Boca Raton probate litigation attorney

A Boca Raton probate litigation attorney works on the estates that are fought over rather than simply filed — a will challenged, a trustee who will not account, a fight over whether Florida was ever the decedent’s home at all. Contested estates from Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Highland Beach, Boynton Beach and Ocean Ridge are heard in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, and South County matters sit at the South County Courthouse, 200 W Atlantic Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33444.

Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. handles contested probate and trust matters in all 67 Florida counties, in English and in Spanish. The same practice covers both halves of the fight, so a client who arrives looking for a Boca Raton trust litigation attorney and a client who arrives looking for a probate litigation lawyer are handled by the same person, in the same case, when — as usually happens here — the will and the trust are being contested together. The initial consultation is free.

Updated August 6, 2026. Every statute on this page was read against the current Florida Statutes, and the Palm Beach County filing rules confirmed against the Clerk of the Circuit Court, this week. The deadline that ends most cases before they start is §733.212(3) — 3 months, not 90 days, from service of the notice of administration.

What counts as probate litigation in Boca Raton?

Any estate or trust dispute a judge has to decide rather than a clerk record. Uncontested probate is paperwork. Litigation begins when two people who both have standing disagree about the document, the money, or the person holding it.

Dispute	What is actually contested	Governing section
Will contest	How the document was made — capacity, undue influence, execution	§732.5165
Revocation of probate	A will already admitted, challenged before final discharge	§733.109
Removing a personal representative	Conduct after appointment — waste, conflict, refusal to account	§733.504
Trust contest	A trust or amendment procured by influence, fraud or duress	§736.0406
Breach of fiduciary duty	A trustee’s accounting, distributions, self-dealing or silence	§736.0802
Where the case belongs at all	Whether Florida was the decedent’s domicile	§733.101

That last row is unusual, and in this part of Palm Beach County it decides more than people expect.

Was Florida really the decedent’s domicile?

In Boca Raton this is a live question far more often than anywhere else in the state, and it can be worth more than the will contest sitting next to it.

§733.101 sets venue in three tiers:

• “In the county in this state where the decedent was domiciled.”
• “If the decedent had no domicile in this state, then in any county where the decedent’s property is located.”
• Failing both, in the county where a debtor of the decedent resides.

South Palm Beach County is full of people who split the year — a condo in Boca, a house in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts or Ontario. When one of them dies, which state was home is a question of fact, not of preference, and everything downstream turns on it:

• Homestead protection, which is constitutional in Florida and can override the will entirely.
• The elective share — §732.2065 gives a surviving spouse “an amount equal to 30 percent of the elective estate.” Other states compute it very differently.
• Which state’s law tests the will, including how many witnesses it needed.
• Whether Florida probate is the main case or only an ancillary one.

Families arrive certain the fight is about the will. Sometimes the fight is about whether this court should be hearing it — and that argument is made in the first weeks or not at all.

Useful evidence, and it is rarely the driver’s licence alone: voter registration, the Florida homestead exemption filing, where taxes were filed, where the doctors were, where the cars were registered, how many nights were actually spent here, and where the person said they lived in their own documents.

What happens if the person lived out of state but owned a Boca condo?

Then Florida probate may still be required — as an ancillary administration under §734.102.

The statute applies whenever “a nonresident of this state dies leaving assets in this state, credits due from residents in this state, or liens on property in this state.” A Boca condo is exactly that.

What the statute sets out:

• Who gets the letters, in order. A personal representative “specifically designated in the decedent’s will to administer the Florida property”, if qualified. Failing that, the foreign personal representative, if qualified to act in Florida. Failing that, a qualified person chosen by those holding a majority interest in the Florida property.
• The foreign will can be admitted. “If the will and any codicils are executed as required by the code, they shall be admitted to probate.”
• The ancillary representative has real power — the same rights and authority as any Florida personal representative to manage and settle the estate, including selling, leasing or mortgaging the Florida property.
• Creditor notice still runs under Chapter 733.

Where this becomes litigation: the out-of-state family assumes the New York executor automatically controls the Boca condo. They do not, automatically. Priority is set by §734.102, and if the will designated someone else for the Florida property, or if the foreign representative is not qualified here, the fight over who administers the Florida asset starts immediately — while the property sits, unsold and accruing costs.

How long do you have to contest a will in Boca Raton?

Three months from the date you are served with the notice of administration, under §733.212(3). Miss it and the objection is “forever barred.”

