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

Where the Suwannee County Probate Court Actually Sits

Suwannee County probate is heard in the Third Judicial Circuit, at the Suwannee County Courthouse at 200 South Ohio Avenue in Live Oak. Filings go through the Suwannee County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller, whose probate counter answers on its own line at (386) 362-0589, Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Suwannee closes at 4:30, the earliest counter in the circuit, so an afternoon errand here is shorter than it looks.

The county also has a separate Judicial Annex at 218 Parshley Street SW, designated a court facility alongside the courthouse, and nothing published says probate is taken there, so treat 200 South Ohio Avenue as the filing counter. Suwannee took 207 probate filings in the 2024-25 fiscal year, second in the circuit behind Columbia. Foreclosure sales run every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 a.m. on the courthouse steps, which is the only standing courthouse event the Clerk publishes.

The probate counter is at the Suwannee County Courthouse, 200 South Ohio Avenue, Live Oak, FL 32064, Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., (386) 362-0589 for probate directly, or (386) 362-0500 on the main line. Suwannee closes at 4:30, the earliest counter in the circuit, and the clerk asks that court cases be handled by phone rather than by email. Depositing an original will is free and the receipt for it costs $7.00, where Columbia and Hamilton issue the receipt at no charge. The custodian deposits within ten days of learning of the death and gives the date of death or the last four digits of the Social Security number. The clerk describes disposition of personal property without administration as releasing up to $6,000.00 or reasonable funeral expenses to the person who paid the final bills, with no real property, and asks for the will, an itemised paid funeral bill, paid receipts for medical expenses in the last 60 days, a statement of the asset to be released, identification and the filing fee. Foreclosure sales run every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 a.m. on the courthouse steps. One caution about the clerk’s own page, which still describes summary administration as available for estates that do not exceed $75,000. Florida raised that ceiling to $150,000 on July 1, 2026, so use the statute rather than the page.

• The clerk’s probate page for Suwannee County
• Third Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Third 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 Suwannee County, her estate is a Suwannee 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 Live Oak, Branford, Wellborn, McAlpin, O’Brien, Dowling Park, and Falmouth are all Suwannee County cases filed with the same clerk. Which division or section then hears the case is a separate question, and the next section answers it.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Suwannee County?

Probate cases in Suwannee 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.

• Jennifer K. Griffin, probate and guardianship for Suwannee County, as a county judge sitting as an acting circuit judge, alongside the whole county court docket and most of the family docket, from chambers at 200 South Ohio Avenue in Live Oak, with judicial assistant Joyce Cameron at 386-362-3431 and cameron.joyce@jud3.flcourts.org, assigned July 1, 2026, the start of the current six-month assignment period, which ends December 31, 2026 (GAO 2026-020).

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 Suwannee County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Suwannee County are 207 probate filings, 25 guardianship filings and 0 trust filings, plus 58 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 149 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 Suwannee 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 Suwannee 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.

A Suwannee case is filed once and lands with Judge Jennifer K. Griffin, a county judge sitting as an acting circuit judge who also carries the whole county court docket and most of the family docket, and who served as this circuit’s general magistrate from 2016 to 2022. Judge Land is the first recusal backup and Judge Feagle the second, with a standing recusal on that second position, because a case in which the Marlin Feagle firm appears is reassigned by the clerk automatically. The assignment order expires December 31, 2026 and is rewritten every six months, and the probate requirements above travel with Judge Griffin’s assignment, so confirm both before you notice a hearing in January.

One more thing is worth knowing before you file, because it explains most of what happens next. The Third Circuit is one court visiting seven courthouses, with a single assignment order, a single general magistrate and no probate calendar in any county, and that shared layer is set out in our guide to how probate works across the Third Judicial Circuit.

Are Suwannee County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Suwannee County are held remotely by default, on Zoom. Judge Griffin runs a hybrid virtual courtroom under Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.530, and Suwannee is the only county in this circuit with a published remote-appearance rule. A hearing is noticed for Zoom with the judicial credentials printed on the face of the notice, and it is appearing in person that has to be requested, no later than the Friday before the hearing. No standing meeting identifier is published, so the credentials come from judicial assistant Joyce Cameron at cameron.joyce@jud3.flcourts.org. Anyone appearing remotely must be somewhere quiet and private, never in a moving vehicle, camera on from the moment of joining and microphone muted until told otherwise, and a party calling a remote witness has to make sure that witness has a working camera and microphone and has tested the connection. There is no standing probate calendar anywhere in this circuit, so every Suwannee hearing is specially set through chambers.

