Does a Trust Avoid Probate in Florida?

1. How Does a Trust Avoid Probate?

A trust avoids probate because the trustee, and not you personally, owns the property on the day you die. Probate transfers property that belonged to a person who has died, and trust property did not belong to you personally, so the probate court has nothing to do with it.

With a revocable living trust, you are usually your own trustee while you live, and the successor trustee you named steps in when you die. Our guide to the Florida successor trustee covers that handoff. The successor needs a death certificate and the trust, and no court appointment. Florida’s trust code says a trust is not subject to continuing court supervision unless a court orders it, so the trustee pays the bills, sells or retitles the property and distributes it under the trust without asking a judge.

The piece that makes all of that work is funding. The house needs a recorded deed to the trustee, and each bank and brokerage account needs to be retitled to the trust or to name the trustee as its pay-on-death beneficiary. Our step-by-step guide on how to fund a trust in Florida goes through each asset type. A trust that was signed and never funded owns nothing, and everything goes through probate anyway.

2. Does a Revocable Trust Avoid Probate, and Which Trusts Do Not?

A revocable trust avoids probate for every asset titled in it, and so does an irrevocable trust. The difference between the two is control during your life and creditor protection, and both skip probate for the property they hold.

A testamentary trust is the exception. A testamentary trust is written into a will and comes into existence only through the probate of that will, so the probate court opens the estate, the personal representative pays the bills, and the leftover property funds the trust at the end. A testamentary trust manages money for a beneficiary after probate and does nothing to avoid it.

3. What Happens to Property Not in a Trust?

Property titled in your own name, with no co-owner and no beneficiary designation, goes through probate even if you have a trust. Most Florida trust plans include a pour-over will that leaves the probate estate to the trustee, and Florida’s probate code lets a will add property to an existing trust. The pour-over will makes sure the property reaches the right people. It does not keep that property out of court.

The size of what was left out decides how heavy the probate is. Florida’s shorter procedure, summary administration, is available when the estate subject to administration in Florida, less exempt property, is $150,000 or less, a cap raised from $75,000 by a 2026 law effective July 1, 2026, or when the person has been dead more than two years. Above that, the family faces formal administration, where Florida’s presumed-reasonable attorney fee is $15,000 on a $500,000 estate and the posted filing fee is about $400 in the largest counties. Our guide asking do I need probate in Florida walks through the thresholds, and the probate cost calculator runs the numbers.

4. Does a Trust Avoid Probate for Your Florida Home?

Yes, once a deed to the trustee is signed and recorded. A home deeded to the trust passes to the successor trustee at your death, and the trustee can sell it or deed it to your beneficiaries without a probate order. Your homestead tax exemption and the Save Our Homes cap continue while you live, because Florida treats your beneficial interest in the trust as ownership for the exemption. Our guide to putting your house in a trust covers the deed.

The Florida homestead rules still apply inside the trust. If you are survived by a spouse or a minor child, Florida’s Constitution bars leaving the homestead to anyone else, and Florida’s probate code treats a disposition by a revocable trust as a devise for that purpose. A trust that leaves the home to your adult children while your spouse survives fails as to the home, and title passes at the moment of death under Florida’s homestead descent rules. Florida’s trust code also says a general direction in the trust to pay debts does not expose protected homestead to your creditors. Our page on the homestead in a trust covers the statute, and our guide to the homestead in a revocable trust covers the planning.

A trust also avoids a second probate for real estate in another state, and our page asking do I need a trust for out-of-state property explains when that matters.

5. Can Creditors Reach the Trust After Death?

Yes, through a personal representative. A revocable trust avoids probate, and Florida still makes it answer for your debts and the costs of your estate to the extent the probate estate cannot pay them. The personal representative certifies in writing to the trustee the amount the estate is short, and the trustee must pay it from trust assets.

