Sarasota Probate Lawyer: When Probate Starts in Another State

A Sarasota probate lawyer spends more time than most on a question that barely arises elsewhere in Florida: whether the estate belongs in this state’s courts at all. On this stretch of the Gulf Coast a great many people who die owning property here were never legally residents of Florida, and that single fact changes the court, the procedure, the creditor rules and who is allowed to serve.

A Sarasota probate attorney working here therefore starts somewhere unusual. So this page is organised the way a Sarasota file is actually worked — threshold question first, courthouse later. If you already know the person who died was a lifelong Florida resident, skip to the filing section. If you are not sure, start at the top, because that is where the money is lost.

The wording you searched does not change the work. Whether you typed probate attorney Sarasota or probate lawyer Sarasota, with or without the FL, the job is identical, and a Sarasota estate lawyer who tells you otherwise is selling you a distinction that does not exist. There is one distinction that matters, and it is not lawyer-versus-attorney: a Sarasota estate attorney may mean somebody who arranges the transfer before death or somebody who executes it afterwards. Only one of those can still save you money.

Most of what people want in the first call is not representation. It is probate process guidance in Sarasota — somebody to say plainly what has to happen and whether a lawyer is needed at all. That conversation is free.

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: 11 August 2026.

Start here: whether the estate belongs in a Sarasota County court at all

Section 733.101(1), Florida Statutes, puts probate “in the county in this state where the decedent was domiciled.” Everywhere else in Florida that sentence is administrative. Here it is the case.

Sarasota County is 38.8 per cent aged 65 and over against a Florida figure of 22.8 per cent. On Siesta Key it is 53.6 per cent — more than half the island. The county’s own planning department publishes a permanent population of about 487,640 rising to over 570,000 in winter, a seasonal swing of roughly 82,000 people.

And then the number that ought to change how a family thinks about all this. On the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s 2024 figures, 136,711 homestead exemptions were granted across 302,287 real property parcels — about 45 per cent. The majority of parcels in this county carry no homestead exemption at all.

Some of that is investment property. A great deal of it is the snowbird pattern: somebody who owned a place here for twenty years, wintered in it, called it home in conversation, and remained legally domiciled in Ohio, Michigan, New York or Ontario. When one of them dies, the family assumes a Florida probate — and about half the time that assumption is wrong.

What section 222.17 requires, and the phrase that decides it

Florida gives a declaration of domicile a statutory form, and it is the closest thing to a paper answer on Florida domicile. Section 222.17, Florida Statutes, lets a person who has established domicile here evidence it by filing a sworn statement “in the office of the clerk of the circuit court for the county in which the said person shall reside.”

The subsection that matters for a seasonal resident is 222.17(2). Where somebody keeps more than one place of abode, the declaration states that the Florida home is his or her “predominant and principal home,” and that he or she intends to continue it permanently as such. Subsection (3) requires the declaration to name the current Florida residence, the former residence, and any other residence maintained elsewhere.

Subsection (4) runs the other way: a part-year resident who owns Florida property but is domiciled elsewhere may swear to exactly that. A declaration of domicile Florida residents record on arriving is the common filing. The reverse one is rare and, in a two-state family, often the more useful of the two.

“Predominant and principal home” is the whole argument. A recorded declaration is strong evidence and it is not conclusive. What a court and another state’s revenue department will actually weigh is the ordinary evidence of a life: where the driving licence and voter registration were, where the cars were titled, where the tax return was filed, where the doctors were, how many nights were spent where.

Why fewer than half of Sarasota County parcels carry a homestead exemption

Homestead does two separate jobs in Florida, and confusing them causes real damage in this market.

There is the tax exemption, administered by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser at 2001 Adams Lane, Sarasota, FL 34237 on (941) 861-8200, with a filing deadline of 1 March. And there is constitutional protected homestead, which shields the home from most creditors under Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution and dictates who inherits it under section 732.401.

Both depend on the property having been a permanent residence. A seasonal condominium on Siesta Key owned by a New York domiciliary is not protected homestead, is not beyond creditors, and does not pass under the constitutional rules. It is an ordinary estate asset — and if the estate is running in New York, it is Florida property sitting inside a foreign administration.

That is not a disaster. It is simply a different file, and it has to be identified in week one rather than month five.

