Florida summary administration limit rose from $75,000 to $150,000 on July 1, 2026. Find out what counts toward it and the second way in with no cap.
Does your estate qualify for summary administration in Florida when the house alone is worth $600,000? Summary administration skips the personal representative, the inventory and the ongoing accounting, and one order hands the assets to the heirs.
The Florida summary administration limit was $75,000 for decades and became $150,000 on July 1, 2026 under chapter 2026-57. It counts only what is subject to administration, so homestead, exempt furniture up to $20,000, two family vehicles and anything with a named beneficiary come off first, which turned a $670,000 estate on paper into $40,000. A second way in has no dollar limit when the person has been dead more than two years.
How to file a summary administration in Florida comes down to a petition and one court order once that subtraction is done. Is notice to creditors required in summary administration in Florida? It is when the person died within the last two years, and heirs stay personally liable for unpaid claims up to what they received. The StepUpLaw guide has the full requirements.
Transcript
A woman’s mother died in Miami-Dade this year, owning a house worth about six hundred thousand dollars, one car, and a bank account with forty thousand dollars in it. A title company, a bank branch, and a friend who had been through probate herself all told her the estate was too big for Florida’s short form of probate. None of them ran the math.
This episode settles the question underneath hers. What actually counts toward Florida’s summary administration limit, what that limit became this summer, and the second way in that has no dollar limit attached to it at all.
Florida runs probate two ways. Formal administration appoints a personal representative, who works under the court’s supervision for six months to a year, files an inventory, publishes notice to creditors, and accounts for everything before the case closes. Summary administration skips almost all of that. Nobody is appointed. There is no inventory and no ongoing accounting. A petition goes in, a judge reviews it, and one order hands the assets straight to the people who inherit them. That order is the document a bank or a title company actually acts on.
An estate qualifies for summary administration if the value subject to administration in Florida does not exceed a set cap, or if the person has been dead more than two years, no matter the size of the estate. That cap was $75,000 for decades. On July 1, 2026, a new law, chapter 2026-57, raised it to $150,000. If someone told you the number was $75,000, they are working from before this summer.
The cap does not measure everything the person owned. It measures what is subject to administration, and Florida excludes several categories before it ever reaches that number. A home that qualified as the person’s Florida homestead is exempt from creditors’ claims, so it does not count at all. Household furniture and furnishings up to $20,000, two motor vehicles the family regularly used, and a few narrower categories are exempt property under the statute, and none of that counts either. Anything that already carried a named beneficiary, a retirement account, a life insurance policy, a payable on death account, property held with a right of survivorship, never enters probate in the first place, so it was never part of the number to begin with.
Go back to the $600,000 house. If it was her mother’s homestead, it comes out entirely. The car comes out, up to the exemption. What is left is the $40,000 bank account. On paper the estate looked like $670,000. What is actually subject to administration is $40,000, comfortably under the new cap.
There is a second door that gets explained far less often. If the person has been dead more than two years, summary administration is available regardless of how much the estate is worth. Florida bars most creditor claims two years after death, so the risk the dollar cap protects against is already gone by then. This is the door for the account nobody closed, or the house nobody retitled, from years back.
Getting the math wrong costs you in both directions. Count the house and the furniture in, and you will be told an estate that actually qualifies has to go through the long form, months longer and thousands of dollars more than it needed to cost. Leave something out that should have counted, and the order you obtain can be challenged later, after the money is already spent.
One more number to know before anyone touches the money. Whoever receives assets through summary administration is personally liable for their share of the estate’s unpaid claims, up to the value they received, and that liability runs two years from the date of death. A short probate does not erase what is owed. If the person died within the last two years, notice to known creditors still has to go out before the order is entered.
So here is what to actually do. Start with a list of everything the person owned, then take off the homestead, take off the exempt furniture and two vehicles, and take off anything that already had its own named beneficiary. Whatever is left is the number that matters. If that number is $150,000 or less, or if the person has been gone more than two years, a petition and one court order can move the assets directly, usually in weeks rather than months. If a house is involved, plan on a second, shorter order determining the homestead, so title is clean when it comes time to sell. And before anyone spends what they received, find out whether creditors are still out there, because that liability follows the money, not the estate.
The one thing to do this week is pull together a list of the accounts and the property, note how each one was titled or who was named as beneficiary, and do the subtraction yourself before anyone tells you the estate is too big. Most families are closer to qualifying than they think. My office handles these petitions on a flat fee, and the first conversation about whether yours qualifies costs nothing.
Read the full guide at stepuplaw.com/florida-summary-administration
Related reading and listening at StepUpLaw
- What Property Is Exempt From Probate in Florida?
- florida petition to determine homestead
- What Happens to Debt When Someone Dies in Florida?
- Episode 11, Can a Nursing Home Take Your House in Florida?
- Episode 10, What Florida Requires When an Executor Won’t Act
- Episode 9, Are There Downsides to a Living Trust in Florida
Related guides
- What Property Is Exempt From Probate in Florida?
- florida petition to determine homestead
- What Happens to Debt When Someone Dies in Florida?
Stepping Up is hosted 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. Episodes are general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and listening does not create an attorney-client relationship.