• It is 3 calendar months, not 90 days. Served 1 January, the deadline is 1 April — 91 days, wider in a leap year.
• It runs from service, not from the death and not from when you found out. Two siblings served two weeks apart have two different deadlines.
• It extends only for estoppel based on a misstatement by the personal representative about the deadline itself, and never past the earlier of final discharge or one year after service.

If you were never served, that clock has not started against you. Out-of-state beneficiaries frequently are not served promptly, and that fact is worth checking before anyone concludes it is too late.

Every other clock that decides these cases:

Clock	Period	Section
Objection after service of the notice of administration	3 months	§733.212(3)
Petition to revoke probate	Before final discharge	§733.109
Creditor claim after first publication	3 months	§733.702
Creditor claim, absolute outer bar	2 years from death	§733.710
Suing a trustee over a matter disclosed in an accounting	6 months from receipt	§736.1008
Contesting a revocable trust	Not until it becomes irrevocable or the settlor dies	§736.0207
Custodian’s duty to deposit the original will	10 days after learning of the death	§732.901

Who can contest a will in Florida?

Only an interested person. §731.201(23) defines that as “any person who may reasonably be expected to be affected by the outcome of the particular proceeding involved.” The practical test: would you receive more if this will fell than you receive under it?

• You can usually contest even if you are not named, so long as you would take without the will — as an intestate heir, or under an earlier will this one replaced. Being written out is not a bar to standing; it is often the evidence.
• A step-child normally cannot, unless legally adopted or named in a prior will.
• A surviving spouse has rights that require contesting nothing — the 30% elective share under §732.2065, available whatever the will says. Price that first; it is frequently larger and far cheaper than a contest.
• Standing is issue-specific. A creditor is an interested person for the questions that touch the debt and no further.

What are the grounds for contesting a will?

Not that the split feels unfair. §732.5165 is one sentence:

“A will is void if the execution is procured by fraud, duress, mistake, or undue influence.”

Four grounds, plus one from elsewhere in the code:

• Undue influence — someone in a position of trust overbore the testator’s free will. The most common ground by a wide margin.
• Lack of testamentary capacity — measured at the moment of signing, which is why a dementia diagnosis is evidence and not proof.
• Improper execution — §732.502 requires signature at the end, before two attesting witnesses who sign in the presence of the testator and of each other. This is where out-of-state wills fail, because other states set different requirements.
• Fraud, duress or mistake.
• Revocation by a later will or codicil.

Two features change strategy: only the part so procured is void — the rest of the will stands — and a procured revocation is also void, which can bring an earlier will back into force.

How do you prove undue influence?

Often you do not have to prove it outright.

Under §733.107(1) the proponent establishes proper execution, and the burden then moves to the challenger. Then subsection (2): where the presumption of undue influence applies, it is a presumption that shifts the burden of proof under ss. 90.301–90.304, “adopted to implement the public policy of this state against abuse of fiduciary or confidential relationships.”

Once it triggers, the favoured beneficiary must disprove undue influence.

Florida courts look at whether the beneficiary stood in a confidential relationship, was substantially benefited, and was active in procuring the will — being present at the signing, recommending the attorney, knowing the contents beforehand, instructing the drafter, securing the witnesses, keeping the will afterwards.

What to gather: medical records for the twelve months around signing; who made the appointment, drove, sat in the room and paid; bank and brokerage statements showing new joint accounts, signature cards or powers of attorney; the drafting attorney’s file; evidence of isolation; and the timing relative to a hospitalisation.

How do you contest a trust in Florida?

Two different attacks, and confusing them costs cases. Almost every trust litigation matter that comes out of Boca Raton is one or the other, and the deadline, the proof and the remedy are different for each.

Attacking how the trust was made. §736.0406: “If the creation, amendment, or restatement of a trust is procured by fraud, duress, mistake, or undue influence, the trust or any part so procured is void.” It also voids a procured revocation.

Note that amendments and restatements are covered. The common South Palm Beach case is not an attack on a twenty-year-old trust — it is an attack on the amendment signed weeks before the death that moved a condo, an account, or everything, to one child.

Attacking what the trustee has done since. That is breach of trust, under §736.1001 and §736.0802. Different proof, different remedies, different clock.

⚠️ §736.0207: you cannot contest a revocable trust until it becomes irrevocable or the settlor dies. The evidence has to be preserved before then.

Can a trustee sell trust property without the beneficiaries approving?

Often yes — but not if the trustee is on both sides of the sale. In a market of Boca condos and family houses, this is the trust question that arrives most.

§736.0802(1): “a trustee shall administer the trust solely in the interests of the beneficiaries.”