Two-state estates: ancillary administration in Sarasota County

If the decedent was domiciled elsewhere and owned property here, section 734.102 governs the Florida side. Ancillary administration is the proceeding that moves Florida real property when the main estate belongs to another state’s court.

When a Sarasota family is told they need ancillary probate Sarasota counsel, this is what is meant and nothing more. Ancillary administration Florida law provides for is routine: the foreign will is admitted, a Florida personal representative is appointed, Florida creditors get their notice, and the parcel transfers. Our page on ancillary probate in Florida sets out who may serve and what has to be filed.

Who can serve as personal representative when the family lives out of state

This is the restriction that reshapes more Sarasota estates than any other, and almost nobody knows about it before they call.

Sections 733.301, 733.302 and 733.304 set out priority and eligibility. Where there is a will, the person named has first claim; without one, the surviving spouse comes first, then whoever a majority of the beneficiaries choose, then the nearest heir, with intestate shares set by sections 732.102 and 732.103.

But an individual who is not a Florida resident may serve only if they are a close relative by blood, marriage or adoption. A daughter in Michigan can serve. The trusted family accountant in Michigan cannot. Neither can the old friend named in a will drafted in Cleveland in 1998, nor a New Jersey corporate trustee that is not authorised here.

In a county where so many decedents kept their children, their lawyer and their bank in another state, that single sentence is why so many people end up searching for an executor of estate lawyer in Sarasota. Usually the answer is that the named person cannot serve, someone else has to be appointed, and the will’s real intention has to be honoured a different way.

Once appointed, the representative is a fiduciary under section 733.608 and personally accountable.

Sequencing the Florida case against the domiciliary estate

Two proceedings in two states do not run on the same clock, and nobody coordinates them for you.

The domiciliary court usually has to admit the will and appoint someone before Florida will accept authenticated copies. Florida’s creditor period then runs on its own timetable regardless of what the other state is doing. A closing scheduled off the domiciliary calendar routinely misses the Florida one.

We take probate cases from all over the State of Florida, and a large share of the Sarasota work is exactly this — being the Florida half of an estate whose family has never set foot in the county and does not need to.

The county line your property actually sits on

Section 733.101 puts venue in the county of domicile. Working out which county that is takes more than reading the envelope here, because two of this county’s boundaries run straight through communities.

Longboat Key sits in two counties, and the state counts it twice

The Town of Longboat Key runs down a barrier island that the Sarasota–Manatee county line crosses. The Town says so on its own elections page: “Because the Town of Longboat Key is situated in two counties (Manatee County and Sarasota County).”

The consequences are not theoretical. The Town runs two separate polling precincts, one for its Sarasota County voters and one for its Manatee County voters, and a resident who moves from one end of the island to the other without leaving town limits must file a fresh voter registration with a different supervisor. The State counts the population twice for the same reason — in the Legislature’s April 2025 estimates, Longboat Key appears under Sarasota County at 4,782 and again under Manatee County at 2,663.

For an estate that means: same town, same postal address, two different courthouses. Both counties sit in the Twelfth Circuit, so the circuit does not change, but the clerk who opens the file changes and the Official Records book that takes the deed changes with it. A Longboat Key file goes either to the Sarasota Clerk on Main Street or to the Manatee County Clerk in Bradenton, decided by the parcel and not the postcode.

If it lands on the Manatee side, everything shifts with it. The Manatee County probate court keeps its own counter, its own receipts and its own recording books, and a Manatee County probate file is not searchable in the Sarasota system. Families reasonably assume one clerk can look up the other’s records. Neither can.

We handle both sides of that line, which is why a family looking for a Bradenton probate attorney and a family looking for a Sarasota one are usually asking us the same question. The same is true before death — a Bradenton estate planning attorney and a Sarasota one draft under identical Florida law, and only the eventual courthouse differs.

Englewood crosses into the Twentieth Judicial Circuit

Longboat Key is the well-known trap. Englewood is the expensive one.

Englewood straddles the Sarasota–Charlotte county line, and Charlotte County is not in the Twelfth Circuit at all — it sits in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit. The plainest proof is that both counties run a public library in the same community: Sarasota County operates the Elsie Quirk Library at 100 West Dearborn Street, Charlotte County the Englewood Charlotte Public Library at 3450 North Access Road.

