Charlotte County Probate Court: Where to File and What to File

Where the Charlotte County Probate Court Actually Sits

Charlotte County probate is heard in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit, at the Charlotte County Justice Center at 350 East Marion Avenue in Punta Gorda, where the county centralizes probate. Filings go through the Charlotte County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller, whose probate line is (941) 637-2210, and the counter is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Court Administration sits in the same building at (941) 637-2281.

Two circuit judges split Charlotte’s decedent estates in half, and two different judges split guardianship, so an estate and a guardianship for the same family sit with different judges. The hearings themselves are another matter again, because every probate matter here is referred to a magistrate.

The probate counter is at the Charlotte County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller at the Charlotte County Justice Center, 350 East Marion Avenue, Punta Gorda, FL 33950, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Saturday and Sunday, (941) 637-2210. The Clerk publishes no room or floor for the probate counter, and general questions go to ClerkInfo@CharlotteClerk.com. Court Administration sits in the same building at (941) 637-2281. The original will is filed with the Clerk within ten days from the date the person holding it was notified of the death, and the Clerk keeps a self-help form index online for filers without a lawyer.

• The clerk’s probate page for Charlotte County
• Twentieth Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit
• Local probate forms and checklists

One thing worth settling before you go any further. The case belongs in the county where the person was domiciled when they died, and Florida law fixes that rather than letting anyone choose it. If your mother lived in Charlotte County, her estate is a Charlotte County case, even if you live in another state and even if a different courthouse would be more convenient for everyone involved. It is the county that decides, not the town, so estates from Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, Englewood, Rotonda West, and Charlotte Harbor are all Charlotte County cases filed with the same clerk. Which division or section then hears the case is a separate question, and the next section answers it.

Parking and Coffee on the Way to the Courthouse

The circuit tells the public that parking is free in front of the building on the west side. The same page carries the prohibited items list, which runs to firearms, knives, scissors, aerosol cans, pepper spray and unopened beverages, and notes that accessibility accommodations and interpreter services are available. The court keeps its own parking and directions page.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Charlotte County?

Probate cases in Charlotte County are heard by the judges the chief judge assigns to the division, and the circuit publishes who they are. Knowing who has the division tells you whose procedures apply to your hearing, and how long a judge has had it tells you how settled those procedures are.

• Lisa S. Porter, Charlotte County, 50 percent of probate alongside half the felony docket, with judicial assistant Lisa at (941) 637-2186, assigned February 9, 2026 (the Charlotte County circuit court division assignment order).
• Shannon H. McFee, Charlotte County, 50 percent of probate alongside half the felony docket, with judicial assistant Magda at (941) 637-2375 and general motion time through Nicole at nshivak@ca.cjis20.org, assigned February 9, 2026 (the Charlotte County circuit court division assignment order).

The circuit’s judicial directory is the source, read on September 16, 2026. Assignments rotate, usually at the start of a calendar year, so check it before a hearing.

How Busy the Charlotte County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Charlotte County are 1,946 probate filings, 147 guardianship filings and 0 trust filings, plus 426 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 2,030 probate cases in the same year.

Statewide the probate column was 73,282 filings against 141,166 for the whole division in FY 2024-25, so more than a third of what a Florida probate judge signs has nothing to do with an estate. The figures come from the Office of the State Courts Administrator's Statistical Reference Guide, chapter 6, and the next fiscal year's edition usually appears the following autumn.

When the Charlotte County Courthouse Is Closed

Florida sets nine paid state holidays by statute, and a circuit may close on more. The Charlotte County courthouse follows the Twentieth Judicial Circuit calendar, which adds Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve to the statutory nine. The practical point is simple. E-filing accepts a document at any hour, but nothing is reviewed, docketed or signed on a day the courthouse is dark, so a petition filed the night before a closure sits until the next business day, and a deadline counted in days runs on regardless.

There is one caution about counting. A Florida deadline stated in days does not pause for a holiday in the middle of it, and only the last day matters. When the final day of a period falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a legal holiday, the period runs to the end of the next day that is none of those. The circuit posts the calendar on its court holidays page, read on September 17, 2026, and it publishes the following year well in advance.

