How to Avoid Probate in Florida (And What to Do If It Is Too Late)

Florida gives you four reliable ways to keep property out of probate: a funded revocable living trust, joint ownership with right of survivorship, beneficiary designations on accounts, and a Lady Bird deed on real estate. A will does not avoid probate. If the owner has already died, you cannot undo it, but there are shortcuts.

Table of Contents

1. The one tool that does not work
2. Four ways that actually work in Florida
3. The Lady Bird deed, Florida’s real estate answer
4. The mistake that quietly breaks the whole plan
5. What probate costs when you do not avoid it
6. If the owner already passed away
7. Your options, including the ones that do not involve us
8. Frequently asked questions

The One Tool That Does Not Work

A will does not avoid probate. It directs it.

This is the most expensive misunderstanding in Florida estate planning. People write a will, feel finished, and leave their family a probate case anyway. The will tells the judge who should receive what. Someone still has to file it, open a case, notify creditors and wait out the statutory periods.

Put plainly: a will is a letter to the probate court. If you want no probate court, you need the property to transfer without one.

Four Ways That Actually Work in Florida

Tool	What it covers	Strengths	Watch out for
Revocable living trust	Anything you retitle into it: house, accounts, business interests	Covers many assets at once, stays private, works if you become incapacitated	Only protects what you actually transfer in
Joint ownership with right of survivorship	Real estate and accounts	Automatic, free, immediate at death	The joint owner’s creditors and divorces can reach the asset while you are alive
Tenancy by the entireties	Property held between spouses	Survivorship plus strong creditor protection in Florida	Ends on divorce or the first death
Beneficiary designations	Bank accounts, life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities	Free, fast, usually a single form	Dies with the plan if the named person predeceases and there is no contingent
Lady Bird deed	Florida real estate	Keeps full control during life, passes automatically at death	Not the right fit in every situation, and it must be drafted correctly

Most South Florida families end up using a combination. Beneficiary designations handle the accounts, and either a trust or a Lady Bird deed handles the house.

The Lady Bird Deed, Florida’s Real Estate Answer

Florida has no transfer on death deed for real property. Many states do, and plenty of national websites assume Florida does too. It does not.

Florida’s transfer on death registration statute, chapter 711, covers securities. Not houses.

The Florida tool for a house is the enhanced life estate deed, almost always called a Lady Bird deed. It works like this.

1. You deed the property to yourself for life, with a remainder to the people you name.
2. You keep the enhanced power to sell, mortgage, lease or change your mind, without needing the remainder beneficiaries to agree.
3. You keep your homestead exemption and your control while you are alive.
4. At your death, the remainder interest vests automatically. Your beneficiaries record the death certificate and the house is theirs.

The enhanced power is the whole point. A plain life estate deed hands real rights to the remainder beneficiaries immediately, so you would need their signatures to sell or refinance. A Lady Bird deed does not.

The Mistake That Quietly Breaks the Whole Plan

An unfunded trust.

People pay for a trust, sign a binder of documents, put it on a shelf, and never retitle the house into it. The trust is valid. It just does not own anything. When the owner dies, the house is still in their sole name, and the family gets a full probate case along with the legal bill they already paid to avoid one.

There are three other versions of the same failure.

• A beneficiary designation naming someone who died first, with no contingent named. The money falls back into the probate estate.
• An ex-spouse still named on a retirement account. Plan documents generally control, and this leads to litigation.
• A joint account opened purely for convenience with one adult child. On death, that child may legally own all of it, which is rarely what the parent intended and often starts a family fight.

The fix for all four is the same. Once a year, read the actual titles and the actual designation forms. Not the plan. The paperwork.

What Probate Costs When You Do Not Avoid It

Florida publishes a fee schedule for ordinary attorney services in formal administration. Section 733.6171 says these amounts are presumed reasonable, based on the compensable value of the estate.

Estate value	Presumed reasonable attorney fee
$40,000 or less	$1,500
Over $40,000 up to $70,000	An additional $750
Over $70,000 up to $100,000	An additional $750
Over $100,000	3% of the value up to $1 million
Over $1 million up to $3 million	2.5% of the excess
Over $3 million up to $5 million	2% of the excess
Over $5 million up to $10 million	1.5% of the excess
Over $10 million	1% of the excess

Run the arithmetic on a $500,000 Broward house held in one name. The 3% tier applies to the portion over $100,000, and that is just the ordinary attorney fee. Add court costs, publication, the personal representative’s compensation and any extraordinary services.

Then add the carrying cost. Insurance, property taxes, utilities and lawn care on an empty house, for six to twelve months.

A Lady Bird deed costs a fraction of that. So does spending twenty minutes updating beneficiary forms.

If the Owner Already Passed Away

You cannot avoid probate retroactively. Nobody can sign a trust for a person who has died, and a deed signed after death is not valid.

What you can do is take the shortest legal route available.

Summary administration

This is the main one, and the rules just changed in your favor.

Under CS/HB 1337, chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida, effective July 1, 2026, an estate qualifies for summary administration when the value subject to administration in Florida, minus property exempt from creditor claims, does not exceed $150,000. The previous ceiling was $75,000. The new limit applies to deaths on or after July 1, 2026.

Summary administration is also available regardless of value when the person has been dead for more than two years.

It runs in weeks rather than months, and there is no personal representative appointed in the usual way. The order itself is what moves title.

Disposition without administration

Section 735.301 allows a very small estate to be handled without any formal proceeding. It is limited to personal property, and the non-exempt personal property must be worth no more than preferred funeral expenses plus reasonable and necessary medical and hospital bills from the last sixty days of the final illness.

It will not transfer a house. Useful for a last paycheck or a small account, not for real estate.

The two year rule

Section 733.710 says that two years after death, the estate, the personal representative and the beneficiaries are generally not liable for claims against the person who died. Recorded mortgages and security interests survive that cutoff.

This is also the rule that unlocks summary administration with no value test. Families who sat on a property for years sometimes find the path is simpler now than it was at the time of the death.

Your Options, Including the Ones That Do Not Involve Us

• Talk to a Florida estate planning attorney while everyone is healthy. A Lady Bird deed or a properly funded trust is the cheapest hour you will ever buy.
• Update beneficiary designations today. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and it covers most of what families own.
• If someone has already died, ask a probate attorney one question: do we qualify for summary administration under the new $150,000 limit?
• List the house with an agent once you have authority to sell. If it is in good condition and the family is not under pressure, retail usually nets more than any cash offer.
• Sell as-is to a buyer who can work alongside the probate case. This fits when the house needs work, when heirs live in different states, or when nobody can carry the monthly costs.

We pay less than retail. What you get back is certainty on the date and a buyer who has closed Broward and Miami-Dade probate deals before. If the traditional route serves your family better, we will tell you.

What To Do This Week

1. Pull the deed to your house and read how it is actually titled.
2. Log in to every account with a beneficiary field and look at who is named.
3. If you have a trust, confirm in county records that the house is actually titled in it.
4. If someone has already died, find the date of death first. It decides which summary administration limit applies.

Conclusion

Avoiding Florida probate is not complicated, but it does require doing something other than writing a will. Fund the trust. Check the designations. Ask about a Lady Bird deed on the house. Those three moves cover most South Florida families.

If you are reading this after a death, the window for planning has closed, but the window for choosing the shorter path has not. The $150,000 summary administration limit is new, most published guidance has not caught up, and it may change what your family is facing.