Florida Statute 736.0813: What a Trustee Must Tell You, and When

What Section 736.0813 Says

The call sounds the same almost every time. A parent died a year ago, a sibling or a bank is the trustee, and nothing has come. No copy of the trust. No statement. No answer to the last three emails. What comes instead is a feeling most people describe the same way. They are being handled, and asking again will only make it worse.

Here is what is usually true in that situation. The trustee is not exercising discretion by staying quiet. The Florida Trust Code puts affirmative duties on a trustee that begin on a clock, that do not wait for you to ask, and that a court can enforce. The section that carries them is 736.0813, and it opens with one sentence that sets the tone for everything after it.

Read the opening sentence again, because it is doing real work. The duty is to keep you reasonably informed, and it is stated before any of the lettered items. The list that follows is the floor, not the ceiling.

Now the limit, stated plainly, because it is the first thing a defending trustee will raise. Subsection (4) turns the whole section off while a trust is revocable, and points to section 736.0603(1) for the reason. During that period the trustee’s duties run to the settlor alone. If your parent is alive and can still revoke the trust, none of the rights below are yours yet. Our annotation of section 736.0603 covers that period, including what a family can and cannot do while it lasts.

The Two 60 Day Clocks

Most people assume a trustee’s obligation to communicate starts when someone asks. It does not. Two of the duties in this section run on their own clocks, and both of them are 60 days.

The acceptance notice, paragraph (1)(a). Within 60 days after accepting the trust, the trustee must give the qualified beneficiaries notice of three things, namely that the trustee has accepted, the trustee’s full name and address, and that the fiduciary lawyer-client privilege in section 90.5021 applies to the trustee and any attorney the trustee employs. That last item is not filler. It is telling you, in advance, that the lawyer working on this trust is the trustee’s lawyer and not yours, which is worth knowing before you call that office expecting help.

The irrevocability notice, paragraph (1)(b). This is the one families almost never see honored. Within 60 days after the trustee learns that an irrevocable trust was created, or learns that a formerly revocable trust has become irrevocable, whether by the death of the settlor or otherwise, the trustee owes the qualified beneficiaries notice of the trust’s existence, the identity of the settlor, the right to request a copy of the trust instrument, the right to accountings under this section, and the same privilege statement.

Sit with that for a second. For an ordinary living trust, the day a parent dies is the day the trust becomes irrevocable. Sixty days later, the trustee should have written to you and told you the trust exists, that you may ask for a copy, and that you have a right to accountings. Families who never received that letter often spend the next two years assuming they had no right to ask for anything, which is the practical damage the missing notice does.

Notice also what triggers the clock. It is the date the trustee acquires knowledge. A trustee who says nobody told them the trust was theirs to run has an argument about the start date, not about the duty.

One more thing to check if a packet did arrive. The same envelope that carries a copy of the trust can start a very different clock, the six-month period to challenge whether the trust is valid at all. That deadline lives in its own section, annotated at Fla. Stat. 736.0604. If a packet from a trustee is sitting on your counter, treat the date it was sent as the date that matters and get it read now.

What You Can Ask For, and Get

Three separate entitlements sit in this section, and they answer three different questions people arrive with.

The document itself, paragraph (1)(c). Upon reasonable request, the trustee shall provide a qualified beneficiary with a complete copy of the trust instrument. Not a summary. Not the pages the trustee thinks concern you. Not a description over the phone of what it supposedly says. If amendments exist, the instrument as amended is what you are reading, which is why the copy that arrives should be checked for the amendments it references.

What is in there and what is happening to it, paragraph (1)(e). Upon reasonable request, the trustee shall provide relevant information about the assets and liabilities of the trust and the particulars relating to administration. This is the paragraph that covers the question people actually mean when they say they want to know what is going on. What does the trust own, what does it owe, and what is being done with it.

The accounting, paragraph (1)(d). A trustee of an irrevocable trust owes each qualified beneficiary a trust accounting at least annually, and again when the trust terminates or the trustee changes. This one does not depend on a request at all. It is a calendar obligation, and the next section covers what it must contain.

