Florida probate
How estate property actually reaches the market in Florida
Last updated
Most people working probate lists are calling the wrong person at the wrong time. They pull a list of recent deaths, look up the property, and contact whoever the roll says owns it — who is dead. The name that matters is the personal representative, and they cannot sell anything until a court says so.
This page explains the sequence: who gets appointed, what has to happen before a sale is possible, and the two places Florida estates most often stall. It is procedure, not legal advice — if you are making decisions about a specific estate, that is a conversation for a Florida probate attorney. Probate is one of several public distress records; here are the other distress signals worth tracking.
The decedent is not the seller
When someone dies owning Florida real estate, the property does not become instantly sellable by the family. Florida opens a case in the circuit court of the county where the person was domiciled, and the court appoints a personal representative — the Florida term for what other states call an executor or administrator. The court issues letters of administration, and those letters are the document that lets a human being sign a deed on behalf of an estate.
In formal administration the personal representative sells; where there is no will, or the will gives no usable power of sale, no title passes until the court authorizes or confirms the sale (s. 733.613). In summary administration the court may enter an order allowing immediate distribution of the assets to the people entitled to them (s. 735.206(3)). This is the single most useful thing to understand about probate as a lead source, because it tells you what you are actually waiting for. A death is not a signal. An appointment is.
Section 733.301 of the Florida Statutes sets who has preference for appointment. If there is a will, it is the person the will names. If there is not, the surviving spouse comes first, then the person selected by a majority of the heirs. That ordering is why the name on the probate filing is often not the name you would have guessed from the obituary.
Two paths, and only one of them usually sells a house
Florida has a short path and a long path, and knowing which one a case is on tells you roughly everything about the timeline.
Summary administration (the short path)
Under section 735.201, summary administration is available when the estate subject to administration in Florida — less property exempt from creditors — does not exceed $75,000, or when the decedent has been dead for more than two years. There is no personal representative appointed. The court simply enters an order distributing the property to whoever is entitled to it.
The two-year route matters more than the dollar figure for anyone working older filings. A house worth far more than $75,000 can go through summary administration purely because enough time has passed.
Formal administration (the long path)
The general path. A representative is appointed, creditors are noticed, claims are resolved, and the estate is closed. Most estates holding saleable real estate go this way, and it is where the timeline comes from.
Whether the representative can sell without a separate court order depends on the will and on section 733.613. A well-drafted will usually grants the power directly. Without it, the representative petitions the court, which adds weeks.
The creditor period sets the floor
In formal administration the representative publishes a notice to creditors. Under section 733.702, a creditor must file its claim by the later of three months after that first publication, or thirty days after being served directly. That three-month window has to run before the estate can be safely closed.
This is why a Florida probate that is going perfectly still, in practice, rarely finishes in under five months, and why six to twelve is normal. Section 733.710 puts an outer wall on it: a claim not filed within two years of death is barred regardless.
Practically, the property can often be sold during this window — the creditor period governs closing the estate, not listing the house. But the representative and their attorney will be thinking about whether the sale proceeds need to be held, and that shapes how flexible they can be on terms.
Homestead is a common reason an estate sale stalls at the title stage.
Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution protects homestead property from most creditors, and on death it passes to the heirs outside the creditor process. That sounds like good news, and mostly it is. The complication is that the constitution also restricts who homestead can pass to when there is a surviving spouse or minor child — a will cannot simply override it.
In practice the court enters an order determining homestead status, and a title company will want that order before insuring a sale. When an estate deal stalls without an obvious reason, homestead is the first place to look. It is procedural rather than fatal, but it takes time nobody planned for.
What this means for how you work the list
- 1. Find the representative, not the estate. The contact that matters is a living person with authority. An estate has no phone number.
- 2. Expect them to be out of state. In the retirement and second-home counties the heirs frequently live somewhere else and have no plan to keep a Florida house.
- 3. Sell certainty, not price. A representative has a duty to the estate and a lawyer watching. A clean close with proof of funds beats a higher number with contingencies more often here than in any other lead type.
- 4. Time your contact to the appointment. Too early and there is nobody who can transact. Months late and someone else has already called.
- 5. Do not lead with the death. This is the part people get wrong. You are contacting someone administering an estate about a property decision they already know they have to make.
Probate coverage by county
Florida probate procedure is identical statewide, but the property coming out of it is not. A Walton County estate is usually an out-of-state owner holding a second home; a Levy County estate is usually acreage. Each page covers what the local estate inventory actually looks like.
