Miami-Dade County Probate Court: Forms, Fees and Filing in the 11th Circuit
Reviewed by Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq. — Florida Bar No. 107002, admitted 2013. Former judicial clerk to the Hon. Maria M. Korvick, Probate Division, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County. Last reviewed: 8 August 2026.
In short: The Miami-Dade probate court is the Probate Division of Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit. It sits at the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center, 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 6.223, Miami, FL 33128. Six circuit judges and two general magistrates hear its cases. Since 1 July 2026, an estate worth up to $150,000 — double the old limit — can use the faster summary administration route. Formal administration costs $401 to file; summary administration costs $346. Every estate filing must include one of the court’s mandatory CC checklists, and proposed orders submitted without the right identifying numbers are rejected.
Quick reference — Miami-Dade probate court at a glance
| Court | Probate Division, Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida |
| Courthouse | Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center |
| Address | 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 6.223 (6th floor), Miami, FL 33128 |
| Probate Court phone | (305) 349-7492 · (305) 349-7502 |
| Clerk counter hours | Monday–Friday, 9:00 a. m. – 4:00 p. m. |
| Court hours | Monday–Friday, 8:00 a. m. – 5:00 p. m. |
| Bench | Six circuit judges, two general magistrates |
| Case search | Civil, Family and Probate Courts Online System (CFPCOS) |
| Formal administration filing fee | $401 |
| Summary administration filing fee | $346 (estate $1,000+) · $236 (under $1,000) |
| Summary administration ceiling | $150,000, effective 1 July 2026 |
One point of confusion worth clearing immediately: searches for “Miami County probate court” often land here. Miami-Dade County, Florida and Miami County, Ohio are different courts in different states. This page is about Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Where the Miami-Dade probate court actually is
The probate court in Miami is not where a lot of older guides say it is. The Probate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit now operates out of the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center at 20 NW 1st Avenue, and the Miami-Dade probate clerk’s counter is on the sixth floor, Suite 6.223.
Two details cost people a wasted trip downtown, and neither appears on most pages about the Miami-Dade County probate court:
The counter closes before the courthouse does. Court hours run 8:00 a. m. to 5:00 p. m., but the Clerk’s windows at this location run 9:00 a. m. to 4:00 p. m. If you arrive at 4:30 with an original will to deposit, the building is open and the counter is not.
Almost nothing needs to be filed in person anymore. Attorneys file through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, and the Eleventh Circuit routes proposed orders through its Court Map system. The main reason to go in person is the physical original of a will, which has to reach the Clerk in paper form.
If you only need the phone, the Miami-Dade probate clerk answers at (305) 349-7492 or (305) 349-7502.
What changed on 1 July 2026 — and why it matters more in Miami-Dade than anywhere else
On 29 April 2026 the Governor approved CS/HB 1337, now Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida. It took effect 1 July 2026 and it is the largest change to Florida small-estate practice in years.
The headline: the summary administration ceiling doubled from $75,000 to $150,000. Section 735.201, Florida Statutes, used to let you skip formal administration only if the estate subject to administration in Florida — after subtracting property exempt from creditors’ claims — came in under $75,000. That figure is now $150,000.
The same act made four more changes that matter at the Miami-Dade probate court counter:
| Change | Was | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Summary administration ceiling (§735.201) | $75,000 | $150,000 |
| Intestate estate settled without any court proceeding | $10,000 | $20,000 |
| Income tax refund payable to spouse or child without opening an estate | $2,500 | $5,000 |
| Bank account released by affidavit, no court order | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Safe-deposit box access for a personal representative | discretionary in practice | lessor must grant access on presentation of letters |
A personal representative may also now bring a proceeding to enforce their own statutory authority and recover taxable costs and attorney’s fees if they win.
Why this hits Miami-Dade hardest. A very large share of Miami-Dade estates are a homestead and one bank account. Homestead property is generally exempt from creditors’ claims when it passes to heirs — which means that once the court determines the property is protected homestead, 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, which is why the Eleventh Circuit publishes a separate homestead checklist for both summary and formal administration. Under the old $75,000 figure, a modest condo plus a savings account often pushed a family into full formal administration. At $150,000, a meaningful number of those same families now qualify for summary administration instead — a shorter, cheaper proceeding with no personal representative appointed.
Be careful who you take this from. As of this writing, plenty of published Florida probate material — including material issued by county clerks and consumer pamphlets — still prints $75,000. If a page you are reading does not say $150,000 and does not cite Chapter 2026-57, it was written before July and should not be relied on for a filing you are making today.
