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

Where the Sarasota County Probate Court Actually Sits

Sarasota County probate is heard in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, at the Judge Lynn N. Silvertooth Judicial Center at 2002 Ringling Boulevard in Sarasota, an 11-story building with 16 courtrooms that keeps business hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. Filings go through the Sarasota County Clerk of the Circuit Court. The county also has a South County Courthouse at 4004 South Tamiami Trail in Venice, and probate cases from the south end of the county are filed there.

One circuit judge has held the Sarasota probate and guardianship seat since January 2, 2026, and since August 3, 2026 the same judge holds Manatee as well, while the South County tab in Venice now carries a judge of its own with nine checklists. The judicial assistant answers at (941) 861-7942.

• The clerk’s probate page for Sarasota County
• Twelfth Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Twelfth 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 Sarasota County, her estate is a Sarasota 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 Sarasota, Venice, North Port, Osprey, Nokomis, Siesta Key, and Laurel are all Sarasota 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

Most downtown streets have free two-hour and three-hour parking. For a longer stay the court points to the City of Sarasota’s free garage at the corner of Ringling Boulevard and School Avenue, entrance on School Avenue, and to the Judicial Parking lot at 2050 Ringling Boulevard, which has credit and debit kiosks and serves the Judicial Center, the County Justice Center and the Clerk’s office. A placard holder may park in any metered or on-street space with no time limit and no payment. 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 OfKors Cafe at 1989 Main Street, Sarasota, about 500 feet from the public entrance. It sits at Main Street and Washington Boulevard, on the same block as the Judicial Center, and it is open seven days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Sarasota County?

Probate cases in Sarasota 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.

• Charles E. Williams, Probate and Guardianship Division for Manatee and Sarasota County, Courtroom 8B at the Silvertooth Judicial Center, assigned January 2, 2026 (AO 2025-13.4, restated by AO 2026-05b.4 of August 31, 2026, which carried forward the addition of Manatee from August 3, 2026).

The circuit’s judicial directory is the source, read on September 15, 2026. Assignments rotate, usually at the start of a calendar year, so check it before a hearing.

How Busy the Sarasota County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Sarasota County are 2,311 probate filings, 248 guardianship filings and 51 trust filings, plus 3,028 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 2,067 probate cases in the same year. Spread across one judge, that is about 2,311 new probate cases per judge a year, which is the number behind how long an uncontested order takes to get signed.

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

When the Sarasota County Courthouse Is Closed

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

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

How a Case Gets Filed in Sarasota 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 Sarasota 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.

Sarasota is a two-courthouse county, and the dividing line is a road. Under AO 2024-17.2, entered August 21, 2024, a probate, guardianship, or mental health case is filed at the South County Courthouse in Venice when the person lived south of Blackburn Point Road (the order also reaches a respondent living in Charlotte County), when the cause arose there, or when the property is there, and the Clerk may transfer a case filed at the wrong courthouse in either direction. Everything north of that line is a Sarasota case at the Silvertooth Judicial Center. Since August 3, 2026 one circuit judge holds the probate seat for both.

Are Sarasota County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Sarasota County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. Hearings are scheduled through the circuit’s JACS calendar, and the Zoom credentials for each judge are posted on the circuit’s Public Court Hearings page for the next few days rather than in a standing room. Under the requirements the circuit posts as effective August 3, 2026, four hearing types are in person unless the parties stipulate otherwise, namely do-not-resuscitate orders, emergency temporary guardian appointments, final guardianship hearings, and injunctions against exploitation of a vulnerable adult, and the telephone or Zoom credentials must be given when the hearing is set on JACS and repeated on the notice of hearing. The default for the other Sarasota probate hearings is not stated on the division’s page, and a Notice of Inability to Participate in Zoom Hearing form exists for a party with no internet or phone.

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 Clerk of the Circuit Court takes the original on paper, and under the circuit’s venue order a south-county estate’s papers go to the South County Courthouse at 4004 South Tamiami Trail in Venice rather than to Sarasota. The Clerk’s site could not be read on September 15, 2026, so the counter’s room and hours are not printed here. Call the Clerk before you travel with an original, and if the decedent lived south of Blackburn Point Road, ask which building wants it.

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 Sarasota 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 the Twelfth Circuit adds in Sarasota is hearing discipline rather than an extra affidavit. Under requirements the circuit republished as effective August 3, 2026, four kinds of hearing are in person unless the parties stipulate otherwise, namely do-not-resuscitate orders, the appointment of an emergency temporary guardian, final guardianship hearings, and petitions for an injunction against exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Those hearings may be placed on the calendar without court approval, but the telephone or Zoom credentials have to be given to the court when the hearing is set on JACS and repeated on the notice of hearing. The division page also refers filers to the probate judge’s August 25, 2023 memorandum on processing probate and guardianship submissions, which is the document to read before the first proposed order goes up. The circuit posts its own probate forms there, including guardianship plans, accountings, inventories, disposition without administration, and the statement of claim.