An Englewood decedent on the Sarasota side files in the Twelfth Circuit with the Sarasota Clerk. An Englewood decedent on the Charlotte side files in the Twentieth Circuit with the Charlotte County Clerk — different circuit, different judges, different administrative orders, different local practice, different Official Records. Same post office, same beach.

Do not resolve this from the ZIP code. The evidence cuts against every tidy version of the split: Charlotte County’s own library sits at a 34224 address while Sarasota County’s sits at 34223.

Lakewood Ranch, ZIP 34243 and the Manatee County line

Lakewood Ranch spans Manatee and Sarasota counties — over 25,000 acres, on the Lakewood Ranch Stewardship District’s own description and the 2005 special act that created it. It is a municipality in neither. And a “Sarasota, FL 34243” address is not proof of Sarasota County: Manatee County runs its own transit facility at 2411 Tallevast Road with a Sarasota 34243 mailing address.

The rule we actually apply before filing anything: ZIP codes are United States Postal Service delivery routes. They were never drawn to follow county lines and they routinely cross them. Venue follows the parcel. Pull the folio from the county property appraiser and settle it there.

Sarasota County has only four incorporated municipalities — Sarasota, Venice, North Port and the Sarasota portion of Longboat Key. Everything else, including Siesta Key, Nokomis, Osprey, Fruitville and Bee Ridge, is unincorporated Sarasota County, administered in Sarasota County regardless.

Filing in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit: two buildings, one clerk

Sarasota County sits in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, which covers three counties: Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto County to the east. One circuit, three sets of county records, three clerks.

Where the Sarasota County probate court actually sits

People searching for the Sarasota County probate court want one thing — an address — and the answer is two of them.

What you need	Where
File a petition, get certified copies, search a case, record a deed	Sarasota County Historic Courthouse, 2000 Main Street — Clerk’s counter, Rooms 102 and 103
Attend a hearing	Judge Lynn N. Silvertooth Judicial Center, 2002 Ringling Boulevard, Sarasota, FL 34237
South county	South County Courthouse, 4004 South Tamiami Trail, Venice, FL 34293 — opened 2022

The Historic Courthouse dates from 1927 and holds no hearings; it is the Clerk’s building. The Silvertooth Judicial Center is a block away on a different street, eleven storeys and sixteen courtrooms. Turning up at the wrong one is the commonest wasted morning in a Sarasota County probate file.

Practical details, current as of this writing:

Probate line — (941) 861-7400, published by the Clerk as 941-861-7400
Filings by post — P.O. Box 3079, Sarasota, FL 34230-3079
Counter hours — Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., in both Sarasota and Venice
Self-Help Center — 2002 Ringling Boulevard, first floor lobby
Probate judges: Judge Charles E. Williams in Sarasota, Judge Maria Ruhl at the South County Courthouse

One structural point worth knowing, because the neighbouring big market works the opposite way. Sarasota has a single combined office. Its full title is the Sarasota County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller, which is why people looking for the Sarasota County Clerk of Court and people looking for the recorder of deeds end up at the same counter. That office also serves as “the County Recorder, responsible for indexing and archiving all documents that create the Official Records of Sarasota County.” Orange County splits those two functions between two elected offices in two buildings, which is why families there take the deed to the wrong address — we set that out on our Orlando probate lawyer page. Sarasota’s version of the problem is the counter-versus-courtroom split above.

South county has its own courthouse but not its own county. Anyone searching for a probate attorney Venice FL wants a Sarasota County practitioner who will file at 4004 South Tamiami Trail rather than on Main Street — same clerk, same circuit, twenty miles apart.

JACS, and the hearings that must be in person from 3 August 2026

The Twelfth Circuit schedules hearing time through JACS, its Judicial Automated Calendaring System, rather than by telephoning chambers.

There is a current rule worth knowing before anyone assures you a hearing can be handled remotely. Effective 3 August 2026, and absent a stipulation, four categories must be heard in person: hearings on do-not-resuscitate orders, hearings to appoint an emergency temporary guardian, final guardianship hearings, and injunctions against the exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Other matters may go by telephone or Zoom where the credentials are given at scheduling and appear on the notice of hearing.

That last category is not a formality in a county where nearly two residents in five are over 65, and it tells you something about what this circuit sees.