How a Case Gets Filed in Charlotte County Today

Florida runs one statewide electronic filing system, the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, and every circuit court in the state receives filings through it. Attorneys have no choice about it. The rule says attorneys must file through the portal, and no other method is permitted except in the narrow situations the rule itself lists.

A self-represented person is in a different position, and this is the part almost nobody is told. You may elect to register for the portal and file electronically, or you may hand or mail paper to the clerk, who converts it to electronic format for the official court file. Both routes are proper and both land in the same queue. One caution rides along with the choice. Once you elect to file electronically, you cannot go back to paper without the court’s permission.

Registering costs nothing and filing itself costs nothing. What you pay is the statutory filing fee for the case, plus a payment convenience fee that depends on whether you pay by card or by electronic check.

The practical consequence is that a Charlotte County estate does not require anyone to be in Florida. An out-of-state family can open, run, and close a case from a kitchen table in another state, because the filings, the notices, and the proposed orders all move electronically. The exceptions are physical documents, and there are only a few of them.

A new Charlotte estate is assigned to one of two circuit judges, each carrying half the county’s probate alongside half its felony docket, under a division assignment order effective February 9, 2026 that replaced an order effective January 8, three weeks earlier. Guardianship goes to two other judges at half each. No case may be specifically assigned or reassigned without a written order from the Chief Judge or the Administrative Judge, and the Clerk is directed to change the assignments to match. Which judge you draw matters less here than in most counties, because the hearing is referred to the magistrate either way.

Are Charlotte County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Charlotte County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. No standing meeting room is published for either Charlotte probate division, so the number arrives with the hearing. One judge posts Zoom guidelines stricter than most, requiring a device with a camera and a microphone on the same internet connection with video and sound turned on, a test run at the Zoom test page, the app downloaded a day ahead on a tablet or phone, courtroom attire, a background that does not distract, and a Zoom profile name set to the participant’s legal name, warning that someone logged in under a device name may not be recognized on the record. The court does not provide technical support. Since probate matters are referred to the magistrate, the magistrate’s office sets the format, and evidence in a remote hearing is handled under the circuit’s remote evidence order.

The division’s remote hearing instructions carry the current links and the dress and conduct rules, which judges enforce on camera exactly as they do in the room.

Where the Original Will Goes

Here is the rule that catches almost everyone, and it is stricter than families expect. Whoever is holding the original will has to deposit it with the clerk of the court that has venue over the estate, within 10 days of receiving information that the person has died. Read that trigger carefully. The clock does not start at the death, it starts when the custodian learns of the death, and the duty belongs to that custodian personally. It does not wait for a lawyer, it does not wait for the family to agree on anything, and it applies whether or not anybody intends to open a probate case. When the will goes in, the clerk also wants the date of death or the last four digits of the deceased person’s Social Security number.

The original itself travels on paper. Whatever a county does about an electronic copy, the physical document has to reach the clerk, and how it gets there is settled county by county rather than statewide. The original last will is filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller within ten days from the date the person holding it was notified of the death. The Clerk publishes no room or floor for the probate counter at 350 East Marion Avenue, so call (941) 637-2210 before you carry an original in. Getting the will onto the docket matters twice over here, because one judge’s instructions tell filers to check the Clerk’s website and confirm the supporting documents are viewable online, with the docket number, the item number and the date written on the probate checklist, before any proposed order is sent.

Three things families routinely get wrong here are worth naming. Depositing the will is not probating it, so handing the original to the clerk does not open an estate, does not appoint anyone, and does not make you responsible for the debts. It is a filing, not a job. A copy is not a substitute either, because a court can admit a lost or destroyed will but proving one is a separate proceeding with a heavier burden, which is a poor trade for a document that could have been walked to a counter. And sitting on a will is a genuinely bad idea. A custodian can be compelled to produce it, and where the court finds there was no just or reasonable cause for holding it back, Florida awards costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney fee against that person personally.