The Administrative Orders That Govern Probate in Sarasota 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 Sarasota County as of September 15, 2026.

• AO 2024-17.2, Amended Modification of South County Judicial District of Sarasota County and Division H Case Assignments (August 21, 2024, effective immediately). Defines the South County Judicial District as Sarasota County south of Blackburn Point Road and sends probate, guardianship and mental health cases to the South County Courthouse at 4004 South Tamiami Trail in Venice when the person lives in the district or in Charlotte County, the cause arose there, or the property is there, and the Clerk may transfer a misfiled case either way.
• AO 2019-04.5, Assignment of Adversary Probate Proceedings (February 22, 2019, effective immediately). South County Division H keeps its adversary trials, while a Sarasota adversary proceeding outside Division H that needs a trial longer than half a day, three hours, transfers to the Civil Division when it is ready for trial, with the pretrial motions staying in Probate.
• AO 2026-05b.4, Fourth Amended Judicial Assignments 2026 (signed at Bradenton on August 31, 2026, effective September 3, 2026). The operative assignment order, amending AO 2026-05a.4 of May 29, 2026. The order keeps one circuit judge over the probate and guardianship division for Manatee and Sarasota County, and the seat had reached him on August 3, 2026 under the order this one amends.

The division also publishes its own procedures, last revised August 3, 2026, and the points a filer most needs are these.

• Under the Sarasota and Venice probate and guardianship requirements the circuit posts as effective August 3, 2026, four hearing types are in person unless the parties stipulate otherwise, namely do-not-resuscitate orders, the appointment of an emergency temporary guardian, final guardianship hearings, and petitions for an injunction against exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
• Those hearings may be placed on the calendar without court approval, but the telephone or Zoom credentials must be given to the court when the hearing is set on JACS and repeated on the notice of hearing.
• Every hearing is scheduled through JACS, the circuit’s online calendar, and no probate division email is published for Sarasota, so the judicial assistant’s phone, (941) 861-7942, is the other channel.
• The circuit’s South County tab carries Judge Maria Ruhl and nine checklists of her own as of September 16, 2026, while the Sarasota tab carries the division judge, so a Venice case follows her set rather than the Sarasota one.
• The division page refers filers to the probate judge’s August 25, 2023 memorandum on processing probate and guardianship submissions, and it carries the circuit’s own probate forms, including guardianship plans, accountings, inventories, disposition without administration, and the statement of claim.

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 Sarasota 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 Sarasota 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 Sarasota County adds on top, because that is what a rejection is usually about. The filing fee is $399 to $401.
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 Sarasota County

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

Posted August 2026. Sarasota is the one county in this set whose posted schedule could not be read online on September 15, 2026, because the Clerk’s site blocks automated reading. The ranges above run from the statutory base plus the $4 statutory add-on to the highest total any Florida clerk posts, and Manatee, in the same circuit, posts $400, $345, $235 and $231. Confirm by phone before you file. 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 $399 to $401, 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 $230 to $232 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 Sarasota County estate, our probate attorney page for Sarasota 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 Sarasota County Probate Court This Year

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

• August 31, 2026. The fourth amended assignment order for 2026 was signed, effective September 3, 2026, and it is now the operative one. The same circuit judge keeps the probate and guardianship division for Manatee and Sarasota County, and by September 16, 2026 the circuit’s South County tab was carrying Judge Maria Ruhl and nine checklists of her own for Venice. Source.
• May 29, 2026. The third amended assignment order for 2026 placed every probate and guardianship seat in Sarasota, Venice and Manatee under one circuit judge from August 3, 2026. Source.
• April 24, 2026. The Governor appointed three judges to the Twelfth Circuit, Guy Flowers, Andrea Johnson and Hillary Ellis, and the assignment order that followed placed none of them in probate. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The Venice estate filed in Sarasota. A son opened his mother’s estate at the Silvertooth Judicial Center in Sarasota because it is the main courthouse. She had lived in Venice, south of Blackburn Point Road, and under the 2024 order her case belonged at the South County Courthouse at 4004 South Tamiami Trail. The Clerk may transfer a misfiled case, so the estate survived. The family had prepared for the wrong building, and the first hearing date went with it.

The guardianship hearing that could not be on Zoom. A daughter asked for a Zoom slot for the final hearing on her father’s guardianship, expecting the video default she had read about in another county. Under the requirements republished as effective August 3, 2026, a final guardianship hearing in Sarasota is in person unless the parties stipulate otherwise, and the stipulation has to exist before the hearing is set. She drove in. A one-line stipulation, if the other side would sign it, was the alternative, and nobody had asked.

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 Sarasota 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.
• Sarasota County local court layer, retrieved September 15, 2026, from the judicial directory · AO 2024-17.2 · AO 2019-04.5 · AO 2026-05b.4. 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/sarasota-county.md.
• Sarasota County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Twelfth Judicial Circuit administrative orders · judges directory.

Updated on September 15, 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 Sarasota residents wherever you are, and this is not a Sarasota County office.