The four ways an estate opens in Miami-Dade County
Probate in Miami-Dade is not one procedure. It is four, and the one you pick determines your fee, your checklist and your timeline.
1. Disposition of personal property without administration
The smallest route. No personal representative, no letters. It exists to reimburse whoever paid the funeral bill and final medical expenses out of a decedent’s modest personal property. Filing fee: $232. There is no real estate in this route — ever.
2. Summary administration
Available when the estate subject to administration in Florida, less exempt property, does not exceed $150,000 — or when the decedent has been dead more than two years. No personal representative is appointed. The court enters an Order of Summary Administration that transfers the assets directly. Filing fee: $346 if the estate is worth $1,000 or more, $236 if it is worth less. Miami-Dade adds $3 per additional bank account listed.
3. Formal administration
The full proceeding. A personal representative is appointed, letters of administration issue, creditors are noticed, an inventory is filed, and the estate is closed by a petition for discharge. This is the route for most estates over the summary threshold, for any estate that needs someone with authority to act, and for any estate that is going to be contested. Filing fee: $401.
4. Ancillary administration
For a decedent who died domiciled somewhere else but owned Florida property. The Florida proceeding runs alongside the home-state probate. Filing fee: $401. If a will was already admitted in another state, admitting that foreign will here is a separate $232 filing.
Two more filings the Miami-Dade probate court takes at $40 each: a caveat (filed by an interested person or creditor who wants notice before the court acts) and a notice of trust (filed by the trustee of a decedent’s revocable trust).
Miami-Dade probate court 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 |
| Petition and order to admit a foreign will | $232 |
| Caveat | $40 |
| Notice of trust | $40 |
| Each additional bank account listed | $3 |
These are the Clerk’s filing fees only. They are not what probate costs. Attorney’s fees, the certified copies you will need for every bank and title company, publication of the notice to creditors, any bond the court requires, and appraisal costs all sit on top. In a formal administration, attorney’s fees are the largest line by a wide margin, and under §733.6171 they are paid from estate assets rather than out of the personal representative’s pocket.
The checklists — the single most common reason a Miami-Dade filing gets bounced
This is the part that separates the Eleventh Judicial Circuit from most Florida circuits, and it is the part almost no general guide explains.
The Eleventh Circuit publishes mandatory probate checklists. They are not optional worksheets. The court’s own instruction is that the applicable checklist is mandatory and must be e-filed with the proposed order it supports. Submit the order without the checklist, or submit either one without the docket index number or the e-filing number, full name and date of filing of the underlying petition, and it is rejected.
The twelve estate checklists:
| Code | Checklist |
|---|---|
| CC-01 | Summary Administration — intestate (no will) |
| CC-02 | Summary Administration — testate (with will) |
| CC-03 | Formal Administration — intestate |
| CC-04 | Formal Administration — testate |
| CC-05 | Formal Administration — intestate, with bond |
| CC-06 | Formal Administration — testate, with bond |
| CC-07 | Homestead in Summary Administration |
| CC-08 | Homestead in Formal Administration |
| CC-09 | Sale of Real Property in an Estate |
| CC-10 | Distribution of an Estate |
| CC-11 | Attorney Fees in an Estate |
| CC-12 | Discharge of Personal Representative |
And seven guardianship checklists — CC-101 appointment of guardian on incapacity, CC-102 guardian of a minor, CC-103 disbursement of guardianship assets, CC-104 guardian’s and attorney’s fees, CC-105 discharge of guardian, CC-106 sale of real property, CC-107 appointment of a guardian advocate.
Read the list again and notice what it tells you about the shape of a Miami-Dade case. There is a separate checklist for homestead in both summary and formal administration. There is a separate checklist for selling real property. There is a separate checklist for attorney’s fees and another for discharge. Each of those is a point where the Eleventh Circuit has decided often enough that filings arrive incomplete that it built a gate. If you are handling an estate here without counsel, the Miami-Dade probate checklist for your specific step is the most useful free document available to you — download it and work backwards from it before you draft anything.
Probate Smart Forms
Alongside the checklists, the Eleventh Circuit publishes Probate Smart Forms — court-approved templates for the orders and notices its judges expect to see. Everything posted in PDF must be filed in PDF.
The Miami-Dade probate forms library is organised into roughly eleven groups: acceptance forms for depositories, curator forms, Cuban heirs forms, estate forms (orders appointing a personal representative, letters of administration), guardianship forms, guardian advocacy forms, vulnerable adult protective injunction petitions, wrongful death forms, attorney and guardian fee forms, self-represented litigant forms for simplified summary administration, and a catch-all group.
