Guardianship Attorney in South Florida: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach

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, where guardianship is heard. Guardianship, probate and estate litigation in English and Spanish. Last reviewed: 8 August 2026.

In short: Florida guardianship is a court proceeding that removes legal rights from an adult and gives them to someone else, and the law is built to grant as little of it as possible. A petition to determine incapacity triggers a three-member examining committee appointed within 5 days, each member reporting within 15 days. Where there is imminent danger, an emergency temporary guardian can be appointed under §744.3031 — lasting 90 days, extendable once. For a person with a developmental disability, a guardian advocate can be appointed under §393.12 without any adjudication of incapacity at all. And “temporary guardianship without court” — the most-searched guardianship phrase in Florida — is not a thing Florida law provides.

Quick reference — Florida guardianship

Examining committee	3 members, appointed within 5 days, reports filed within 15 days — §744.331
One member must be	a psychiatrist or other physician
Emergency temporary guardianship	90 days, one 90-day extension — §744.3031
Guardian advocate	developmental disability, no adjudication of incapacity — §393.12
Attorney for the person	appointed by the court — within 3 days in a guardian advocate case
Guardian of a minor	appointed without an incapacity adjudication — §744.3021
Initial plan and inventory	due within 60 days of appointment
Guardian education	8 hours (person) · 4 hours (property of a minor), within 4 months — §744.3145
Letters of guardianship	the document proving authority — §744.345
Counties served	Miami-Dade (11th Circuit) · Broward (17th) · Palm Beach (15th)

What Florida guardianship actually is — and the principle that governs it

Legal guardianship in Florida is a court proceeding in which a judge finds that an adult can no longer make some or all of their own decisions, removes those rights, and delegates them to a guardian. It is the most intrusive thing a probate court does to a living person, and Florida guardianship law is written with that in mind.

The governing idea is the least restrictive alternative. If a person lacks capacity in some areas but not others, the court is meant to remove only those rights, and only for as long as necessary. That principle runs through every definition in §744.102:

• A plenary guardian exercises all delegable legal rights and powers of the ward.
• A limited guardian exercises only the rights and powers specifically designated by court order.
• A guardian advocate represents a person with developmental disabilities.
• A preneed guardian is named in a written declaration to serve if the declarant later becomes incapacitated.
• A standby guardian takes over on the death or incapacity of the last surviving guardian.
• A professional guardian is anyone who has at any time served three or more wards.
• The ward is the person for whom a guardian has been appointed.

Read that list as a menu, because that is how a guardianship attorney Florida families can rely on uses it. Most arrive asking for guardianship meaning plenary guardianship — Florida’s most complete form and the one the statute is most reluctant to grant — and a meaningful share of them need something narrower: a limited guardianship over finances only, a guardian advocate, or no guardianship at all.

Three situations account for most of what comes through the door. Guardianship in Florida for adults who have lost capacity through dementia, stroke or brain injury. Legal guardianship for adults with disabilities in Florida, where a child with a developmental or intellectual disability reaches 18 and a parent’s authority ends overnight. And guardianship for adults with mental illness in Florida, where capacity fluctuates and the least-restrictive principle does most of the work.

They are not the same case, they do not take the same filing, and the Florida guardianship statute treats them differently. Legal guardianship in Florida is a category, not a procedure.

“Temporary guardianship without court” in Florida — the honest answer

This is the most-searched guardianship phrase in Florida, and almost every page answering it is selling a form. So here is the answer plainly.

Florida does not provide for temporary guardianship of a minor by parental consent alone. The downloadable “temporary guardianship agreement” and “temporary guardianship form” circulating online are not Florida statutory instruments. Signing one does not make anybody a guardian, and a school, hospital or insurer is under no obligation to honour it.

What Florida actually provides is three real routes:

1. Temporary custody by an extended family member — Chapter 751. An extended family member may petition the circuit court for temporary custody of a minor, either with the signed, notarized consent of the child’s legal parents, or where they are already acting as a substitute parent with whom the child lives. An “extended family member” under §751.011 is a relative within the third degree by blood or marriage, a current stepparent in defined circumstances, or a person qualifying as fictive kin under Chapter 39. It grants authority to consent to medical and dental care and to handle school enrolment and records. It is a court proceeding. Chapter 751 contains no mechanism for custody by parental consent without judicial involvement.