What it costs to open a probate in Sarasota County

Sarasota publishes its own fee schedule, which not every Florida clerk does. As published:

Filing	Fee
Formal administration, ancillary administration, guardianship, curatorship or conservatorship	$400.00
Summary administration, estate of $1,000 or more	$345.00
Summary administration, estate under $1,000	$235.00
Opening an estate (one document or more)	$231.00
Disposition of personal property without administration	$231.00
Admission of a foreign will	$231.00
Caveat, or notice of trust	$41.00

Three costs make up a Sarasota probate: that filing fee, publication of the notice to creditors in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, and the attorney’s fee, which is much the largest. Section 733.6171 sets out fees presumed reasonable in formal administration, scaled to estate value, though an agreed flat fee is common and often lower. Our page on the cost of probate in Florida breaks it down.

On who pays probate attorney fees in Florida: ordinarily the estate, not the family personally. Administration fees come out of estate assets before anything is distributed.

One more thing worth asking a probate attorney Sarasota FL families are considering: whether the quoted figure includes the filing fee and publication or sits on top of them. The two answers differ by several hundred dollars.

Probating the estate of somebody who died at 88

The age profile of this county changes what actually turns up in a file, and it is worth naming rather than pretending every estate looks the same.

Wills drafted in another state, decades ago

The document in front of us was very often signed in Indiana in 1994, witnessed under that state’s rules, and never revisited after the move south. Most of the time it is perfectly admissible in Florida. What it frequently is not is current — it names an executor who has died, a beneficiary nobody has spoken to since, a bank that no longer exists, or a specific gift of property sold in 2009.

It also, quite often, names somebody who cannot serve under the residency rule above. None of that invalidates the will. It just means the estate runs differently from the way the family was told it would.

Capacity, undue influence, and estates that were already contested before the death

Where a will or a beneficiary designation was changed late — after a diagnosis, after a move into assisted living, after a new person appeared in the picture — the grounds for challenging it are narrow and specific: lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, improper execution, fraud, mistake or revocation. Disliking the outcome is not on the list, and a case built on unfairness alone does not survive.

What is different here is frequency and posture. This circuit added an in-person requirement for injunctions against the exploitation of a vulnerable adult, which is not a rule you write for a rare problem. Where that history exists, it is usually already documented before anyone dies, and the estate inherits it.

When a guardianship was already running

A meaningful share of Sarasota estates open with a guardianship file already on the docket. The guardian’s authority ends at death, the personal representative’s begins, and the two are frequently different people with a difficult history.

Practically, the guardianship accounting becomes the opening balance for the estate, the final report has to be filed, and any dispute that was live in the guardianship tends to re-emerge in the probate. It is worth telling us at the first call — it changes the sequence.

Condominium estates: what the association needs before anything can close

Sarasota County holds 53,180 condominium parcels, about 20 per cent of its taxable value on the Property Appraiser’s 2024 figures. A large share of what passes through probate on this coast is a unit rather than a house, and a unit brings a second organisation into the file.

Estoppel letters, transfer approval and assessments during administration

Three things reliably slow a condominium estate.

The association issues an estoppel certificate stating what is owed, and until a closing date is fixed nobody can price the arrears. Assessments and any special assessment keep accruing through the whole administration — they do not pause because the owner died. And many declarations require the association to approve a transfer, including a transfer to a beneficiary, which means the association’s timetable sits inside yours.

Start all three in the first month. An estate that waits until a buyer is under contract discovers the association meets monthly.

Rental rules on Siesta Key, Casey Key and Manasota Key

If the unit was being let, check the rule before the estate carries on letting it.

In unincorporated Sarasota County the general position is that leases must be for at least 30 days, with an express exception on the barrier islands — Siesta Key, Casey Key and Manasota Key — where shorter lets are permitted. Inside the City of Sarasota the minimum stay is seven full days and seven full nights, with a vacation rental certificate of registration required at $500 initially and $350 to renew.

A personal representative continuing a booking pattern the owner ran lawfully is not automatically operating lawfully themselves, and the registration does not simply transfer.

The surviving spouse’s rights, and why they surprise families here

Second marriages later in life are common on this coast, and Florida gives a surviving spouse rights that no will can remove.

The elective share under sections 732.201 to 732.2155 entitles a surviving spouse to 30 per cent of the elective estate — a figure that reaches well beyond the probate estate into revocable trusts, joint accounts, payable-on-death designations and certain transfers made during life. A will leaving everything to children from a first marriage does not defeat it. The election has a deadline and it has to be made properly.

