Broward County Probate Court: the Probate and Guardianship Division of the 17th Circuit

Reviewed by Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq. — Florida Bar No. 107002, admitted 2013. Former judicial clerk in the Probate Division of Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Practising in probate, guardianship and estate litigation across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. Last reviewed: 8 August 2026.

In short: The Broward County probate court is the Probate and Guardianship Division of Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit — one division handling both, which is unusual and which shapes everything about how filings are made here. It sits in the Central Courthouse, West Building, 201 SE 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale, Room 03150. The counter closes at 3:30 p. m. Three circuit judges sit in divisions 60J, 61J and 62J, each with a standing Zoom ID. Formal administration costs $401 to file; summary administration costs $346. Since Administrative Order 2021-49-PRC, the Motion Calendar docket for uncontested matters and the Ex Parte docket have been eliminated — those matters now go through the Court Management System without a hearing. Motion calendar and special-set hearings still exist for everything else, and most of them are conducted by Zoom.

Quick reference — Broward County probate court at a glance

Court	Probate and Guardianship Division, Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida
Courthouse	Central Courthouse, Judicial Complex — West Building
Address	201 SE 6th Street, Room 03150 (3rd floor), Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Broward County probate court phone number	(954) 831-7154
Counter hours	Monday–Friday, 8:00 a. m. – 3:30 p. m.
Divisions	60J · 61J · 62J — three circuit judges, each with a standing Zoom ID
Uncontested matters, no hearing needed	Court Management System (CMS), per AO 2021-49-PRC
Everything else	Motion calendar and special-set hearings — mostly by Zoom
Formal administration	$401
Summary administration	$346 (estate $1,000+) · $236 (under $1,000)
Guardianship of person and property	$401
Guardianship of person only	$236
Caveat / Notice of trust	$42 each
Summary administration ceiling	$150,000, effective 1 July 2026

Where the Broward County probate court is — and the deadline nobody tells you about

The Broward probate court sits inside the Central Courthouse, West Building, at 201 SE 6th Street in Fort Lauderdale. The Broward County probate clerk’s counter is Room 03150 on the third floor. The direct line is (954) 831-7154.

Now the part that matters more than the address. The Broward County probate division counter runs 8:00 a. m. to 3:30 p. m. Not 4:00. Not 5:00. Half past three.

That is earlier than most Florida clerk counters and earlier than the courthouse itself operates. Arrive at 4:00 p. m. holding an original will and you will find a building full of people and a probate counter that closed half an hour ago — the most common wasted trip in Broward probate, and one almost no guide to the Broward County probate office mentions.

Two other realities about filing here:

Attorneys cannot walk documents in. Lawyers file everything through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal. Self-represented filers may file in person at the probate division — the opposite of what most people assume.

Original wills travel by mail, not by hand. The Broward procedure differs from other counties and trips up even experienced practitioners; see below.

Broward County probate filing fees, 2026

Filing	Fee
Formal administration	$401
Ancillary administration	$401
Summary administration — estate $1,000 or more	$346
Summary administration — estate under $1,000	$236
Disposition of personal property without administration	$232
Opening an estate without letters of administration	$232
Guardianship of person and property	$401
Guardianship of person only	$236
Veteran guardianship — person only	$236
Veteran guardianship — person and property	$401
Curatorship or conservatorship	$401
Caveat	$42
Notice of trust	$42

A detail worth noticing if you practise across county lines: a caveat costs $42 in Broward and $40 in Miami-Dade. It is two dollars, and it is also the reason a filing gets rejected and re-submitted a week later. Broward’s fee schedule is its own; do not assume the Miami-Dade numbers carry across the county line.

The Clerk accepts cash, cashier’s check, bank official check, money order, attorney trust account check, and American Express, Discover, MasterCard or Visa.

These are Clerk’s fees only. They are not what probate costs — see the cost section further down.

The $150,000 change, and what it means in Broward

On 29 April 2026 the Governor approved CS/HB 1337, now Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida, effective 1 July 2026. It doubled the summary administration ceiling under §735.201, Florida Statutes, from $75,000 to $150,000 — the value of the estate subject to administration in Florida after subtracting property exempt from creditors’ claims.

The same act raised three other thresholds — an intestate estate settled without any court proceeding at $20,000, an income tax refund paid to a spouse or child at $5,000, and a bank account released by affidavit at $2,000 — and requires a safe-deposit box lessor to grant a personal representative access on presentation of letters.

Why Broward feels this. Broward estates skew toward a residence and one or two accounts. Where homestead property qualifies as protected homestead and passes to heirs, it is generally exempt from creditors’ claims — so once the court makes that determination, its value comes out of the §735.201 calculation before you test the ceiling. That determination is a step of its own, not an assumption. What the new ceiling changes is how many Broward families’ remaining, non-exempt assets now fit under $150,000, and who therefore never need a personal representative appointed at all.

