Pinellas County probate litigation attorney
A Pinellas County probate litigation attorney works on the estates that are fought over rather than simply filed. Contested estates from St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo, Pinellas Park, Dunedin and Palm Harbor are heard in the Sixth Judicial Circuit, and probate is filed at the Clearwater Courthouse, 315 Court Street, Room 106, Clearwater, FL 33756. That is where a will is challenged, where a personal representative is removed, where a trustee is made to account — and, in the case below, where an elderly person’s accounts can be frozen while they are still alive.
Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. handles contested probate, will contests, trust litigation and elder exploitation matters in all 67 Florida counties, in English and in Spanish. The initial consultation is free.
Updated August 6, 2026. Every statute and every Sixth Circuit filing rule on this page was read against the current Florida Statutes and the Pinellas County Clerk’s own probate page this week. The deadline that ends most Pinellas cases before they start is §733.212(3) — 3 months, not 90 days, from service of the notice of administration.
What counts as probate litigation in Pinellas County?
Any estate dispute a judge has to decide rather than a clerk record. Uncontested probate is paperwork. Litigation begins when two people who both have standing disagree about the document, the money, or the person holding it.
| Dispute | What is actually contested | Governing section |
|---|---|---|
| Will contest | How the document was made — capacity, undue influence, execution | §732.5165 |
| Revocation of probate | A will already admitted, challenged before final discharge | §733.109 |
| Removing a personal representative | Conduct after appointment — waste, conflict, refusal to account | §733.504 |
| Trust dispute | A trust or amendment procured by influence, fraud or duress | §736.0406 |
| Breach of fiduciary duty | A trustee’s accounting, distributions, or silence | §736.0813 |
| Exploitation of a vulnerable adult | Money moved while the person was alive — and still is | §825.1035 |
That last row is not like the others, and it is the reason this page exists in the shape it does.
Can you stop financial exploitation before the person dies?
Yes — and most families are never told this remedy exists.
§825.1035 creates an injunction for protection against exploitation of a vulnerable adult. It is a civil order, obtained in the circuit court, while the person is still living. The Sixth Circuit maintains a standing administrative order specifically on these injunctions — this is established practice here, not an experiment.
What makes it different from every other remedy on this page:
- There is no filing fee. The statute is explicit: “the clerk of the circuit court may not assess an initial filing fee or service charge for petitions filed under this section.”
- It can be granted ex parte — without the other side present — where the court finds immediate danger, likelihood of irreparable harm, a substantial likelihood of success, and that the injury outweighs the harm to the respondent.
- A temporary injunction can freeze assets and lines of credit, restrain further acts of exploitation, award exclusive possession of the dwelling, and prohibit contact. It runs for up to 15 days, extendable once for up to a further 30.
- A final injunction can order the money returned.
Who can file: the vulnerable adult; their guardian; a person or organization acting on their behalf with consent; an agent under a valid durable power of attorney; or someone simultaneously petitioning for emergency temporary guardianship. The petition must set out the specific facts of the exploitation or imminent exploitation.
Why this matters more than it sounds: by the time a family reaches a probate lawyer, the usual story is that an account was emptied two years ago and the person has since died. If the person is still alive and it is still happening, the fastest route is not a will contest. It is this, and it costs nothing to file.
Who can contest a will in Pinellas County?
Only an interested person. §731.201(23) defines that as “any person who may reasonably be expected to be affected by the outcome of the particular proceeding involved.” One practical question: would you receive more if this will fell than you receive under it?
- You can usually contest even if you are not named, so long as you would take without the will — as an intestate heir, or under an earlier will this one replaced. Being written out is not a bar to standing; it is often the evidence.
- A step-child normally cannot, unless legally adopted or named in a prior will.
- A surviving spouse has rights that require contesting nothing. The elective share under §732.2065 is “an amount equal to 30 percent of the elective estate”, whatever the will says. Price that first — it is frequently larger and far cheaper than a contest.
- Standing is issue-specific. A creditor is an interested person for the questions that touch the debt and no further.
How long do you have to contest a will in Pinellas County?
Three months from the date you are served with the notice of administration, under §733.212(3). Miss it and the objection is “forever barred.”
