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

Where the Gadsden County Probate Court Actually Sits

Gadsden County probate is heard in the Second Judicial Circuit, and the Clerk takes the filings at the Gadsden County Courthouse at 10 East Jefferson Street in Quincy, where the Probate Division sits inside the Circuit Civil Division in the northeast corner, Room 108, on a direct line of 850-875-8601 extension 7037. Getting the building right matters more here than the size of the town suggests. The circuit also publishes a Gadsden County Annex at 24 North Adams Street, 32 metres away on the other side of the same courthouse square, and the circuit judge who hears probate keeps chambers in a third building, the Guy A. Race Judicial Complex at 13 North Monroe Street, a short walk off the same square. No page on any court site explains which function sits in which, so walk to the Clerk’s address for anything you are filing by hand.

Gadsden also runs something no neighbouring county has. The Clerk has partnered with a volunteer attorney on a free probate clinic held in the conference room on the basement floor of the courthouse, and the published notice gives the first Wednesday of each month, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., walk-in and first come first served, twenty minutes a person, at no charge to any Gadsden County resident. One caution belongs beside that. The notice carries no date on its face and the file behind it was last changed in 2022, although the Clerk links it from three separate places on a site that is otherwise current, so telephone the courthouse and confirm the clinic is still running before you drive to Quincy for it. The same basement room hosts a Tuesday family law assistance programme, which helps with forms and does not cover estates.

The probate counter is at the Clerk’s Probate Division at the Gadsden County Courthouse, 10 East Jefferson Street, Quincy, FL 32351, Room 108, inside the Circuit Civil Division in the northeast corner, 850-875-8601 extension 7037. Gadsden is the only county in this corner of the state that locates its probate counter to the room, and the only one that publishes no hours of operation at all. The Clerk home page, the holidays page, the fee schedule, the notices page, the e-filing page and the forms page were all checked, and none carries an opening time, so call extension 7037 before you travel. Recording sits in Room 102 in the northwest corner and county civil in Room 209 upstairs, which is worth knowing because the three counters are in the same building and the wrong one will not take a probate filing. An accommodation for a hearing runs through the circuit rather than the county, at the ADA Coordinator’s office, 301 South Monroe Street, Room 225, Tallahassee, 850-606-4401, at least seven days ahead.

• The clerk’s probate page for Gadsden County
• Second Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Second 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 Gadsden County, her estate is a Gadsden 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 Quincy, Havana, Chattahoochee, Gretna, Midway, Greensboro, and Mount Pleasant are all Gadsden 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.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Gadsden County?

Probate cases in Gadsden 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.

• Anthony Miller, circuit civil, family, probate, guardianship and dependency for Gadsden County, and the same five case types for Liberty County, from chambers at the Guy A. Race Judicial Complex, 13 North Monroe Street in Quincy, with judicial assistant Francine Brown at 850-875-8041, assigned July 1, 2026, the effective date of the current assignment order, which moved the docket from a different circuit judge (AO 2026-02).

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 Gadsden County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Gadsden County are 466 probate filings, 21 guardianship filings and 21 trust filings, plus 73 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 475 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.

How a Case Gets Filed in Gadsden 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 Gadsden 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.

Gadsden assigns by subject matter rather than by geography. One circuit judge holds circuit civil, family, probate, guardianship and dependency, a second holds the criminal docket, and the order that says so was signed on May 20, 2026 and took effect on July 1, 2026. The July date matters more than it looks, because a different circuit judge held the Gadsden probate docket until then, so anything written about the practice here before mid-2026 describes another bench. The same judge also hears every probate case in Liberty County, which is why a Liberty estate belongs in this section. A Liberty County estate is filed at the Liberty County Courthouse at 10818 NW State Road 20 in Bristol, where one telephone number, (850) 643-2215, reaches every department of the Clerk’s office including probate, and the judge who decides it keeps chambers 45 miles away in Quincy. Liberty publishes no probate page, no fee schedule and no written procedures of its own, so a Liberty filer works from the same circuit checklists a Gadsden filer works from, from the Gadsden practice described on this page, and from a phone call to the Bristol number for the filing charge.

Are Gadsden County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Gadsden County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. Nothing is published for Gadsden, and the absence is real rather than a search failure. The circuit posts calendars for five of its judges and none for the one who hears Gadsden probate, its index of judge procedures carries sections for thirteen judges and none for him, and no standing probate meeting identifier exists anywhere in the county. For contrast, the judge next door in Franklin prints three recurring meeting identifiers on the face of his own calendars. The route that works in Gadsden is to ask the judicial assistant, Francine Brown at BrownF@leoncountyfl.gov or 850-875-8041, when the hearing is set, and then to read the credentials off the notice of hearing.

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 custodian deposits the original with the Clerk in Quincy within 10 days of learning of the death, and in Gadsden the counter for it is Room 108, the northeast corner of the courthouse at 10 East Jefferson Street. Two local details are worth settling before you carry one in. The Clerk publishes no hours of operation anywhere on its site, which is unusual even among small counties, so call extension 7037 first. And Recording sits in Room 102 at the other corner of the same floor, which is the counter a family walking in with a deed in mind tends to find first.

