Florida probate code · checked October 2026

Florida Small Estate: The Limit, the Tracks, and the Form

Florida has no general affidavit for estates. Its shortcut is a court track — Summary Administration (Fla. Stat. §§ 735.201-735.2063) — with its own ceiling of $150,000. There is no affidavit for the house to ride: real property passes through summary administration (which can assign exempt property and protected homestead) or through full administration. Florida sets no waiting period for its affidavit.

Run the free Florida check

The Florida line, in facts

The paper: Petition for Summary Administration (Fla. Prob. R. 5.530); a statutory affidavit form exists only for the narrow bank-account route in § 735.303(4).

How it moves: filed with the court — a court paper, not an envelope.

The wait: no statutory waiting period.

For a surviving spouse: No spouse-specific cap; the petition must be signed and verified by the surviving spouse, if any, unless the spouse will receive a full distributive share (§ 735.203).

The tracks in Florida

Track	Limit	How it works
Summary Administration (Fla. Stat. §§ 735.201-735.2063)	$150,000	Summary administration (§§ 735.201–735.2063) is Florida's small-estate door: probate assets of $150,000 or less for deaths on or after July 1, 2026 ($75,000 before), OR the person has been gone more than two years at any amount. A narrower track, Disposition Without Administration (§ 735.301), covers exempt property plus funeral and last-60-days medical expenses with no fixed cap.

The Florida path, walked in order

Accept the shape first: Florida has no general affidavit. The doors are summary administration (§ 735.201) and, for very small funeral-scale estates, disposition without administration (§ 735.301).
Test the summary door two ways: probate assets of $75,000 or less — or the person has been gone more than two years, at any amount.
Separate the exempt property and the homestead: they ride through summary administration on their own rules and do not consume the cap the same way.
File the petition in the county circuit court with the will if there is one; the court's order is the paper banks and title companies accept.
If the estate fails both tests, full administration is the path — the checker verdict says which test failed, and by how much.

What catches families in Florida

The $75,000 figure on nearly every chart is stale: Chapter 2026-57 raised the summary-administration ceiling to $150,000 for deaths on or after July 1, 2026.
Florida never enacted a transfer-on-death deed — the 'enhanced life estate' (Lady Bird) deed is the local equivalent, and it is a different instrument.
Two narrow affidavit routes exist and are routinely oversold: an intestate disposition affidavit (§ 735.304, up to $20,000 plus funeral/medical, death more than a year ago, court-filed) and a bank-payment route (§ 735.303, $2,000 total, not before six months after death).

Vehicles in Florida

A motor vehicle is nonexempt personal property that can be assigned to a beneficiary by the order of summary administration; there is no general affidavit route for vehicles.

Debts, and the signer's duty

Before the order, the summary petitioner must make a diligent search for known or reasonably ascertainable creditors, serve them, and make provision for payment to the extent assets are available (§ 735.206(2)); recipients remain personally liable pro rata up to value received (§ 735.206(4)(e)).

Rules checked October 2026 · Sources: Fla. Stat. § 735.201; Fla. Stat. § 735.203; Fla. Stat. § 735.206; Fla. Stat. § 735.301; Fla. Stat. § 735.303; Fla. Stat. § 735.304; Ch. 2026-57, Laws of Fla. (CS/HB 1337), §§ 7-10. This page reads the published law; it is not legal advice, and the court is the final word.

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