Pinellas County Probate Court: Clearwater, St. Petersburg and the 6th 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. Probate, guardianship and estate litigation throughout Florida, in English and Spanish. Last reviewed: 8 August 2026.

In short: The Pinellas County probate court is part of Florida’s Sixth Judicial Circuit, which covers both Pinellas and Pasco counties. Pinellas runs probate from two courthouses — the Clearwater Courthouse at 315 Court Street and the St. Petersburg Judicial Building at 545 First Avenue North — and which one hears your case is decided by where the decedent lived, not by where you live or where your lawyer sits. Guardianship matters are largely heard by Probate General Magistrates at the 501 Building in St. Petersburg, wherever the case was filed. The probate department is reachable at (727) 464-3321, Monday to Friday, 8:00 a. m. to 5:00 p. m.

Quick reference — Pinellas County probate court


Circuit	Sixth Judicial Circuit — Pinellas and Pasco counties
North County	Clearwater Courthouse, 315 Court Street, Room 106, Clearwater, FL 33756
South County	St. Petersburg Judicial Building, 545 First Avenue North, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Guardianship magistrates	The 501 Building, 501 First Avenue North, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Pinellas County probate court phone	(727) 464-3321
Hours	Monday–Friday, 8:00 a. m. – 5:00 p. m.
Case assignment	By location — north county to Clearwater, south county to St. Petersburg
Governing order	AO 2025-035, Assignment of Probate Cases in Pinellas County (eff. 8 Dec 2025)
Uncontested estate standard	12 months to completion
Statutory fee — formal administration	$395 base, plus local service charges
Statutory fee — summary administration	$340 base ($1,000+) · $230 (under $1,000)
Summary administration ceiling	$150,000, effective 1 July 2026

Two courthouses, and the rule that decides which one

Pinellas does not have a single probate court. It has two, and they carry equivalent jurisdiction.

North County matters are heard at the Clearwater Courthouse, 315 Court Street, Room 106. South County matters are heard at the St. Petersburg Judicial Building, 545 First Avenue North. Case assignment in Pinellas County is governed by Administrative Order 2025-035, which took effect on 8 December 2025 — so anything you read about Pinellas probate assignment written before that date should be treated as out of date.

In practice the split follows geography. North Pinellas — Clearwater, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs and Largo — routes to the Clearwater Judicial Center. South Pinellas — St. Petersburg, Gulfport, Pinellas Park and Seminole — routes to the St. Petersburg branch.

Here is the comparison worth making, because it catches practitioners moving between counties. In Palm Beach, probate cases are assigned by the zip code of the petitioner’s attorney’s office. In Pinellas, assignment follows the case — where the decedent lived and where it is filed. A Tampa-based or Miami-based attorney does not drag a Pinellas estate to a different courthouse by being retained. The two counties are one circuit apart and their assignment logic is opposite.

If you are searching for the probate court in Clearwater or the probate court in St. Petersburg, you are not looking at two different courts. You are looking at two doors into the same one.

The 501 Building — where Pinellas guardianship actually happens

This is the part almost nothing published about Pinellas explains, and it will save you a wasted trip.

Many guardianship proceedings in Pinellas are heard at the 501 Building, 501 First Avenue North in St. Petersburg — regardless of whether the case was filed in North or South County. The Probate General Magistrates are housed there and handle initial guardianship matters.

Two consequences follow:

A guardianship filed in Clearwater may still be heard in St. Petersburg. Filing location does not determine hearing location for guardianship the way it does for estates.
A party may request reassignment to a Probate Judge. Magistrate assignment is the default for initial matters, not a permanent allocation. If your matter needs a judge, ask.

For families in Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs or Dunedin, that is a materially different drive from the one they were expecting.

One circuit, two counties

The Sixth Judicial Circuit covers Pinellas and Pasco. Most Florida circuits in the state’s large metropolitan areas are single-county — Miami-Dade is the Eleventh, Broward the Seventeenth, Hillsborough the Thirteenth. The Sixth is not.

