What Does a Florida Trustee Have to Include in a Trust Accounting?

1. When a Florida Trustee Must Account

A trustee of an irrevocable trust must give each qualified beneficiary a trust accounting at least once a year, and also when the trust ends and when the trustee changes. Each accounting runs from the date of the last one or, for the first, from the date the trustee became accountable. The full rule is on our page on the trustee’s duty to account.

A qualified beneficiary is a living beneficiary who can receive income or principal now, or who would be next in line if the current beneficiaries’ interests ended or the trust ended that day. A widow receiving the income and the children who take the principal after her are all qualified beneficiaries.

A living trust owes no accountings to anyone but its creator while it can still be revoked. Florida law says that while a trust is revocable, the trustee’s duties to inform and account extend only to the settlor. The rule on who the trustee answers to is the reason a son cannot demand his mother’s trust records while she is alive. The duty to account to the beneficiaries starts when the trust becomes irrevocable, which for a living trust is usually the grantor’s death.

Two limits on waiving the duty matter to both sides. The trust document itself cannot switch the accounting duty off, apart from a narrow exception for family trust companies. A qualified beneficiary can waive their own right in writing and can withdraw that waiver in writing later, and the withdrawal covers future periods only.

2. The Two 60-Day Notices

Florida gives a trustee two separate 60-day deadlines, and both run to the qualified beneficiaries.

1. Notice of acceptance. Within 60 days after accepting the trust, the trustee must tell the qualified beneficiaries that the trustee has accepted, give the trustee’s full name and address, and state that the fiduciary lawyer-client privilege applies between the trustee and any lawyer the trustee hires.
2. Notice that the trust is irrevocable. Within 60 days after learning that an irrevocable trust was created, or that a revocable trust has become irrevocable by the settlor’s death or otherwise, the trustee must tell the qualified beneficiaries that the trust exists, who created it, that they may request a copy of the trust instrument, that they are entitled to accountings, and that the same privilege applies.

The privilege sentence is the one most beneficiaries skip. The trustee’s conversations with the trustee’s own lawyer are protected, so a beneficiary who wants legal advice needs a separate lawyer. A beneficiary may also ask at any time for relevant information about the trust’s assets, liabilities and administration, and the trustee must respond to a reasonable request.

3. What a Trust Accounting Must Contain

Florida defines the report itself. A trust accounting must be a reasonably understandable report covering the period since the last accounting, and it must adequately disclose six things. The page on what a trust accounting must contain reproduces the statute.

1. An opening statement identifying the trust, the trustee furnishing the accounting and the period it covers.
2. Every cash and property transaction and every significant transaction affecting the administration, including compensation paid to the trustee and the trustee’s agents, with all gains, losses, receipts and disbursements.
3. The assets on hand at the end of the period, each with two values where it can be valued, the acquisition or carrying value and the estimated current value, plus each known liability with its estimated amount.
4. Significant non-cash events, such as a stock split, a change of custodian or a name change in an investment.
5. The split between income and principal wherever that split affects a beneficiary, which matters whenever one person gets the income and another gets what is left.
6. A plan of distribution in the final accounting, for anything not yet distributed.

A Florida appeals court held in November 2025 that a document dump of bank and brokerage records, followed by unsworn ledgers filed more than a year into a lawsuit, was not a trust accounting, and that once the beneficiary showed the person was a trustee and no accounting arrived, the trustee had the burden of proving that compliant accountings were served. Our guide to Florida trust beneficiary rights tells that story in full.

4. The 6-Month Limitation Notice

A limitation notice is a short written statement from the trustee that a claim for breach of trust over anything adequately disclosed may be barred unless it is filed within 6 months. When a beneficiary receives an accounting that adequately discloses a matter together with a limitation notice, the beneficiary has 6 months from the later of the two to sue over that matter. The page on the 6-month clock covers the case law.

The statute offers wording a trustee may use, and it reads, “An action for breach of trust based on matters disclosed in a trust accounting or other written report of the trustee or a trust director may be subject to a 6-month statute of limitations from the receipt of the trust accounting or other written report. If you have questions, please consult your attorney.”

A limitation notice counts only if it reaches the beneficiary in one of four ways.

