint tenancy with right of survivorship,” citing Kozacik, Crockett v. Crockett, 708 So. 2d 329, 331 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998), and Harelik v. Teshoney, 337 So. 2d 828 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976).

Mercurio was a matter of first impression and the facts are instructive. One joint tenant filed a partition action; the other admitted in her answer that they held as joint tenants, that a private sale would suit her, and that partition was for both parties’ benefit. Then the plaintiff died before a final partition judgment. The First District held the action abated — neither the lawsuit nor those pleading admissions severed anything, and the survivor took the whole property. And a conveyance to a third party plainly does sever, even a modest one: in Foucart v. Paul, 516 So. 2d 1035 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), a joint tenant deeded her one-half interest to her daughter for “$10.00 and love and affection.” The Fifth District held the deed was not void for lack of consideration and that the daughter and the surviving co-owner held as tenants in common.

One warning about deeds specifically. Unlike a bank account — where parol evidence of the parties’ actual intent is admissible under § 655.79 — the clear and unambiguous terms of a deed cannot be varied by a prior or contemporaneous verbal agreement. Foucart, 516 So. 2d at 1037. In Foucart the trial court had found an oral “conditional gift” understanding that the property would stay in joint names until the first death; the Fifth District held that finding was error. On the real estate side, the document controls.

For a tenancy by the entireties, the answer is a clean no. Neither spouse may sever it alone. Sitomer; Wallace v. Torres-Rodriguez.

The practical consequence for a family in litigation could not be clearer: filing a partition suit does not protect anyone. If the co-owner dies while it is pending, survivorship takes the whole property and the case abates — even where both sides had agreed in their pleadings that the property should be sold. If the goal is to defeat survivorship, the answer is a recorded deed, not a lawsuit.

The homestead trap: JTWROS strips protected-homestead status

This one is not widely known and it is expensive.

Fla. Stat. § 731.201(33) defines “protected homestead” and then says plainly: “real property owned in tenancy by the entireties or in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship is not protected homestead.”

So titling a Florida homestead as JTWROS removes it from the protected-homestead category for probate purposes. That affects the § 732.4015 restriction on devise, the § 733.607(1) rule excluding protected homestead from the personal representative’s right of possession, and the analysis of creditor protection under Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution. Anyone adding a child to the deed of a Florida homestead “to avoid probate” should understand what else is being given up.

What happens to jointly owned Florida property when one owner dies?

If the deed created survivorship, nothing needs to be filed to transfer title — the survivor owns it by operation of law. In practice, a certified death certificate is recorded in the county’s official records so the chain of title reads cleanly for a future sale or refinance, and title underwriters will want it.

If the deed did not create survivorship, the decedent’s undivided share is a probate asset, and it cannot be conveyed until a Florida court appoints someone with authority to sign or enters an order determining who takes it. If the decedent lived out of state, that means ancillary administration, and the co-owners’ options for dividing the property are covered in our guide to Florida partition actions.

Does Florida Have a Transfer-on-Death Deed?

No. Florida has not enacted a transfer-on-death deed or beneficiary deed statute, and it has not adopted the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act. There is no such section anywhere in Chapter 689.

This creates an asymmetry that is worth stating plainly, because it is the source of a great deal of confusion:

• Bank accounts — POD works. § 655.82.
• Securities and brokerage accounts — TOD works. Florida Uniform Transfer on Death Security Registration Act, §§ 711.50–711.512.
• Motor vehicles and vessels — survivorship works through the “or” conjunction on the title. § 319.22(2)(a)1.a.
• Real estate — no transfer-on-death mechanism exists.

Florida’s functional substitute for real property is the enhanced life estate deed, commonly called a lady bird deed. It is a creature of title practice and case law rather than statute — there is no enabling section to cite — and it accomplishes the same objective: the property passes to the remainder beneficiaries at death, outside probate, while the owner keeps full power to sell, mortgage or revoke during life. The alternative is a revocable trust under Chapter 736.