- It is 3 calendar months, not 90 days. Served 1 January, the deadline is 1 April — 91 days, wider in a leap year.
- It runs from service, not from the death and not from when you found out. Two siblings served two weeks apart have two different deadlines.
- It extends only for estoppel based on a misstatement by the personal representative about the deadline itself, and never past the earlier of final discharge or one year after service.
If you were never served, that clock has not started against you.
The other clocks running alongside it:
| Clock | Period | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Objection after service of the notice of administration | 3 months | §733.212(3) |
| Petition to revoke probate | Before final discharge | §733.109 |
| Creditor claim after first publication | 3 months | §733.702 |
| Creditor claim, absolute outer bar | 2 years from death | §733.710 |
| Action against a trustee over a matter disclosed in an accounting | 6 months from receipt | §736.1008 |
| Custodian’s duty to deposit an original will | 10 days after learning of the death | §732.901 |
What are the grounds for contesting a will in Florida?
Not that the split feels unfair. §732.5165 is one sentence:
“A will is void if the execution is procured by fraud, duress, mistake, or undue influence.”
Four grounds, plus one from elsewhere in the code:
- Undue influence — someone in a position of trust overbore the testator’s free will. The most common by a wide margin.
- Lack of testamentary capacity — the testator did not understand the nature of the act, the extent of the property, or the natural objects of their bounty. Measured at the moment of signing, which is why a dementia diagnosis is evidence and not proof.
- Improper execution — §732.502 requires signature at the end, before two attesting witnesses who sign in the presence of the testator and of each other.
- Fraud, duress or mistake — a forged signature, a page swapped after execution, a document the signer was told was something else.
- Revocation — a later will or codicil that superseded the one offered.
Two features that change strategy:
- Only the part so procured fails. “Any part of the will is void if so procured, but the remainder of the will not so procured shall be valid.” Attacking the one clause that changed is often the stronger case.
- A procured revocation is also void. If a good will was destroyed under pressure, that act is attackable on its own, and an earlier will can revive.
How do you prove undue influence?
Often you do not have to prove it outright.
Under §733.107(1) the proponent establishes proper execution and attestation, and the burden then moves to the challenger. That is why most contests are uphill.
Then subsection (2). Where the presumption of undue influence applies, 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 it triggers, the favoured beneficiary must disprove undue influence.
Florida courts look at whether the beneficiary stood in a confidential relationship with the decedent, was substantially benefited, and was active in procuring the will — and on that last element at conduct such as being present at the signing, recommending the attorney, knowing the contents beforehand, giving the drafter instructions, securing the witnesses, and keeping the will afterwards.
What to gather:
- Medical records for the twelve months around signing — to establish dependence, not incapacity.
- Who made the appointment, who drove, who sat in the room, who paid.
- Bank and brokerage statements — new joint accounts, new signature cards, new powers of attorney.
- The drafting attorney’s file. Often decisive, often obtainable.
- Isolation — changed locks, blocked calls, visitors turned away.
- Timing. A will changed weeks after a hospital discharge, favouring the person who managed it, is a different document from one signed in good health five years earlier.
Do you file in Pinellas or Pasco?
A question unique to this circuit, and it catches out-of-county counsel constantly.
The Sixth Judicial Circuit covers two counties — Pinellas and Pasco — and they have entirely separate Clerks of Court. Same circuit, same judges’ bench, different filing office, different building, different phone number. Venue follows where the decedent resided:
- Pinellas resident — St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo, Pinellas Park, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs, Seminole — files with the Pinellas County Clerk, probate at the Clearwater Courthouse.
- Pasco resident — New Port Richey, Port Richey, Dade City, Zephyrhills, Land O’ Lakes, Wesley Chapel, Hudson — files with the Pasco County Clerk, at the West Pasco Judicial Center, 7530 Little Road, New Port Richey or the Robert D. Sumner Judicial Center, 38053 Live Oak Avenue, Dade City.
Filing in the wrong county is not a formality. It costs weeks, and in a contested estate where the §733.212(3) clock is running, weeks are the whole case.
Can an executor of a will remove a beneficiary?