1. It is part of the accounting itself, or of another trust report received within the prior year.
2. It comes in the same envelope or email as the accounting.
3. It is delivered separately within 10 days after the accounting, with no other written communication alongside it except one about the notice itself.
4. It arrives more than 10 days later, refers to the accounting, and either offers another copy or encloses one, depending on how long ago the accounting was received.

An accounting that does not adequately disclose a problem does not start the 6-month clock for that problem. A matter is adequately disclosed when the report gives enough information that the beneficiary knew of the claim or should have asked about it.

5. When No Accounting Arrives

A trustee who sends nothing starts no deadline on a claim for failing to account. Florida’s statute says a beneficiary’s knowledge that no accounting arrived does not start any limitations period or laches for that claim. The outer limit on claims against a trustee is a statute of repose, which runs 10 years after the trust ends or the relationship ends, or 20 years after the act complained of, where the beneficiary knew of the trust throughout, and 40 years after the trust or the relationship ends in every case, with 30 more years added where the trustee actively concealed the facts.

A beneficiary who has received nothing usually takes three steps.

1. Ask in writing for the trust instrument and for accountings from the date the trustee became accountable, citing the statute, sent by a method that proves delivery.
2. File an action to compel the accounting if nothing arrives. A Florida court can review and settle a trustee’s accounts, and a trustee’s failure to account is itself a breach of trust.
3. Ask for protection while the case runs. Florida courts have frozen trust assets until an accounting was filed, and a court can remove a trustee for a persistent failure to administer the trust.

Our guide to trust litigation in Florida covers the court side.

6. Accountings Posted to a Website

Many corporate trustees post accountings to an online portal instead of mailing them. Florida allows that only after the beneficiary signs a separate written authorization, and the authorization itself must warn that posting a document may start a limitations period as short as 6 months even if the beneficiary never logs in. After each posting the trustee must send a separate notice by some other means, and at least once a year the trustee must send a stand-alone reminder of the same warning. The page on notice and the website rule explains the details.

The practical point is simple. A beneficiary who signed a portal authorization should read every posting notice when it arrives, because the 6-month period can run from the notice alone.

7. What a Trustee Should Do

The accounting is only as good as the records behind it. Florida requires a trustee to keep clear, distinct and accurate records and to keep trust property separate from the trustee’s own, so the trust needs its own account from the first day, and every payment needs a receipt.

• Send the first accounting on time. The first report covers the period from the date the trustee became accountable, usually the grantor’s death, to the end of the first accounting year.
• Put the limitation notice inside the accounting. Binding the notice into the report is the delivery route that cannot fail on a technicality.
• Carry two values for every asset. A house or a business carried at what it cost years ago, with no current estimate, leaves the most important fact undisclosed.
• Finish with a final accounting and a plan of distribution. A trustee who also gives written notice that the trust records are available for examination, and that claims on matters not adequately disclosed may be barred, starts the general limitations period on those matters.

Our guides to Florida trust administration, the Florida successor trustee and Florida trustee fees cover the rest of the job. A trustee’s fee must appear in the accounting, so the fee and the report are always read together.

What Does It Cost to Prepare or Review a Trust Accounting?

Preparing a trustee’s annual or final accounting, with the limitation notice, is a flat fee quoted at consult, because the work depends on how many accounts and transactions the year held and on what records the trustee kept. Reviewing an accounting a beneficiary received starts with the free 30-minute consult. Compelling an accounting, objecting to one in court, or seeking a trustee’s removal is litigation, and we quote it per matter rather than as a flat fee. Government costs such as filing fees and certified copies are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The spreadsheet from the brother. A brother serving as trustee of his late father’s trust emails his sisters a one-page spreadsheet of deposits and checks each December. The spreadsheet shows no values for the house or the brokerage account and no split between income and principal, so it is not a trust accounting, and no 6-month period has started. He hires help to prepare a compliant accounting for each year with the limitation notice bound in.

