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

Where the Leon County Probate Court Actually Sits

Leon County probate is heard in the Second Judicial Circuit, at the Leon County Courthouse at 301 South Monroe Street in Tallahassee. Filings go through the Leon County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, whose probate department sits in suite 100 of the same building and answers at 850-606-4180. The Northeast Branch on Metropolitan Boulevard appears on the same Clerk page and handles traffic rather than probate.

Two circuit judges share the probate docket, half the new cases each, and neither of them held it before July 1, 2026. Guardianship left in August 2026, when a third judge took every guardianship case and the incapacity cases that come with it, so an estate and a guardianship for the same family now sit with different judges. Both probate judges post written procedures. The guardianship judge has posted none.

The probate counter is at the Leon County Courthouse, 301 South Monroe Street, suite 100, Tallahassee, FL 32301, Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 850-606-4180 for probate, wills and estates, with the main line at 850-606-4000. The Northeast Branch on Metropolitan Boulevard is listed on the same Clerk page and handles traffic, not probate. A will is deposited within ten days of the death, with the date of death or the maker’s Social Security number. The Clerk’s page still describes summary administration as available for an estate that does not exceed $75,000, a figure the Legislature raised to $150,000 effective July 1, 2026. No room number beyond suite 100 is published.

• The clerk’s probate page for Leon 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 Leon County, her estate is a Leon 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 Tallahassee, Bradfordville, Woodville, Fort Braden, and Miccosukee are all Leon 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 publishes a downtown parking map, and it is easy to miss because the link sits on the annex page rather than on the locations page. The file itself carries a 2020 date, so treat it as a guide to the blocks around 301 South Monroe Street rather than as a current rate sheet. The circuit also tells jurors that downtown parking is limited and asks them not to move a vehicle at lunch, which is sound advice for anyone on a morning calendar. The court keeps its own parking and directions page.

If you are dropping off an original will or sitting through a morning calendar, coffee within a short walk is La Florida Coffee & Wine at 350 South Duval Street, Kleman Plaza, Tallahassee, about a four minute walk, 0.2 miles west across Duval Street from the public entrance. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday and Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, with shorter hours in summer. The coffee is roasted locally and the wine comes from a family vineyard.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Leon County?

Probate cases in Leon 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.

• Jason L. Jones, Probate, 50 percent of new probate cases, Room 365-C at 301 South Monroe Street, along with all circuit cases in Jefferson County, assigned July 1, 2026 (AO 2026-02).
• Michael Beato, Probate, 50 percent of new probate cases, Room 301-B at 301 South Monroe Street, along with all circuit cases in Franklin County, assigned July 1, 2026 (AO 2026-02).
• Andrew B. King, All guardianship cases and the incapacity cases that come with them, 100 percent, Room 365-L, with no probate assignment, assigned August 10, 2026, nunc pro tunc in the First Amendment and restated on August 21, 2026 (AO 2026-02, Second Amendment).

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 Leon County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Leon County are 965 probate filings, 104 guardianship filings and 0 trust filings, plus 1,360 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 1,475 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 Leon 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 Leon 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.

Leon splits probate down the middle. Under an assignment order effective July 1, 2026, two circuit judges each take half of all new probate cases, so the judge is arithmetic and nobody picks it. Guardianship no longer travels with the estate. Since August 10, 2026 a third judge holds all guardianship cases and the incapacity cases that go with them, which means a family that opens a guardianship and then an estate is in front of two judges with two sets of procedures. The assignment order has been amended twice since May 2026, and the circuit’s own order index marks nothing as vacated, so read the newest amendment rather than the list.

Are Leon County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Leon County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. One of the two probate judges publishes a standing room and the other does not, so which judge drew the case decides how you get on camera. Judge Beato prints a recurring meeting identifier for civil, family and probate cases, 913 1397 0514 with passcode 096124, on the face of his published 2026 and 2027 calendars, and the 2026 calendar notes that room is not recorded. Judge Jones publishes no standing identifier, and in his division the court supplies the credentials in the notice of hearing once the hearing is confirmed. Confirm either one against the notice rather than against a search result. The default then depends on which judge drew the case. Judge Jones typically hears a matter of two hours or less by Zoom, and a party who wants to appear remotely at an in-person hearing files a motion with a proposed order at least 48 hours ahead, which his procedures say are frowned upon. Judge Beato holds a hearing or a non-jury trial by Zoom only where both parties consent, and otherwise in person. The guardianship judge publishes nothing on remote appearance, so ask his assistant.

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 custodian deposits the original with the Clerk within ten days of learning of the death, and the Clerk asks for the date of death or the maker’s Social Security number along with it. The probate counter is in suite 100 at 301 South Monroe Street, open Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A second paper document travels with the case and gets forgotten, because both probate judges want the original authenticated death certificate filed with the Clerk in every case, not only where a will exists.

