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

Where the Monroe County Probate Court Actually Sits

Monroe County probate is heard in the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, and three courthouses take it under an administrative order that divides the county by bridge. The Lower Keys division runs from the City of Key West to the west end of the Spanish Harbor Bridge and files at the Freeman Justice Center at 302 Fleming Street in Key West. The Middle Keys division runs from there to the east end of the Channel Five Bridge and files at the Marathon courthouse at 3117 Overseas Highway. The Upper Keys division covers everything above that, including Key Largo and the mainland portion of the county, and files at the Plantation Key courthouse at 88770 Overseas Highway, Suite 1, in Tavernier. Filings go through the Monroe County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, whose probate line is 305-292-3458.

Which of the three takes your filing is not a matter of convenience and not a matter of where the personal representative lives. For probate the order sets the test as where a respondent resides, where the cause accrued, or where the property in litigation sits, so a Keys estate normally follows the house. A daughter in Ohio administering her father’s Marathon condominium files in Marathon. One comfort rides alongside the rule, because a judge may hold some or all proceedings at a different courthouse and the order says in terms that doing so is not a transfer, so an appearance in Key West does not move a Plantation Key case. Watch the suite numbers at Plantation Key, where the Clerk is Suite 2 and the court is Suite 1 at the same street address, and note that in Key West the Clerk’s probate counter is at the historic courthouse at 500 Whitehead Street while the hearings are at the Freeman Justice Center on Fleming Street.

The probate counter is at the Monroe County Courthouse, 500 Whitehead Street, Key West, FL 33040, with Clerk offices at 3117 Overseas Highway in Marathon and 88770 Overseas Highway, Suite 2, in Tavernier, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., 305-292-3458 for probate in Key West, 305-289-6027 in Marathon and 305-852-7145 at Plantation Key. Watch the suite numbers at Plantation Key, where the Clerk is Suite 2 and the court is Suite 1 at the same street address. The custodian of a will deposits it with the Clerk having venue within 10 days of learning of the death, and the Clerk will not take a will while the person who made it is alive. Claim forms come from the Clerk’s office and, in the Clerk’s own wording, are filed in duplicate within three months of the first publication of the notice of administration, at no charge. A certified copy runs $1.00 per page plus $2.00 to certify, so a one-page certified copy is $3.00. Monroe publishes no probate forms and no checklists of its own, so the practitioner set and the Florida Probate Rules are what a filing is built from.

• The clerk’s probate page for Monroe County
• Sixteenth Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit

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 Monroe County, her estate is a Monroe 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 Key West, Marathon, Islamorada, Key Largo, Big Pine Key, and Stock Island are all Monroe 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 parking guidance only through its juror page, and it is the same advice for everyone. Park on Thomas Street directly behind the Freeman Justice Center or in the Thomas Street lot, first come first served, with a few more spaces in front of the building. Marathon and Plantation Key each use the courthouse lot. Allow time for parking and for building security, which in Key West in season is not a formality. 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 Cuban Coffee Queen at 5 Key Lime Square, Key West, about 0.22 mi from the public entrance. The shop posts 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Southard and Duval, about a five-minute walk east on Fleming and then south, and it is a local roaster rather than a national chain.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Monroe County?

Probate cases in Monroe 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.

• Timothy J. Koenig, Chief Judge, taking all new and pending probate in the Lower Keys division at the Freeman Justice Center in Key West, and one half of all probate, guardianship and mental health in the Upper Keys division at Plantation Key, assigned July 1, 2026 under the current assignment order, which runs through December 31, 2026, and January 1, 2017 for Key West probate on his own longer-standing statement of it (AO 2.004/26-3 (Amended), signed July 28, 2026).
• Bonnie J. Helms, all new and pending mental health and guardianship in the Lower Keys division, all new cases in the Middle Keys division at the Marathon courthouse, and the other half of all probate, guardianship and mental health in the Upper Keys division at Plantation Key, assigned July 1, 2026 under the current assignment order, which runs through December 31, 2026 (AO 2.004/26-3 (Amended), signed July 28, 2026).