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 Gadsden 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. What Gadsden adds comes from two places, and neither of them is the judge. The circuit approves four probate forms and posts them as Word documents, an Affidavit of Heirs that carries a Second Circuit caption and is a local circuit form rather than a Florida Probate Rules form, a Formal Administration Opening Checklist, a Formal Administration Closing Checklist and a Summary Administration Checklist. The opening checklist, last revised in 2012, carries an attorney certification that the checklist was personally reviewed, and its header asks that every order given to the court show who it is copied to and arrive with self-addressed stamped envelopes bearing no return address. The second place is the Clerk, which publishes paper guidelines most Florida clerks leave unwritten, namely 8.5 by 11 inch white paper on one side only, blue or black ink, typewritten or legibly printed, a one inch margin on all four sides, the style of the case and the case number on the page, and consecutively numbered pages, with exhibits and attachments allowed in their original size. Almost everything in a probate case now moves electronically, so that rule bites on the few documents that still travel on paper. What is missing from the list is as useful as what is on it. The circuit judge who hears Gadsden probate has published no procedures at all, and the circuit’s index of judge procedures carries named sections for thirteen judges and none for him, so no judge-specific checklist, no judge-specific rule on proposed orders and no judge-specific exhibit deadline exists to find.

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 Gadsden 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 Gadsden County as of September 16, 2026.

• AO 2026-02, Circuit and County Judge Assignments (signed May 20, 2026, effective July 1, 2026). Section II gives one circuit judge all Gadsden circuit civil, family, probate, guardianship and dependency cases, a second circuit judge the criminal docket, and a county judge the county court cases and weekday first appearances. Section VIII defines an emergency narrowly and requires the request in writing to the assigned judge, and section VII.B.2 says plainly that the Leon County duty judge is not responsible for emergencies in Gadsden.
• AO 2026-02, Second Amendment, Circuit and County Judge Assignments (signed August 21, 2026, effective immediately). The operative version. Both August amendments carved Leon County guardianship and incapacity out to a third judge and restated the Gadsden section word for word, so Gadsden guardianship stayed with the probate judge. The circuit’s order index marks every order active and vacates nothing, so the newest order is the one that governs.
• AO 2024-04, Sixth Amendment, Circuit and County Judge Assignments (effective December 8, 2025). Superseded, and worth knowing about anyway. Under this order Gadsden circuit civil, family, probate and guardianship belonged to a different circuit judge, which is why anything written about Gadsden probate practice before mid-2026 describes another bench.

The Checklist for Opening an Estate in Gadsden 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 Gadsden 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 Gadsden 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 Gadsden County

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

Posted August 2026. The Gadsden schedule prints its own effective date on its face, October 1, 2024, which most small-county schedules do not, and it was read on September 16, 2026. Two local drafting points are worth knowing. Gadsden folds a determination of heirs, a determination of property and a petition to open a safe deposit box into the same $231.00 charge as a disposition without administration, and it posts a guardian audit charge that climbs from $20.00 on an estate under $25,000 to $250.00 above $500,000. 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 $231 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 Gadsden County estate, our probate attorney page for Quincy 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 Gadsden County Probate Court This Year

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

• August 21, 2026. The Second Amendment to the assignment order became the operative version. Leon County guardianship moved to a third judge and the Gadsden section was restated unchanged, so Gadsden guardianship stayed with the probate judge. Source.
• July 1, 2026. Gadsden circuit civil, family, probate, guardianship and dependency moved to a new circuit judge, who also took the identical Liberty County docket. The order was signed on May 20, 2026. Source.
• March 13, 2026. A bill that would have raised the clerk charge for opening a probate estate from $230 to $275 on July 1, 2026 died in Senate Rules. So the Gadsden schedule dated October 1, 2024 is current law rather than a stale page. Source.
• December 8, 2025. The previous assignment order put the Gadsden probate docket with a different circuit judge, which is the proof that the July 2026 change was a change. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The morning that went to the wrong building. A daughter drove up from Tallahassee with her father’s original will and went to the address the circuit’s judicial directory gives, the Guy A. Race Judicial Complex on North Monroe Street, because that is where the judge is. The Clerk’s probate counter is Room 108 at 10 East Jefferson Street, a short walk away across the courthouse square, and the annex at 24 North Adams Street is a third building again. She lost an hour, which is the cheap version of this mistake. The expensive version is posting an original will to a building that does not staff a counter.

The advice written for a different judge. An out-of-state son found a 2025 write-up of Gadsden probate practice and built his filing plan around the judge it named. The docket changed hands on July 1, 2026, and the judge who holds it now publishes no procedures at all, so there was nothing to follow and nothing to get wrong. What the case actually needed was the circuit’s opening checklist and one email to the judicial assistant asking for hearing time.

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 Gadsden 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.
• Gadsden County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · AO 2026-02 · AO 2026-02, Second Amendment · AO 2024-04, Sixth Amendment. 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/gadsden-county.md.
• Gadsden County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Second 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 Quincy residents wherever you are, and this is not a Gadsden County office.