How Long Does a Trustee Have to Distribute Assets in Florida?

1. Is There a Deadline to Distribute a Trust in Florida?

No statute gives a number of months. Florida law says that when an event ends a trust, such as the grantor’s death under a trust that pays out at death, the trustee must proceed expeditiously to distribute the property to the people entitled to it. The same rule lets the trustee keep back a reasonable reserve for debts, expenses and taxes. The page on distributing a trust at the end covers that rule.

The trust document can set its own dates, and those dates control. A trust might direct distribution within 90 days after death, give a daughter her share at age 30, or tell the trustee not to use its discretion to delay distribution unreasonably. A trustee who misses a date the trust sets is behind from that day forward.

Florida also treats a late required payment as money the beneficiary already owns. Once a distribution the trust requires is not made within a reasonable time after its date, even the beneficiary’s creditors can reach it, whether or not the trust has a spendthrift clause.

2. How Long After Death Should a Trust Be Distributed?

A straightforward Florida trust is usually distributed 6 to 12 months after death, because several clocks start on the date of death and the trustee sensibly waits for the important ones to run.

The final income tax returns sit on top of those clocks. The grantor’s last personal return and the trust’s own returns after death have to be filed, and a careful trustee holds enough money to pay them. Our guide to whether a trust needs a tax return covers the filings, and the guide to what happens to a trust when the grantor dies covers the first weeks.

A dispute stops the clock on the disputed part. While a lawsuit over who the beneficiaries are or whether the trust is valid is pending, Florida lets the trustee keep administering the trust but bars distributions that would hurt the people whose rights depend on the outcome, unless a court allows them.

3. Why Does the Trustee Wait for Creditors?

A revocable trust pays the grantor’s debts when the probate estate cannot. Florida makes the trust answerable for the estate’s expenses and the grantor’s debts to the extent the estate falls short, on a written certification from the personal representative. A trustee who distributes everything in month two and then receives that certification has to go back to the beneficiaries for the money.

The length of the wait depends on whether anyone opens probate. When a personal representative publishes a notice to creditors, most claims are barred 3 months after the first publication, or 30 days after a known creditor is served with the notice, if that is later. With no probate, the outer limit is 2 years after death. The gap between 3 months and 2 years is why a trustee holding a large trust sometimes asks for a short probate to be opened even when the trust owns everything. Our trust administration guide covers the notice of trust that ties the trust to the probate court.

4. How Long Can a Trustee Hold Funds After Death?

A trustee can hold a reasonable reserve for as long as a real debt, expense or tax is outstanding. A reserve is a sum set aside for a known or likely bill, such as the final income tax, the last property tax on a house, the accountant’s fee, or a creditor’s claim that is still pending. A reserve sized to the actual risk is proper. Holding the whole trust for a year because a claim might someday appear usually is not.

A trust that is meant to continue is a different question. A trust that holds a grandchild’s share until age 25, or pays a surviving spouse for life, keeps its money for as long as the document says, and the trustee’s job is to invest it prudently and account every year. Florida allows a trust created on or after July 1, 2022 to last up to 1,000 years, and our dynasty trust guide explains why some families choose that.

5. What Happens If a Trust Is Not Distributed?

A trustee who sits on a trust without a reason is in breach, and Florida gives the beneficiaries three steps to move it.

1. Ask for information. A qualified beneficiary is entitled to a copy of the trust on request, to information about the assets and the administration, and to a trust accounting at least once a year.
2. Make a written demand. A letter citing the distribution clause and asking for a date often resolves the delay, because it shows the trustee that silence is now on the record.
3. Go to court. A Florida court can order the trustee to distribute, order an accounting, reduce or deny the trustee’s pay, charge the trustee for losses the delay caused, or remove the trustee.

Removal is available for a serious breach of trust or for a trustee’s persistent failure to administer the trust effectively, among other grounds on the removal page. Our guides to trust beneficiary rights and to the trust litigation process cover each step. A trustee who lives in or uses trust property while the distribution waits carries a separate risk, covered in our guide to whether a trustee can sell the house.

6. Can a Beneficiary Refuse a Distribution?

Yes. Florida lets a beneficiary disclaim an inheritance, meaning refuse it in writing, and the disclaimed share then passes as if the beneficiary had died before the distribution, usually to the beneficiary’s own children or to the other beneficiaries under the trust’s terms. People disclaim to let a share skip to the next generation, to keep an asset away from their own estate, or because they do not need the money.

Timing and conduct decide whether a disclaimer works. A beneficiary who has already accepted the property, spent it or pledged it can no longer disclaim it, and neither can a beneficiary who is insolvent. For the refusal to be ignored for federal gift tax, it generally has to be made in writing within 9 months after the death. A beneficiary thinking about refusing a share should decide before cashing the first check.

7. What Does the Final Accounting Do?

The final accounting closes the trust. Florida requires it to show every receipt, payment, gain and loss since the last report, to value what is left, and to include a plan of distribution showing who receives what. Our page on what a trust accounting must contain lists the requirements.