Alongside it sit exempt property under section 732.402 — household furnishings up to a statutory limit, two vehicles, qualifying education savings — and, where the home was protected homestead, the constitutional rules under section 732.401 that decide who takes it regardless of the will.

For a family arriving with a document that says one thing and a statute that says another, this is usually the hardest conversation of the administration. It is far better had in the first fortnight.

Summary administration or formal administration: which route the estate takes

One number decides most files. Summary administration under section 735.201 is available where the value of the estate subject to administration in Florida, less property exempt from creditors’ claims, does not exceed $150,000 — or where the decedent has been dead more than two years. No personal representative is appointed, the filing fee drops from $400 to $345, and a clean case can finish in weeks.

That threshold was raised from $75,000 by House Bill 1337, chapter 2026-57, approved 29 April 2026 and effective 1 July 2026. The Legislature’s own statute pages still display the older compilation. The higher figure is the law.

The phrase that decides most files is “less property exempt from creditors’ claims” — and whether a Sarasota property is protected homestead depends on the domicile question at the top of this page. In a seasonal-ownership county that one answer can move an estate from the short route to the long one. Our page on summary administration in Florida sets out the full test.

Formal administration follows a fixed sequence: deposit the original will, petition for administration, appointment and letters, notice to creditors under section 733.212, inventory at date-of-death value, homestead determination where there is a house, payment of valid claims, then distribution and closing. If you searched how does probate work in Florida, that is the answer, and when is probate required in Florida has a shorter one: whenever an asset was titled solely in the decedent’s name with no beneficiary and no survivorship, and nothing else moves it.

The first two weeks, and the documents nobody can proceed without

Certified death certificates, and the Venice counter most people miss

Certified copies of a Florida death come from the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County, and there are two counters rather than one:

2200 Ringling Boulevard, Sarasota, FL 34237 — (941) 861-2810
4000 Tamiami Trail South, Venice, FL 34293 — (941) 861-3528

Both run Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed for lunch from noon to 12:30. The published fee is $10 per certificate. The county office holds Florida deaths from 2009 to the present; anything earlier comes from the state Bureau of Vital Statistics in Jacksonville. A copy showing cause of death is restricted to a family member or legal representative.

Order more than you think you need — every bank, insurer, pension administrator and title company keeps its own. Ask for at least one without cause of death for institutions that have no business seeing it.

Most deaths here are certified out of one of four hospitals: Sarasota Memorial Hospital, 1700 South Tamiami Trail; Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice, 2600 Laurel Road East, North Venice; HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital, 5731 Bee Ridge Road; and HCA Florida Englewood Hospital, 700 Medical Boulevard.

One local note that saves confusion on older files: ShorePoint Health Venice closed on 22 September 2022. A death certificate from 2022 or earlier may name a Venice hospital that no longer exists.

The ten-day deposit duty, and where a will usually turns out to be

Section 732.901 requires the custodian of an original will to deposit it with the clerk of the court having venue within ten days of learning of the death. The signed original, not a copy, and whether or not anyone intends to open an estate. In Sarasota County that is the Clerk’s counter on Main Street or at the South County Courthouse.

Look properly before concluding there is none. Safe deposit boxes, the drafting attorney’s file, and — in this county far more than most — a lawyer’s office in another state, often one that closed years ago. Our checklist of what to do when someone dies in Florida runs through the rest of the fortnight, including accounts: a bank that learns of a death restricts the account, joint and payable-on-death accounts usually pass straight through, and a solely held account will not release until letters of administration exist.

Creditors, timing, and the two-year bar

Formal administration takes a minimum of about six months because the creditor period must run; nine to eighteen months is more typical where property is being sold. Summary administration can finish in weeks.

Section 733.212 requires the notice to creditors. Section 733.702 sets the claim period — three months from first publication, or thirty days from service on a known or reasonably ascertainable creditor. Section 733.710 bars most claims two years after death regardless of what was filed.

Add time wherever the estate runs in two states. The Florida creditor clock and the domiciliary calendar are independent, and nobody reconciles them but you.

Selling the property, and recording the deed with the Clerk and Comptroller

A personal representative sells under the authority of the will or an order of the court, and where protected homestead is involved the order determining homestead normally comes first. The buyer’s title company asks for exactly those two documents. Marketing before they exist produces a contract nobody can close — which is the answer to sell house in probate Sarasota, and to sell house in probate Bradenton on the Manatee side. Our guide to selling a house during probate walks through the sequence.