That matters in two practical ways. Circuit-wide administrative orders apply on both sides of the county line, so a rule announced for the circuit governs your Pinellas estate and your Pasco one alike. But county-specific orders exist too — the circuit publishes separate orders for electronic filing in Pinellas and in Pasco, and separate after-hours procedures for each. Reading a Sixth Circuit order without checking which county it addresses is a way to follow the wrong rule carefully.

What it costs to file

Florida probate filing fees are set by statute rather than by county. Under §28.2401, Florida Statutes, the base is $395 for formal administration, guardianship, ancillary administration, curatorship or conservatorship; $340 for summary administration of an estate worth $1,000 or more; $230 below that and for disposition of personal property without administration; $230 for guardianship of the person only; and $40 for a caveat.

Counties add authorised service charges on top, which is why clerks across Florida quote a few dollars more than the statute — $401 rather than $395 in the counties where that figure has been confirmed. Confirm the exact Pinellas probate filing fee with the Clerk before you file, because a payment that is short by a couple of dollars is a rejected filing.

The filing fee is the smallest number in a probate. Attorney’s fees, publication of the notice to creditors, certified copies for every institution, any required bond and appraisals all sit above it. In a formal administration those fees are paid from the estate under §733.6171 — not personally by whoever agreed to serve as personal representative.

What the judges publish — and why you should read it before you file

Pinellas probate judges publish their own written practice preferences, and those documents are as binding on your filing as anything in the rules. This is the same discipline Palm Beach imposes, and it is easy to miss because it lives on a judge’s page rather than in an administrative order.

What a Pinellas probate section’s published preferences can require:

Proposed orders filled out as completely as possible, e-filed through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal — with formatting instructions down to the level of not leaving multiple date blanks or judge-name references, because the electronic system supplies them.
A cover letter with any order from a hearing, confirming the order was approved by opposing counsel. Expedited signing requires a separate priority request, not a phone call.
Motions e-filed and posted on the docket before a hearing is scheduled. A portal notification that a document has been “accepted” does not mean it has been processed and docketed — and scheduling against an undocketed motion is a wasted slot.
Petitions specific enough to decide from. An estate petition may be expected to state the status of the creditor period, what claims have been filed, and confirmation that interested parties were served. A petition to sell real property may require a professional appraisal or market analysis; a vehicle sale, a Kelley Blue Book valuation and dealer bids; a minor’s settlement over $50,000, appointment of a guardian ad litem and full closing statements.
Order checklists completed in full. Partial compliance leaves the matter pending rather than moving it forward.

The 12-month standard

The one to plan around: an uncontested Pinellas estate is expected to be completed within 12 months. Extension petitions must state actual reasons — a petition saying only that more time is needed can be denied outright. The clerk’s system calculates the enforcement dates automatically, which means the deadline arrives whether or not anyone diarised it.

That single expectation should shape how a Pinellas estate is run from day one. It is not a soft target.

What assets are exempt from probate in Florida

This is the question most people actually arrive with, and the answer has two halves that get confused with each other.

Half one: assets that never enter probate at all

These pass outside the estate because of how they are titled, not because of any exemption:

Jointly held property with rights of survivorship — passes to the surviving owner.
Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts — pass to the named beneficiary.
Life insurance and retirement accounts with a living named beneficiary.
Assets held in a properly funded revocable trust.
Property subject to an enhanced life estate deed — a lady bird deed — which passes automatically at death.

If everything a person owned falls into this list, there may be no probate to open at all. That is the honest answer to whether a will avoids probate: it does not. A will is the instrument that governs how probate distributes assets. Titling is what keeps assets out of it.

Half two: property that is in the estate but protected from creditors

Different thing, different statutes — and this is the half that decides whether an estate qualifies for the faster summary administration route.