No. A personal representative — Florida’s term for what most people call the executor — administers the estate. They do not rewrite it. There is no power to disinherit anyone, reduce a share, or decide a beneficiary no longer deserves what the will leaves them.
What a personal representative can do, which is what usually prompts the question:
- Delay. Distribution can lawfully wait for creditor periods, tax clearance, or a property sale. It can also unlawfully wait for no reason, and from the outside the two look identical.
- Charge the estate. Fees and costs reduce what is left.
- Dispute that you are a beneficiary at all, if the will is ambiguous or a later document exists.
- Sell the asset you wanted. A specific devise generally survives; residuary property may not.
None of that is removal. If a personal representative behaves as though the inheritance is theirs to allocate, that is not a power they hold — it is a ground to remove them.
How do you remove a personal representative or a trustee?
Two different statutes, two different tests.
A personal representative is removable on twelve enumerated grounds under §733.504. The ones that arise in real Pinellas cases:
- Failure to comply with a court order, unless superseded on appeal
- Failure to account for a sale, or to produce the estate’s assets when required
- Wasting or maladministration of the estate
- Holding or acquiring interests adverse to the estate that interfere with administration
- Failure to give bond; conviction of a felony; incapacity
Note the fourth. A personal representative who is also a beneficiary, and who is buying estate property or preferring their own claim, may be removable on conflict grounds with no allegation of dishonesty at all.
A trustee is removable under §736.0706, on the application of the settlor, a cotrustee or a beneficiary: for a serious breach of trust; where lack of cooperation among cotrustees substantially impairs administration; or where unfitness, unwillingness or persistent failure to administer effectively means removal best serves the beneficiaries.
On who pays: §733.106 lets the court award reasonable compensation from the estate to an attorney who rendered services to it, and direct “from what part of the estate they shall be paid” — including against the share of a beneficiary whose conduct drove the cost.
What are your rights as a beneficiary?
Under a will: to be served with the notice of administration and the inventory; to an accounting; to object within the §733.212(3) window; and to petition for removal.
Under a trust, considerably more than most beneficiaries in Clearwater and St. Petersburg are ever told. §736.0813 opens with a duty, not a discretion: “The trustee shall keep the qualified beneficiaries of the trust reasonably informed of the trust and its administration.” It then requires, within 60 days of accepting the trust, notice of acceptance and the trustee’s name and address; within 60 days of the trust becoming irrevocable, notice of its existence, the settlor’s identity, and your right to request a copy of the trust instrument; and a trust accounting at least annually.
A trustee who will not tell you the trust exists is already in breach of the statute’s first sentence.
⚠️ And the trap that runs the other way: §736.1008 bars a claim over any matter “adequately disclosed in a trust disclosure document” unless suit is filed within 6 months after receipt. Read every accounting the week it arrives.
Does a no-contest clause stop you?
No. §732.517 is a single sentence: a provision in a will purporting to penalize any interested person for contesting the will, or instituting other proceedings relating to the estate, is unenforceable.
In terrorem clauses are enforceable in many states. They are not enforceable here, in wills or in trusts. The clause may still be sitting in the document and may still read as though it works. It does not. Whatever the risks of a contested estate in Florida, forfeiting what you were already left is not among them.
What happens if the money was taken and the person has already died?
Then the exploitation injunction described above is no longer available, and the claim runs against whoever took it. Three consequences stack:
1. The instrument dies. A will procured by influence is void under §732.5165; a trust or amendment so procured is void under §736.0406.
2. Civil liability, potentially trebled. §772.11 gives a person injured by a violation of §825.103(1), proved “by clear and convincing evidence,” a claim for threefold the actual damages — subject to a written pre-suit demand and a 30-day compliance window.
3. Criminal exposure. §825.103 makes exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult a felony graded by value: third degree under $10,000, second degree from $10,000 to under $50,000, first degree at $50,000 or more. Charging is the State Attorney’s decision.