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 Monroe County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Monroe County are 346 probate filings, 24 guardianship filings and 0 trust filings, plus 107 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 358 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 Monroe 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 Monroe 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.

The bridge decides the courthouse and the courthouse decides the judge, under two separate orders that interlock. Under the assignment order signed July 28, 2026, Lower Keys probate goes to one judge while Lower Keys guardianship and mental health go to the other, every new Middle Keys case goes to one judge, and the Upper Keys is halved between them, with a guardianship that has a companion mental health case following its companion. Two of those are recent, because until 2026 Lower Keys guardianship and all Upper Keys cases sat with a single judge. Read the dates before you rely on any of it. The current order runs only through December 31, 2026, another circuit judge retires at the end of that month, and every Monroe probate assignment so far has been reshuffled at least twice a year. One map that looks like it changed things did not. An order signed July 22, 2026 redrew the three jury districts by zip code effective January 1, 2027, and it moves jurors only, leaving the filing divisions exactly where the 2020 order put them.

Are Monroe County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Monroe County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. The two probate judges publish opposite amounts of detail, which is the single most useful thing on this page for an out-of-state personal representative. One runs what her page calls a hybrid virtual courtroom and publishes a standing meeting number, 997-8001-9533, with no passcode, and a request to appear remotely goes in five days before the hearing. Participants join ten minutes early from a private quiet place, never from a moving vehicle, dressed and behaving as in the courtroom, camera on and microphone muted until told otherwise, with a full written name showing, because a display name of iPhone or iPad gets the participant removed. A party calling a remote witness answers for that witness’s camera, microphone and tested connection, and a notice of hearing involving a remote appearance lists the judge’s Zoom credentials. The other probate judge publishes no remote section and no room at all, so for a Lower Keys decedent estate whether the hearing is remote is a question for the judicial assistant rather than something the court has put in writing.

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 of the court having venue within 10 days of learning of the death, and in a three-courthouse county the phrase having venue is doing real work. Venue follows the filing division, so the will goes to the office that serves the bridge division the estate belongs to, which is Key West, Marathon or Plantation Key. All three Clerk offices run Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Clerk will not take a will for deposit while the person who made it is alive. Monroe publishes no deposit fee, and the fee schedule carries no will-deposit line at all, so ask when you call rather than assuming it is free the way Walton says plainly that it is.

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 Monroe 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. Monroe has no probate checklist regime at all, which makes it easier than Escambia or Okaloosa and puts all the risk in two other places, the caption and the format of the proposed order. On the caption, an order dating to December 13, 1994 requires an adversary probate pleading to carry the estate style plus the first petitioner and the first respondent, and the Clerk does not file a document that is adversary in nature unless it is captioned that way, absent a written order declaring the proceeding nonadversary. That is the rejection rule in this county, and it is a caption defect that produces it rather than a missing form. On proposed orders, an order signed April 20, 2026 replaced the circuit’s rules and the details are unforgiving. Proposed orders go through the e-filing portal, and an exhibit referenced in the body has to be attached in JPEG format or the order is rejected. Every proposed order and final judgment needs a cover letter saying that a copy went to all parties and that the form was agreed, or that no objection came within five business days, or that it is opposed and why. Word only, Arial or Times New Roman, no mixed fonts, no tables, no columns, no styles and no auto-populating fields, with the circuit’s signature codes in capitals, four letters per field, one code per line, and no certificate of service on a portal order. Two more things save weeks here. A filing made through the portal does not reach the assigned judge automatically, which the circuit states in an order about guardianship reports, so a courtesy copy goes to that judge’s judicial assistant. And Monroe keeps a dedicated probate case manager, so substantive probate questions go to her at 305-292-3429 rather than to a judicial assistant, whose role is limited to scheduling and to transmitting agreed orders.

The Administrative Orders That Govern Probate in Monroe 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 Monroe County as of September 16, 2026.