Two small mercies. If the original goes in attached to the petition, Florida treats it as deposited, so it is not a second errand. And once the clerk has it, the original is kept in its original form for at least 20 years whether or not it is ever admitted to probate. Scanning a will does not replace it.

Which Forms You Actually Need

The honest answer surprises people, so here it is plainly. Florida has an official statewide form set for family law, approved by the Supreme Court and free for anyone to use. It has never built the same thing for probate. The state’s own self-help service says as much, telling visitors that it does not provide any forms related to the probate process and to ask a lawyer which form is needed.

So when you search for the Charlotte County probate forms, you are looking for something that does not exist as one official packet, which is why the results are a scatter of clerk pages, circuit pages, and companies selling you a template. What actually controls comes from three layers, and you need all three.

• The Florida Probate Rules, which prescribe contents rather than forms. The rule on the petition for administration lists eleven things the petition must state, from the decedent’s domicile to whether the proposed personal representative has been convicted of a felony. A document that satisfies the rule is legally sufficient even if it looks nothing like anyone’s template. The rules do carry a small set of forms of their own, but they are almost entirely guardianship forms, and the rules say outright that those forms are not intended to be part of the rules and are provided for convenience only. The one decedent-estate form actually written into the probate rules is the oath of the personal representative.
• The practitioner form set. Most Florida probate documents you will ever see are built from a numbered probate form set published by a private nonprofit and sold commercially. Lawyers treat it as the standard. It is not court-approved, and nothing obliges a court to accept it.
• The local layer, which is the one that rejects you. Charlotte has one rule that quietly kills hearings and a second that decides who hears you. When a notice of hearing is filed, a copy goes immediately to the assigned judge’s judicial assistant, and the circuit warns that a hearing will not be placed on the docket where that is not done in every case. Then the hearing itself is not the judge’s. All probate matters are referred to the Magistrate for hearing, hearing time comes from the Magistrate Office at (941) 637-2213, and a probate motion can be set there on an Order of Referral, using the Word template the circuit posts. A completed probate checklist is filed with a dispositive order, and both judges want the file complete before the order arrives. Check the Clerk’s website to confirm the supporting documents are viewable online, then write the docket number, the item number and the date on the checklist, because an order whose documents and checklist are not with the Clerk will not be considered. Proposed orders go in Word format through the portal, and one division wants no cover letter at all, which is the opposite of the practice in Lee County next door. Communication to the judicial office goes by email with the case number, the case name and the matter in the subject line, in the style the judge’s own example uses, a 2026 CF or CP case number, then the family name, then the hearing request. A notice of hearing is filed and served only after the judicial assistant confirms a coordinated date and time, it carries the accessibility notification the rules of judicial administration require, and a request for an hour or more of hearing time needs court review and approval.

So start at the bottom of that list rather than the top. The circuit and the clerk publish what they want on their own forms and checklists page, and half an hour there before you draft anything is the cheapest half hour in the case.

The Administrative Orders That Govern Probate in Charlotte County

Each circuit adds its own layer on top of the Florida Probate Rules through administrative orders signed by the chief judge and the procedures each division publishes, and that layer is where a petition gets rejected. These are the orders that govern probate practice in Charlotte County as of September 16, 2026.

• Charlotte County Circuit Court Division Assignment order, effective February 9, 2026 (posted January 26, 2026). Splits Charlotte probate in half between two circuit judges and guardianship in half between two others, Geoffrey H. Gentile and Russell T. Kirshy, so an estate and a guardianship for the same family sit with different judges. The order says no case may be specifically assigned or reassigned without a written order from the Chief Judge or the Administrative Judge, and directs the Clerk to change the assignments to match. The February order replaced one that had taken effect on January 8, three weeks earlier.
• AO 5.1, Guardianship Financial Returns (February 14, 1995). The circuit’s probate order series holds three orders and none is newer than 2003, so this one on guardianship financial returns is close to the whole of the written probate layer in the Twentieth Circuit.
• AO 2.40, Introduction and Management of Evidence in Remote Hearings in Civil and Family Law Cases (May 18, 2020). Sets how exhibits are introduced and handled in a remote evidentiary hearing, and it is the order Charlotte judges cite for the mechanics.
• AO 2.20, Standards of Professional Courtesy and Conduct (on the circuit’s order index). Carries the scheduling courtesies the judges’ pages cite, which is why hearing time has to be cleared with the other side before a notice of hearing goes out.