Survivorship on Cars, CDs, Brokerage Accounts and Retirement Accounts

Vehicle titles: “or” versus “and”

One conjunction decides whether a car needs probate. Fla. Stat. § 319.22(2)(a)1.a. provides that where a vehicle is registered to two or more co-owners “in the alternative by the use of the word ‘or,’ such vehicle shall be held in joint tenancy,” and “upon the death of a co-owner, the interest of the decedent shall pass to the survivor … This provision shall apply even if the co-owners are husband and wife.“

Where the names are joined “in the conjunctive by the use of the word ‘and,’” § 319.22(2)(a)1.b. requires “the signature of each co-owner or his or her personal representative” — which is a probate requirement in all but name. More detail is in our guide to selling a car in Florida after someone dies.

Certificates of deposit

Section 655.79(1) expressly includes “a certificate of deposit” in the presumption. A CD in two names carries the same presumed survivorship as a checking account, and the same three routes to challenge it.

Brokerage and investment accounts

Securities are governed by the Florida Uniform Transfer on Death Security Registration Act, §§ 711.50–711.512, which permits registration in beneficiary form — “TOD” or “POD” — and passes the security to the beneficiary at death outside probate. A brokerage account can also be held JTWROS. Note that the two mechanisms interact the same way as with a bank account: joint survivorship operates on the first death; the TOD beneficiary takes on the last.

Retirement accounts

An IRA, 401(k) or similar plan does not pass by right of survivorship. It passes by beneficiary designation, and for employer plans governed by ERISA, federal law controls — including the spousal-consent rules that can override whatever the participant wrote on the form. Never analyze a retirement account under § 655.79.

Are joint accounts FDIC insured to $500,000?

FDIC insurance is separate from ownership law, and it is frequently confused with it. Deposit insurance is calculated by ownership category: a joint account with two owners who each have equal withdrawal rights is generally insured up to the standard maximum deposit insurance amount per co-owner in the joint-account category, on top of each owner’s separate single-account coverage at the same institution. Verify current limits with the FDIC before relying on a figure. What matters for this page is the distinction: FDIC coverage tells you what the government insures, not who owns the money. A convenience account is insured as the principal’s single account, because the agent is not an owner.

Does Florida Have Community Property With Right of Survivorship?

No. Florida is not a community property state, and there is no “community property with right of survivorship” titling here the way there is in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas or Wisconsin.

But two Florida statutes get mistaken for it, and both matter to the families we serve. Neither one creates a right of survivorship.

Community property you brought with you from another state

If you accumulated property while living in a community property state and then moved to Florida, it does not lose its character. The Florida Uniform Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act, §§ 732.216–732.228, governs what happens.

Section 732.217 sets the scope: personal property wherever located, and Florida real property, that was acquired as community property under another jurisdiction’s law, was acquired with its rents, income or proceeds, or is traceable to it. Entireties property and Florida homestead are expressly excluded.

Section 732.219(1) then does the work:

“Upon the death of a married person, one-half of the property to which ss. 732.216-732.228 apply is the property of the surviving spouse, is not property of the decedent’s probate estate, and is not subject to testamentary disposition by the decedent … The decedent’s one-half of that property is not in the elective estate.“

Read what that does and does not do. The surviving spouse’s half is theirs outright and never enters the estate. The decedent’s half is estate property and passes by will or intestacy — it does not go automatically to the survivor. That is a 50/50 split, not survivorship. And § 733.607(1) forbids the personal representative from knowingly taking possession of the surviving spouse’s half.

Note that the Act was amended in 2024 (ch. 2024-238), including a new express waiver-language requirement in § 732.219(2). Anything you read on this subject written before 2024 may be out of date.

This is a live issue for Florida retirees. Anyone who spent a working career in California, Texas, Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Louisiana, New Mexico or Wisconsin and then retired to Florida should have this analyzed before the first death, not after.