The portal notice in the spam folder. A niece signed a bank’s authorization to receive trust documents online when her aunt died. Each year a posting notice arrives by mail and she sets it aside. The fourth year’s accounting shows a large fee she disagrees with, and because the bank’s accountings carry a limitation notice, the 6-month period on that accounting is already running from the date the posting notice arrived.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0813(1)(a)-(e),(2),(4) (notice of acceptance within 60 days; notice within 60 days after a trust becomes irrevocable; copy of the instrument; annual accountings for an irrevocable trust and on termination or change of trustee; information on request; written waiver and withdrawal; duties extend only to the settlor while revocable).
• Fla. Stat. §736.08135(1),(2)(a)-(f),(3),(4) (trust accountings; reasonably understandable report; required contents; family trust company financial statement election; applicable periods).
• Fla. Stat. §736.1008(1)-(6) (limitations on proceedings against trustees; the 6-month bar after an adequately disclosing trust disclosure document and limitation notice; knowledge of a missing accounting does not start any period; limitation notice defined, with optional wording; delivery routes; repose periods of 10, 20 and 40 years and the 30-year extension for active concealment).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0109(3) (documents posted to an electronic account or website; separate written authorization; separate notice; annual reminder).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0105 (annotated)(2)(r),(s) (notice and accounting duties prevail over the trust’s terms); §736.0603(1) (duties owed exclusively to the settlor while revocable); §736.0103 (annotated)(19) (qualified beneficiary); §736.0201 (annotated)(4)(d) (court may review and settle interim or final accounts); §736.0706(2)(c) (removal); §736.0810 (annotated)(1)-(2) (records; separation); §736.1001 (annotated) (remedies for breach of trust).
• Revah v. Revah, No. 4D2024-1992 (Fla. 4th DCA Nov. 12, 2025) (third-party records and unsworn ledgers are not a statutory accounting; burden on the trustee). Case retold below: McCormick v. Cox, 118 So. 3d 980 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013), decided under the predecessor accounting statutes, former §§737.303 and 737.3035. Opinions read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

What a Late Accounting Can Cost a Trustee

In one case I have reviewed, the trustee was a lawyer who had drafted the trust himself, and the accounting he finally sent became the center of the case against him.

A man named his friend of many years, an attorney, as trustee of his family trusts. When he died in January 2001, his widow received the income from one trust and her four children were the beneficiaries of the other. The trusts owned one asset, about 100 acres in a Massachusetts town operating as a nine-hole golf course, appraised at $2,500,000 as of his death. The trustee sent no accounting for four years. By June 2003 he had authorized a broker to list the property for $15,400,000, and the town later bought it for $12,000,000. When the first accounting arrived in April 2005, covering 2001 through 2004, it reported the trust’s assets on hand at $2,580,113.51, carrying the golf course at its old value. Asked at trial why he had sent no accountings, the trustee said he had wanted to save the trust the expense until, in his words as the court quoted them, “all of a sudden it looked like it was going to turn out to look like there was going to be something substantial.” The trial court removed him, barred his sons from serving as successors, and entered judgments that with interest exceeded $5,300,000, and the Third District affirmed in 2013.

My reading of that case is that the accounting itself became the evidence. A report that carries a $12,000,000 asset at $2,500,000 while a contract for $12,000,000 is in the trustee’s file tells the beneficiaries more than any testimony could. In reviewing the Florida cases on trust accountings, I have a few take-home points.

The first is timing. Saving the trust the cost of an accounting is the reason trustees give most often, and it is the reason that holds up least well, because the annual accounting is the document that protects the trustee. A trustee who sends one each year with a limitation notice gets a 6-month deadline on everything it discloses.

The second is value. Florida now requires two values for every asset that can be valued, what it cost and what it is worth today. Avoid carrying real estate or a family business at its old figure once anything in the file, a listing, an offer or an appraisal, points to a different one, because the gap between the two numbers is the claim.

The third is who serves. The man chose a close friend who was also his lawyer, and nobody was positioned to ask for the accounting in 2002. An owner can require in the trust that the annual accounting go to every adult beneficiary by a fixed date, and can name a person with the power to remove a trustee who misses it. Enforcing the right after the fact is litigation, which I quote per matter at the consult.

One limit is worth stating plainly. The case was decided under the accounting statute Florida had before its current trust code, and the current statute carries the same duty forward with a more detailed list of contents, so the facts would be judged under today’s list in a case filed now.

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. Deadlines depend on your documents and dates. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.