Protected homestead. Where the decedent’s residence qualifies as protected homestead and passes to heirs, it is generally exempt from the claims of creditors. That protection is a determination the court makes, not an assumption — and because §735.201 measures the estate less property exempt from creditors’ claims, a homestead determination can be what brings an estate under the $150,000 summary administration ceiling.
Exempt property under §732.402. Household furniture, furnishings and appliances in the decedent’s usual place of abode up to a net value of $20,000 at the date of death; two motor vehicles held in the decedent’s name and regularly used by the decedent or immediate family, neither exceeding 15,000 pounds gross weight; all qualified tuition programs under §529 of the Internal Revenue Code, including the Florida Prepaid College Trust Fund; and benefits paid under §112.1915.
Family allowance under §732.403. A reasonable allowance out of the estate, not exceeding $18,000 in total, for the maintenance of the surviving spouse and lineal heirs the decedent was supporting or obliged to support — in addition to protected homestead and other statutory entitlements.

Get these right and a Pinellas estate that looked like a formal administration may not be one. Get them wrong and you have filed the expensive route for no reason.

Opening an estate in Pinellas County

The sequence is the same whichever courthouse hears it.

First, the will. Under §732.901, 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. Contact the Pinellas County probate office before sending an original — the deposit goes to the Clerk, and the original travels by paper regardless of what else is e-filed.

Then, the route. Which of the four Florida routes applies decides everything downstream: your fee, your petition and your timeline. Disposition of personal property without administration is the smallest. Summary administration is available where the estate subject to administration in Florida, less property exempt from creditors’ claims, does not exceed $150,000 — a ceiling that doubled from $75,000 on 1 July 2026 under Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida. Formal administration is the full proceeding. Ancillary administration is for a decedent domiciled elsewhere who owned Florida property.

A note that matters more in this county than most. Pinellas has a large retiree and seasonal population, which means a meaningful share of Pinellas estates belong to people domiciled somewhere else. If the decedent voted, filed taxes or claimed homestead in another state, ancillary administration — not ordinary probate — is likely the correct filing here.

Choosing counsel in Pinellas County

Searching for a probate attorney in Pinellas County returns a long list and very little to sort it by. Three questions do most of the work.

“Which courthouse will my case be assigned to, and do you appear there?” This is the question specific to Pinellas. Because assignment follows the decedent’s location rather than yours, a probate attorney in north Pinellas County may find themselves regularly in St. Petersburg, and a probate lawyer in north Pinellas County whose practice is built around the Clearwater Judicial Center may not be. Ask which building your matter lands in and how often they are in it.

“How do you handle the judge’s published preferences?” A probate lawyer in Pinellas County who files here routinely will have the section’s order-formatting requirements, cover-letter rules and checklist expectations built into their process. One who files here occasionally will discover them a rejection at a time.

“What is your plan for the 12-month standard?” An uncontested Pinellas estate is expected to close within a year. Ask how they sequence a file to meet that, and what happens if a creditor claim or a homestead determination puts it at risk. Probate attorneys in Pinellas County who have a real answer to this will say so immediately.

Pinellas County probate records and case search

The Clerk maintains online access to Pinellas County probate records and the Pinellas County probate court records search: the docket, the parties, the filing date, the assigned section and, for most non-confidential filings, the document images.

Three things worth knowing. Probate cases are indexed under the decedent’s name — searching your own returns nothing. A case number is faster than a name in a county of nearly a million people. And guardianship files are confidential; the circuit has gone further than most, with an administrative order addressing the confidentiality of examining committee reports and guardian ad litem reports specifically. Those are not public documents.

Pinellas County probate forms

Pinellas County probate forms come from three places and they are not interchangeable: the Florida Supreme Court approved forms, the Sixth Judicial Circuit’s own guardianship forms and instructions, and the individual judge’s required order formats set out in their published preferences.

The circuit publishes a guardianship forms and information library covering initial inventories, annual reports, accountings and care plans. One requirement in it is easy to miss: an initial care plan filed after 23 January 2019 must include emergency procedures to be followed if evacuation orders are issued — a Gulf-coast requirement that exists because this circuit sits where it sits.