Florida community property trusts

Effective July 1, 2021, Florida enacted the Community Property Trust Act, §§ 736.1501–736.1512. Spouses — whether or not either is domiciled in Florida — may classify property as community property by transferring it to a trust that expressly declares itself a community property trust, has at least one qualified trustee, is signed by both spouses, and contains the statutory warning language. §§ 736.1503, 736.1505.

It does not create a right of survivorship. Section 736.1507: on the death of a spouse, one-half reflects the survivor’s share, and “the other one-half … reflects the share of the decedent spouse and is subject to testamentary disposition or distribution under the laws of succession.” The decedent’s half is freely devisable. The section also provides that the decedent’s half is not included in the elective estate.

The reason married couples use one is federal income-tax treatment at death, not survivorship — and that analysis belongs with a tax professional, not on a law firm’s web page. What matters for this page is the Florida side: a community property trust does not create a right of survivorship. Section 736.1502 was itself amended in 2025 (ch. 2025-159), so check the current text before relying on older commentary.

Anyone describing a community property trust as “like joint tenancy with survivorship” or as a way to avoid probate on the whole account has it wrong: half of it is a testamentary asset.

How to Set Up — or Undo — Survivorship the Right Way

Almost everything on this page traces back to a decision made at a counter, in a hurry, without advice. These are the decisions worth making deliberately.

If you want someone to help with your banking

Do not add them as a joint owner. Use a convenience account under § 655.80, or a properly drafted durable power of attorney. Both give access without giving ownership, and both leave the money in your estate to be divided the way your will says. Ask the bank explicitly for a convenience or agency designation and confirm in writing what the account type code means.

If you want someone to receive money at your death

Use a POD designation, not a joint owner. The beneficiary gets nothing during your life, cannot withdraw, cannot expose the funds to their own creditors or divorce, and cannot be added to or removed from the account by anyone but you.

If you genuinely want a co-owner

Say so on the document. For an account, confirm the signature card reflects joint tenancy with right of survivorship and keep a copy. For real property, use the full clause — “as joint tenants with full rights of survivorship, and not as tenants in common” — and remember what § 731.201(33) does to homestead status.

Make the titling match the estate plan

The most common defect we see is not a bad will. It is a good will contradicted by account titling nobody reviewed. If your will divides everything equally among your children and one child is on every account, the will is not going to control the outcome. Every titling decision is an estate planning decision, whether or not anyone treated it that way at the time.

Review after every life event

Marriage, divorce, a death, a diagnosis, a move to Florida, a bank merger. Note that on divorce, § 689.15 converts an entireties estate to a tenancy in common automatically — but nothing automatically fixes an ex-spouse still sitting on a bank account signature card.

Six Florida Survivorship Scenarios, Worked Through

The statutes are abstract. The situations are not. These are simplified composites written to illustrate how the rules above interact. They are not case results and not a prediction about any real matter — no two situations are identical, and small differences in the documents or the facts routinely change the outcome.

The parent who added one child to the account

A widowed mother in Hialeah adds her eldest daughter to her checking account after a fall, so the daughter can pay the bills. Every dollar in the account is the mother’s. The mother’s will divides everything equally among four children. The mother dies with $180,000 in the account.

The starting point favors the daughter. Section 655.79(1) presumes survivorship, and § 655.79(2) says that operates without proof of donative intent. The other three children must rebut it — most naturally by showing a contrary intent, or by showing the arrangement was in substance a convenience account. The equal-division will, the source of funds, the timing after the fall, and the fact that account activity was entirely the mother’s household spending are the evidence. Whether it succeeds turns on the strength of that record, not on the fairness of the result.

The deed with no survivorship language

Two brothers take title to a Fort Lauderdale rental property. The deed reads “to Luis Ortiz and Rafael Ortiz.” They both understand that if one dies, the other gets the property. One dies.

