How Long Does Probate Take in Florida?
A straightforward Florida formal administration usually takes six to twelve months. The floor is set by the creditor claim period, which cannot be shortened: claims may be filed up to three months after the first publication of the notice to creditors, and a personal representative cannot be compelled to pay a claim within five months of that first publication.
Add the fact that Florida Probate Rule 5.400 requires the final accounting and petition for discharge to be filed within twelve months after the letters are issued, and you have the practical shape of it: most uncontested estates close inside a year, and the ones that do not have a specific reason.
Summary administration is different and much faster — often weeks rather than months — because there is no creditor period to run and no personal representative to appoint.
How Long Does Probate Take in Florida?
For an uncontested formal administration with a valid will, cooperative beneficiaries and no unusual assets, six to twelve months is the realistic range. Roughly the first month goes to depositing the will, filing the petition and getting the Letters of Administration issued. The middle six to nine months are dominated by the creditor process and the inventory. The final stretch is distribution, the final accounting, and discharge.
The Timeline, Phase by Phase
| Phase | Typical timing | What sets the clock |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit the original will | Within 10 days of learning of the death | § 732.901 — a duty on whoever holds the will |
| Petition filed, Letters issued | Weeks 2–6 | Court scheduling; a contested appointment adds months |
| Notice to creditors published | Promptly after appointment; runs once a week for 2 weeks | § 733.2121 |
| Inventory filed | Within 60 days of the letters | Fla. Prob. R. 5.340; extendable for cause |
| Creditor claim period closes | 3 months after first publication | § 733.702 |
| Earliest a claim can be compelled paid | 5 months after first publication | § 733.705 |
| Final accounting and petition for discharge | Within 12 months of the letters | Fla. Prob. R. 5.400 |
| Discharge | After administration is complete | § 733.901 |
Notice that the five-month figure, not the three-month one, is the true floor on a formal administration. Even where every claim is filed early, the personal representative cannot be forced to pay before five months have run from the first publication — and prudent ones do not distribute before then either.
Why Does Florida Probate Take So Long?
Because most of the calendar is statutory rather than administrative. The creditor process alone accounts for the better part of half a year and cannot be compressed by hiring anyone or by everyone agreeing. What a good administration controls is the part around the statutory clock: how quickly the will is deposited, how fast the petition is filed, whether the inventory is ready inside 60 days, and whether the family creates disputes that add their own timetables.
What Actually Adds Months
A contested appointment. Two family members petitioning to serve turns a four-week step into a multi-month one before a single asset is touched.
A will contest. Objections to the will’s validity, to the personal representative’s qualifications, or to venue must be filed within three months of service of the notice of administration under § 733.212 — and once filed, they set their own schedule of discovery and hearings.
Real property that has to be sold. Marketing time, a closing, and sometimes a court authorisation. See selling a house during probate.
A missing or contested will. Establishing a lost will is a separate proceeding.
Out-of-state assets. Real property in another state requires its own ancillary proceeding on its own timetable.
Disputed creditor claims. An objection under § 733.705 gives the claimant 30 days to bring an independent action, and that action is ordinary civil litigation.
An estate tax return. Where one is required, Rule 5.400 measures the twelve months from the date that return is due rather than from the letters.
How Long Does Probate Take Without a Will?
Intestate estates are not inherently slower once someone is appointed — the creditor clock is identical. What stretches them is the front end. With no will there is nobody nominated, so § 733.301’s order of preference has to be worked through: the surviving spouse first, then the person selected by a majority in interest of the heirs, then the heir nearest in degree. Where the heirs agree, that adds days. Where two siblings both want the appointment, it can add months before administration even begins.
Getting Appointed Faster When There Is No Will
The single most effective step is to get a majority in interest of the heirs to agree on one person before anyone files. Section 733.301 expressly contemplates it, the court will ordinarily follow it, and it converts a potential contest into a formality. Families that skip this step and file competing petitions routinely spend more on the fight over who serves than the entire administration would have cost.
Determining who the heirs even are can add time where the family tree is not simple — children from more than one relationship, a predeceased sibling with children, no surviving spouse. That determination is its own proceeding and it is worth starting early. Our page on surviving spouse rights in Florida sets out the intestate shares under § 732.102.
How Long Does Summary Administration Take?
Weeks, not months, and often under 60 days. Summary administration appoints no personal representative and has no ongoing administration to run, so the entire creditor-period architecture that drives the formal timeline does not apply in the same way. It is a petition, an order, and the paperwork to transfer the assets.