Two of those categories deserve a second look.
Self-represented litigant forms. The Eleventh Circuit publishes a simplified summary administration packet for people filing without a lawyer. It exists, it is free, and for a genuinely simple small estate it is a reasonable place to start.
Wrongful death forms. Miami-Dade maintains dedicated forms for appointing a personal representative in a wrongful death matter. Under the Florida Wrongful Death Act the claim belongs to the estate and is brought by the personal representative — which is why a wrongful death case begins in the probate division, not the civil one. Families are frequently surprised by this.
Cuban heirs and cross-border estates — the Miami-Dade specialty
The Eleventh Judicial Circuit publishes a category of probate form that essentially no other Florida circuit needs: the CUB series, for estates with heirs in Cuba — including an order appointing a guardian ad litem, attorney ad litem and administrator ad litem for heirs the court cannot reach.
That is not trivia. It is a plain statement of what Miami-Dade probate practice actually is. In this county an ordinary estate routinely involves heirs in another country, assets in another country, a will written in Spanish, a decedent who was a lawful permanent resident rather than a citizen, or a beneficiary who cannot receive a distribution directly because of federal asset-control rules. The court built forms for it because it happens every week.
Practical consequences that catch families out here more than anywhere else in Florida:
- A foreign-language will must be handled with a proper translation before it can be admitted.
- An heir abroad who cannot be served in the ordinary way may require an appointed ad litem — a step that adds time and cost, and one the checklists will expect to see documented.
- A non-citizen decedent raises federal estate tax exposure at a far lower threshold than a US citizen’s, and can require a transfer certificate before a US financial institution will release assets.
- An out-of-state or out-of-country personal representative must satisfy Florida’s qualification rules, which restrict who may serve.
If any of that describes your file, the general Miami-Dade probate court information on this page is the starting point, not the answer.
How to search a Miami-Dade probate case
The Clerk runs the Civil, Family and Probate Courts Online System. It is the tool behind every Miami-Dade probate search, Miami-Dade probate case search and Miami-Dade probate records search, and it is free.
What you can pull without an account: the docket, the parties, the filing date, the assigned judge and division, and most non-confidential document images. What you cannot pull: anything the court has sealed, and the guardianship files that are confidential by statute.
A practical note on searching. Probate cases are indexed under the decedent’s name, not the petitioner’s. If you are looking for the estate of a relative and searching your own name, you will find nothing. If you know the case number, use it — the Miami-Dade probate docket is much easier to navigate by number than by name, particularly for common surnames in a county this size.
Which judge, which division
Six circuit judges and two general magistrates are assigned to the Probate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Cases are assigned by section code — you will see designations like PMH 06 and PMH 07 on filings, and PMHGMB for magistrate matters.
Why care? Because the division that hears your file also sets its rhythm. Hearing availability, whether a matter goes to a general magistrate, how a particular judge treats an uncontested petition for fees — these vary.
People often search for a civil cover sheet for Miami-Dade County probate, expecting probate to open the way a civil lawsuit does. It doesn’t. Form 1.997 is a civil-division form, and the Clerk’s probate forms library does not carry a probate equivalent. What the Eleventh Circuit does require at the front of your filing is different and stricter: the correct mandatory checklist, e-filed with the petition, and every proposed order or notice of hearing carrying the docket index number — or the e-filing number, full name and date of filing — of the paper it relates to. Get that wrong and the submission is rejected. That is this circuit’s real routing gate.
Most routine Miami-Dade probate hearings are now held over Zoom. Some evidentiary hearings are held that way too. Trials are in person. For an out-of-state heir that distinction is worth knowing before you book a flight: a fifteen-minute uncontested matter almost never requires you to be in Miami, and a trial always will. Zoom etiquette is also real here — appear on time, on camera, with the file number ready and the proposed order already submitted through Court Map.
The 10-day rule: depositing the original will
Under §732.901, Florida Statutes, the custodian of a deceased person’s original will must deposit it with the clerk of the court in the county where the decedent lived, within 10 days of learning of the death. This is a standalone duty. It applies whether or not anyone intends to open a probate, whether or not the estate is small, and whether or not there is a dispute.
It is also, in practice, one of the most-broken rules in Florida probate — usually by a well-meaning relative who puts the will in a drawer because “we’re not doing anything with it yet.” A custodian who holds on to a will can be compelled to produce it and can be held responsible for the costs of making them do it.
If you are holding an original will and the decedent lived in Miami-Dade, the will goes to the Clerk at 20 NW 1st Avenue. Bring the original — not a copy — and remember the 4:00 p. m. counter cutoff.