The division also publishes its own procedures, and the points a filer most needs are these.

• All probate matters are referred to the Magistrate for hearing, and hearing time comes from the Magistrate Office at (941) 637-2213 rather than from either judge’s chambers. A probate motion can also be set before the magistrate on an Order of Referral, using the Word template the circuit posts, and the magistrate’s office is contacted before the judge’s office.
• The circuit listed the Charlotte general magistrate seat as vacant on September 16, 2026, in a county that sends every probate hearing to a magistrate, so ask who is covering it before you promise anyone a date.
• A copy of every notice of hearing goes immediately to the assigned judge’s judicial assistant, and the circuit warns that a hearing will not be placed on the docket where that is not done in every case.
• A completed probate checklist is filed with a dispositive order, and the checklists download from the judge’s own panel on the circuit site.
• Before a proposed order is sent, check the Clerk’s website to confirm the supporting documents are viewable online, then write the docket number, the item number and the date on the probate checklist. Where the documents and the checklist are not with the Clerk, the order will not be considered.
• Proposed orders go in Word format through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, and one division wants no cover letter at all, which is the opposite of the practice in Lee County in the same circuit.
• All communication to the judicial office goes by email, with the case number, the case name and the matter in the subject line. A notice of hearing is filed and served only after the judicial assistant confirms a coordinated date and time, it carries the accessibility notification the rules of judicial administration require, and a request for an hour or more of hearing time needs court review and approval. A cancellation goes to the judicial assistant and is also filed and served.
• Charlotte posts its own Word petitions for summary administration and for formal administration, along with the probate order of referral to the magistrate, and one judge posts a separate document on the use of artificial intelligence in court filings.

The full procedures are on the court’s site, and they change more often than the statutes do.

The Checklist for Opening an Estate in Charlotte County

This is the sequence for a formal administration, which is the full version. A smaller estate skips most of it, and the section after this one covers that. Each step below happens in this order for a reason, because the later ones depend on the earlier ones being done.