The final accounting also starts a clock that protects the trustee. When a trust accounting or other written report adequately discloses a matter and comes with a limitation notice, a beneficiary has 6 months from receiving it to sue the trustee over that matter. The page on the 6-month accounting clock explains the notice. Many trustees also ask each beneficiary to sign a receipt and release when the share is paid, and a beneficiary who releases the trustee in writing, with the material facts disclosed, generally cannot sue over what was released.

What Does It Cost?

Administering a trust after a death, from the 60-day notices through the final accounting and distribution, is a flat fee quoted at consult, because the work depends on what the trust owns and how many beneficiaries it has. A Complete Trust Plan for your own family, with the trust, will, power of attorney, health-care documents and funding deed, is a flat fee from $3,200, and $4,500 for a couple. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Compelling a distribution, an accounting or a trustee’s removal is litigation, which we quote per matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The trustee who waits for the creditor period. A son is trustee of his father’s $900,000 trust, and his father left a hospital bill in dispute. The son asks the family’s lawyer to open a short probate and publish a notice to creditors, holds back $40,000 for the bill and the final taxes, distributes the rest four months after death, and pays out the reserve once the claim is settled.

The beneficiary who has heard nothing in a year. A daughter learns her aunt’s trust names her for one-third. Twelve months pass with no notice, no accounting and no distribution. She sends a written request for a copy of the trust and an accounting, gets neither, and petitions the court to compel both and to remove the trustee.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0817 (distribute expeditiously, subject to a reasonable reserve for debts, expenses and taxes); §736.0816 (annotated)(22),(25) (distribution in kind; winding up); §736.0506 (annotated) (overdue mandatory distribution); §736.08165 (annotated) (administration pending a contest or other proceeding); §689.225(2)(f),(g) (360-year and 1,000-year trust periods).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0813 (annotated)(1)(a),(b),(c),(d),(e) (60-day notices, copy, annual accounting, information on request); §736.08135(2)(f) (plan of distribution in the final accounting); §736.1008(1),(2),(4)(a) (6-month limitation after an adequate disclosure with a limitation notice); §736.1012 (annotated) (consent, release or ratification).
• Fla. Stat. §733.707(3) and §736.05053 (annotated) (revocable trust pays estate expenses and obligations on the personal representative’s certification); §736.1014 (annotated)(1) (no direct creditor action against the trust after death); §733.702(1) (3 months after first publication or 30 days after service); §733.710(1) (2 years after death); §736.0604 (annotated) (6-month limit on contesting a revocable trust after notice and a copy).
• Fla. Stat. §736.1001 (annotated) (remedies for breach of trust); §736.0706 (removal of trustee).
• Fla. Stat. §§739.104, 739.402, 739.501 (disclaimers, when barred, tax-qualified disclaimers); 26 U.S.C. §2518(b) (qualified disclaimer within 9 months); 26 U.S.C. §6075(a) (estate tax return due 9 months after death). Tax information, not tax advice.
• Case retold below: Kersey v. Abraham, No. 6D23-1505 (Fla. 6th DCA Jan. 5, 2024). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

What a Year of Waiting Can Cost a Trustee

Cases with this shape keep coming up, and it is usually a house that one beneficiary wants to keep and the others want sold.

A mother in Kissimmee left her five-acre property, with the main house she lived in and a guest house she rented to her niece for $700 a month, to her two children in her trust, two-thirds to her daughter and one-third to her son, outright. The trust also told the trustee not to use any discretion to delay distribution unreasonably. She died in June 2017 and her daughter became successor trustee. The daughter could have deeded the property out on those shares. Instead, in August 2018 she sold her own home and moved into her mother’s house, hoping to buy out her brother, and the two could not agree on a price. Her brother sued for the rent she never paid and for the distribution that never happened. She resigned as trustee in February 2020 under an interim settlement, and a lawyer took over as trustee and also held the property, because the siblings were deadlocked. The trial court charged her $174,800. The appeals court cut the rent charge to the time she served as trustee, 16 months at $2,500 a month, or $40,000, left in place the $25,900 of guest house rent she had to turn over, and split the property’s income two-thirds and one-third as the trust directed. The appeal was decided in January 2024, six and a half years after the mother died.

Having read the Florida cases on trustees who delay a distribution, I have a few take-home points.

The first is that a clear trust still needs a trustee who acts on it. The mother had divided the property herself, down to the fraction. Avoid treating an outright gift as something to negotiate, because the trustee’s job is to carry out the division the trust already made.

The second is the beneficiary who is also the trustee. Living in the house while serving as trustee meant the daughter owed the trust rent for every month she held both roles.

The third is drafting for a house two children will not agree on. An owner can say in the trust what happens then, such as a buyout at an appraised value within a set number of days and a sale if the buyout does not close, and every Complete Trust Plan I prepare, flat fee from $3,200, asks the owner that question when a house is going to more than one child.

One limit is worth stating. The appeals court sent the case back to recompute the figures, so the opinion does not say what the property finally sold for or who ended up owning it.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The 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.