2. Guardianship of a minor — §744.3021. A guardian for a minor may be appointed on the petition of a parent, sibling, next of kin or other interested person. Importantly, this happens without the adjudication of incapacity required under §744.331 — minors do not go through an examining committee. This is the route when a minor inherits money or receives a settlement and someone needs legal authority over the property.

3. A power of attorney — for a narrow purpose only. A power of attorney delegates the signer’s own authority. It does not transfer parental rights, and it is not a substitute for either route above.

So if you are searching for a temporary guardianship form for Florida because a child is going to stay with a grandparent for a semester, the useful answer is not a form. It is Chapter 751, and it starts with a petition.

Guardian advocacy — the route most families have never heard of

If the person you are worried about has a developmental disability, Florida offers something substantially less invasive than guardianship, and it is badly under-used.

Under §393.12, a court may appoint a guardian advocate for a person with developmental disabilities who lacks the decision-making ability for some but not all decision-making tasks — and it may do so without an adjudication of incapacity. The person is never declared incapacitated. The court’s order specifies exactly which decisions the guardian advocate may make; within that scope the advocate carries the same duties and responsibilities a guardian would under Chapter 744.

Two further features worth knowing:

• The person is entitled to a lawyer, quickly. Within 3 days of the petition being filed, the court appoints an attorney to represent them. They may hire their own instead.
• A person may petition voluntarily for a guardian advocate to be appointed for them.

For families of adults with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or intellectual disability reaching 18, this is very often the correct filing — and the one nobody told them about. Ask about it before anyone files a petition to determine incapacity.

How to file for guardianship in Florida — the incapacity process

For an adult without a developmental disability, guardianship begins with a petition to determine incapacity, and the court does not simply take the petitioner’s word for it.

Within 5 days, the court appoints a three-member examining committee under §744.331. One member must be a psychiatrist or other physician; the other two come 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 files a report with the clerk within 15 days of appointment.

The alleged incapacitated person is entitled to counsel throughout. The committee reports drive the outcome, and the court then decides not just whether to appoint a guardian but how much to remove — which is where limited guardianship and voluntary guardianship live.

If the court appoints, letters of guardianship issue under §744.345. That is the document that proves authority to a bank, a hospital, an insurer or a title company — the guardianship counterpart of letters of administration in an estate. Until they issue, a guardian has no power at all.

Voluntary guardianship deserves a separate mention, because it is the one route where the person asks for it themselves. Under §744.341, a person who is mentally competent but incapable of the care, custody and management of their estate by reason of age or physical infirmity may petition for a guardian of their property. The petition must be accompanied by a certificate from a licensed physician confirming that they examined the petitioner and that the petitioner is competent to understand the nature of the guardianship. The court then appoints without any adjudication of incapacity, and unless the order limits the guardianship to specific property, the guardian carries the duties of a plenary guardian of the property.

No rights are removed involuntarily and nobody is declared incapacitated. Voluntary guardianship in Florida is a genuinely different animal from what most people mean by the word — and for an ageing client who knows they are struggling with their finances but is entirely sound of mind, it is often the dignified answer.

Emergency guardianship, Florida: when there is no time

Where someone’s health, safety or property is in immediate danger, §744.3031 allows the court to appoint an emergency temporary guardian. The standard is specific: there must appear 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 are as important as the standard:

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

Emergency temporary guardianship is a bridge, not a destination. It exists to stop the bleeding while the incapacity proceeding runs. The two most common triggers in South Florida are a parent hospitalised without a healthcare surrogate, and a relative or new acquaintance moving money out of an elderly person’s accounts. In the second case the emergency filing is often the first step of a much longer matter.

What being a guardian actually involves

This is the part families are not told before they volunteer, and it is the part that matters most over the following years.

Within 60 days of appointment, a guardian files an initial guardianship plan and a verified inventory of the ward’s property.

Guardian education is mandatory under §744.3145. A non-professional guardian of the person must complete a minimum of 8 hours of instruction and training; 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.

