How Do You Become Executor of an Estate Without a Will in Florida?

1. Who Is the Executor if There Is No Will?

Nobody is the executor until the probate court appoints one. When there is no will, Florida tells the court to prefer three people in this order.

1. The surviving spouse.
2. The person selected by a majority in interest of the heirs, meaning heirs who together inherit more than half of the estate.
3. The heir nearest in degree, such as a child before a grandchild. If more than one applies, the court may pick the one best qualified.

Florida calls the job personal representative, whether the person was named in a will or chosen under this list. The older words executor and administrator describe the same office. Who the heirs are comes from Florida’s rules for dying without a will, which our guide to Florida intestate succession sets out, and in short a spouse comes first, then children, then parents, then brothers and sisters.

A minor heir cannot vote in the majority. A court-appointed guardian of the minor’s property can vote for the child, and a parent acting only as a parent cannot. If nobody with preference applies, the court appoints a capable person, though never someone who works for the court or for a probate judge.

Preference is a strong rule and not an absolute one. A Florida court may pass over the preferred person only when the record shows that person is unfit to serve, and Florida appeals courts have reversed appointments made on accusations alone, without evidence. If someone is appointed without formal notice to a person who had preference and had not waived it, that person can later ask the court to revoke the letters. And if a will turns up after letters issue, the letters are revoked and new ones are granted under the will.

2. Who Can Be Appointed Administrator of an Estate?

Any legally competent adult who was a Florida resident when the person died can serve, unless one of four disqualifications applies.

• A felony conviction.
• A conviction anywhere for abuse, neglect or exploitation of an elderly person or a disabled adult.
• Being mentally or physically unable to perform the duties.
• Being under 18.

A Florida trust company, or a bank or savings association authorized to act as a fiduciary in Florida, can also serve. A personal representative who learns after appointment of a fact that would have disqualified them must resign or file a notice, and one who stays quiet can be ordered to pay the costs of removing them.

3. Can Someone Who Lives Out of State Be the Administrator?

Yes, if the person is a close relative. Florida lets a nonresident serve only if the nonresident is one of the following.

• A legally adopted child or adoptive parent of the person who died.
• A blood relative in a direct line, such as a child, grandchild, parent or grandparent.
• A spouse, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece, or a blood relative in a direct line of any of them.
• The spouse of anyone on this list.

A son in Ohio can serve for his mother’s Florida estate. A close friend who lives in Ohio cannot, however long the friendship. A nonresident who serves must also designate a resident agent in Florida to accept papers, and the agent must live in the county where the case is pending unless the agent is a Florida lawyer. Our page on handling a Florida probate from out of state covers the logistics.

4. How Do You File the Petition for Administration?

You file a verified petition for administration in the circuit court of the county where the person was domiciled. If the person had no Florida domicile, the petition goes to any county where the person owned property.

The petition states your interest in the estate, the person’s date and place of death and last address, the names and addresses of the surviving spouse and every heir, where you stand in the order of preference and whether anyone has equal or higher preference, and the approximate value and nature of the assets. In an estate with no will it must also state that, after reasonable diligence, you know of no unrevoked will. Florida requires the personal representative to be represented by a Florida lawyer unless the personal representative is the only person interested in the estate.

Notice depends on your rank. A petitioner with preference can usually be appointed without notice to anyone. A petitioner without preference must serve formal notice on every qualified person with equal or higher preference unless they waive it in writing, and a person served with formal notice has 20 days to object. A sister who outranks you can simply sign a waiver, which keeps the case moving.

Before you file, check whether the estate needs a personal representative at all. An estate worth $150,000 or less after exempt property, or one where the person died more than two years ago, can usually use summary administration, which distributes the assets by court order without appointing anyone. Our page on whether you need probate in Florida covers the other routes.

5. Do You Need a Bond to Be Administrator?

Usually yes, unless the court waives it. A will can waive the bond in advance, and with no will that decision falls to the court, on its own or at the request of anyone interested in the estate.

The bond is an insurance-company guarantee that the personal representative will carry out the job according to law. The court sets the amount after considering the gross value of the estate, the personal representative’s relationship to the heirs, exempt property and any family allowance, the kind of assets, the known creditors, and any liens. The premium is paid by the estate as an administration expense, and a bank or trust company serving as personal representative needs no bond. Heirs who trust the petitioner often ask the court in writing to waive or reduce it. Our page on the Florida probate bond covers the premium and the surety.

6. When Does the Court Issue Letters of Administration?

The court issues letters after it appoints you, you file an oath to faithfully administer the estate, any bond it set is approved, and you file the designation of your address and of a resident agent.