He does not get the property. Section 689.15 makes that a tenancy in common. The decedent’s undivided half passes through his probate estate — to his widow and children, who now co-own a rental property with their uncle. Nothing about the brothers’ shared understanding changes the result, because the statute requires the instrument itself to express it.

The second marriage and the elective share

A man remarries late in life and, wanting to protect his children from his first marriage, titles a $500,000 brokerage account jointly with his son. He keeps a modest probate estate. He dies survived by his second wife of six years.

The account is not out of reach. Section 732.2035(3) puts accounts and securities held in survivorship form into the elective estate, valued at what he could withdraw without a duty to account — the full balance. His widow’s elective share is computed against a number that includes it. Under § 732.2075 the probate estate and any revocable trust are applied first, but the son is a Class 2 recipient and can be reached. The plan did not do what it was meant to do.

The POD beneficiary who got nothing

A father in Kissimmee adds his son as a joint owner with right of survivorship and names his daughter as the POD beneficiary, intending them to split the account. He dies.

The son takes the entire balance. Under § 655.82(3)(a) the funds belong to the surviving party on the first death; the daughter’s designation does not activate until the last surviving party dies, and the son — now the sole party — can remove her designation entirely. Nothing about this outcome is a mistake by the bank. It is what the statute says, and it is why layering a POD behind a joint owner is unreliable planning.

The couple who retired to Florida from California

A husband and wife spend thirty years in California, accumulate a securities portfolio, and retire to Naples. The husband dies with a will leaving everything to his children from a prior marriage.

Half of that portfolio was never his to give. Under §§ 732.216–732.228, property that was community property in California and is traceable into the Florida holdings is split at death: one-half is the surviving spouse’s outright and is not part of the probate estate at all, and § 733.607(1) bars the personal representative from taking possession of it. The husband’s half is devisable, and is not in the elective estate. The character of the property followed the couple across the country, and nobody analyzed it until after the death.

The homestead titled to avoid probate

A Coral Gables homeowner adds her son to the deed of her homestead “as joint tenants with right of survivorship,” on the advice of a neighbor, to keep the house out of probate.

It works, and it costs something. The house does pass to the son outside probate. But § 731.201(33) provides that real property held in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship is not protected homestead, which changes the probate homestead analysis at death. She has also exposed the property to her son’s creditors and to any divorce of his during her lifetime, and given up the ability to sell or mortgage it without his signature. There are federal gift-tax and Medicaid consequences to a transfer like this as well, which should be reviewed with a tax advisor before the deed is signed. A lady bird deed would have achieved the probate-avoidance goal without any of it.

Florida Survivorship Terms, Explained

Term	What it means in Florida
Right of survivorship	The rule that a surviving co-owner takes the whole asset at a co-owner’s death, outside probate
JTWROS	Joint tenants with right of survivorship. Presumed for deposit accounts under § 655.79; must be expressly stated in a deed under § 689.15
Tenancy in common (TIC)	Separate divisible shares, no survivorship. The Florida default for real property
Tenancy by the entireties (TBE)	Married-couple ownership of the whole. Survivorship plus protection from the creditors of one spouse alone
Convenience account	An account where another person is an agent, not an owner. No survivorship. § 655.80
Multiple-party account	The statutory term in § 655.82(1) for an account with more than one party
POD / ITF / Totten trust	Payable on death, in trust for. A beneficiary designation on a deposit account. § 655.82
TOD	Transfer on death. Used for securities under §§ 711.50–711.512. Florida has no TOD deed
The four unities	Time, title, interest and possession — the common-law requirements for a joint tenancy; destroying one severs it
Severance	An act that destroys a joint tenancy and converts it to a tenancy in common. In Florida a joint tenant may do this by deeding to himself — no straw party needed (Weisblat; Countrywide Funding)
Jus accrescendi	The Latin name for the right of survivorship — “the right of accrual”
Rebuttable presumption	A starting assumption the law makes, which the other side may overcome with sufficient proof
Clear and convincing evidence	A standard higher than the greater weight of the evidence and lower than beyond a reasonable doubt
Active procurement	The Carpenter element of undue influence — involvement in bringing the transaction about
Constructive trust	An equitable remedy imposing a trust on property obtained wrongfully, to prevent unjust enrichment
Elective estate	The pool of property, including survivorship and POD accounts, against which a surviving spouse’s elective share is computed. § 732.2035
Protected homestead	§ 731.201(33). Expressly excludes property held as TBE or JTWROS
Administrator ad litem	A neutral appointed under Fla. Prob. R. 5.120 where the personal representative cannot represent the estate