1. Order certified death certificates. The funeral home usually orders them and will ask how many you want. Ask for more than feels sensible, often five to ten, because the court, each bank, each insurer, and the property records all want their own certified copy, and reordering later is slow.
2. Find the original will and deposit it with the clerk. The 10-day clock runs from when the custodian learns of the death, not from when anyone files anything, and it is the one deadline that can already be running while the family is still planning a funeral. Where the original goes in Charlotte County is above, and it is never just a matter of uploading it.
3. Decide which kind of administration the estate needs. Formal administration is the default. Summary administration and disposition without administration are lighter and cheaper, and they are worth ruling out before you file anything, because you cannot un-file a formal case cheaply.
4. Confirm the county. Venue follows the decedent’s domicile at death, or for someone who lived out of state, a county where they owned property. This is one of the few things in probate that is genuinely hard to fix later.
5. Prepare and e-file the petition for administration, with the local extras. The petition is verified, meaning signed under penalty of perjury, and it has to name every interested person, which is the line that most often comes back to bite an estate later. File it with whatever Charlotte County adds on top, because that is what a rejection is usually about. The filing fee is $400.
6. File the oath, the address designation, and the designation of resident agent. All three are due before letters issue. The oath is a sworn promise to faithfully administer the estate, and the appointment rests on it. The address designation puts the representative’s street and mailing address on the record. The resident agent designation, signed by the agent accepting the job, is required unless the representative is a corporate fiduciary with a Florida office or a Florida Bar member who lives and keeps an office in Florida, which in practice means nearly every family representative files one and the attorney usually is the agent. These can be folded into the petition or the oath rather than filed separately.
7. Get the order and the letters of administration. Once the petition is in and the will is admitted, the court appoints the representative, sets or waives bond, and confirms the oath and resident agent papers are on file. Letters of administration then issue, and the letters are the thing that carries weight in the outside world. Order roughly ten certified copies at once, because banks, brokerages, and title companies each keep one and many will not accept letters more than 60 to 90 days old.
8. Get an estate tax identification number and open the estate account. This comes right after the letters and before anything else useful can happen, because no bank will open an account for the estate without both.
9. Serve the notice of administration. Florida says promptly rather than naming a day count. It goes to the surviving spouse, the beneficiaries, anyone who may be entitled to exempt property, and the trustee and qualified beneficiaries of certain trusts. Service starts a 3-month clock for the person served to challenge the validity of the will, the venue, or the court’s jurisdiction, and after that those objections are barred. That deadline is close to unextendable, because Florida allows an extension only for estoppel based on a misstatement by the personal representative about the deadline itself, and expressly not for failure to disclose information or for other misconduct. The clock also runs only against people who were actually served, so leaving someone off the list does not save time, it leaves the case open. The same notice starts a 4-month window to claim exempt property and a 6-month window for a surviving spouse to elect against the estate.
10. Publish the notice to creditors, serve the ones you know about, and document the search. The notice runs in a newspaper in the county once a week for two consecutive weeks. An unknown creditor then has 3 months from the first publication, and a creditor who had to be served gets the later of that or 30 days from service. The representative has to make a diligent search for reasonably ascertainable creditors, though Florida does not demand an impracticable one, and a verified statement about that search goes in within 4 months of the first publication, with proof of publication filed within 45 days. One item gets missed constantly. If the person who died was 55 or older, a copy of the notice and a death certificate go to Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration within 3 months of the first publication. And a reasonably ascertainable creditor who was never served keeps a claim for up to two years from the death.
11. File the inventory within 60 days of the letters, then close the estate. The inventory lists each asset at its date-of-death value and is served on the residuary beneficiaries and the surviving spouse. After the creditor period runs and the claims are resolved, the estate distributes and the representative files a final accounting and a petition for discharge. Florida puts a real deadline on that too, generally within 12 months after the letters issued for an estate that files no federal estate tax return. A straightforward case runs 6 to 12 months from letters to discharge, and the creditor window is what sets the floor.

What It Costs to File in Charlotte County

These are the charges the clerk posts, not anyone’s legal fee.

Posted August 2026. Charlotte posts $235.00 for a disposition without administration, where Lee, Lake and Hernando each post $231.00 for the same filing. The figures come from the Charlotte Clerk’s probate page, read on September 16, 2026, which shows no effective or revision date. Fee schedules move, so confirm the current charge with the clerk before you file. The reason the number looks the same everywhere is that it is the same number. Florida law sets the base charge for opening a formal administration and adds a small statutory service charge on top, so the entire statewide spread across the ten largest counties is one dollar. Our county-by-county filing fee study has all ten posted schedules.

And then there is the number that dwarfs every line above. Florida publishes an attorney fee schedule that is presumed reasonable and scales with the size of the estate, and it is a ceiling the estate may agree to rather than a mandate. On a $100,000 estate the schedule calls $3,000 reasonable. That, not the clerk’s $400, is what probate costs a family. You can run your own numbers in the Florida probate cost calculator.

When the Estate Does Not Need All of This

Before you open a formal administration, rule out the three lighter paths, in this order.

• No probate at all. Only assets in the deceased person’s sole name with no other instruction go through probate. Life insurance and retirement accounts with a named beneficiary, pay-on-death bank accounts, jointly held property with survivorship, property in a funded trust, and a home that passed under a lady bird deed all move without a court case. Sometimes the whole estate turns out to be in that category. Our page on whether you need probate in Florida walks the test.
• Disposition without administration. For the smallest estates, with no real property and not much more than the final bills, whoever paid those bills can ask the clerk to release what is left. It is a request rather than a case, and it costs $235 here. See how disposition without administration works.
• Summary administration. Available when the probate estate is worth $150,000 or less after exempt property, a threshold raised from $75,000 on July 1, 2026, or when the person died more than two years ago. No personal representative is appointed, and the case can close in weeks rather than months. The summary administration guide has a short qualifier.