Then it repeats, annually, for as long as the guardianship lasts. An annual guardianship plan and an annual accounting are filed and reviewed. Where the assets sit in restricted depository accounts and the transactions fall within the categories the statute allows, a simplified accounting is available under §744.3679 — worth asking about, because it removes a substantial amount of annual work.

A guardianship is not a form you file once. It is a multi-year reporting relationship with a court that audits you.

County by county: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach

The statute is the same across Florida. The supervision is not, and the difference is large enough that it should shape who you retain.

Miami-Dade — Eleventh Judicial Circuit. The circuit publishes numbered mandatory guardianship checklists, CC-101 through CC-107, covering appointment on incapacity, guardian of a minor, disbursement of guardianship assets, guardian’s and attorney’s fees, discharge, sale of real property and appointment of a guardian advocate. The applicable checklist is mandatory and must be e-filed; orders submitted without the right identifying numbers are rejected.

Broward — Seventeenth Judicial Circuit. Broward supervises guardians harder than most Florida counties. Every proposed guardian is screened through FDLE and the FBI, and anyone seeking appointment as guardian of the property also gets a credit check run by the court monitor. Non-professional guardians file a mandatory checklist together with an application for investigation, annually; professional guardians file by 15 January each year. Annual reports must attach statements from the financial institutions verifying the amounts reported, audit fees are due at the time of filing, and non-compliance draws a Show Cause hearing before a General Magistrate. In Broward, proof of completing guardian education is required before the court will approve your fees — a far more effective deadline than a deadline.

Palm Beach — Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. The court appoints an attorney for the alleged incapacitated person, and professional guardians face fingerprinting and credit-report requirements before they may serve. Palm Beach also runs a checklist regime across its probate and guardianship filings, and every proposed order goes through the circuit’s online system.

The practical read: a guardianship that would be routine in one county can be a compliance project in another. South Florida guardianship attorneys who file in all three are managing three different oversight regimes, and the annual obligations are where inexperienced guardians get into trouble.

Choosing counsel — three questions worth asking

Searching for guardianship lawyers in Florida returns a long list and very little to sort it by. Three questions do most of the work.

“Which county’s monitoring regime will I be living under?” A Miami guardianship attorney who files weekly in the Eleventh Circuit knows the CC-101 to CC-107 checklists cold. A Broward practice knows the credit check and the January deadline. A South Florida guardianship lawyer covering all three should be able to tell you, before you retain them, what your annual obligations will look like in your county.

“Is guardianship even the right filing here?” The answer that costs a guardianship law firm in Miami a case — your adult child has a developmental disability, so guardian advocacy under §393.12 is probably the correct route and it is less invasive and less expensive — is the answer worth paying for. A guardianship attorney in South Florida who reaches for a plenary petition first is not reading the statute the way the statute asks to be read.

“Who handles the annual work, and what does it cost?” The petition is the short part. Miami guardianship attorneys and South Florida guardianship lawyers who quote only the appointment are quoting the smaller half of the engagement.

Lorenzo Law handles guardianship as a Miami guardianship lawyer practice serving Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach — the three counties described above, in English and Spanish.

Terminating or modifying a guardianship

Guardianship is not permanent by definition, and this is the least-discussed part of the subject.

A ward keeps the right to petition the court to modify or terminate the guardianship. A guardianship ends when the ward’s capacity is restored, when the reason for it no longer exists, when a minor ward reaches majority, or on the ward’s death. A petition to terminate guardianship is a real and regularly granted filing — not a long shot.

It is also the filing that brings families to a guardianship lawyer in South Florida most often after the initial appointment: a ward who has recovered, a guardian who is not accounting properly, or a family member who believes the wrong person was appointed. Removing or replacing a guardian, and compelling an accounting, are contested matters heard in the same division.

Durable power of attorney vs guardianship in Florida

The best guardianship is the one that never has to happen.

A properly drafted durable power of attorney, paired with a healthcare surrogate designation and a living will, lets someone you chose act for you if you cannot — without a court proceeding, without an examining committee, without annual accountings, and without any rights being removed by a judge. Guardianship exists largely because those documents were not in place.

Two honest qualifications. A durable power of attorney is only as good as the institutions that accept it, and a bank that refuses one can force a guardianship anyway. And a power of attorney signed by someone who already lacks capacity is void — which is exactly the situation families are usually in by the time they call. The window for the cheaper option closes before most people realise it exists.