Families selling an inherited house in Sarasota ask about tax before procedure, and the answer is usually reassuring. Establish date-of-death value early: it fixes the stepped-up basis, and on a Gulf-front property held since the 1980s the step-up removes most of the taxable gain on a prompt sale. Reconstructing that value two years later is far harder than getting an appraisal now.

The deed goes back to the same office that opened the file. Under section 28.24, Florida Statutes, and as published by the Clerk, recording runs at $10.00 for the first page, $8.50 for each additional page and $1.00 per name indexed beyond four, with documentary stamp tax at $0.70 per $100 of consideration. If the parcel turns out to sit on the Manatee or Charlotte side of a line, it records there instead.

Keeping the next Sarasota estate out of probate

A great deal of the work here is about instruments set up badly, set up in another state, or never funded.

A Sarasota wills and trusts attorney and a Sarasota trust attorney describe the same drafting from different angles, and a Sarasota elder law attorney adds the long-term-care and capacity layer on top. In a county with this age profile, the third layer is usually the one that matters.

Sarasota estate planning for somebody who splits the year between two states is a different exercise from planning for a lifelong resident. A revocable trust drafted in Illinois may work perfectly and still leave the Florida house outside it, because nobody deeded the property in. A will drafted before the move may name an executor who cannot serve here. A Sarasota estate planning attorney or Sarasota estate planning lawyer worth the fee begins by asking which state’s law is going to govern, not by producing a document.

The instrument that most reliably keeps a Florida house out of probate is the enhanced life estate deed — the lady bird deed. Properly drafted and recorded, it moves the property at death without a proceeding and leaves homestead protection and the Save Our Homes cap intact during life. Our explainer on lady bird deed tax consequences covers the trade-offs.

The two documents that prevent the most litigation are the ones nobody thinks about: a health care surrogate designation and a durable power of attorney, executed to Florida’s requirements. Our page on the Florida health care surrogate sets out what execution actually requires. People search for health care surrogates in Sarasota more than for almost anything else in this practice area locally, and they are right to.

Venice, North Port and the south county communities

Demand looks different at the southern end of the county, and it is almost entirely preventative.

People searching wills North Port are usually doing this before there is anything to administer, which is the right time. North Port is the county’s largest city and skews younger than the Sarasota average, so the work tends to be first-time planning rather than a rewrite.

Living trust preparation North Port families ask about is the same instrument used everywhere in Florida, and so is what people mean by revocable living trusts North Port. Nothing about a North Port file changes procedurally — it is still a Sarasota County matter, filed at Venice or on Main Street. The same holds a few miles west: living trusts Venice FL residents set up are ordinary Florida revocable trusts, and the only Venice-specific question is whether the property was ever actually deeded into one.

And the question underneath all of it — probate avoidance Venice FL and probate avoidance North Port — has one answer everywhere in Florida. A will does not avoid probate; it is instructions to the probate court. What avoids probate is ownership: a funded trust, a recorded enhanced life estate deed, live beneficiary designations, and joint ownership set up deliberately rather than by accident.

Talk to a Sarasota probate lawyer before anything is filed

If somebody has died owning property in Sarasota, Venice, Longboat Key, Siesta Key, North Port, Englewood or across the line in Bradenton, the useful first conversation is four questions long. Where were they domiciled. Which parcel is it. Is there an original will. And is any part of the estate already running in another state.

Those four answers decide the court, the procedure, the timeline and the cost. Call us and we will work through them before anything is filed. There is no charge for that conversation and no obligation at the end of it — and sometimes the honest answer is that a family does not need us at all.

Sarasota probate FAQs: residency, cost and timing

What is probate in Florida?

Probate is the court process that transfers what a person owned at death to the people entitled to it, after debts and expenses are paid. For a Sarasota resident it is filed in the probate division of the Circuit Court for Sarasota County, in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit. It is supervised paperwork rather than a trial, and most families never attend court.

Was my parent a Florida resident for probate purposes?

That is a question of domicile, not of how many months they spent here. A recorded declaration of domicile under section 222.17 is strong evidence, and so are the driving licence, voter registration, vehicle titles, tax filings and the address used for medical care. If they were domiciled elsewhere and owned a Sarasota property, the main estate belongs to that state’s court and Florida runs an ancillary administration under section 734.102 for the property here. Getting this wrong at the start is the most expensive mistake we see on this coast.