A warning about sources. A great deal of published Florida probate material still prints $75,000, including material issued by county clerks. If what you are reading does not say $150,000 and does not cite Chapter 2026-57, it predates July and should not be relied on for a filing you are making now.

CMS, motion calendar, and the judgment call in between

This is the section to read if you have handled probate anywhere else in Florida, because the 17th Circuit routes work differently — and because it is routinely described incorrectly, including by pages written to explain it.

What actually changed. Under Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Administrative Order 2021-49-PRC, the Motion Calendar docket for uncontested matters and the Ex Parte docket were eliminated. Matters that would formerly have been set on one of those two dockets are now processed without a hearing through the circuit’s online scheduling and court management system, CMS.

What did not change. Motion calendar still exists. Special-set hearings still exist. There are plenty of probate matters in Broward that still need to be heard by the judge, and they are heard — most of the time by Zoom. What was abolished was the uncontested docket, not the calendar.

What CMS is for. A CMS submission is for a matter that is genuinely uncontested and does not need a hearing: the consents are in, every beneficiary is on board, and there is no live issue. The attorney submitting it must affirm that the matter is uncontested, that all interested parties have been served with notice of the petition or motion, and that no notification has been received that any interested party objects to entry of the proposed or agreed order. That affirmation is not a formality. It is a representation to the court.

Two mechanical requirements sit underneath it, and each is a rejection waiting to happen:

1. Every supporting document must carry its e-filing reference number. A proposed order that does not identify the papers it relates to comes back.
2. Proposed orders reach the judge in Word format, by email, in the required subject-line format. Not PDF. Not the CMS entry alone.

And for anything contested, or anything expected to run beyond 30 minutes, the time is coordinated with the assigned judge’s judicial assistant, and the circuit expects a good-faith attempt to resolve the dispute before a hearing is set.

The part the administrative order does not tell you

Submitting through CMS is not the end of the decision. The judge can still want a hearing. The local procedures describe CMS as processing uncontested matters without a hearing; they do not address the court’s discretion to ask for one anyway. In practice it happens — a judge reads the petition, has a question, and wants it addressed on the record before signing.

That possibility is why, in my practice, I tell a client at the outset which of their matters I expect to go straight through CMS for the judge’s immediate consideration and signature, and which ones I think may draw a question. Where I think a question is likely — even on a matter nobody is contesting — my advice is often to set it on motion calendar anyway, so that if the court has a concern it gets raised and resolved in one appearance rather than in a rejection, a re-submission and a delay.

That is a judgment call, not a rule, and it is the difference between a file that closes cleanly and one that stalls for a month over a question that would have taken four minutes to answer.

Broward and Miami-Dade built different gates

Miami-Dade’s Eleventh Circuit publishes numbered mandatory checklists — CC-01 through CC-12 for estates — and routes proposed orders through Court Map. Broward’s Seventeenth Circuit uses the CMS affirmation and the reference-number requirement instead. Both circuits have built a gate at the front of the filing; they simply built different ones.

So a Broward County probate checklist in the Miami-Dade sense — a numbered, published, per-proceeding certification for estates — is not how the 17th Circuit handles estate filings. The exception is guardianship, where Broward does impose a mandatory checklist and a good deal more, and that is the next section.

Depositing the original will in Broward County

Under §732.901, Florida Statutes, the custodian of a deceased person’s original will must deposit it with the clerk in the county where the decedent lived within 10 days of learning of the death. That duty stands whether or not anyone intends to open a probate.

Broward adds its own procedure on top, and it is not obvious:

• An attorney must first e-file the will through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal. Then, after receiving confirmation, mail the original to the Clerk’s office. Electronic first, paper second.
• Broward will not accept a will for filing unless the person who made it has died. There is no safekeeping deposit for a living client’s will here. If you were planning to lodge Mom’s will with the court “so it doesn’t get lost,” that is not a service this Clerk provides.

The second point catches families constantly, and the fix is simple: an original will belongs in a fireproof box or with the drafting attorney until it is needed, not at the courthouse.

Broward County probate forms and Smart Forms

The 17th Circuit mandates the use of Smart Forms, published free online, for electronic filing of pleadings, accountings, inventories and guardianship applications. They are the Broward County probate smart forms practitioners mean when they talk about Broward probate forms, and using something else is not a stylistic choice — it is a rejection risk.

Because this is a combined Probate and Guardianship division, the forms library spans both: estate petitions and orders on one side; guardianship applications, plans, inventories and accountings on the other. Expect a Broward County probate forms search to return a library that assumes you may be filing either kind of case.

Broward County probate records and case search

The Clerk’s online case search covers the Broward County probate records and the Broward County probate court records search most people are after: the docket, the parties, the filing date, the assigned division and, for most non-confidential filings, the document images.

Three things to know before you search:

• Probate cases are indexed under the decedent’s name, not the petitioner’s. Searching your own name returns nothing.
• Guardianship files are confidential by statute. A Broward County probate search will not open a guardianship file to the public — the ward’s medical and financial information is in it.
• A case number beats a name, particularly for common surnames in a county of nearly two million.

Which judge, which division

Three circuit judges sit in the Broward County probate division, in divisions 60J, 61J and 62J, supported by general magistrates. One of the three serves as administrative judge for the division.

The practical detail worth more than the names: each division publishes a standing Zoom meeting ID, along with the chamber and courtroom numbers and a direct line to the judicial assistant. That tells you how this court runs. Routine and uncontested probate matters in Broward are heard remotely as a matter of course. Some evidentiary hearings are as well. Trials are in person.

For an out-of-state heir — and Broward has a great many — that distinction is worth knowing before booking a flight. A fifteen-minute uncontested matter almost never requires you to be in Fort Lauderdale. A trial always will.

Guardianship in Broward County: the strictest oversight in South Florida

Here is the part that justifies putting probate and guardianship in one division, and the part no general guide covers properly. Broward supervises guardians harder than most Florida counties. If you are about to petition to become someone’s guardian here, read this before you file.

Before appointment:

• Every proposed guardian is screened through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI.
• Anyone seeking appointment as guardian of the property also gets a credit check, run by the court monitor. Your own financial history is part of whether the court will let you manage someone else’s.

After appointment:

• An initial guardianship plan and a verified inventory of the ward’s property are due within 60 days.
• Guardian education is mandatory under §744.3145. A non-professional guardian of the person must complete a minimum of 8 hours of instruction; a guardian of the property of a minor, a minimum of 4 hours. Both must be completed within 4 months of appointment. The requirement does not apply to professional guardians, who are separately regulated. In Broward, proof of completion is required before the court will approve your fees — which is a far more effective enforcement mechanism than a deadline.

Every year after that:

• Non-professional guardians must file a mandatory checklist together with an application for investigation, annually. This is the one place a genuine Broward County probate checklist requirement exists, and it is on the guardianship side.
• Professional guardians must submit their materials on or before 15 January each year.
• Annual reports must attach statements from the financial institutions verifying the amounts reported. A number in a column is not enough; the court wants the bank’s own paper.
• Audit fees are due at the time of filing. Not later, not on request.
• A simplified accounting is available under §744.3679, but only where the assets sit in restricted accounts and the transactions are limited to the categories the statute allows.
• Non-compliance triggers a Show Cause hearing before a General Magistrate. This is not a theoretical consequence. It is the routine outcome of a late or unsupported annual report.

None of this is meant to discourage anyone from serving. It is meant to answer the question people actually ask — how to file for guardianship in Florida — with what it will really involve after the petition is granted. A guardianship is not a form. It is a multi-year reporting relationship with a court that audits you.

Emergency temporary guardianship — when there is no time

When someone’s health, safety or property is in immediate danger, Florida provides for an emergency temporary guardian under §744.3031. This is the most urgent filing the Broward probate and guardianship division handles, and the standard is specific: the court must find that there appears to be imminent danger that the person’s physical or mental health or safety will be seriously impaired, or that the person’s property is in danger of being wasted, misappropriated, or lost unless immediate action is taken.

The limits matter as much as the standard:

• An emergency temporary guardianship expires 90 days after appointment, or when a permanent guardian is appointed — whichever comes first.
• It can be extended once, for a further 90 days, on a showing that the emergency conditions still exist.

An emergency temporary guardianship is a bridge, not a destination. It buys time while the incapacity proceeding runs. Which brings us to the committee.

The examining committee, and how an incapacity case actually runs

A Florida guardianship over an adult begins with a petition to determine incapacity, and the court does not simply take the petitioner’s word for it.

Under §744.331:

• Within 5 days of the petition being filed, the court appoints a three-member examining committee.
• One member must be a psychiatrist or other physician. The other two are drawn from a defined list — psychologist, gerontologist, psychiatrist, physician, advanced practice registered nurse, registered nurse, licensed social worker, or a person with relevant expertise.
• Each member must file a report with the clerk within 15 days of appointment.

The alleged incapacitated person is entitled to counsel. The reports drive the outcome, and Florida law prefers the least restrictive alternative: if a person lacks capacity in some areas but not others, the court is meant to enter a limited guardianship covering only those areas rather than a plenary guardianship removing all rights.

If the court finds incapacity and appoints a guardian, letters of guardianship issue under §744.345 — the document that proves the guardian’s authority to a bank, a hospital or a title company, and the guardianship equivalent of letters of administration in an estate.

And guardianship is not permanent by definition. A ward retains the right to petition to modify or terminate the guardianship, and a petition to terminate guardianship is a real and regularly granted filing when capacity is restored or the reason for the guardianship ends.

What probate actually costs in Broward County

Filing fees are the small number. Here is the honest breakdown.

The Clerk’s fee is $401 for a formal administration. On top of that sit attorney’s fees, publication of the notice to creditors, certified copies for every bank and title company, any bond the court requires, appraisals, and — in a guardianship — the audit fee.

Who pays. In a Florida formal administration, attorney’s fees are paid from the estate under §733.6171, not out of the pocket of the person who volunteered to serve as personal representative. This is the single most common misconception families arrive with, and it stops a lot of people from stepping forward who should. Stepping up to administer an estate does not mean personally funding it.

What a Broward County probate attorney costs varies with the route. A summary administration is a bounded proceeding; a formal administration with real property, creditors and multiple beneficiaries is a different undertaking, and a contested one different again. Any Broward County probate attorney who quotes a number before knowing which route your file takes, whether there is homestead, and whether anyone is likely to object, is guessing.

When you genuinely need counsel. Florida requires representation for most formal administrations — a personal representative who is not the sole interested person must be represented. Beyond the rule, get an attorney if: the estate includes real property; there is a homestead determination to be made; an heir is out of state or out of the country; the decedent was not a US citizen; there is a blended family or more than one marriage; there are creditors or a mortgage in default; anyone has used the word “contest”; or you are being asked to serve as guardian — for the reasons set out above.

Frequently asked questions — Broward County probate

Where is the probate court in Broward County?

The Probate and Guardianship Division of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit is in the Central Courthouse, West Building, 201 SE 6th Street, Room 03150, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301. The counter is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 a. m. to 3:30 p. m., and the phone number is (954) 831-7154.

How much does probate cost in Florida?

Court filing fees in Broward run $401 for formal or ancillary administration, $346 for summary administration of an estate worth $1,000 or more, $236 below that, and $232 for disposition of personal property without administration. Total cost is driven by attorney’s fees, publication, certified copies, any bond and appraisals — not by the filing fee.

How much is probate in Florida, and how much does a probate lawyer cost?

There is no flat answer, because Florida has four different probate routes and the work is not comparable across them. In a formal administration, attorney’s fees are set by reference to §733.6171, and the statute contemplates fees measured against the value of the estate, with adjustments for extraordinary services. Ask for the basis of the fee in writing before you engage anyone.

Who pays probate attorney fees in Florida?

The estate does, in a formal administration. Attorney’s fees and costs of administration are paid from estate assets under §733.6171, not personally by the personal representative.

How do I file for guardianship in Florida?

By petitioning to determine incapacity and to appoint a guardian. The court appoints a three-member examining committee within 5 days, each member reports within 15 days, and the court decides whether a limited or plenary guardianship is appropriate. In Broward, expect FDLE and FBI screening, a credit check if you seek guardianship of the property, an initial plan and inventory within 60 days, and guardian education within 4 months.

What is emergency guardianship in Florida?

An emergency temporary guardianship under §744.3031, available where there is imminent danger to a person’s health or safety or to their property. It expires after 90 days or when a permanent guardian is appointed, and may be extended once for a further 90 days.

What are letters of guardianship in Florida?

The court order issued under §744.345 that proves a guardian’s authority to third parties such as banks and hospitals — the guardianship counterpart of letters of administration.

Talk to a Broward probate and guardianship attorney

Lorenzo Law is a Coral Gables firm devoted to probate, estate planning, guardianship, and trust and estate litigation throughout Florida, serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach in English and Spanish. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. clerked in the probate division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit before founding the firm.

(305) 224-6811 · 2850 S Douglas Rd, Suite 303, Coral Gables, FL 33134

This page is general information about the Broward County probate court, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Fees, forms and local procedures change; confirm current requirements with the Clerk or the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit before filing.

Sources

• Broward County Clerk of Courts — Probate and Guardianship Division; Fees and Costs
• Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida — Probate and Guardianship; Local Procedures, Probate Division (rev. 10/23)
• Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida (CS/HB 1337), approved 29 April 2026, effective 1 July 2026
• §§ 732.901, 733.6171, 735.201, 744.331, 744.3031, 744.3145, 744.345, 744.3679, Florida Statutes