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 original travels on paper to the Clerk within ten days of the custodian learning of the death, with the date of death or the last four digits of the Social Security number. Depositing it is free and the receipt for it costs $7.00, which is a Suwannee line item that Columbia and Hamilton do not charge. Then comes the requirement that catches Suwannee filings specifically. Judge Griffin’s published procedures say a proposed order is not submitted until the original will and the death certificate have been confirmed as actually in the court file, and the document states in terms that having mailed or delivered them to the Clerk is not the same thing as their being in the file. Check the docket, not your outbox.

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 Suwannee 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. Suwannee runs on the only written probate procedure in the Third Judicial Circuit, and three of its rules decide whether a proposed order gets looked at. A proposed order waits until the original will and the death certificate are confirmed as in the court file. Where a separate will file exists, the cases have to be consolidated before the order goes in. And every proposed order goes to the General Magistrate for review rather than to Judge Griffin’s office, which is the opposite of the routing used almost everywhere else in Florida. The rest of her Courtroom Procedures binds a Suwannee estate too. Hearing time is requested by email to the judicial assistant at cameron.joyce@jud3.flcourts.org with every other party copied, and a notice of hearing has to be filed and served immediately after the time is reserved. All hearing materials reach the court no later than three business days before the hearing, and exhibits are in chambers three days before an evidentiary proceeding or they are subject to being stricken. Proposed orders go in as both a PDF and a Word file with a cover letter, within ten days after any hearing. Case law for an evidentiary proceeding goes in 72 hours ahead as a single Word list, and a motion of 50 pages or more including attachments needs a paper courtesy copy at least 72 hours ahead or the matter will not be heard. For a Zoom hearing, exhibits are e-filed through the portal 72 hours ahead as searchable PDFs, so a scan has to be run through character recognition first. The document says only that certain probate forms are available at the Clerk’s office, and nothing local is posted online.

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 Suwannee 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 Suwannee County as of September 16, 2026.

• GAO 2026-020, General Assignment of Judges No. 2026-020 (entered June 2026, posted June 29, 2026, running July 1 to December 31, 2026). Places every judge in all seven counties of the circuit and replaces all prior general assignment orders. Suwannee probate and guardianship goes to Judge Griffin, with Judge Land and then Judge Feagle as the recusal backups, and the order assigns the circuit-wide general magistrate. One standing recusal footnote reaches the second backup, because a case that would go to Judge Feagle in which the Marlin Feagle firm appears is reassigned by the clerk automatically without a motion.
• AO 2024-001, Appointment of General Magistrate (March 2024). Appoints Christina Nieto Seifert general magistrate over mortgage foreclosure, probate, guardianship, trust and mental health matters in all seven counties. An objection to a referral must be in writing within ten days of service of the order of referral. Emergent matters go from the clerk straight to a circuit judge and are never referred to the magistrate, and neither are rehearing, clarification or contempt arising from a judge’s own order. In Suwannee that appointment is not occasional, because every proposed order in the county goes to the magistrate for review.
• AO 2010-004, General Magistrate in the Probate, Guardianship, Trust and Mental Health Cases (February 19, 2010, signed in chambers at Live Oak). On the presiding judge’s request the magistrate reviews guardianship inventories, accountings and plans with no order of referral at all, under Fla. Prob. R. 5.697. Everything else needs an order of referral that the filing party drafts and submits to the assigned judge. All magistrate proceedings are electronically recorded. Supersedes AO 2004-025 and AO 2004-026.
• AO 2024-002, Duty Judge and Emergency Hearing Protocol (April 30, 2024). Rescinds AO 2018-021 and puts one duty judge over all seven counties after 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, at weekends, on holidays and during any courthouse closure, on a rotation of every judge in the circuit. Contact runs through the local Sheriff’s Office dispatch, which relays the message, and each term runs from 8:00 a.m. Monday to 8:00 a.m. the following Monday.
• AO 2025-005, Establishing Court Facility Security Procedures (October 1, 2025, effective immediately, superseding AO 2018-022). Designates both the Suwannee County Courthouse at 200 South Ohio Avenue and the Suwannee County Judicial Annex at 218 Parshley Street SW as court facilities. Minimum screening before entering a courtroom, hearing room or chambers is a bailiff, a metal detector and a barrier. Nothing published says probate is taken at the annex, so the courthouse is the filing counter until the clerk says otherwise.