• AO 2.080/20-1, Filing Cases and Conducting Proceedings in Circuit and County Court (May 12, 2020, recorded in the county land records two days later). The order that draws the map. Three filing divisions are defined by bridges, and probate is filed where a respondent resides, where the cause accrued, or where the property sits, which is why an out-of-state personal representative does not pull a Keys estate to a different courthouse. Proceedings should be held in the courthouse serving the filing division, and the presiding judge may hold some or all of them somewhere else, which the order says is not a transfer. Depositions stay in the filing division unless every party agrees otherwise.
• AO 2.004/26-3, Circuit Court Division Assignments and Official Headquarters (Amended) (signed July 28, 2026, assignments running July 1 through December 31, 2026). Apportions the whole circuit caseload by the courthouse a case is filed at, then splits probate two ways. Lower Keys probate goes to one judge and Lower Keys guardianship and mental health to the other, the Middle Keys goes entirely to one judge, and the Upper Keys is halved between them. Both changes are recent, because until this order Lower Keys guardianship and all Upper Keys cases sat with one judge.
• AO 2.088, Submission of Proposed Orders to Judiciary (April 20, 2026, effective on signing). Proposed orders go through the e-filing portal, and an exhibit referenced in the body has to be attached in JPEG format or the order is rejected. Every proposed order and final judgment needs a cover letter saying that a copy went to all parties and that the form was agreed, or that no objection came within five business days, or that it is opposed and why. Word only, Arial or Times New Roman, no mixed fonts, no tables, columns, styles or auto-populating fields, and the signature codes in capitals, four letters per field, one code per line.
• AO 6.003, Probate Adversary Proceedings, Caption of Documents and Filing by Clerk (December 13, 1994). The rejection rule that is actually written down in Monroe. A probate pleading the rules make adversary carries the estate style plus the first petitioner and the first respondent, and the Clerk does not file a document that is adversary in nature unless it is captioned that way, absent a written order declaring the proceeding nonadversary.
• AO 2.006, Recordation of Death Certificates (December 13, 1994). Directs the Clerk to record certified death certificates with the cause of death concealed first, under a slip saying the section was deleted by statute, and lets the Clerk refuse a certificate whose confidential section is not covered. The order’s own recital notes that recording the death certificate of a deceased title holder is a recognized way to terminate a life estate and vest title in a surviving spouse or joint tenant, which is exactly what a lady bird deed relies on.
• AO 6.013, Guardianship Reports and Audit Procedures (February 3, 2026, effective on signing). Guardianship only, except for item 5, which reaches everybody. A filing made through the e-filing portal is not sent to the assigned judge automatically, so a courtesy copy has to be emailed to that judge’s judicial assistant. The rest tracks the clerk review, audit and judicial review timetables in chapter 744.
• AO 2.090, Special Jury Districts for Monroe County (July 22, 2026, effective January 1, 2027). Redraws the three jury districts by zip code, which is a jury order and not a filing order. Big Pine Key jurors report to Marathon from 2027, and Big Pine Key probate is still filed in Key West, because AO 2.080/20-1 is untouched. Do not read one map onto the other.
• AO 11.012/24-1, Emergency Preparedness (Amended) (September 2024). Approves the circuit’s emergency plan, which is the order behind every storm closure in the Keys. The Acting Chief Judge and then the Duty Judge may curtail proceedings when the Chief Judge cannot, and each of the three court buildings has an appointed safety officer who may order an evacuation.