Since July 1, 2026 the ceiling rose from $75,000 to $150,000, which moved a large band of Florida estates onto the fast track. It is also available regardless of value where the decedent has been dead more than two years. Our page on summary administration in Florida covers eligibility.
How Long Before Beneficiaries Receive Anything?
In a formal administration, realistically not before the five-month mark and usually closer to the end. A personal representative who distributes before creditors are resolved can be personally liable for those claims, so the pressure from beneficiaries to release money early is a pressure to take on personal risk.
Partial distributions before closing are possible where the estate is clearly solvent and the personal representative is comfortable, and they are common in practice. But they are discretionary, and no beneficiary is entitled to demand one on a schedule.
Does Probate Take Longer in Miami-Dade or Broward?
The statutory clock is identical in all 67 Florida counties. Section 733.702’s three-month claim period, § 733.705’s five-month payment floor, Rule 5.340’s 60-day inventory and Rule 5.400’s twelve-month accounting apply the same way in Miami-Dade as in Vero Beach. What varies between counties is scheduling and processing, not law.
What Actually Differs County to County
Three things, and none of them are in the statute.
Hearing availability. Busy urban divisions — Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach — carry heavier probate dockets, so anything requiring a hearing rather than an order on the papers can wait longer. That matters little in an uncontested administration, where most steps are documentary, and a great deal in a contested one.
Clerk processing time. How quickly a petition is docketed and letters issue varies by county and by season, and it is measured in days to a couple of weeks rather than months.
Local practice. Divisions differ in how they handle routine matters, what they want to see with a petition, and how they treat requests for extension. Counsel who file regularly in the county know the difference; it is not published anywhere.
The honest summary is that an uncontested Miami-Dade probate and an uncontested Palm Beach probate finish within weeks of each other, and the difference is swamped by anything real — a house to sell, a beneficiary who objects, a missing will. If you are searching for a county-specific timeline, the useful answer is that the county is not the variable that decides it.
A Note on “Grant of Probate”
Florida does not issue a grant of probate. That is Commonwealth terminology — England, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean. Florida courts issue Letters of Administration, and they do so whether or not there is a will. If you are looking for the Florida equivalent of a grant of probate, or a grant of representation, Letters of Administration is the document, and the timeline above is the timeline.
How Long Does It Take to Be Appointed Personal Representative?
Typically two to six weeks from filing the petition, in an uncontested case. The variables are how quickly the original will is deposited, whether the petition is complete, whether bond is required or waived, and — for a nonresident — whether the designation of resident agent is on file, because Rule 5.110 requires it before letters issue.
Nonresident appointees face an additional gate that catches families out: § 733.304 bars a person not domiciled in Florida from serving unless they fall within four family relationships. Discovering that after filing costs weeks. Our page on the out-of-state executor in Florida covers qualification and the resident agent requirement.
Can Probate Be Expedited in Florida?
Not the statutory periods — but the rest of it, substantially. The creditor clock is fixed. Everything on either side of it is within your control, and in practice the difference between a seven-month administration and a fourteen-month one is almost never the court.
Six Things That Genuinely Shorten a Florida Probate
Deposit the will immediately. Section 732.901 gives the custodian 10 days from learning of the death. Waiting to “get organised” first delays everything downstream.
Publish the notice to creditors promptly. The three-month and five-month clocks run from first publication, not from the date of death or the date of appointment. Every week of delay in publishing is a week added to the end.
Have the inventory ready inside 60 days. Rule 5.340’s deadline is extendable for cause, but an extension is a signal to beneficiaries that the administration is behind.
Identify what is not a probate asset first. Joint accounts, payable-on-death designations, beneficiary-designated retirement and insurance, trust property. Time spent administering assets that were never in the estate is time wasted. See what counts as a probate asset.
Get beneficiary waivers early where the family is cooperative. Waivers of accounting and consents to distribution, freely given by beneficiaries who understand what they are signing, remove steps from the end of the case.
Check whether summary administration applies before filing a formal one. With the ceiling now at $150,000, estates that would have needed formal administration a year ago may not.
What Is the Longest Probate Can Take?
There is no ceiling, and contested estates run for years. The outer marker worth knowing is § 733.710’s two-year absolute bar: two years after the date of death, claims against the estate, the personal representative and the beneficiaries are barred entirely, whether or not probate was ever opened, with a narrow exception for a creditor who filed within that period and whose claim has not been resolved.
Separately, Rule 5.400 sets the expectation that the final accounting and petition for discharge are filed within twelve months of the letters. Blowing past that without an extension is what “wasting or maladministration” starts to look like under § 733.504(5), which is a ground for removing a personal representative.