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 Leon 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. Leon has no administrative order setting general probate practice, so the working rules live in the circuit’s checklists and in what each of the two judges publishes. Both judges ask for the same core. Besides the petition for administration, a case needs the circuit’s own Affidavit of Heirs, the original authenticated death certificate filed with the Clerk, the will if there is one, a personal representative oath conforming to the rule, and every waiver, consent and notice. Where the person who died was over fifty-five, a copy of the death certificate goes to the Agency for Health Care Administration. A petition to determine homestead has to say whether the decedent was domiciled on the property, whether the land lies inside or outside a municipality, and how many acres it is, because the constitutional cap is half an acre inside a municipality and 160 acres outside, and a petition for exempt property has to identify and describe the property. After that the two divisions diverge, and the difference is procedural rather than legal. One judge takes hearing requests by email to the judicial assistant with all parties copied, giving the case number, the motion or petition, whether it is evidentiary and the time needed, and the time is not reserved until the filed notice of hearing reaches the assistant, which the procedures put at 48 hours. The Clerk in that division will not accept or forward an order attached to a motion, so every proposed order is emailed to the judicial assistant in Word. The other judge asks for the proposed orders by email to the judicial assistant once the petitions and motions are ripe, with every party copied, and wants witness and exhibit lists exchanged and filed 48 hours before an evidentiary hearing. Both treat an emergency the way the assignment order defines it, in writing to the assigned judge, and one of them says outright that a lack of diligence does not create an emergency.

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 Leon 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 Leon County as of September 16, 2026.

• AO 2026-02, Circuit and County Judge Assignments (signed May 20, 2026, effective July 1, 2026). Gives two circuit judges half of all Leon probate cases each, defines an emergency narrowly and requires the request in writing to the assigned judge, and names the county duty judge for after-hours matters.
• AO 2026-02, First Amendment, Circuit and County Judge Assignments (signed August 17, 2026, nunc pro tunc to August 10, 2026). Splits guardianship away from probate for the first time, sending every guardianship case and the incapacity cases that come with it to a third judge, and reassigning the ones the probate judges were already carrying.
• AO 2026-02, Second Amendment, Circuit and County Judge Assignments (signed August 21, 2026, effective immediately). Keeps the same probate and guardianship split and moves judges between the civil and criminal divisions. The circuit’s order index lists every order as active and marks nothing vacated, so this amendment, as the newest, is the one that governs.

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

• Both probate judges want the same core file, namely the circuit’s own Affidavit of Heirs, the original authenticated death certificate filed with the Clerk, the will if there is one, a personal representative oath conforming to Rule 5.320, and all waivers, consents and notices. Where the person who died was over fifty-five, a copy of the death certificate goes to the Agency for Health Care Administration.
• A petition to determine homestead states whether the decedent was domiciled on the property, whether it lies inside or outside a municipality, and the acreage, because the constitutional cap is half an acre inside a municipality and 160 acres outside. A petition for exempt property identifies and describes the property.
• In Judge Jones’s division, hearing time is requested by email to the judicial assistant with all parties copied, giving the case number, the motion or petition, whether it is evidentiary and the time needed, and the notice of hearing has to be filed within 48 hours. Time is not reserved until the assistant has the filed notice.
• The Clerk will not accept or forward an e-filed order attached to a motion in that division, so proposed orders are emailed to the judicial assistant in Word. Judge Beato asks for the proposed orders by email to his assistant once the petitions and motions are ripe, again with every party copied.
• Judge Beato wants witness and exhibit lists exchanged and filed 48 hours before an evidentiary hearing. Judge Jones treats a routine matter labelled an emergency as prohibited, and says a lack of diligence does not create an emergency.
• The circuit checklists and the Affidavit of Heirs sit on the circuit forms page. Judge Jones’s eleven page procedures document, dated February 4, 2026, still points to the Clerk’s retired forms site, and the guardianship judge has posted no procedures at all.

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 Leon 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 Leon 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 Leon 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 Leon County

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

Posted August 2026. 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 Leon County estate, our probate attorney page for Tallahassee 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 Leon County Probate Court This Year

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

• August 21, 2026. The Second Amendment to AO 2026-02 confirmed guardianship and the incapacity cases sitting with one judge and reshuffled the civil and criminal divisions around it. Source.
• August 17, 2026. The First Amendment, nunc pro tunc to August 10, split guardianship away from probate and moved the guardianship cases the two probate judges were carrying. Source.
• May 20, 2026. AO 2026-02 made two new judges the Leon probate bench effective July 1, 2026, replacing the 2024 assignment under which a single judge had the docket. Source.
• December 11, 2025. A former prosecutor and county judge was reported as having joined the circuit bench in July 2025. The probate half of his assignment came later, with the May 2026 order. Source.
• February 2026. The Clerk moved its probate pages to leonclerk.com, and the fee table still lives on the legacy site, which is where the $400, $345, $235 and $231 figures were read. Source.
• August 18, 2026. Both Second Circuit judges on the primary ballot held their seats. Group 7 went to the incumbent, 45,970 votes to 43,265, which is 51.5 percent, and he is one of the two judges who carry half the Leon probate docket each. Group 13 also went to the incumbent, 46,325 to 44,033. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The guardianship and the estate that split apart. A Tallahassee family ran a guardianship for their mother for two years, and when she died they opened her estate. Guardianship and incapacity cases moved to a judge of their own on August 10, 2026, while probate stayed split between two others, so the estate drew a judge who had never seen the family. Nothing about either case was unusual. What the family had to learn twice was how each division wants a hearing asked for and an order sent.

The hearing time that was never held. A lawyer emailed for hearing time in a Leon estate, got dates back, told the family the case was set, and filed the notice of hearing a week later. In that division the time is not reserved until the judicial assistant has the filed notice, and the procedures give 48 hours to file it. The dates went to someone else. Asking for time and filing the notice are one task here rather than two.

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 Leon 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.
• Leon County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · AO 2026-02 · AO 2026-02, First Amendment · AO 2026-02, Second 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/leon-county.md.
• Leon 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 Tallahassee residents wherever you are, and this is not a Leon County office.