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

• Confirm which filing division the estate is pending in before doing anything else, because the judge follows the courthouse. A probate case number ending in the letter K is a Key West case. The letters for Marathon and Plantation Key are not published anywhere, so call the Clerk at 305-292-3458 rather than guessing one.
• Monroe keeps a dedicated probate case manager, Rosario Barrett, at Rosario.Barrett@keyscourts.net or 305-292-3429, and substantive probate questions go to her rather than to a judicial assistant. Communications with a judicial assistant are limited to scheduling and to transmitting agreed orders or orders on matters already ruled on in court, and every one of them is copied to all parties.
• Hearing time comes from an email to the assigned judge’s judicial assistant, with the availability of all counsel already secured. One division asks for the date, location and time requested, the case number and style, the attorney names, the motion and its filing date, the time needed, and the date and manner of the required meet and confer, and allows a unilateral request only after three attempts, one of them by telephone.
• Materials reach one division five business days before the hearing, with case law and exhibits emailed to the judicial assistant in PDF/a, while the Clerk separately wants hard copies of exhibits marked with letters five days ahead. Numbered exhibits are accepted only by stipulation, which reverses the convention most Florida filers learned somewhere else.
• Proposed orders go through the proposed order portion of the portal in Word with a cover letter that either certifies agreement or identifies the disagreement, and one division sets the deadline at no later than two days after a hearing. Exhibits referenced inside an order attach in JPEG format, which is the format rule that actually gets orders rejected in this circuit.
• A filing made through the portal does not reach the assigned judge on its own, so a courtesy copy is emailed to that judge’s judicial assistant. The circuit puts that in an administrative order about guardianship reports, and it is the single most useful sentence in the order library for anybody waiting on a signature.
• Nothing probate continues while court operations are suspended for a storm. The reopening line is (305) 295-3644, reopening notices are posted on the circuit site, and the emergency coordinating officer answers at 305-295-3652. A Keys estate often has a personal representative in another state and a property nobody can reach for a week, so read a deadline that lands in hurricane season with that in mind.
• The circuit observes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as court holidays, which is unusual in Florida and worth knowing when you count a deadline. In 2026 the dates are Friday, September 11 and Monday, September 21, and in 2027 they are Friday, October 1 and Monday, October 11.

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 Monroe 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 Monroe 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 Monroe 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 Monroe 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 Monroe County estate, our probate attorney page for Key West 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 Monroe County Probate Court This Year

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

• October 9, 2025. A circuit judge announced he will retire at the end of December 2026 after 30 years. The retiring judge holds no probate assignment today, and his departure forces another division order in a circuit that has already reshuffled probate twice this year. Source.
• February 3, 2026. AO 6.013 set guardianship report and audit procedures and stated in item 5 that a portal filing does not reach the assigned judge automatically, which is why a courtesy copy goes to the judicial assistant. Source.
• April 20, 2026. AO 2.088 replaced the circuit’s proposed-order rules, requiring JPEG attachments for exhibits referenced in an order, a cover letter on every proposed order, and the circuit’s own signature codes. Source.
• July 22, 2026. AO 2.090 redrew the three jury districts by zip code effective January 1, 2027. Jurors move, filings do not, and the bridge-defined filing divisions are untouched. Source.
• July 28, 2026. AO 2.004/26-3 changed the probate map, moving Lower Keys guardianship to the other judge and halving Upper Keys probate between the two. The order runs only through December 31, 2026, so check it before you rely on it. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The estate filed on the wrong side of a bridge. A Big Pine Key family opened their mother’s estate in Marathon, because a jury summons in the house that year had sent somebody to Marathon and the drive is shorter. Jury districts and filing divisions are two different maps drawn by two different orders. The jury districts were redrawn in July 2026 and move jurors from January 1, 2027, while the filing divisions were drawn by bridge in 2020 and nothing has touched them, and Big Pine Key sits in the Lower Keys division, which files in Key West.

The deadline that landed in a storm week. A personal representative in Chicago counted out a filing deadline for his father’s Islamorada estate and did not think about November. A tropical storm closed all three Monroe courthouses from 5 p.m. on a Tuesday until 8:30 a.m. that Thursday, and the order that suspended operations kept only detention, shelter, injunction, commitment and first-appearance matters running. Nothing probate continues during a suspension. The reopening line is (305) 295-3644, and it is worth the call before a deadline rather than after one.

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 Monroe 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.
• Monroe County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · AO 2.080/20-1 · AO 2.004/26-3 · AO 2.088 · AO 6.003 · AO 2.006 · AO 6.013 · AO 2.090 · AO 11.012/24-1. 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/monroe-county.md.
• Monroe County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Sixteenth Judicial Circuit administrative orders · judges directory.

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 Key West residents wherever you are, and this is not a Monroe County office.