The division also publishes its own procedures, last revised posted as an order page June 16, 2026, under Supreme Court order AOSC25-30, and the points a filer most needs are these.

• Do not submit a proposed order until the original will and the death certificate have been confirmed as actually in the court file. The document says in terms that having mailed or delivered them to the clerk is not the same as their being in the file.
• Where a separate will file exists, confirm the cases have been consolidated before a proposed order goes in.
• Every proposed order goes to the General Magistrate for review rather than to Judge Griffin’s office, which is the opposite of the routing used almost everywhere else in Florida.
• Communications with the judicial office go by email to cameron.joyce@jud3.flcourts.org, with the case number, the case name and the matter in the subject line and every party copied. The office aims to answer substantively within one business day.
• Hearing time is requested by that same email with opposing counsel and any self-represented party copied, and a notice of hearing carrying the accessibility language must be filed and served immediately after the time is reserved.
• All hearing materials must reach the court no later than three business days before the hearing, and exhibits must be in chambers three days before an evidentiary proceeding or they are subject to being stricken.
• Proposed orders go in as both a PDF and a Word file, with a cover letter either certifying that all parties agree or naming the specific disagreements, and they are due within ten days after any hearing. The signature block reads DONE and ORDERED in Suwannee County on the date signed below.
• Case law for an evidentiary proceeding goes in at least 72 hours ahead as a single Word list of names and citations. A motion of 50 pages or more including attachments needs a paper courtesy copy at least 72 hours ahead or the matter will not be heard.
• Continuances are disfavoured, must be asked for at least two days before the court date, must be signed by the requesting party, and must state the basis, when the movant learned of it, whether it is opposed, and the date the case will be ready.
• For a Zoom hearing, exhibits are e-filed to the clerk through the portal at least 72 hours ahead and labelled as proposed, and every e-filed PDF must be searchable, so a scan has to be run through character recognition first.

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 Suwannee 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 Suwannee 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 Suwannee 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 Suwannee County

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

Posted August 2026. The Suwannee figures come from the Clerk’s own fee schedule PDF, read September 16, 2026, whose probate block is headed effective January 1, 2021. Suwannee also charges $7.00 for a receipt for a will deposit, where Columbia and Hamilton issue one at no charge. 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 Suwannee County estate, our probate attorney page for Live Oak 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 Suwannee County Probate Court This Year

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

• June 29, 2026. The circuit posted GAO 2026-020, which keeps Suwannee probate and guardianship with Judge Griffin through December 31, 2026 and replaces every earlier general assignment order. A replacement order is due in late December, and the probate requirements Judge Griffin publishes travel with her assignment. Source.
• June 16, 2026. The circuit posted Judge Griffin’s Courtroom Procedures as an order page, which is when the three Suwannee probate requirements became easy to find. An earlier copy of the same document was uploaded on March 17, 2025. Source.
• October 1, 2025. AO 2025-005 replaced the 2018 courthouse security order for the whole circuit and designated the Suwannee County Judicial Annex at 218 Parshley Street SW a court facility alongside the courthouse. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The order that went to the judge. A family finished an uncontested summary administration and emailed the proposed order to the judge’s office, which is where a proposed order goes almost everywhere else in Florida. In Suwannee every proposed order goes to the General Magistrate for review. The order was correct, the estate was uncontested, and the only thing wrong with it was the address it was sent to.

The will that was mailed but not filed. A son in Georgia posted his mother’s original will to the Live Oak counter, waited two weeks and then submitted a proposed order admitting it. Judge Griffin’s procedures say a proposed order is not submitted until the will and the death certificate have been confirmed as actually in the court file, and the document is explicit that mailing them is not the same as their being in the file. One look at the docket before sending would have settled it.

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 Suwannee 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.
• Suwannee County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · GAO 2026-020 · AO 2024-001 · AO 2010-004 · AO 2024-002 · AO 2025-005. 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/suwannee-county.md.
• Suwannee County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Third 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 Live Oak residents wherever you are, and this is not a Suwannee County office.