Both of the request-based duties turn on a reasonable request, which in practice means putting it in writing, dating it, being specific, and keeping a copy. A verbal ask at a funeral is easy for a trustee to not remember. A dated letter is not.

Who counts as a qualified beneficiary

Every duty above runs to qualified beneficiaries, which is a defined term rather than a description of anyone named in the trust. That makes status the threshold fight in a surprising number of refusal cases, and the Fourth District said why in a 2019 opinion.

“Having the rights of a qualified beneficiary of a trust is important because under the FTC, a trustee is only required to ‘inform and account’ to a trust’s qualified beneficiaries. § 736.0813, Fla. Stat. (2017). Whether a charitable organization has the rights of a qualified beneficiary is a question of statutory interpretation.”

Hadassah v. Melcer, 268 So. 3d 759, 761 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019).

In that case charities stood behind three daughters, and the lower court had read the definition as though the daughters’ interests would end one after another, pushing the charities so far back in line that they were not yet owed anything. The appellate court disagreed.

“We find the charities are qualified beneficiaries under section 736.0110(1)(b). On the relevant date, the daughters were the only ‘other distributees or permissible distributees then receiving or eligible to receive distributions’ of trust income or principal. Id. ‘[O]n termination of the interests’ of the daughters, the charities ‘would be’ distributees. Id. (emphasis added).”

Hadassah, 268 So. 3d at 761.

What that means for you is that a remainder interest that looks distant is not automatically outside the circle. The statute asks who would take if the current interests ended, considered together, rather than walking them down one at a time. Two honest limits on that case. The holding construes section 736.0110(1)(b), the provision on when a charitable organization has the rights of a qualified beneficiary, rather than section 736.0813 itself, and the general definition of qualified beneficiary lives in section 736.0103. Whether you are one is read off your trust document, not off a web page.

What an Accounting Must Actually Contain

“Chapter 736 does not permit a trust accounting to be an instrument of obfuscation.”

Revah v. Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (Fla. 4th DCA Nov. 12, 2025) (slip op. at 8).

That sentence is the reason this page exists. The most common version of the problem is not total silence. It is a trustee who sends something, and a beneficiary who cannot tell whether what arrived is an accounting or a pile of paper meant to look like one.

Florida answers that question with a definition. Section 736.08135 says what a trust accounting is, which converts a vague worry into a checklist you can hold up against the envelope on your kitchen table.

Three items on that list do most of the work in real disputes.

Compensation paid to the trustee and the trustee’s agents has to be shown. Not buried in a total, not described as administrative expense. If you have wondered what your sibling or the bank has been paying itself out of the trust, this is the line item the statute says belongs in the report. What ordinary trustee compensation looks like in Florida is its own subject, covered on our page about Florida trustee fees.

Two values for each asset that can reasonably be valued. What it came in at, and what it is estimated to be worth now. One number is how a stale or convenient valuation hides inside a document that otherwise looks complete.

A plan of distribution in the final accounting. When the trust is winding up, the accounting is supposed to tell you how the remaining property is going to be split, before it is split.

What courts have said does not count

The decisions quoted here and in the next section are published opinions in other parties’ cases, not matters handled by this firm. They show how Florida courts have applied these sections. They do not predict anything about yours.

In November 2025 the Fourth District took up a trustee who had produced records without producing an accounting.

“Viewed in the light most favorable to Suzanne, the record shows that Cecile failed to serve any statutorily compliant accountings as required by Chapter 736. The only documents Cecile produced were (1) a 2022 ‘document dump’ of third-party financial records and (2) unsworn ledgers filed on October 5, 2023, which was over a year after litigation commenced. These documents lack the essential elements of a statutory accounting under section 736.08135, as they are not ‘reasonably understandable’ reports and do not include the information required by section 736.08135(2). In addition to not being organized in a report format, the documents were not provided annually as required.”

Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (slip op. at 9 to 10).

And the court put a name on what a decade of that adds up to.

“The trial court improperly relied on the unsworn, post-litigation ledgers as satisfying Cecile’s statutory duty. Mere bank statements or transaction logs do not constitute a statutory accounting. The absence of sufficient annual accountings for over a decade establishes a per se breach of trust under section 736.1001(1), Florida Statutes.”

Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (slip op. at 10).

What that means for you is that a box of bank statements is not an accounting. A spreadsheet produced during a lawsuit is not an accounting. A binder that arrives eleven years late is not eleven accountings.

Who has to prove it

Here is the part that changes how a stonewalled beneficiary should think about the whole problem. You are not the one who has to reconstruct the trust’s finances to prove something is wrong.

“Suzanne made a prima facie case that Cecile was a trustee, and that Suzanne did not receive accountings. At that point, the ultimate burden of proof rested with Cecile to account for the property held by her in trust consistent with Chapter 736.”

Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (slip op. at 9).

“Under Florida law, the burden is on fiduciaries to adequately account for their use of a beneficiary’s funds.”

Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (slip op. at 9).

What that means for you is simple. The showing is that the person is a trustee and that the accountings did not come. From there it was the trustee’s job to account. That is a very different starting posture than the one most people imagine when they picture proving a case, and it is the reason we ask first for dates and envelopes rather than for a theory.

The same opinion opened by describing what had gone wrong in that family in a way many will recognize.

“The case is an object lesson that loose, informal recordkeeping common to family finances is contrary to the requirements imposed on trustees by Florida statutes.”

Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (slip op. at 1).

Two older cases show the other failure mode, the accounting that exists but does not do its job. In Landau, the Third District recorded that when the trustee finally provided a document, it was unsigned, it left out an asset worth roughly a million dollars, and it showed distributions far exceeding the trust’s net income for the year without explaining them. In McCormick, a belated report covering four years carried a value the trustee already knew was outdated.

“Moreover, the untimely April 2005 ‘accounting’ for four years of activity by McCormick reported ‘assets on hand’ as of December 31, 2004, as a total of $2,580,113.51, using the long-outdated golf course value.”

McCormick v. Cox, 118 So. 3d 980, 984 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013).

Read that against the two-values requirement in subsection (2)(c). A number that was true once is not the estimated current value the statute asks for, and a late accounting does not cure itself by being thick.

What Courts Do When the Accounting Does Not Come

People ask this question quietly, because they assume the answer is nothing. It is not nothing. Florida courts have ordered real consequences, and the published decisions escalate in a way that maps onto how these cases actually run.

A court froze the trust until the accounting was filed

In Landau v. Landau, a beneficiary asked for asset information and the annual accountings, got nothing usable, and filed suit.

“She requested information regarding the assets and copies of the annual trust accountings required by sections 736.0813 and 736.08135, Florida Statutes (2016). When this information was not forthcoming, in January 2016 Susan Landau filed a verified complaint to compel trust accountings.”

Landau v. Landau, 230 So. 3d 127 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017) (slip op. at 2 to 3).

What the probate court then did is the part worth reading twice.

“The trial court then ordered the trust assets frozen until David Landau completed and filed the 2016 trust accounting.”

Landau, 230 So. 3d 127 (slip op. at 4).

The trustee argued the freeze violated his due process rights. The Third District was brief about it.

“We reject David Landau’s argument that the order freezing trust assets violated due process and applicable rules. The probate court’s inherent jurisdiction to protect the assets under its supervision is well established.”

Landau, 230 So. 3d 127 (slip op. at 5).

Honest limits on that case, because they matter. It came up as a review of a non-final order in an injunction posture, the standard of review was abuse of discretion, and the trustee’s failure to file timely and accurate accountings was conceded, so the court had no fact dispute to resolve. It shows what a Florida probate court has the power to do while a case runs. It does not promise that any court would do it again.

A court removed the trustee

In Gnaegy v. Morris, decided in December 2023, the Third District affirmed the removal of a trustee whose failures under this section were listed by the trial court item by item.

“Reasons for her removal as Trustee of the Revocable Trust include failure to: provide notice of acceptance of the Trust at any time, in violation of section 736.0813(a), Florida Statutes (2022); file any tax returns for the Trust, thereby subjecting the Trust to potential penalties and interest; render any Trust accountings whatsoever in violation of section 736.0813(d), Florida Statutes (2022); provide the Trust’s beneficiaries with relevant information about the assets and liabilities of the Trust and the particulars relating to administration in violation of section 736.0813(e), Florida Statutes (2022)”

Gnaegy v. Morris, No. 3D22-2065 (Fla. 3d DCA Dec. 13, 2023) (slip op. at 10). The court’s list continues past this point, and its citation form drops the “(1)” from the paragraph numbers, reproduced here as written.