Where is probate filed in Sarasota County?

With the Sarasota Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller. The filing counter is at the Historic Courthouse, 2000 Main Street, or at the South County Courthouse, 4004 South Tamiami Trail in Venice; hearings are held at the Judge Lynn N. Silvertooth Judicial Center, 2002 Ringling Boulevard. Postal filings go to P.O. Box 3079, Sarasota, FL 34230-3079, and the probate line is (941) 861-7400.

What assets are exempt from probate in Florida?

Anything passing by operation of law or beneficiary designation: jointly held property with right of survivorship, payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts, life insurance and retirement accounts with a named living beneficiary, and property already titled in a funded trust. Protected homestead is treated separately — generally not an estate asset, though a court order determining homestead is usually still needed before a house can be sold.

How long does probate take in Florida?

Summary administration can finish in a few weeks to a couple of months. Formal administration takes at least six months because the creditor claim period must run, and nine to eighteen months is more typical when property is being sold. An estate running in Florida and another state at the same time takes longer, because the two proceedings have to be sequenced.

How much does probate cost in Florida?

Three separate costs. The Sarasota County filing fee — $400 for formal administration, $345 for a summary administration of $1,000 or more. Publication of the notice to creditors. And the attorney’s fee, which is the largest. Section 733.6171 sets out fees presumed reasonable in formal administration based on estate value, though an agreed flat fee is common and often lower.

What is the 10 day rule for probate in Florida?

Section 732.901, Florida Statutes, requires the custodian of an original will to deposit it with the clerk of the court having venue within ten days of learning of the death. It applies to the signed original rather than a copy, and whether or not anyone intends to open an estate. In Sarasota County the deposit goes to the Clerk’s counter at 2000 Main Street or at the South County Courthouse in Venice.

Is homestead property exempt from probate in Florida?

Protected homestead is not an asset of the probate estate and is beyond most creditors. That does not mean nothing has to be done: the homestead character normally has to be established by court order before a sale can close, and the property passes under the constitutional and statutory rules rather than freely under the will. It also depends on the property having been a permanent residence — a live question in a seasonal county.

What happens if you don’t file probate in Florida?

Assets stay stuck. Title cannot transfer, so the property cannot be sold or refinanced and stays in a dead person’s name, and banks will not release solely held accounts. Anyone holding an original will still has the ten-day deposit duty. Section 733.710 bars most claims two years after death, but waiting does not clear title — it usually makes the paperwork harder and more expensive.

Do I need a probate attorney in Florida?

In formal administration, almost always — a personal representative who is not the sole interested person is generally required to be represented. A summary administration can be filed without counsel in narrow circumstances. Once there is real property, protected homestead, more than one beneficiary, a creditor, a condominium association or a second state involved, Florida practice effectively requires a lawyer.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from a primary source. Fees, addresses and hours change — confirm anything you are relying on before you act on it.

Florida Statutes — chapters 731 to 735, and sections 222.17, 732.401, 732.402, 732.901, 733.101, 733.212, 733.301, 733.608, 733.6171, 733.702, 733.710, 734.102, 735.201 and 28.24.
Chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida (House Bill 1337) — approved 29 April 2026, effective 1 July 2026, raising the summary administration threshold to $150,000. The Legislature’s statute pages still display the earlier 2025 compilation showing $75,000.
Sarasota County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller — published probate fee schedule, recording fees, counter locations and hours, and postal filing address.
Twelfth Judicial Circuit of Florida — JACS scheduling, division assignments, and the in-person hearing requirement effective 3 August 2026.
Sarasota County Property Appraiser, 2024 Annual Report — 136,711 homestead exemptions across 302,287 parcels, and 53,180 condominium parcels.
United States Census Bureau, QuickFacts — age-65-and-over shares for Sarasota County, Florida and Siesta Key.
Sarasota County government — permanent and in-season population estimates; Florida Legislature, Office of Economic and Demographic Research — April 2025 municipal estimates, including the two Longboat Key figures.
Town of Longboat Key — elections page confirming the town sits in two counties and runs two precincts.
Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County — death certificate fees, hours, record range and the Sarasota and Venice counters.
Sarasota County and City of Sarasota ordinances — minimum rental terms and the barrier-island exception.