Common questions
Can you buy a house that is in probate in Florida?
Yes. The sale is made by the personal representative, not by the heirs, and the representative needs letters of administration from the court before they can sign. Whether they also need a separate court order depends on what the will authorises and on section 733.613 of the Florida Statutes. The practical question is never "is it for sale" — it is "has the representative been appointed yet".
How long does probate take in Florida?
In practice, formal administration rarely closes in under five months, because section 733.702 gives creditors three months from the first publication of the notice to creditors to file claims, and that period has to run. In practice, six to twelve months is a normal range. Summary administration is much faster because it skips the appointment of a representative entirely.
What is the difference between formal and summary administration?
Summary administration is the short path. Under section 735.201 it is available when the estate subject to administration in Florida, less property exempt from creditors, does not exceed $75,000, or when the decedent has been dead more than two years. It produces an order distributing property rather than appointing a representative. Formal administration is the general path, and it is what most saleable real estate goes through.
Does homestead property go through probate in Florida?
Protected homestead passes to the heirs outside the creditor process under Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution, but the court still normally enters an order determining that the property was homestead. That order is what a title company will want to see. Homestead is a common reason an estate sale stalls at the title stage.
What if the person who died lived in another state?
Florida property owned by an out-of-state decedent goes through ancillary administration under section 734.102. It is common in the second-home counties — Walton, Martin, Flagler — and it means the heirs you are looking for may never have set foot in Florida.
What are probate leads?
A probate lead is real estate where the owner has died and the property is moving through Florida’s probate court process — the estate, not a living seller, holds title until a court appoints someone with authority to act. Lispend’s probate leads are built from that Florida probate court activity: the case, the property involved, and the personal representative’s name and mailing address where the county’s own filings resolve one. See how the representative is chosen above, and browse county coverage below.
How do I find probate records in Florida?
Florida probate case files are held by the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the decedent lived — the same court referenced throughout this page, whether the estate goes through formal or summary administration. The county pages below name each county’s circuit and clerk. Probate case records are public court records: access to judicial-branch records is governed by Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration 2.420, which opens them except as the rule provides. So what a clerk can hand over — in person, by mail, or through the county’s own online case search — varies by document, not by county.
How do you search probate records in Florida?
Most Florida clerks run their own online case-search tool, searchable by the decedent’s name or case number, and it is the fastest way to confirm whether a case exists and see its docket. The docket shows whether a personal representative has been appointed yet, which — as covered above — is the real signal, not the date of death. Some documents inside a file, certain financial or medical exhibits among them, are sealed rather than public, so a docket search and a full-file review are not the same thing; the clerk’s office can say what is available for a specific case.
Are probate records public in Florida?
Yes, with limits. Probate case records are public court records: access to judicial-branch records is governed by Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration 2.420, which opens them except as the rule provides. What is public normally includes a case’s docket — who filed what, and when. Specific documents inside the file can still be confidential: certain financial account details, medical records, and material a judge has separately sealed are the common exceptions. Estate inventories and accountings are confidential: they are open only to the personal representative, the personal representative’s attorney, an interested person, or anyone the court allows for good cause (s. 733.604(1)(b)). If a document you need is not on the public docket, the clerk’s office can say why and what the alternative is.
What happens in Florida probate court when there is no will?
Someone who dies without a will dies "intestate," and Florida’s intestate succession statute — chapter 732, Part I of the Florida Statutes — sets who inherits: the surviving spouse and descendants first, then parents, then siblings, in a fixed order rather than anyone’s preference. The estate still opens a case in the circuit court in the county where the decedent lived, and the court still has to appoint a personal representative before anyone can sell the property; section 733.301, covered above, sets who has priority for that appointment when there is no will naming one. Whether the case runs formal or summary administration still depends on the estate’s value and how long it has been, exactly as it would with a will.
Can you check probate records?
Lispend is not a general probate-records lookup tool for any county or case you name — the probate leads on this page are Florida cases pulled from the counties covered below, resolved into a personal representative and, where the record allows it, a mailing address. To check a specific case yourself, the file is public and held by the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the decedent lived — see the two questions above for how to find and search it.
Statute references verified against the Florida Senate’s published statutes on 2026-08-25. Probate thresholds are set by the legislature and do change — confirm the current text at flsenate.gov before relying on a figure. This page describes procedure and is not legal advice.