The removal ground was the trustee’s persistent failure to administer the trust effectively, and the appellate court affirmed.

“We find ample competent, substantial evidence in the record to support the trial court’s determinations, and hold the trial court acted within its discretion in removing Appellant as Personal Representative of the Estate and as Trustee of the Trust.”

Gnaegy, No. 3D22-2065 (slip op. at 11).

One honest limit here. The Third District was affirming a trial court’s findings for abuse of discretion. It did not construe the elements of section 736.0813 or decide what a compliant accounting contains. Cite it for the consequence, not the standard. Worth knowing anyway, the trustee there had leaned on having relied on her lawyer and her accountant, and it did not save the job.

A court removed, surcharged, and reached past the trustee

McCormick v. Cox is the case that shows the outer end. After an eight-day trial the probate court removed the trustee, surcharged him along with his son and their law firm, and ordered disgorgement, for a total exceeding $5,300,000. The Third District affirmed in all respects. Failing to account was one of the enumerated breaches.

“The trustee and his law firm also breached their duties to post a bond and to render annual accountings to the beneficiaries as specified by the Cox trust agreement and Florida law.”

McCormick, 118 So. 3d at 986.

“The court’s power to remove a trustee and to appoint a special trustee is well settled. §§ 736.0706, .1001(2)(g), Fla. Stat. (2013).”

McCormick, 118 So. 3d at 987 to 988.

One honest limit here. The conduct there ran from 2001 to 2005 and was decided under the predecessor statutes, sections 737.303 and 737.3035, which the Fourth District has since described as imposing a duty virtually identical to the current one. It is the anchor for the principle. For the current sections, the working authorities are Revah and Corya.

How far back it reaches, and why that is contested

Now the uncomfortable part, and we would rather you hear it here than after waiting another year. In Corya v. Sanders the Fourth District put a limit on how many years of missing accountings a beneficiary can force a trustee to produce.

“We thus conclude, on the facts of this case, that statutory laches under section 95.11(6) limits the right to an accounting, where no accounting has been done, to no more than four years before filing an action for an accounting against the trustee of an irrevocable trust.”

Corya v. Sanders, 155 So. 3d 1279, 1286 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015). Laches is a defense based on delay.

The same opinion also read a floor into the accounting statute itself.

“Because section 736.08135 became effective on July 1, 2007, we construe the combination of subsections (1) and (3) to be a clear legislative statement that trustees of irrevocable trusts could not be statutorily required to render accountings prior to January 1, 2003.”

Corya, 155 So. 3d 1279 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) (slip op. at 10).

A numbering note, so nobody checking our work is misled. The court wrote subsection (3) because that is where the effective-date language sat when the case was decided in 2015. Chapter 2018-35 later inserted a new subsection (3) into section 736.08135 and pushed that language down, so the same content is subsection (4) in the statute you will open today. A reader who follows the opinion’s number into the current text lands somewhere else entirely.

Do not treat the four-year cap as settled. In November 2025 the same court that decided Corya pointed at the question directly, ordering that on remand the beneficiary

“shall be given leave to amend her pleadings to raise the issue of whether the legislature abrogated Corya by amending section 736.1008, Florida Statutes, in 2018. See Ch. 2018-35, § 8, Laws of Fla.”

Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (slip op. at 11).

There is a reason the question is live. Section 736.1008(3) now closes with this sentence.

“A beneficiary’s actual knowledge that he or she has not received a trust accounting does not cause a claim to accrue against the trustee for breach of trust based upon the failure to provide a trust accounting required by s. 736.0813 or former s. 737.303 and does not commence the running of any period of limitations or laches for such a claim, and paragraph (a) and chapter 95 do not bar any such claim.”

Fla. Stat. §736.1008(3) (official text, retrieved August 12, 2026).