If capacity is still intact, the other document worth executing is a declaration of preneed guardian — naming, in advance, who you want appointed if a guardianship ever becomes necessary. It costs very little and it takes the decision away from a judge who never met you.

What guardianship costs in Florida

There is no single number, and anyone quoting one without knowing the file is guessing. What can be said honestly is what drives the cost.

The initial proceeding carries the court filing fee, the fees of the three examining committee members, the fee of the attorney appointed for the alleged incapacitated person, and your own attorney’s fees. A contested incapacity proceeding costs materially more than an uncontested one.

The ongoing guardianship carries annual plan and accounting preparation, the audit fee where the county charges one, any bond, and — in Broward — the compliance work its monitoring regime requires.

Where the money comes from. Guardianship fees and costs are generally paid from the ward’s assets rather than by the petitioner personally, subject to court approval. That approval is not automatic: in Broward, proof of guardian education is required before fees are approved, and Miami-Dade has a dedicated checklist (CC-104) for guardian’s and attorney’s fees.

The cost that is never quoted is the annual one. A guardianship entered at 70 for someone who lives to 90 is a twenty-year filing obligation. That is the number to think about before petitioning.

Frequently asked questions about Florida guardianship

How do I get guardianship of an adult in Florida?

File a petition to determine incapacity and a petition to appoint a guardian in the circuit court where the person lives. The court appoints a three-member examining committee within 5 days; each member reports within 15 days. The person is entitled to counsel. If the court finds incapacity, it decides whether a limited or plenary guardianship is appropriate.

How do I file for guardianship in Florida, and how do I apply?

Through the circuit court’s probate and guardianship division in the county of residence. In Miami-Dade the applicable CC-101 to CC-107 checklist must be e-filed with the petition; Broward and Palm Beach have their own requirements. Florida requires legal representation in most guardianship proceedings.

How much does guardianship cost in Florida?

It depends on whether the incapacity petition is contested and on the county’s ongoing monitoring requirements. The initial cost includes the filing fee, examining committee fees, the court-appointed attorney for the alleged incapacitated person, and your own counsel. Fees are generally paid from the ward’s assets with court approval.

How do I get guardianship of a parent in Florida?

The same process as any adult guardianship — but before filing, check whether your parent already signed a durable power of attorney and healthcare surrogate designation. If they did, you may not need a guardianship at all. If they have a developmental disability, ask about guardian advocacy under §393.12 instead.

Can I get temporary guardianship in Florida without going to court?

No. Florida provides temporary custody by an extended family member under Chapter 751, and guardianship of a minor under §744.3021 — both court proceedings. The “temporary guardianship agreement” forms sold online are not Florida statutory instruments.

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 lasts 90 days and may be extended once for a further 90 days.

Is there an alternative to full guardianship in Florida?

Yes — several. Limited guardianship removes only specific rights. Voluntary guardianship over property requires no finding of incapacity. Guardian advocacy under §393.12 applies to developmental disabilities without any adjudication of incapacity. And a durable power of attorney executed while capacity remains can avoid the proceeding altogether.

Talk to a South Florida guardianship attorney

Lorenzo Law handles guardianship, guardianship litigation, probate and estate litigation across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, in English and Spanish. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. clerked in the Probate Division of Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit — the division where these petitions are heard — before founding the firm.

Whether you need an emergency temporary guardianship this week, a guardian advocate for an adult child turning 18, or help with an annual accounting that has fallen behind, the first conversation is about whether guardianship is the right tool at all.

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

General information about Florida guardianship law, not legal advice; reading it creates no attorney-client relationship. Statutes and local requirements change — confirm current requirements before filing.

Sources

• §§ 393.12, 744.102, 744.331, 744.3021, 744.3031, 744.3145, 744.341, 744.345, 744.3679, Florida Statutes
• Chapter 751, Florida Statutes — Temporary Custody of Minor Children by Extended Family
• Eleventh Judicial Circuit — Probate Checklists (CC-101 to CC-107)
• Seventeenth Judicial Circuit — Local Procedures, Probate Division (rev. 10/23)
• Fifteenth Judicial Circuit — Probate Division