Creditors cannot sue the trust directly after your death. Florida’s trust code requires a claim that depends on your personal liability to be presented against your estate under the probate code, and the personal representative then collects from the trustee. A creditor generally has three months after the notice to creditors is first published to file a claim, and Florida bars most claims two years after the death even if no probate was ever opened. A trustee’s own administration costs, including the trustee’s fees and the trustee’s lawyer, come first, before the estate’s obligations. Our page on paying the estate’s bills from a trust covers the order, and the page on suing a trust after death covers the bar on direct claims.

While you are alive, a revocable trust gives no creditor protection at all. Florida lets your creditors reach everything in a trust you can revoke, the same as property in your own name. The protection people associate with trusts comes from an irrevocable trust or from Florida’s own exemptions, such as the homestead.

6. What Does the Trustee File After Death?

The trustee files one short document with the court, the notice of trust, in the county where you lived. The notice states your name, your date of death, the trust’s title and date, and the trustee’s name and address. The notice opens no probate case, discloses nothing about who inherits, and lets the clerk connect the trust to any probate that is opened later. A trustee who forgets to file it still owes the estate’s expenses and debts. Our page on the Florida notice of trust covers the filing.

Within 60 days of learning the trust has become irrevocable, the trustee must also notify the qualified beneficiaries that the trust exists, who created it, that they may request a copy, and that they are entitled to accountings. The rest of the work, from the inventory to the final distribution, is covered in our guide to Florida trust administration.

7. How to Avoid Probate Without a Trust

A trust is one of several ways to avoid probate in Florida, and it is not always the right one. A lady bird deed passes a Florida home outside probate for a flat fee from $399 plus recording, and you keep full control of the home while you live. Pay-on-death designations on bank accounts and transfer-on-death designations on brokerage accounts do the same for money.

A trust earns its cost when you own several properties, real estate in another state, or a business, or when you want a trustee to hold a child’s share until a set age instead of handing it over at 18. Our guide on how to avoid probate in Florida compares every method, and the will vs. living trust guide covers the choice between the two plans.

What Does It Cost to Set Up a Trust That Avoids Probate?

The Complete Trust Plan is a flat fee from $3,200, and $4,500 for a couple. The plan includes the revocable trust, the pour-over will, one funding deed moving your Florida home into the trust, and help retitling your accounts, because an unfunded trust still goes through probate. A revocable trust drafted on its own is a flat fee from $2,400, and a deed moving a property into an existing trust is a flat fee from $550. Administering a trust after a death is a flat fee quoted at consult. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The brokerage account opened after the trust. A retired engineer funds his trust in 2019 and opens a new brokerage account in 2023 in his own name, with no transfer-on-death beneficiary. At his death the account holds $180,000. Everything else passes through the trust, and the brokerage account needs a formal probate, because it is above the $150,000 summary administration cap. A transfer-on-death designation naming the trustee would have kept it out of court.