So the honest picture is this. One Florida appellate decision caps the accounting look-back at four years, that decision is being challenged in the very district that issued it, and the current limitations statute says a beneficiary’s knowledge of not receiving an accounting does not start any clock on the failure to account. Where a particular family lands in that tension depends on facts and on how a court reads the 2018 amendment. What none of it changes is the practical advice. Every year you wait is a year of records that gets harder to reach, and a contested look-back is a bad thing to be relying on. If the trustee has gone quiet, that is the moment to move, not the moment to give it one more holiday season.

Waivers, and the Part Most Beneficiaries Miss

Somewhere in the first months after a death, a lot of people sign a short document handed to them by a trustee, a bank, or a well-meaning family lawyer. Sometimes it is called a waiver of accountings. Years later, when the questions start, they are told they gave up the right to ask.

Read subsection (2) again, slowly. It has four sentences and the third and fourth are the ones nobody mentions.

• A qualified beneficiary may waive the duty to account. That is real, and it is why the document exists.
• A qualified beneficiary may withdraw a waiver previously given. The statute says so in its own words. You are not locked in for life.
• Both the waiver and the withdrawal must be in writing. Which cuts both ways. A trustee claiming you waived accountings verbally, or by going along quietly for years, is describing something the statute does not recognize.
• The withdrawal is effective only for future accounting periods. This is the limit, and it is the reason to act now rather than later. A written withdrawal turns the accountings back on going forward. It does not, by itself, hand you the years that already went by.

Notice the scope of the waiver too. By its own words, subsection (2) reaches the duty to account under paragraph (1)(d). The rest of the section, including a complete copy of the trust instrument on reasonable request and relevant information about assets, liabilities, and administration, is not what that document addresses.

If you signed something and cannot remember what it said, ask for a copy of it before you decide what it did. And if you are ready to turn the accountings back on, the withdrawal should be in writing, dated, sent in a way that proves delivery, and kept.

How to Actually Get an Accounting

One threshold question first, because it decides whether any of this is available to you yet. If the settlor is alive and the trust is still revocable, the duties in this section run to the settlor alone. The Fourth District said it directly.

“In fact, section 736.0813, Florida Statutes (2012), which provides for the duty of the trustee to provide trust accountings to qualified beneficiaries, specifically does not apply while a trust is revocable: ‘As provided in s. 736.0603(1), the trustee’s duties under this section extend only to the settlor while a trust is revocable.’ Thus, a statutory duty to account to the qualified beneficiaries does not arise until a trust becomes irrevocable.”

Hilgendorf v. Estate of Coleman, 201 So. 3d 1262, 1265 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). That period is covered on our 736.0603 page.

Once the trust is irrevocable, the sequence below is yours, and each step builds the record for the next one.

Step one, a written, dated request. Ask for a complete copy of the trust instrument and any amendments, an accounting for each year since the trust became irrevocable, and information about the assets and liabilities and how the trust is being administered. Keep it short and civil. Send it in a way you can prove. A trustee who answers has just solved the problem cheaply. A trustee who ignores a polite dated letter has started writing the other side of the story.

Step two, a formal demand from counsel. This is where the duties get named, the paragraph numbers get cited, and a deadline goes on the calendar. A meaningful share of these matters end here, because a trustee who has been treating your questions as family friction reads a demand letter differently, and the trustee’s own lawyer will explain what the next step costs.

Step three, a petition asking the court to compel. In Landau the vehicle was a verified complaint to compel trust accountings, and while the case ran the probate court also protected the trust property. Florida’s Trust Code gives a court a range of remedies for a breach of trust, including compelling performance, appointing a special fiduciary, and suspending or removing a trustee. What is worth asking for in a given case depends on what the silence is hiding, which is a strategy question rather than a form question. How these disputes actually run, from demand through removal, is on our Florida trust litigation page.

Three things help more than anything else you can bring to that first conversation. The date the settlor died, everything the trustee has sent with the envelopes and dates intact, and a written list of what you asked for and when. Not a theory of what happened. Dates.