When Must the Inventory Be Filed?
Within 60 days after the letters are issued, under Florida Probate Rule 5.340. The inventory must be verified, must list the estate with reasonable detail, and must show the fair market value of each item as of the date of death — not today’s value. The court may extend the deadline for cause.
Two practical points. The date-of-death valuation is why appraisals get ordered early rather than late. And the inventory is the document beneficiaries read first, so an accurate, detailed one prevents more disputes than any other single filing.
Formal, Summary and Ancillary: Timelines Compared
| Proceeding | Typical duration | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Summary administration | Often 4–10 weeks | No personal representative appointed, no ongoing administration, no creditor period to run out. Available up to $150,000 since July 1, 2026, or at any value if the death was more than 2 years ago |
| Formal administration, uncontested | 6–12 months | Driven by the 3-month claim period, the 5-month payment floor, and Rule 5.400’s 12-month accounting |
| Formal administration with real property to sell | 9–18 months | Marketing and closing run alongside, not instead of, the creditor clock |
| Ancillary administration | 4–9 months once the home-state estate is open | Depends heavily on how fast the other state’s clerk produces exemplified copies |
| Contested administration | 1–3 years or more | Discovery, experts and trial settings operate on litigation time, not probate time |
| Disposition without administration | Days to weeks | A single filing where the estate qualifies; no administration at all |
The gap between the first row and the second is why the eligibility question is worth asking before anything is filed. Moving an estate from formal to summary administration is the single largest timeline change available, and the July 2026 threshold increase made it available to far more families.
Probate Timelines by County: What to Expect
Because the statutory clock is uniform, a county-by-county table is really a table of local scheduling pressure rather than of law.
| County | Uncontested formal administration | What tends to drive the difference |
|---|---|---|
| Miami-Dade | 6–12 months | Heavy probate docket; hearings on contested matters take longer to obtain |
| Broward | 6–12 months | Similar volume to Miami-Dade; routine matters generally handled on the papers |
| Palm Beach | 6–12 months | Large estates more common, which means more appraisals and tax filings |
| Orange and Central Florida | 6–12 months | Out-of-state families and vacation property add ancillary and coordination time |
| Smaller counties | 6–12 months | Faster hearing availability, sometimes slower clerk processing |
The honest reading of that table is that the county is the least important variable. Whether the will was deposited promptly, whether the notice to creditors was published in week three or week twelve, whether there is a house, and whether anyone objects will each move the finish date by more than the choice of courthouse.
What if the Death Was Years Ago?
It is not too late, and there is no statutory deadline to open probate in Florida. Estates get opened five and ten years after a death, usually because a property sale finally requires clean title.
Two things change with the passage of time, and both favour the family. Once two years have passed since the death, § 733.710 bars claims against the estate, the personal representative and the beneficiaries entirely — with a narrow exception for a creditor who filed within that window and whose claim is unresolved. And an estate where the decedent has been dead more than two years qualifies for summary administration regardless of value, which is why an old death often produces a far simpler and faster proceeding than a recent one.
What gets harder is evidence. Locating the original will, identifying heirs, tracing accounts and establishing date-of-death values all become more difficult, and the people who could have testified to any of it become harder to find.
How to Tell Whether Your Probate Is Actually Behind
Measure against the statutory markers rather than against how long it feels. Was the will deposited within 10 days? Did letters issue within about six weeks of filing? Was the notice to creditors published promptly after appointment? Was the inventory filed within 60 days? Have five months passed since first publication? Are you approaching twelve months from the letters without a final accounting in sight?
An estate that has missed several of those is behind, and the fix is usually a direct conversation with the personal representative or their counsel before it becomes a court filing. Where that goes nowhere, beneficiaries have remedies — and unexplained delay is one of the more successful grounds for removal. The full deadline calendar, and what happens when each one is missed, is set out on our page covering Florida probate deadlines and the probate rules.
Talk to a Florida Probate Attorney About Your Timeline
Most people asking how long probate takes are really asking one of two questions: is mine normal, or is something wrong. Both are answerable quickly once someone looks at the file — the date of the letters, the date of first publication, whether the inventory is in, and whether anything has been objected to.
Lorenzo Law handles probate and estate administration throughout Florida, including Miami-Dade and Broward County. Call 305-224-6811 or reach out through our contact page.
Related reading: what probate costs, Florida probate creditors, the personal representative’s duties, and when probate is not necessary.
This page explains Florida statutes and probate rules for general informational purposes. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Citations reflect Florida law in effect as of August 2026.