The home deeded to the trust by a married owner. A husband deeds his homestead to his revocable trust, and the trust leaves everything to his children from his first marriage. His wife survives him and never signed a waiver. The home passes outside probate, and it also passes outside the trust’s instructions, because the homestead rules give his wife a life estate or an undivided half interest instead.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0201 (annotated)(3) (a trust is not subject to continuing judicial supervision unless ordered by the court); §736.0201(5) (construction of a testamentary trust may be heard in the probate proceeding); §736.0505 (annotated)(1)(a) (property of a revocable trust is subject to the claims of the settlor’s creditors during the settlor’s lifetime).
• Fla. Stat. §733.707(3) (a revocable trust is liable for the expenses of administration and obligations of the estate to the extent the estate is insufficient); §733.607(2) (the personal representative certifies the insufficiency in writing to the trustee); §736.05053(1),(4) (the trustee pays on certification; trust administration expenses are paid first); §736.1014(1) (no direct creditor action against the trust after the settlor’s death).
• Fla. Stat. §733.702(1) (claims filed within three months after first publication of the notice to creditors); §733.710(1) (claims barred two years after death); §733.6171(3) (presumed-reasonable attorney compensation for ordinary services in formal administration); §735.201(2), as amended by ch. 2026-57, Laws of Fla. (summary administration where the estate less exempt property does not exceed $150,000, or the decedent has been dead more than two years).
• Fla. Stat. §732.513 (devises to the trustee of an existing trust); §732.4015(1)-(2) (homestead devise restriction applies to a revocable trust); §736.1109(1)-(2) (title to homestead passes under §732.401 at death if the trust violates the restriction; a direction to pay debts does not subject protected homestead to claims); Art. X, §4, Fla. Const.; §196.041(2) (beneficial interest in a trust qualifies for the homestead exemption).
• Fla. Stat. §736.05055(1)-(2),(7) (notice of trust filed after the settlor’s death, and its contents); §736.0813 (annotated)(1)(b) (notice to qualified beneficiaries within 60 days after the trust becomes irrevocable).
• Case retold below: Aronson v. Aronson, 81 So. 3d 515 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012) (on rehearing), applying Art. X, §4(c), Fla. Const., §732.4015(2)(a) and §732.401(1), Fla. Stat. (2001); see also Aronson v. Aronson, 930 So. 2d 766 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006) (the husband’s quitclaim in his individual capacity was a nullity because the trust held title); ch. 2010-132, §7, Laws of Fla. (surviving spouse may elect an undivided one-half interest in place of the life estate). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

The Condo That Skipped Probate and Skipped the Trust Too

I have seen a trust keep a home out of probate and still lose control of it. In one Florida case, a husband living in Massachusetts signed a revocable trust in July 1996 and deeded a Key Biscayne condominium, titled in his name alone, to himself as trustee. In 2000 the couple sold their Massachusetts home, which was in his wife’s name, and moved into the condo, and the wife used $129,895 from that sale to pay off the condo’s mortgage. The husband died in November 2001, leaving his wife and two sons from an earlier marriage, and the sons became the successor trustees. The trust gave the wife a lifetime interest and the right to withdraw a small slice of principal each year, with everything else to the sons.

The family litigated for the next decade. A deed the husband had signed to his wife in his own name did nothing, because the trust already owned the condo. The wife then sued the sons, and the trial judge ordered the trust to repay her $129,895 for the mortgage and $136,519.67 for repairs. The Third District reversed all of it. The condo was the husband’s homestead and his wife survived him, so the trust could not decide who received it. At the moment of death the condo passed outside probate and outside the trust, to the wife for life and then to the sons, and the trustees lost all power over it. As the life tenant, the wife owed the upkeep herself and recovered nothing for the mortgage.

In reviewing Florida cases on homes held in revocable trusts, I have a few take-home points.

The first is the difference between avoiding probate and controlling the result. The deed to the trust kept the condo out of court entirely. The Florida homestead rules still decided who owned the condo, and the trust’s own instructions for the home never took effect.

The second is the title. Once a home is deeded to a trust, only the trustee can deed the home again. Avoid signing a new deed, or a will leaving the house, in your own name after the house is in the trust, because the family can spend years learning the document did nothing.

The third is money a spouse puts into the other spouse’s home. The wife paid off a mortgage on a condo she did not own and ended up with a life estate that made her responsible for every expense going forward. A written agreement signed when the money changed hands would have given the court something to enforce.

An owner can plan around the homestead rules at the drafting stage, with a written waiver from the spouse or a plan that leaves the home in a way Florida allows, and every Complete Trust Plan I prepare, flat fee from $3,200, starts by checking whether the home is protected homestead. One limit applies. The court decided the case under the 2001 statutes, and since 2010 a surviving spouse may choose an undivided one-half interest in place of the life estate, so a widow in the same position today would have a second option the court did not consider.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. Each case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on September 30, 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. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.