If you are the trustee reading this, the fix is usually cheaper than the fight. Get the notices out, get the accountings prepared in the form the statute describes, and show your own compensation rather than folding it into a total. Our Florida trust administration guide covers getting compliant, and trustee fees covers what you can reasonably be paid and how it should be disclosed.

Nobody can tell you from a web page whether your trustee has broken a duty. What we can do is read what you received, compare it to what the statute requires, put the dates in order, and give you a straight answer, including when the answer is that the administration looks honest and the trustee is simply a poor communicator. That is a real outcome, and it is worth having. The consult is a free 30 minutes. Flat fees for planning work are posted on our pricing page; a trust dispute is quoted after we have seen the documents, because the work depends on what actually happened. Book a free consult →

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

“I’ll get to it when I get to it.” A daughter in Broward loses her mother in the spring. Her brother, named successor trustee, tells the family he is handling everything and that the lawyer said it takes a while. Fourteen months later she has never seen the trust, never received a statement, and has stopped asking because every call ends in an argument. What we look at first is not his behavior. It is the calendar, starting with the date of death, whether the 60-day notice under paragraph (1)(b) ever went out, and what a dated written request would establish if he ignores it too. Most of the leverage in a case like hers comes from the record she builds in the next 30 days, not from the year of frustration behind her.

The binder that is not an accounting. A son in another state finally receives a thick envelope from the corporate trustee of his father’s trust, containing monthly brokerage statements, a cover letter, and a summary page with three numbers on it. It looks official, so he assumes it must be what he was owed. Held against section 736.08135, it has no statement identifying the trust and the period, no showing of the compensation paid to the trustee and its agents, and one value per asset instead of two. In Revah the Fourth District held that a document dump and unsworn ledgers lacked the essential elements of a statutory accounting. Whether what he received clears the bar is a question a court would decide on its own record, and it is exactly the comparison we do in the consult.