Subsection (2) decides cases. A sale entered into by the trustee “for the trustee’s own personal account or which is otherwise affected by a conflict between the trustee’s fiduciary and personal interests is voidable by a beneficiary.”

And subsection (3) does the hard work for you. A conflict is presumed where the trustee transacts with:

• the trustee’s spouse
• the trustee’s descendants, siblings or parents, or their spouses
• certain affiliated persons and entities

A trustee who sells the Boca condo to their own brother is presumed conflicted, and the sale is voidable unless the trustee brings it inside a statutory exception — the trust authorised it, the court approved it, you consented, or you waited too long to sue.

That last exception is why the six-month clock in §736.1008 matters so much.

Can an executor of a will remove a beneficiary?

No. A personal representative administers the estate; they do not rewrite it. There is no power to disinherit anyone, reduce a share, or decide a beneficiary no longer deserves what the will leaves them.

What they can do, which is what prompts the question:

• Delay. Distribution can lawfully wait for creditor periods, tax clearance, or a property sale — and unlawfully wait for no reason. From outside, the two look identical.
• Charge the estate. Fees and costs reduce what is left.
• Dispute that you are a beneficiary at all, if the will is ambiguous or a later document exists.
• Sell the asset you wanted.

None of that is removal. If a personal representative behaves as though the inheritance is theirs to allocate, that is not a power they hold — it is a ground to remove them.

Do you need a Boca Raton trust litigation attorney or a probate litigation attorney?

In South Palm Beach County the honest answer is usually both, and the two searches lead to the same case.

The wealth here is held in revocable trusts. The will is often a two-page pour-over document that does nothing but send everything to the trust. So the fight people describe as a will contest is frequently a trust contest wearing a will’s name, and the fight people describe as a trust dispute frequently has to be opened in the probate case to get anywhere.

What you are actually facing	Where it is fought	Which clock
The will was procured by undue influence	Probate division, Fifteenth Circuit	3 months from the notice of administration
A trust amendment was procured weeks before the death	Probate division, same court	Ends when the trust becomes irrevocable
The trustee will not account, or accounted badly	Probate division, same court	6 months from receipt of the accounting
Assets moved before the death and never reached either document	Probate or civil	Ordinary limitations

A Boca Raton trust litigation attorney is the right search when the money is inside a trust and the person holding it is a trustee. A Boca Raton probate litigation attorney is the right search when the fight runs through the estate. Splitting them across two firms costs money, because the same documents, the same witnesses and the same final-year timeline prove both.

What is handled here: trust contests and amendment challenges under §736.0406 · breach-of-trust and accounting actions under §736.1001 and §736.0802 · trustee removal under §736.0706 · petitions to compel an accounting under §736.0813 · surcharge, constructive trust and tracing · and the companion will contest, revocation of probate and personal-representative removal in the same estate.

What are your rights as a beneficiary of a trust?

§736.0813 opens with a duty, not a discretion: “The trustee shall keep the qualified beneficiaries of the trust reasonably informed of the trust and its administration.”

Within 60 days of accepting the trust, the trustee must give notice of acceptance and their name and address. Within 60 days of the trust becoming irrevocable, notice of its existence, the settlor’s identity, and your right to request a copy of the trust instrument. And a trust accounting at least annually, on termination, and on a change of trustee.

A trustee who will not tell you the trust exists is already in breach of the statute’s first sentence.

⚠️ The clock that runs against you. §736.1008 bars a claim over any matter “adequately disclosed in a trust disclosure document” unless suit is commenced within six months after receipt — receipt, not discovery, not understanding. Read every accounting the week it arrives.

How do you remove a personal representative or a trustee?

A personal representative — twelve grounds under §733.504. The ones that arise in real cases: failure to comply with a court order · failure to account for a sale or produce the estate’s assets · wasting or maladministration · holding interests adverse to the estate that interfere with administration · failure to give bond · felony conviction or incapacity.

Note the fourth. A personal representative who is also a beneficiary, and who is buying estate property or preferring their own claim, may be removable on conflict grounds with no allegation of dishonesty at all.

A trustee — four grounds under §736.0706, on the application of the settlor, a cotrustee or a beneficiary: a serious breach of trust · lack of cooperation among cotrustees substantially impairing administration · unfitness, unwillingness or persistent failure to administer effectively · a substantial change of circumstances with a suitable successor available.

“Persistent failure to administer effectively” does not require dishonesty. A trustee who simply is not doing the job is removable on that ground alone.