One warning about that last figure, because it will confuse you if you go looking. Florida publishes its statutes once a year, and the edition on the official statute site still shows the old $75,000 line. The increase to $150,000 is real, it came from a 2026 session law, and the probate rule on summary administration has already been amended to match. Check the rule rather than the posted statute until the new edition appears.

If none of the three fits, the estate needs a formal administration, and the checklist above is the map.

Doing It Yourself, and Where Families Stop

Florida does not require you to hire anyone to file a document. It does require something else, and this is where most families stop. Under the Florida Probate Rules, every personal representative has to be represented by an attorney admitted to practice in Florida unless the representative remains the sole interested person in the estate, or is a Florida-admitted lawyer appearing for himself or herself in that role. Those are the only exceptions. Read it as the practical test it is. One heir, nobody else with an interest, no creditors, and you may proceed alone. A second sibling, or a creditor, and the court expects counsel regardless of how well everyone is getting along.

The smaller paths are different. Disposition without administration is designed to be done without a lawyer, and clerks routinely help with it. Summary administration sits in between, simple on its face and easy to get wrong in ways that surface years later when someone tries to sell the house.

If you do want counsel for a Charlotte County estate, our probate attorney page for Punta Gorda covers what we charge and how the remote process works. And if you would rather do it yourself, nothing on this page is holding anything back. Everything above is the actual sequence.

What Changed at the Charlotte County Probate Court This Year

Court practice changes without much announcement. These are the developments in the last year that affect a Charlotte County probate filer, each with its source.

• February 9, 2026. A new Charlotte circuit division assignment order took effect, posted January 26, replacing an order that had taken effect three weeks earlier on January 8. Probate stayed split in half between two judges and guardianship in half between two others. Source.
• September 16, 2026. The circuit’s judiciary page still listed the Charlotte general magistrate seat as vacant, which matters more here than in most counties, because every Charlotte probate hearing is referred to a magistrate. Source.
• 2026. The Governor appointed Kimberly Bocelli, a Lee County Judge since 2023, to the Twentieth Judicial Circuit on Judge Evans’s resignation. The February order gives her domestic relations, domestic violence, juvenile dependency, delinquency and the Department of Revenue support docket, and no probate. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The hearing that never made the docket. A Port Charlotte family filed a notice of hearing for their father’s estate and wrote the date in the calendar. In Charlotte a copy of that notice goes immediately to the assigned judge’s judicial assistant, and the circuit warns that a hearing will not be placed on the docket where the step is skipped. Nobody called to say anything was wrong, because as far as the calendar was concerned there was nothing there to be wrong about.

The call to chambers that went nowhere. An Englewood daughter called the judge’s office for probate hearing time and was sent somewhere else. All Charlotte probate matters are referred to the Magistrate for hearing, and the Magistrate Office at (941) 637-2213 is where the date comes from. Worth knowing alongside that, the circuit listed the Charlotte general magistrate seat as vacant on September 16, 2026, which is the kind of thing to ask about before you promise a buyer a closing date.

Sources of Law

Statutes and rules retrieved August 19, 2026. Court, clerk, and filing-fee data retrieved on the dates noted. Local requirements change without much announcement, so confirm the current version at the links above before you file.