Where probate is heard in Pinellas and Pasco
| Location | Address | County |
|---|---|---|
| Clearwater Courthouse — probate division, Room 106 | 315 Court St, Clearwater, FL 33756 · (727) 464-3321 | Pinellas |
| St. Petersburg Judicial Building | 545 First Ave N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 | Pinellas |
| Pinellas County Justice Center | 14250 49th St N, Clearwater, FL 33762 | Pinellas |
| West Pasco Judicial Center | 7530 Little Rd, New Port Richey, FL 34654 | Pasco |
| Robert D. Sumner Judicial Center | 38053 Live Oak Ave, Dade City, FL 33523 | Pasco |
Do you need a lawyer to deposit the will?
No, and the Pinellas Clerk says so plainly. The custodian of an original will must deposit it with the Clerk in the county where the decedent lived, within 10 days of learning of the death, under §732.901. You will need the date of death or the last four digits of the decedent’s Social Security number. There is no filing fee to deposit.
What you should not do is assume that depositing the will starts the case. It does not. It parks the document with the court and starts nothing.
And if someone else is holding the original and will not lodge it, that is not a stalemate — §732.901 lets the court order a custodian who fails without just cause to pay “all costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
What does a contested estate cost, and how long does it take?
It depends on whether the other side is defending conduct or defending a document, and on whether the §733.107(2) presumption is in play. A case where the burden shifts is a different economic proposition from one where it does not, and that assessment can usually be made at the first meeting.
What drives the number:
- the volume of medical and financial records to obtain and read
- whether a guardianship or power of attorney ran alongside
- how many beneficiaries must be served and how many are represented
- whether the estate holds Florida real property, a closely held business, or out-of-state assets
- whether the fight is over the will alone or over lifetime transfers as well
- whether the personal representative is also the favoured beneficiary, which merges two disputes into one
What you will not read here is an estimate of your odds. Rule 4-7.13 prohibits promises about outcomes, and no honest lawyer prices a case they have not seen.
What does “probate litigation specialist” mean in Florida?
It is a regulated term. The Florida Bar certifies in Wills, Trusts and Estates, and Rule 4-7.14 permits specialist or expert only where the claim is objectively verifiable — by that certification, or by the lawyer’s training, record and substantial involvement in the area.
What is verifiable about this office:
- Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002, licensed and in active practice in Florida since 2013. Anyone can confirm it free in The Florida Bar’s member directory.
- Practice concentrated in probate, wills, trusts and the transfer of Florida real property.
- Solo practice: the same person answers the phone, files the petition and appears in court.
- Service in English and Spanish, in all 67 counties — Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough, Manatee and the rest.
What you will not read here is that this is the best firm in Pinellas County. Rule 4-7.13 prohibits unsupported comparisons.
What to do this week
If the person is still alive and money is still moving, the exploitation injunction above is the urgent one. That is the urgent one, it costs nothing to file, and it is the only remedy on this page with a clock measured in days.
If you have been served with a notice of administration, the clock in §733.212(3) is already running and does not pause while you decide. Bring three things:
- The will, and any earlier will or codicil you have seen.
- The notice, with its date of service — the date on the envelope sets the deadline.
- Anything showing who was near the decedent in the final year. Calendars, texts, bank statements, the name of the person who drove to the lawyer’s office.
Speak to a Pinellas County probate litigation attorney directly. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. — (305) 224-6811. Free consultation in English or Spanish, for contested estates anywhere in Pinellas and Pasco: St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo, Pinellas Park, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs, Seminole, New Port Richey and Wesley Chapel. You can also write from the contact page.
For the underlying law on challenging a will statewide, see contesting a will in Florida. Across the bay, see Tampa probate litigation attorney.
Related: Florida probate litigation lawyer · Florida trust litigation attorney · Tampa probate litigation attorney · Miami probate litigation attorney · Fort Lauderdale probate litigation attorney. Esta página en español: impugnar un testamento en Florida.
About this page. Author and reviewer: Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002, in practice in the state since 2013. Every statute cited was read against the Florida Statutes, and the Pinellas and Pasco courthouse locations, will-deposit procedure and Sixth Circuit administrative orders confirmed against the Pinellas County Clerk of the Circuit Court and the Sixth Judicial Circuit, on August 6, 2026.
This page offers general information about Florida law and does not constitute 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.