The waiver signed at the kitchen table. A widow’s three children sign waivers of accountings in the weeks after the funeral, because the family friend serving as trustee explains that formal accountings cost the trust money and they all trust each other. Four years later the youngest notices the trust has shrunk faster than the distributions explain. She assumes she signed her rights away. Under subsection (2) a waiver can be withdrawn in writing, effective for future accounting periods, which is a step she can take this week. The years behind her are a separate and harder question, and it is one of the reasons a withdrawal is worth sending early rather than after another quiet year.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0813 (duty to inform and account: keep qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed; 60-day notice after acceptance, paragraph (1)(a); 60-day notice after the trustee acquires knowledge that a trust is or has become irrevocable, paragraph (1)(b); complete copy of the trust instrument on reasonable request, (1)(c); a trust accounting to each qualified beneficiary at least annually and on termination or change of trustee, (1)(d); relevant information about assets, liabilities, and administration on reasonable request, (1)(e); written waiver and written withdrawal of a waiver, effective for future accounting periods, (2); duties extend only to the settlor while a trust is revocable, (4)). Official text, Online Sunshine. History: s. 8, ch. 2006-217; s. 15, ch. 2007-153; s. 11, ch. 2011-183; s. 14, ch. 2013-172; s. 8, ch. 2022-96. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Fla. Stat. §736.08135 (trust accountings: a reasonably understandable report that adequately discloses the required information; identification of the trust, trustee, and period; all cash and property transactions and significant transactions affecting administration, including compensation paid to the trustee and the trustee’s agents; gains, losses, receipts, and disbursements; two values per asset where reasonably capable of valuation; a plan of distribution in a final accounting). Official text, Online Sunshine. History: s. 8, ch. 2006-217; s. 6, ch. 2018-35; s. 9, ch. 2022-96. Numbering note: the effective-date provision that Corya quoted as subsection (3) in 2015 sits at subsection (4) in the current section, because ch. 2018-35 inserted a new subsection (3). The court’s own number is preserved inside the quotation above; the current number is given in our text. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Revah v. Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (Fla. 4th DCA Nov. 12, 2025). Quoted above at slip op. 1, 8, 9, 9 to 10, 10, and 11, from the official Fourth District slip opinion PDF; CourtListener mirror. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The opinion carried the standard legend that it is not final until disposition of any timely filed motion for rehearing, and no So. 3d citation was recorded when this page was prepared. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Corya v. Sanders, 155 So. 3d 1279 (Fla. 4th DCA Feb. 11, 2015) (Nos. 4D12-3067 and 4D12-3926, on motion for rehearing). Quoted above at 1286 and at slip op. 10. Full opinion: CourtListener; the official slip PDF was not publicly retrievable when this page was prepared. The February 11, 2015 opinion withdrew and replaced an earlier November 5, 2014 opinion in the same appeals, which is also hosted online and should not be read as the ruling. Contested: in Revah the same court directed that on remand the beneficiary be given leave to raise whether the Legislature abrogated Corya by amending §736.1008 in 2018, so the four-year cap is live rather than settled. Corya also declined to certify conflict with Taplin v. Taplin, 88 So. 3d 344 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), on the stated ground that Taplin contains no discussion of statutory laches under §95.11(6), and it expressly did not address §736.1008. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Landau v. Landau, 230 So. 3d 127 (Fla. 3d DCA Sept. 20, 2017) (No. 3D17-1503, Miami-Dade County). Quoted above at slip op. 2 to 3, 4, and 5. Full opinion: CourtListener; the official slip PDF was not publicly retrievable when this page was prepared. Review of a non-final order in an injunction posture under an abuse-of-discretion standard, where the trustee’s failure to file timely and accurate accountings was conceded, so it is not a merits ruling on breach. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Gnaegy v. Morris, No. 3D22-2065 (Fla. 3d DCA Dec. 13, 2023) (Miami-Dade County). Quoted above at slip op. 10 and 11. Full opinion: CourtListener; the official slip PDF was not publicly retrievable when this page was prepared, and no So. 3d citation was recorded. Affirmed the removal and dismissed the balance of the order as non-final; the court affirmed enumerated trial-court findings for abuse of discretion and did not construe the elements of §736.0813. The settlor had died in 2019, so the §736.0813(4) revocable-trust limit was not in play. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• McCormick v. Cox, 118 So. 3d 980 (Fla. 3d DCA Aug. 14, 2013). Quoted above at 984, 986, and 987 to 988. Full opinion: CourtListener; no official slip PDF is held for this decision. Decided on 2001 to 2005 conduct under the predecessor statutes, Fla. Stat. §§737.303 and 737.3035, which Corya compared with §736.0813 and described as imposing a virtually identical duty. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Hadassah v. Melcer, 268 So. 3d 759 (Fla. 4th DCA Jan. 9, 2019) (No. 4D18-623). Quoted above at 761. Full opinion: CourtListener; no official slip PDF is held for this decision. The operative holding construes §736.0110(1)(b), when a charitable organization has the rights of a qualified beneficiary, rather than §736.0813, which supplies the stakes. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Hilgendorf v. Estate of Coleman, 201 So. 3d 1262, 1265 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). Quoted above for its construction of §736.0813(4). Full opinion: CourtListener. Discussed at length on our 736.0603 annotation. (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Related sections: Fla. Stat. §736.1008 (limitations on proceedings against trustees, including the 6-month bar after a trust disclosure document with a limitation notice, and the sentence quoted above from subsection (3)); §736.0706 (removal of a trustee, including for a serious breach of trust or for unfitness, unwillingness, or persistent failure to administer the trust effectively); §736.0603 (while a trust is revocable the trustee’s duties are owed exclusively to the settlor); §736.0103 and §736.0110 (who is a qualified beneficiary, and who has the rights of one); §736.1001 (remedies for breach of trust); §95.11 (general limitations, including the accounting-related period at §95.11(6) relied on in Corya). (retrieved 2026-08-12)
• Quotation note: the passages above reproduce the courts’ own published words and the Legislature’s own statutory text, as in the rest of this statute annotation series. Court opinions and statutes are public records, and nothing here is drawn from a commercial research service.
• The decisions on this page are published opinions in other parties’ cases, not matters handled by this firm. What a court did on one record is not a prediction of what a court would do on yours.

Updated on August 12, 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 and published court decisions, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Whether a trustee has met the duties in section 736.0813 depends on your specific documents, dates, and facts, which we review at a free consult. Please do not send confidential details until we have connected.