• Rules cited are the Florida Probate Rules, current through the opinion issued July 16, 2026, and the Florida Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration, effective July 1, 2026.
• Filing. Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.525(b)(1) (attorneys must file through the portal; no other method permitted except as the rule provides), 2.525(b)(2) (an unrepresented party may elect to file through the portal, and once made the election may not be withdrawn without leave of court), 2.525(c)(1)(A) (a paper document may be submitted to the clerk, who converts it, where filed by an unrepresented party who has not elected). Filings move through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, operated by the Florida Courts E-Filing Authority, which states there is no cost to register and no fee to file electronically, apart from the statutory filing fee and a convenience fee based on the payment method.
• The original will. Fla. Stat. §732.901(1) (custodian must deposit within 10 days after receiving information that the testator is dead, with the clerk having venue, supplying the date of death or the last four digits of the social security number), (2) (custodian may be compelled; costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney fee where there was no just or reasonable cause), (3) (an original submitted with a petition is deemed deposited), (4) (clerk preserves the original in original form for at least 20 years; digitizing does not eliminate the requirement). Fla. Prob. R. 5.043 (deposit of wills and codicils; retained in original form).
• Opening the estate. Venue, Fla. Stat. §733.101. Petition, §733.202 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.200 (the eleven required contents). Preference in appointment, §733.301. Nonresident personal representatives, §733.304. Oath before letters, Fla. Prob. R. 5.320 (which also carries the only decedent-estate form written into the rules). Address designation and designation of resident agent with acceptance, both before letters, with the corporate-fiduciary and Florida-Bar-member exceptions, Fla. Prob. R. 5.110. Issuance of letters and bond, Fla. Prob. R. 5.235 and §733.213.
• Notices and claims. Notice of administration served promptly, the persons served, the 3-month objection window for the validity of the will, venue, or jurisdiction, and the estoppel-only extension, Fla. Stat. §733.212 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.240 (exempt property 4 months, elective share 6 months). Notice to creditors published once a week for 2 consecutive weeks, the diligent search for reasonably ascertainable creditors, and notice to the Agency for Health Care Administration within 3 months where the decedent was 55 or older, Fla. Stat. §733.2121 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.241 (proof of publication within 45 days; verified statement of the search within 4 months). Claim deadlines, the later of 3 months from first publication or 30 days from service, §733.702. Two-year bar after death whether or not letters ever issued, §733.710.
• Running and closing. Inventory within 60 days after issuance of letters at date-of-death value, Fla. Stat. §733.604 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.340. Final accounting and petition for discharge within 12 months after issuance of letters for an estate filing no federal estate tax return, Fla. Prob. R. 5.400(c). Attorney required for the personal representative unless the representative remains the sole interested person or is a Florida-admitted attorney appearing in that role, Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a). Presumed-reasonable attorney compensation, §733.6171.
• Smaller estates. Summary administration, Fla. Stat. §735.201 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.530(a)(7). Reading note. The statute as officially published still shows $75,000, because Florida publishes its statutes annually and the 2026 edition is not yet posted. The $150,000 figure comes from CS/HB 1337 (2026), ch. 2026-57, Laws of Florida, section 7, effective July 1, 2026, and Rule 5.530 has been amended to match. Disposition without administration, §735.301.
• Forms. The Florida Probate Rules place their forms in Part V and state that the forms are not intended to be part of the rules and are provided for convenience only; the Part V set is essentially guardianship forms. The Florida State Courts System’s self-help service states that Florida Courts Help does not provide any forms related to the probate process, in contrast with the Supreme Court-approved family law forms. The practitioner form set commonly used in Florida probate is published and sold by a private nonprofit and is not court-approved.
• Cost. Probate filing service charges, Fla. Stat. §28.2401. Posted Charlotte County charges read from the clerk’s own schedule, retrieved 2026-08-09; all ten largest counties are documented in our probate cost by county study.
• Caseload. Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator, FY 2024-25 Statistical Reference Guide, Chapter 6, Circuit Probate, tables of filings and dispositions by circuit, county and category, retrieved September 15, 2026.
• Charlotte County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · Charlotte County Circuit Court Division Assignment order · AO 5.1 · AO 2.40 · AO 2.20. Judge assignments come from the circuit’s assignment orders cited above. The parking and coffee notes are conveniences for visitors, not court information, and the research file with every source is reference/research/probate-court-pilot/charlotte-county.md.
• Charlotte County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Twentieth Judicial Circuit administrative orders · judges directory · local forms and checklists.

Updated on September 16, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. This page is general information about Florida court procedure, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. Court addresses, local checklists, and clerk charges change; confirm them at the official links before you file. We serve Punta Gorda residents wherever you are, and this is not a Charlotte County office.