And once removal is on the table, §736.1001(2) lets the court do considerably more: compel an accounting, appoint a special fiduciary, suspend the trustee, reduce or deny compensation, and void an act, impose a lien or constructive trust, or trace trust property wrongfully disposed of. “It’s already spent” is not the end of the conversation.

Where is the case heard — and where does the original will go?

Contested Boca-area matters sit in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. The Clerk operates five courthouse locations, and South County serves this end of the county:

Location	Address	Serves
South County Courthouse	200 W Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33444	Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Highland Beach, Boynton Beach
Main Courthouse	205 N Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach, FL 33401	West Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Wellington
North County Courthouse	3188 PGA Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410	Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Tequesta
West County	Belle Glade	The Glades
Royal Palm Beach Branch	Royal Palm Beach	Central-west county

⚠️ The trap, and it catches Boca families constantly: the original will does not go to the South County counter.

The Palm Beach County Clerk is explicit — the original will cannot be e-filed, and it must be hand-delivered or mailed to the Probate Division at P.O. Box 4667, West Palm Beach, FL 33402. A death certificate can be submitted electronically. The will cannot.

There is no filing fee to deposit a will, and under §732.901 the custodian has 10 days from learning of the death. A custodian who fails without just cause can be ordered to pay “all costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney’s fee.” The Probate Division can be reached at (561) 355-2986.

Does a no-contest clause stop you?

No. §732.517 is a single sentence: a provision in a will purporting to penalize any interested person for contesting the will, or instituting other proceedings relating to the estate, is unenforceable.

In terrorem clauses are enforceable in many states — including several the part-year residents here came from. They are not enforceable in Florida, in wills or in trusts. The clause may still be sitting in the document and may still read as though it works. It does not.

This is the single most common reason people never make the call.

What does a contested estate or trust cost, and how long does it take?

It depends on whether the other side is defending conduct or defending a document, and on whether the §733.107(2) presumption is in play.

What drives the number:

• the volume of medical and financial records to obtain and read
• whether domicile is contested — that adds a whole evidentiary front
• whether the estate holds Florida real property, a closely held business, or out-of-state assets
• how many beneficiaries must be served, and how many are out of state
• whether the fight is over the will alone, the trust, or lifetime transfers as well
• whether the personal representative or trustee is also a beneficiary, which merges two disputes into one

What you will not read here is an estimate of your odds. Rule 4-7.13 prohibits promises about outcomes, and no honest lawyer prices a case they have not seen.

What does “probate litigation specialist” mean in Florida?

It is a regulated term. The Florida Bar certifies in Wills, Trusts and Estates, and Rule 4-7.14 permits specialist or expert only where the claim is objectively verifiable — by that certification, or by the lawyer’s training, record and substantial involvement in the area.

What is verifiable about this office:

• Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002, licensed and in active practice in Florida since 2013. Anyone can confirm it free in The Florida Bar’s member directory.
• Practice concentrated in probate, wills, trusts and the transfer of Florida real property.
• Solo practice: the same person answers the phone, files the petition and appears in court.
• Service in English and Spanish, in all 67 counties.

What you will not read here is that this is the best firm in Boca Raton. Rule 4-7.13 prohibits unsupported comparisons.

What to do this week

If you have been served with a notice of administration, the clock in §733.212(3) is already running. If a trust accounting has arrived, the six-month clock in §736.1008 is running too.

Bring four things:

1. The will and every trust document, including any amendment signed in the final two years.
2. The notice, with its date of service — the date on the envelope sets the deadline.
3. Anything showing where the decedent actually lived — homestead exemption filings, tax returns, voter registration, medical records.
4. Anything showing who was near the decedent in the final year. That category decides more cases than the will itself.

Speak to a Boca Raton probate litigation attorney — and, where the money sits in a trust, a Boca Raton trust litigation attorney — directly. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. — (305) 224-6811. Free consultation in English or Spanish, for contested estates and trusts across South Palm Beach County: Boca Raton (33431, 33432, 33433, 33486, 33487, 33496, 33498), West Boca, Delray Beach, Highland Beach, Boynton Beach, Ocean Ridge, Gulf Stream and Manalapan. You can also write from the contact page.

Related: Florida probate litigation lawyer · Florida trust litigation attorney · West Palm Beach probate litigation attorney · contesting a will in Florida. Esta página en español: impugnar un testamento en Florida.

About this page. Author and reviewer: Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002, in practice in the state since 2013. Every statute cited was read against the Florida Statutes, and the Palm Beach County probate filing rules confirmed against the Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, on August 6, 2026.

This page offers general information about Florida law and does not constitute legal advice for a specific case. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every estate turns on its own facts, and the law changes.