Guardianship in the Sixth Circuit

Beyond the statewide framework, the Sixth Circuit imposes real screening and reporting on guardians.

Before appointment, criminal background checks, credit checks where applicable, and Department of Children and Families reviews may all be required. Professional guardians must maintain registration and resubmit to a level 1 background screening at least every two years after appointment, at their own expense.

After appointment, guardians file initial inventories, annual reports, accountings, care plans and supporting financial documentation — and the circuit runs a dedicated guardian advocate training course of its own.

A guardianship in Pinellas is not a filing. It is a multi-year reporting relationship with a court that screens you at the front and reviews you every year afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

What assets are exempt from probate in Florida?

Two categories. Assets that never enter probate because of titling — jointly held property with survivorship, POD and TOD accounts, life insurance and retirement accounts with a living beneficiary, funded trust assets, and property under an enhanced life estate deed. And property that is in the estate but protected from creditors — protected homestead, exempt property under §732.402 (household goods to $20,000, two vehicles under 15,000 lbs, §529 plans, §112.1915 benefits), and the family allowance of up to $18,000 under §732.403.

Is homestead property exempt from probate in Florida?

Protected homestead is generally exempt from the claims of creditors when it passes to heirs, but that is a determination the court makes — not something that happens automatically. Homestead usually still has to be addressed in the probate, which is why Florida circuits publish separate homestead petitions and checklists.

Does a will avoid probate in Florida?

No. A will directs how the probate estate is distributed; it does not keep assets out of probate. What avoids probate is titling — survivorship, beneficiary designations and trusts.

Do all wills go through probate in Florida?

Not necessarily. If everything the decedent owned passed by titling or beneficiary designation, there may be nothing for the will to govern and no administration to open. The will must still be deposited with the clerk within 10 days of learning of the death under §732.901, whether or not probate follows.

Do you have to probate a will in Florida?

You must deposit the original will with the clerk in the decedent’s county of residence within 10 days. Whether an administration must then be opened depends on what the decedent owned in their sole name with no beneficiary designation.

Where is the probate court in Pinellas County?

The Pinellas County, Florida probate court operates from two locations: the Clearwater Courthouse, 315 Court Street, Room 106, Clearwater FL 33756, and the St. Petersburg Judicial Building, 545 First Avenue North, St. Petersburg FL 33701. Guardianship matters are largely heard at the 501 Building, 501 First Avenue North, St. Petersburg. The probate department phone is (727) 464-3321.

How does the probate court, Pinellas County, decide which building hears my case?

By where the decedent lived. North county goes to Clearwater, south county to St. Petersburg, under Administrative Order 2025-035, effective 8 December 2025. Guardianship is the exception — initial matters are largely heard by the Probate General Magistrates at the 501 Building regardless of where the case was filed.

Talk to a Florida probate attorney

Lorenzo Law is a Coral Gables firm devoted to probate, estate planning, guardianship, and trust and estate litigation throughout Florida, in English and Spanish. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. clerked in the probate division of Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit before founding the firm.

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

General information about the Pinellas County probate court, not legal advice; reading it creates no attorney-client relationship. Fees, forms, judicial preferences and local procedures change — confirm current requirements with the Clerk or the Sixth Judicial Circuit before filing.

Sources

Pinellas County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller — probate department
Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida — Probate and Guardianship Division administrative orders, including AO 2025-035 (assignment of probate cases in Pinellas County, eff. 8 December 2025), AO 2026-006 (confidentiality of examining committee and guardian ad litem reports), AO 2024-025 (guardianship), AO 2023-038 (electronic filing in Pinellas); guardianship information and forms; published judicial practice preferences, probate sections
§§ 28.2401, 112.1915, 732.402, 732.403, 732.901, 733.6171, 735.201, Florida Statutes
Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida (CS/HB 1337), effective 1 July 2026