Frequently Asked Questions About the Florida Right of Survivorship

What does right of survivorship mean in Florida?

It means that when one co-owner dies, the surviving co-owner takes the entire asset automatically, outside probate, regardless of what the will says. For deposit accounts it is presumed under § 655.79; for real estate it exists only if the deed expressly creates it under § 689.15.

What does JTWROS mean on a bank account?

Joint Tenants With Right of Survivorship. On the death of one owner, the balance belongs to the survivor. In Florida the same result is presumed even without the abbreviation, under § 655.79(1).

Do all joint bank accounts have right of survivorship?

No. A convenience account under § 655.80 has none, and an account expressly titled as tenants in common has none. But in Florida, an ordinary two-name account with silent paperwork is presumed to.

Does a joint bank account go through probate in Florida?

A true survivorship account does not. A convenience account, a tenants-in-common account, and a POD account with no surviving beneficiary all produce estate property that does.

Does a will override a joint bank account?

No. The account vests in the survivor at death by contract under § 655.79 and never becomes part of the probate estate the will governs.

Can a right of survivorship bank account be challenged?

Yes. Section 655.79(2) allows the presumption to be overcome by proof of fraud, by proof of undue influence, or by clear and convincing proof of a contrary intent.

Can siblings fight a joint bank account left to one child?

Yes, under § 655.79(2) — most often on undue influence or on the argument that the account was a convenience arrangement. Unfairness alone is not a ground; the claim must be that the titling did not reflect the parent’s free and informed choice, or did not reflect what the parent meant to create. The undue influence analysis is the same one that governs contesting a will in Florida.

How do I know if my joint account has right of survivorship?

Ask the bank in writing for the signature card or deposit agreement in effect when the account was opened, plus every later account-change form and the account type code. It is generally not visible in online banking.

If a joint account has right of survivorship and a POD beneficiary, who gets the money?

The surviving joint owner, on the first death. Under § 655.82(3)(a) the funds belong to the surviving party; the POD beneficiary takes only when the last surviving party dies.

Can the surviving joint owner change the POD beneficiary?

Yes. Once the other owner dies, the survivor is the sole party and controls the designation.

Are joint bank accounts frozen when someone dies?

Usually not. Under § 674.405(2) a bank may pay checks drawn on or before the date of death for 10 days after it, even with knowledge of the death. What freezes an account is a dispute, not the death itself.

How do I freeze a joint account I believe was taken improperly?

Under § 655.83 there are exactly two ways: a court order naming the institution, in a case where the account holder has been joined and served, or an indemnity bond acceptable to the institution. A letter to the bank has no legal effect.

Can creditors go after a joint bank account after death in Florida?

Generally no. Section 733.707(3) reaches revocable trust assets, not survivorship or POD accounts. The exceptions are a fraudulent-transfer claim, a finding that the account was really a convenience account, and the elective share.

Can a surviving spouse reach a joint account that passed to someone else?

Yes, through the elective share. Section 732.2035(3) includes survivorship and POD accounts in the elective estate, valued at what the decedent could withdraw without a duty to account — for an ordinary joint account, the entire balance. Section 732.2075 reaches those recipients in Class 2, after the probate estate and revocable trusts.