How long probate takes in Miami-Dade County
Every estate is different, and anyone who quotes you a fixed number is guessing. These are the ranges this firm works to.
- Disposition without administration: often a few weeks.
- Summary administration: commonly two to five months in an uncontested case where the petition is right the first time and no homestead determination is required. Add time if homestead is involved — that is why CC-07 exists.
- Formal administration: commonly eight to fourteen months. The floor is set by the three-month creditor claim period that runs from first publication of the notice to creditors, and no estate closes before it expires.
- Contested matters: measured in years, not months.
What actually drives a Miami-Dade timeline is rarely the court. It is a missing original will, an heir nobody can locate, a homestead question that has to be determined before anything can be distributed, a personal representative who cannot get a bond, or — most often — a petition that came back rejected because the checklist was missing.
Do you need a probate attorney in Miami-Dade?
Florida requires an attorney for most formal administrations: a personal representative who is not the sole interested person must be represented. Summary administration and disposition without administration can be filed by a self-represented litigant, and the Eleventh Circuit publishes forms specifically for that.
So the honest answer is that some Miami-Dade probate matters genuinely do not need a lawyer. A single bank account, one heir, no real estate, no dispute — file it yourself with the court’s own packet.
Get counsel when any of these is true: the estate includes real property; there is a homestead determination to make; an heir is out of state or out of the country; the decedent was not a US citizen; there is more than one marriage or a blended family; someone has already said the word “contest”; there are creditors or a mortgage in default; or the estate is a business and somebody has to run it while probate is open.
And a word about fees, because it is the question everyone actually wants answered: in a Florida formal administration, attorney’s fees are paid from the estate, not from the pocket of the person who steps forward to serve. Being the personal representative does not mean personally funding the case.
Frequently asked questions about the Miami-Dade probate court
Where is the probate court in Miami-Dade County?
The Probate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit is at the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center, 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 6.223, Miami, FL 33128. The probate clerk’s counter is open Monday to Friday, 9:00 a. m. to 4:00 p. m., and the phone numbers are (305) 349-7492 and (305) 349-7502.
What is probate in Florida?
Probate is the court-supervised process of identifying a deceased person’s assets, paying valid debts and taxes, and transferring what remains to the people entitled to it. In Florida it runs through the circuit court’s probate division in the county where the decedent lived.
How much does it cost to file probate in Miami-Dade County?
$401 for formal or ancillary administration, $346 for summary administration of an estate worth $1,000 or more, $236 for a smaller summary administration, and $232 for disposition of personal property without administration. A caveat or notice of trust is $40. Those are Clerk’s fees only.
When is probate required in Florida?
Probate is required when a decedent owned assets in their sole name with no beneficiary designation, no joint owner with survivorship rights and no trust. Assets that pass by beneficiary designation, joint titling or a properly funded trust do not go through probate.
How do I look up a probate case in Miami-Dade?
Use the Clerk’s Civil, Family and Probate Courts Online System. Search by the decedent’s name or by case number. Sealed matters and statutorily confidential guardianship files are not publicly viewable.
What is the 10-day rule for probate in Florida?
Under §732.901, whoever holds a deceased person’s original will must deposit it with the clerk in the decedent’s county of residence within 10 days of learning of the death — regardless of whether a probate is opened.
How long does probate take in Miami-Dade County?
Summary administration commonly runs two to five months. Formal administration commonly runs eight to fourteen months, with a floor set by the three-month creditor claim period. Contested matters take longer.
Talk to a Miami-Dade probate attorney
Lorenzo Law is a Coral Gables firm devoted to probate, estate planning, guardianship, and trust and estate litigation throughout Florida. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. clerked in the Probate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit before founding the firm — the same division described on this page. The firm serves clients in English and Spanish.
(305) 224-6811 · 2850 S Douglas Rd, Suite 303, Coral Gables, FL 33134
This page is general information about the Miami-Dade County probate court, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Court fees, forms and procedures change; confirm current requirements with the Clerk or the Eleventh Judicial Circuit before filing.
Sources
- Miami-Dade Clerk of the Courts — Probate Court and filing fees
- Miami-Dade Clerk of the Courts — Osvaldo N. Soto Justice Center location and hours
- Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida — Probate Division
- Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida — Probate Checklists (CC-01 to CC-12; CC-101 to CC-107)
- Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida — Probate Smart Forms
- Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida (CS/HB 1337), approved 29 April 2026, effective 1 July 2026
- §§ 732.901, 733.6171, 735.201, Florida Statutes