Guide · Probate Timeline
How long does probate
take in Broward?
Eight to twelve months for a clean formal administration, four to eight weeks for summary. Here is where every one of those months actually goes.
Short answer
A clean Broward formal administration takes 8 to 12 months. Summary administration, where the estate qualifies, takes 4 to 8 weeks. The binding constraint on formal administration is the three-month creditor claim period, which cannot be shortened, so no formal case finishes meaningfully faster than about eight months regardless of how simple it is.
“How long will this take?” is the first question almost every family asks, usually because something is waiting on the answer: a house that needs to be sold, a mortgage still being paid, siblings who want to know when this ends. The honest answer has two parts, and the second one matters more than the first.
The first part is the range. The second is that most of the schedule is not discretionary. A large share of the calendar is set by a statutory waiting period, so “hiring a faster lawyer” does not compress it. What a good lawyer changes is whether you spend the waiting period productively and whether the avoidable delays happen to you.
At a glance
- Formal administration
- 8 to 12 months
- Summary administration
- 4 to 8 weeks
- Letters issued
- 2 to 4 weeks
- Creditor period
- 3 months
- Contested estate
- 18 months to years
- Out-of-state property
- +3 to 6 months
clean file, no disputes
estates that qualify
after a clean petition
from first publication; cannot be shortened
will contest or homestead fight
ancillary administration elsewhere
The schedule, stage by stage
Weeks 1 to 4
Opening the estate
The petition for administration, original will, death certificate, oath, and designation of resident agent are filed through the Florida e-portal. The court reviews and, if everything is in order, admits the will and issues letters of administration. Nothing else can move until letters exist, because no bank or title company will act without them. Delays here are almost always a disqualified personal representative, a missing original will, or an incomplete oath.
Months 1 to 3
Notice to creditors and the claim window
The personal representative publishes the notice to creditors in a newspaper of general circulation and serves known creditors directly. This starts the clock that governs the whole case: three months from first publication, and 30 days from direct service for a creditor who got one. This period cannot be waived or shortened, which is why no honest lawyer will promise a formal administration in under about eight months.
Months 1 to 4
Marshaling assets and filing the inventory
Running in parallel with the creditor period: identifying and valuing everything the decedent owned, securing property, obtaining date-of-death valuations, and filing the inventory with the court. Real property may need an appraisal. A closely held business interest needs a valuation, and that alone can add months if nobody has one ready.
Months 3 to 6
Claims, homestead, and taxes
Once the claim window closes, valid claims are paid in the statutory order under §733.707 and the rest are objected to. If the decedent owned a homestead, a separate petition and order determining homestead status usually run here, and a title company will require that order before the house can be sold or refinanced. Final income tax returns are prepared. In Broward, homestead is the single most common reason a file sits.
Months 6 to 12
Distribution and discharge
With creditors resolved and taxes handled, the personal representative distributes to the beneficiaries, files a final accounting and a petition for discharge, and the court closes the estate. Beneficiaries who will not sign receipts or waivers extend this stage, sometimes considerably.
The three-month period nobody can shorten
If you take one thing from this page: the creditor claim window is the reason formal administration cannot be fast. The personal representative publishes a notice to creditors, and claims may be filed for three months from that first publication. A creditor served directly gets 30 days. Until that window closes, the estate does not know what it owes, and distributing before you know that exposes the personal representative personally.
Everything else can be run in parallel, and should be. Assets get marshaled, valuations get ordered, tax returns get prepared, and the homestead petition gets filed while the clock runs. A file that does none of that during the waiting period does not finish in month eight; it starts working in month four and finishes in month fourteen.
Summary administration, when it is available
Summary administration skips most of this. No personal representative is appointed, no letters issue, and there is no formal creditor process, so the court can enter an order releasing the assets in weeks rather than months. The estate qualifies if the probate assets excluding homestead are $150,000 or less for deaths on or after July 1, 2026 (the ceiling was $75,000 before that, and the change came from chapter 2026-57), or if the death was more than two years ago at any size.
Run the probate calculator to see which track you are on before assuming the long one.
What actually adds months
Homestead is first, at least in Broward, because so much of the property here is homestead and the order determining its status gates any sale or refinance. A disqualified personal representative is second, and it is entirely preventable if someone checks the residency and relationship rules before filing. After that: out-of-state real property requiring a separate ancillary administration, unfiled tax returns from prior years, a beneficiary who will not sign a receipt, and any genuine dispute.
A will contest changes the character of the case entirely. Once the estate is contested, the timeline stops being measured against the creditor period and starts being measured against a litigation docket.
Timing questions we get constantly
How long does probate take in Broward County?
A clean formal administration generally runs 8 to 12 months from filing to discharge. Summary administration, available for smaller estates and for deaths more than two years ago, usually finishes in 4 to 8 weeks. Those are realistic ranges for files without disputes; a contested estate can run well past 18 months.
Why can’t probate be finished in two months?
Because of the creditor period. Florida requires the personal representative to publish a notice to creditors and then wait three months from first publication for claims to come in. That window cannot be waived, shortened, or negotiated, so it sets a hard floor under every formal administration no matter how simple the estate is.
Can I make probate go faster?
You cannot shorten the three-month creditor period, and that is most of the delay in a formal administration. What you can control is everything running alongside it. Confirm before filing that the proposed personal representative qualifies, locate the original will rather than a copy, gather account statements and deeds early, order the property appraisal in month one instead of month five, get prior-year tax returns filed, and raise homestead at the start so the petition and order are moving while the creditor clock runs. Files that do this finish around month eight. Files that wait for the clock to run before starting the work finish around month fourteen.
Does summary administration really take only a few weeks?
Often, yes. There is no personal representative appointed, no letters issued, and no formal creditor process, so the court can enter an order directing asset holders to release property fairly quickly. The catch is qualifying: the probate estate excluding homestead must be $150,000 or less for deaths on or after July 1, 2026, or $75,000 or less for earlier deaths, unless the death was more than two years ago, in which case size does not matter.
Can beneficiaries get money before the estate closes?
Sometimes, through a partial distribution, but the personal representative takes real risk doing it. Creditors and administration costs get paid before beneficiaries, and a representative who distributes early and then cannot cover a valid claim can be personally liable for the shortfall. Most partial distributions happen after the creditor window has closed and the remaining exposure is known.
Does having a will make probate faster?
Marginally, and not in the way most people expect. A will tells the court who inherits and who should serve, which avoids some disputes, but it does not avoid probate and it does not shorten the creditor period. The things that actually skip probate are a funded revocable trust, beneficiary designations, and survivorship titling.
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Paul Kogan
Fort Lauderdale Litigation Attorney, The Kogan Firm, P.A.
- 17+ years
- Florida Bar
- Martindale Peer Rated
Broward Probate
Find out which track you are on.
Most families do not know whether they are looking at four weeks or twelve months. A free 15-minute call usually settles it, and we will tell you if probate is not required at all.
This guide is general information about Florida probate timing and does not constitute legal advice. Every estate is different, and court schedules and statutory thresholds change.