Is a joint bank account part of an estate?

Not the probate estate, if it carries survivorship. But it is part of the elective estate under § 732.2035(3) — which is the point almost every other page on this subject misses. It may also count toward the federal taxable estate; that is a question for a tax advisor.

What is a convenience account in Florida?

An account in one person’s name where others are designated as agents to deposit and withdraw. Under § 655.80(2) all rights belong to the principal alone, and at death the balance goes to the personal representative of the estate. There is no survivorship.

Can I withdraw money from a joint account after the other owner dies?

If it is a true survivorship account, the funds are yours and you may. If the character of the account is disputed, withdrawing before that is resolved invites a conversion claim and rarely helps your position. Get the date-of-death balance in writing first.

Does Florida have community property with right of survivorship?

No. Florida recognizes community property brought from another state under §§ 732.216–732.228, and allows community property trusts under §§ 736.1501–736.1512, but neither creates a right of survivorship. Both produce a 50/50 split at death.

Does Florida have a transfer-on-death deed?

No. Florida has not adopted one. The functional substitute for real property is the enhanced life estate, or lady bird, deed — a title-practice device with no enabling statute.

Does titling my homestead as joint tenants with right of survivorship affect homestead protection?

Yes. Section 731.201(33) provides that real property owned in tenancy by the entireties or in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship is not protected homestead, which changes the devise restriction, the personal representative’s right of possession, and the creditor analysis.

Can one joint tenant sever a Florida joint tenancy?

Only by a complete, final conveyance. Filing a partition action does not sever it, and a pending partition case abates if the co-owner dies. A tenancy by the entireties cannot be severed by one spouse at all.

Does right of survivorship apply to a Florida car title?

It depends on one word. Under § 319.22(2)(a), “A or B” passes to the survivor automatically, even for spouses. “A and B” requires both signatures, or the deceased co-owner’s personal representative’s signature.

Are there tax consequences to adding someone to my account or deed?

Yes, and they are federal, not Florida. Florida has no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax, but adding a joint owner can have federal gift-tax consequences, can change the income-tax basis your heirs receive, and can affect Medicaid eligibility. Those questions should be reviewed with a tax advisor or elder law attorney before you retitle anything — they turn on facts and on federal rules that change.

Does right of survivorship avoid estate tax?

No. Avoiding probate and avoiding estate tax are unrelated. Probate is a court process; the federal estate tax is a tax on the value of what the decedent owned or controlled at death, and jointly held property is not automatically outside it.

How long do I have to challenge a joint account in Florida?

It depends on the theory. Conversion and fraud each carry a four-year period, and an inter vivos undue-influence claim is generally treated the same way. The trap is accrual: a death does not restart the clock. Where the decedent knew of the transfer during life, the claim accrued then, and the estate inherits whatever time is left — Gottesman v. Gottesman, 221 So. 2d 212 (Fla. 3d DCA 1969). A separate two-year nonclaim bar applies to claims against the estate itself. Get advice promptly rather than assuming there is time.

Talk to a Florida Probate Attorney About a Joint Account or Survivorship Dispute

Survivorship cases move quickly and turn on documents that are easy to lose. The signature card that decides the case sits in a bank’s archive. The account balance that anchors the damages changes every day. And under § 655.83, nothing stops the money from moving until a court order naming the institution is in place.

We at Lorenzo Law handle joint account disputes, convenience account claims, elective share matters, constructive trust actions and probate litigation for families throughout Florida — from our offices in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale, and remotely for clients across the state and out of state. If you are the surviving owner defending a designation, or a family member who believes an account was taken, the first conversation should happen before the funds move.

Call (305) 224-6811 or contact us to discuss your situation.

This article is general information about Florida law and is not legal advice. Every estate is different, and the outcome of a survivorship dispute depends on facts specific to the account, the documents and the parties. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship.