Fort Lauderdale probate litigation attorney

A Fort Lauderdale probate litigation attorney is the lawyer you need once an estate stops being paperwork and becomes an argument — over a will, over a trustee, over what the estate is being charged. Contested Broward County estates run through the Probate Division of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, at the Central Courthouse, 201 SE 6th Street, Room 03150, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301.

Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. handles contested probate and trust matters across all 67 Florida counties, in English and in Spanish. The initial consultation is free.

Updated August 7, 2026. Every statute below was read against the current Florida Statutes, and the Broward filing and hearing rules confirmed against the Clerk of Courts and the Seventeenth Circuit’s probate local procedures, this week. The deadline that quietly ends most cases is §733.212(3) — 3 months from service of the notice of administration.

What counts as probate litigation in Fort Lauderdale?

Any estate or trust question a judge has to resolve rather than a clerk record. Administration is filing. Litigation starts the moment two people with standing disagree about the document, the money, or the person controlling it.

Dispute	What is really being fought about	Governing section
Will contest	How the document came to exist — capacity, influence, execution	§732.5165
Revocation of probate	A will already admitted, attacked before discharge	§733.109
Removing a personal representative	Conduct after appointment	§733.504
Objecting to fees	What the lawyer and the representative are charging the estate	§733.6171 · §733.6175
Elective share	A surviving spouse’s statutory 30%, whatever the will says	§732.2135
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

Two of those rows are the quiet ones. Fee objections and the elective share are litigation that does not require anyone to call the will a forgery — and in Broward, with its second marriages and its long-administered estates, they arrive constantly.

What is estate litigation, and is it the same as probate litigation?

They are the same field described from different angles, and the search you typed does not change what has to be filed.

• Estate litigation is the broadest of the four. Estate litigation covers anything contested about what a person left behind — the will, the trust, lifetime transfers, the conduct of whoever ended up holding the money. Most people searching for an estate litigation attorney in Broward mean exactly this.
• Probate litigation is that fight when it runs through the probate case in the Seventeenth Circuit.
• Will litigation is the narrowest — the document itself, its validity, its meaning. A will litigation lawyer and a probate litigation lawyer are, in Florida, the same lawyer.
• Trust litigation is the same work where the asset sits in a trust and the defendant is a trustee.

Most real Broward matters are trust and probate litigation at the same time, because the will is frequently a pour-over document whose only job is to feed a revocable trust. Attack the will alone and you have attacked an empty vessel.

The practical point: do not let the label decide which lawyer you call. Estate litigation, probate litigation, will litigation and trust litigation are filed in the same division, before the same judges, under the same code. The evidence is identical — the same medical records, the same bank statements, the same twelve months before the death, the same witnesses.

How long do you have to contest a will in Broward County?

Three months from the day you are served with the notice of administration — §733.212(3). After that the objection is “forever barred.”

Four things people get wrong about that clock:

• It is 3 calendar months, not 90 days.
• It starts at service, not at death. Beneficiaries served on different days have different deadlines.
• Never being served means it never started. Check the file before you accept that you are late.
• The only extension is estoppel from the personal representative’s own misstatement about the deadline, and it never runs past discharge or one year from service.

Everything else on the calendar:

Clock	Period	Section
Objection after the notice of administration	3 months	§733.212(3)
Revoking probate of a will already admitted	Before final discharge	§733.109
Surviving spouse’s election	6 months from the notice, or 2 years from death, whichever is earlier	§732.2135
Creditor claim after first publication	3 months	§733.702
Creditor claim, absolute 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 is irrevocable or the settlor dies	§736.0207
Depositing the original will	10 days after learning of the death	§732.901

How do you contest a will in Florida?

You file in the probate case, as an interested person, on one of the statutory grounds, inside the §733.212(3) window.

§731.201(23) makes an interested person “any person who may reasonably be expected to be affected by the outcome of the particular proceeding involved.” Stripped of the language: do you end up with more if this will falls?

• Not being named is not a bar. If you would inherit without the will — as an heir, or under the will this one replaced — you have standing. Being cut out is frequently the evidence rather than the obstacle.
• A stepchild ordinarily has none, unless adopted or named in an earlier will.
• A surviving spouse may not need a contest at all. The 30% elective share under §732.2065 does not care what the will says. Cost that route first.
• Standing is measured issue by issue. A creditor is interested in the debt and nothing beyond it.

What are the grounds for contesting a will?

An unfair division is not one. §732.5165 runs to a single line:

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

Add two more from elsewhere in the code and the complete list is:

• Undue influence — a person in a position of trust displaced the testator’s own will. By a wide margin the most common.
• Lack of testamentary capacity — judged at the moment of signing. A diagnosis is evidence; it is not the answer.
• Improper execution — §732.502 wants the signature at the end, two attesting witnesses, everyone signing in each other’s presence. Wills drafted in other states fail here more often than people expect.
• Fraud, duress or mistake.
• Revocation by something signed later.

Two consequences shape strategy: only the procured part is void, so the balance of the will survives; and a procured revocation is void too, which can revive the document someone thought they had destroyed.

How do you prove undue influence?

Frequently, you shift the burden instead of carrying it.

§733.107(1) puts formal execution on the proponent and the grounds on the challenger. Subsection (2) is where cases turn: where the presumption of undue influence arises 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 the presumption fires, the favoured beneficiary has to disprove undue influence. The family stops having to prove what happened behind a closed door.

Courts look for a beneficiary in a confidential relationship, who was substantially benefited, and who was active in procuring the document — present at the signing, choosing the lawyer, knowing the terms in advance, instructing the drafter, arranging witnesses, holding the will afterwards.

Build the file from: medical records covering the year around signing; who booked the appointment, drove, sat in, paid; bank and brokerage records showing new joint accounts, signature cards or a power of attorney; the drafting lawyer’s file; proof of isolation; and the timing against any hospital admission.

How do you contest a trust in Florida?

There are two separate attacks, and treating them as one loses cases.

The document. §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.” A procured revocation is void as well.

Note what that sentence reaches — amendments and restatements. The Broward case is rarely an assault on a trust signed in 1998. It is an assault on the amendment executed a few weeks before the death that redirected a house or an account to one person.

The trustee. That is breach of trust, under §736.1001 with §736.0802. Different evidence, different remedies, different deadline.

And §736.0207 bars contesting a revocable trust until it becomes irrevocable or the settlor dies — so the evidence has to be secured while you still cannot sue.

Can a trustee sell trust property without the beneficiaries approving?

Usually yes. Not when the trustee is standing on both sides of the deal.

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

Subsection (2) supplies the remedy. A transaction the trustee enters “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.”

Subsection (3) then does the proving for you, by presuming a conflict where the other side of the transaction is:

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

Sell the house to your own brother and the conflict is presumed and the sale is voidable — unless the trustee lands inside an exception: the trust permitted it, the court approved it, the beneficiary consented, or the beneficiary sued too late.

That final exception is the whole reason the six-month clock in §736.1008 deserves respect.

Can an executor of a will remove a beneficiary?

No. A personal representative carries out the will; they do not redraft it. No power exists to disinherit, to shrink a share, or to decide someone has stopped deserving a bequest.

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

• Wait. Delay is lawful during creditor periods, tax clearance and a sale — and unlawful when it is simply delay. From the outside the two are indistinguishable.
• Spend. Fees and costs come off the top.
• Deny that you are a beneficiary, where the will is ambiguous or a later document surfaces.
• Sell the thing you wanted.

None of that is removal. A representative who behaves as though the inheritance is his to allocate is not exercising a power — he is supplying a ground to remove him.

Can you challenge the fees the estate is being charged?

Yes, and this is the most under-used proceeding in Florida probate.

§733.6171 sets a presumed reasonable fee for ordinary services, computed on the inventory value:

Estate value	Presumed reasonable attorney fee
$40,000 or less	$1,500
Over $40,000 to $70,000	+ $750
Over $70,000 to $100,000	+ $750
The next $900,000	3%
Over $1M to $3M	2.5%
Over $3M to $5M	2%
Over $5M to $10M	1.5%
Over $10M	1%

Presumed is not fixed. Subsection (5): “upon petition of any interested person, the court may increase or decrease the compensation for ordinary services of the attorney or award compensation for extraordinary services.” Any interested person. A beneficiary can bring it.

There is also a disclosure requirement most families never hear about. An attorney intending to charge on that schedule must obtain written acknowledgment of the statutory disclosures from the personal representative. Without it, the fee cannot be paid absent prior court approval or the written consent of every interested person.

Then §733.6175 — the provision worth reading twice:

“The burden of proof of propriety of the employment and the reasonableness of the compensation shall be upon the personal representative and the person employed.”

The burden is theirs, not yours. You do not have to prove the bill was excessive; they have to prove it was reasonable. And where compensation has already been paid, a person who received excessive compensation may be ordered to make appropriate refunds.

An estate quietly eaten by fees is a contested estate. It just has not been called one yet.

Do you need a Fort Lauderdale trust litigation attorney or a probate litigation attorney?

In Broward the answer is normally both, and the two phrases describe one case.

The will is often a two-page pour-over instrument that sends everything into a revocable trust. So the “will contest” people describe is usually a trust contest, and the “trust dispute” people describe usually has to be run inside the probate case to get any traction.

What is actually happening	Where it is fought	Which clock
The will was procured by undue influence	Probate Division, Seventeenth Circuit	3 months from the notice
A trust amendment was signed weeks before death	Probate Division, same court	Ends at irrevocability
The trustee will not account, or accounted badly	Probate Division, same court	6 months from receipt
The estate is being consumed by fees	Probate Division, same court	While the estate is open
A surviving spouse was cut out	Probate Division, same court	6 months / 2 years, §732.2135

A Fort Lauderdale trust litigation attorney is the right search when the money sits in a trust and a trustee is holding it. A Fort Lauderdale probate litigation attorney is the right search when the fight runs through the estate. Instructing two firms costs money, because one set of documents proves both.

Estate litigation handled here: will contests and revocation of probate · removal of a personal representative under §733.504 · fee objections under §733.6171 and §733.6175 · elective share proceedings under §732.2135 · 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.

What if you are the surviving spouse?

You may not need to contest anything at all.

The elective share under §732.2065 is “an amount equal to 30 percent of the elective estate” — a statutory entitlement that operates regardless of what the will provides. In a second-marriage estate, which describes a very large share of Broward, it is frequently worth more than a contest and costs a fraction as much.

But it is on a shorter fuse than the will contest. §732.2135 requires the election “on or before the earlier of the date that is 6 months after the date of service of a copy of the notice of administration … or the date that is 2 years after the date of the decedent’s death.”

An extension is possible — the court may grant one “for good cause shown” on a petition filed within the period, or within 40 days of the end of a proceeding affecting the amount. No extension can push past two years from the death. That outer wall does not move.

So a surviving spouse in Broward has two live decisions running at once on different clocks, and the cheaper one usually expires later but ends absolutely.

What are your rights as a beneficiary of a trust?

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

Concretely, the trustee owes you notice of acceptance and their address within 60 days of taking on the trust; within 60 days of the trust becoming irrevocable, notice that it exists, who created it, and that you may request a copy of the instrument; and a trust accounting annually, on termination, and whenever the trustee changes.

A trustee who will not confirm the trust exists has already breached the first sentence of the statute.

And the deadline that runs against you while you wait: §736.1008 bars any claim over a matter “adequately disclosed in a trust disclosure document” unless suit begins within six months after receipt. Receipt — not discovery, not comprehension. Read every accounting in the week it lands.

How do you remove a personal representative or a trustee?

A personal representative — twelve grounds in §733.504. The ones that actually appear: ignoring a court order · failing to account for a sale or produce estate assets · waste or maladministration · holding interests adverse to the estate that interfere with administration · failure to post bond · felony conviction or incapacity.

That fourth ground carries more weight than families realise. A representative who is also a beneficiary, and who is buying estate property or advancing his own claim, can be removable on conflict alone — with no allegation of dishonesty anywhere in the petition.

A trustee — four grounds in §736.0706, available to the settlor, a cotrustee or a beneficiary: a serious breach of trust · cotrustees unable to cooperate to the point of impairing administration · unfitness, unwillingness, or persistent failure to administer effectively · a substantial change of circumstances with a suitable successor in view.

“Persistent failure to administer effectively” contains no element of dishonesty. A trustee who is simply not doing the work is removable on that ground by itself.

Once removal is before the court, §736.1001(2) opens up considerably more: compel an accounting, appoint a special fiduciary, suspend the trustee, cut or deny compensation, and void an act, impose a lien or a constructive trust, or trace trust property wrongfully disposed of. “It has already been spent” does not end the discussion.

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

Contested Broward estates sit in the Probate Division of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit.

Probate Division	Central Courthouse, Judicial Complex West Building, 201 SE 6th Street, Room 03150, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Phone	954-831-7154
Counter hours	8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., Monday to Friday

Broward’s original-will rule is different from its neighbours, and the difference catches lawyers moving between counties.

Where an attorney is the custodian, the will is electronically filed through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal first — and then, after the filing confirmation comes back, the original must be mailed to the Clerk’s Office. Both steps. A pro se custodian files the will in the Probate Division in person instead.

Compare that with the two counties immediately south and north:

County	Original will
Broward	Attorney e-files first, then mails the original. Pro se files in person
Miami-Dade	Physically filed at the counter; cannot be e-filed
Palm Beach	Cannot be e-filed; mailed or hand-delivered to a P.O. box

There is no fee to deposit a will, and the Clerk will not accept one unless the maker has died. §732.901 gives the custodian 10 days from learning of the death, and a custodian who fails without just cause can be ordered to pay “all costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney’s fee.”

Note the counter closes at 3:30 p.m. — half an hour earlier than Miami-Dade. On a deadline day that is not a trivia point.

How does the Seventeenth Circuit set a contested hearing?

Differently from the way an uncontested matter is handled, and the local procedures are specific.

• Contested matters go through CMS. The circuit’s probate local procedures direct that “contested matters, any matters in which the scheduling party is unaware if the matter is contested, and any other matters which are required to be set for hearing, shall be set for hearing using CMS.”
• Anything over 30 minutes goes through the judicial assistant of the assigned division, not the online system.
• Local Rule 10A is a precondition, not a formality. A petition or motion “shall not be set for hearing unless the attorney or interested person noticing the hearing has complied with … Local Rule 10A, by first attempting in good faith to resolve the motion, and coordinating that hearing in advance with all interested parties.” Skip it and you lose the date.
• Proposed orders are submitted by email in Microsoft Word, in advance of the hearing.
• Emergencies are filed electronically and then emailed to the Clerk at exparterequest@browardclerk.org with the case number, division and the timeframe needed, following Administrative Order 2021-52-PRC.

None of that decides a case. All of it decides how fast you get in front of a judge, which in a contested estate is frequently the same thing.

Does a no-contest clause stop you?

No. §732.517 is one sentence long: a provision in a will penalising an interested person for contesting the will, or for bringing other proceedings relating to the estate, is unenforceable.

In terrorem clauses do work in many other states, and Broward is full of wills drafted in those states by people who moved here later. In Florida they are void, in wills and in trusts alike. The paragraph may still be sitting in the document, reading as though it bites. It does not.

More people are stopped by that clause than by any deadline in this article — and it has no legal effect at all.

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

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

What moves the number:

• how many medical and financial records have to be obtained and read
• whether the fight is the will, the trust, lifetime transfers, or all three
• whether fees are also in dispute, which adds a §733.6175 track with its own burden of proof
• whether a surviving spouse’s election is running, which changes the arithmetic for everyone
• how many beneficiaries must be served, and how many are out of state
• whether the estate holds Florida real property, a condominium with arrears, or a closely held business
• whether the personal representative or trustee is also a beneficiary, which fuses two disputes into one

What you will not find here is a prediction of your odds. Rule 4-7.13 forbids promises about results, and nobody can price a case sight unseen.

What does “probate litigation specialist” mean in Florida?

It is a regulated phrase. The Florida Bar certifies in Wills, Trusts and Estates, and Rule 4-7.14 allows specialist or expert only where the claim can be objectively verified — through that certification, or through the lawyer’s training, record and substantial involvement in the field.

Verifiable here:

• Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002 — confirmable free through The Florida Bar’s member directory.
• Practice concentrated in probate, wills, trusts and the transfer of Florida real property.
• Solo practice: the person who answers the phone is the person who files the petition and appears at the hearing.
• Service in English and Spanish, in all 67 counties.

What you will not find here is a claim to be the best firm in Broward. Rule 4-7.13 prohibits comparisons that cannot be substantiated.

What to do this week

If a notice of administration has been served, §733.212(3) is running. If you are a surviving spouse, §732.2135 is running on a different schedule. If a trust accounting has arrived, §736.1008 started the day you received it.

Bring five things:

1. The will and every trust document, including any amendment signed in the last two years.
2. The notice, with its date of service — the envelope sets the deadline, not the death.
3. Every fee statement and every accounting the estate has produced. Fee disputes are won on documents that already exist.
4. Anything showing where the decedent actually lived and who controlled the accounts.
5. Anything showing who was near the decedent in the final year. That category decides more cases than the will does.

Speak to a Fort Lauderdale probate litigation attorney — and, where the money sits in a trust, a Fort Lauderdale trust litigation attorney — directly. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. — (305) 224-6811. Free consultation in English or Spanish, for contested estates and trusts across Broward County: Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Coral Springs, Plantation, Sunrise, Davie, Weston, Miramar, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Tamarac, Coconut Creek, Lauderhill, Wilton Manors, Oakland Park, Parkland, Dania Beach and Hallandale Beach. You can also write from the contact page.

Related: Florida probate litigation lawyer · Florida trust litigation attorney · Miami probate litigation attorney · West Palm Beach probate litigation attorney · Boca Raton probate litigation attorney · Fort Lauderdale probate administration.

About this page. Author and reviewer: Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002. Every statute cited was read against the Florida Statutes, and the Broward County filing and hearing procedures confirmed against the Clerk of Courts and the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit’s probate local procedures, on August 7, 2026.

This page offers general information about Florida law and is not 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.