Letters of administration are the short court order banks, brokers and title companies ask to see before they will deal with anyone about the estate. Florida starts a personal representative’s duties and powers on appointment, and acts taken before appointment that benefited the estate are given the same effect. Our guide to Florida letters of administration covers the documents and the timeline in detail.

7. What Does the Administrator Do After Appointment?

The personal representative serves a notice of administration on the spouse and the heirs, publishes a notice to creditors, gathers and inventories the assets, pays valid debts and expenses, and distributes what is left to the heirs.

The notice of administration starts the clocks for objections, and the published notice to creditors starts a three-month claims period. A Florida home usually needs its own step, because a homestead passes to the heirs outside the probate estate and the court is often asked to confirm that with a petition to determine homestead. How long the whole process runs is covered in how long probate takes in Florida.

Florida presumes a reasonable commission for a personal representative in formal administration of 3 percent of the first $1 million of the estate’s value and income, 2.5 percent from $1 million to $5 million, 2 percent from $5 million to $10 million, and 1.5 percent above that, and many family members waive it. Our page on personal representative fees covers extraordinary work, and the probate cost calculator estimates the statutory attorney fee alongside it.

What Does It Cost to Open the Estate?

Summary administration is a flat fee from $2,500, and a routine formal administration, where a personal representative is appointed, is a flat fee from $3,500, with larger estates estimated at the consult against Florida’s presumed-reasonable attorney fee schedule. Filing fees, publication, the bond premium, recording and certified copies are government or third-party costs, additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. A contest over who should serve as personal representative is litigation, which we quote per matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The widower and his late wife’s mother. A woman dies without a will, leaving her husband and their young child. Her mother files first and asks to be appointed, saying the husband should not handle the money. The husband has first preference as surviving spouse, and unless the mother proves with evidence that he is unfit, the court appoints him.

Three siblings and one who wants the job. A father dies without a will and without a spouse, leaving three adult children in Florida, Georgia and New York. The two who live out of state sign written selections naming their sister in Jacksonville, so heirs holding the whole estate have chosen her. She files in the county where their father lived, all three ask the court in writing to waive the bond, and letters issue without a contested hearing.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §733.301(1)(b) (order of preference in intestate estates, the surviving spouse, the person selected by a majority in interest of the heirs, the heir nearest in degree); (2) (a guardian of the property of a ward may exercise the ward’s right to select); (3) (if no preferred person applies, the court appoints a capable person, not one who works for or holds office under the court or a probate judge); (4) (revocation of letters for a preferred person not served with formal notice); (5) (revocation when a will is later admitted).
• Fla. Stat. §733.302 (any sui juris person who is a Florida resident at the decedent’s death); §733.303(1) (persons not qualified); §733.304 (nonresidents qualify only within the listed relationships); §733.305(1) (trust companies, banks and savings associations); §733.3101 (duty to resign or give notice when not qualified).
• Fla. Stat. §733.101(1) (venue in the county of domicile); §733.402(1), (3), (4) (bond required unless waived by the will or the court; not required of banks and trust companies; court may waive, require, increase or decrease); §733.403 (factors for the amount); §733.406 (premium as an administration expense); §733.601 (duties and powers commence on appointment and relate back); §733.617(1)-(2) (commission presumed reasonable in formal administration).
• Fla. Stat. §§732.102, 732.103 (shares of the spouse and other heirs); §735.201(2) (summary administration for estates of $150,000 or less after exempt property, or deaths more than two years ago). 2026 Florida Statutes, read October 1, 2026.
• Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a) (personal representative represented by a Florida attorney unless the sole interested person); 5.110(b)-(c) (designation of resident agent; county residency of the agent); 5.200 (contents of the petition for administration); 5.201(a)-(b) (formal notice when the petitioner lacks preference); 5.235 (appointment, bond, oath and issuance of letters); 5.320 (oath). Florida Probate Rules as of July 16, 2026.
• Bowdoin v. Rinnier, 81 So. 3d 582 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012) (the record must show a preferred person is unfit before the court appoints someone else); Stalley v. Williford, 50 So. 3d 680 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010) (appointment of the decedent’s father over the heirs’ chosen nominee reversed). Case retold below: Long v. Willis, 100 So. 3d 4 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011) and 113 So. 3d 80 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013). Opinions read in full; retrieved October 1, 2026.

When Two Families Choose One Personal Representative

I see cases where the first fight in an estate with no will is over who will be in charge, and that fight can outlast everything else in the file.

A 44-year-old man died in October 2009 when the small plane he was flying crashed in Pasco County. He had no will and was unmarried at the time. He had two adult children in Texas from his first marriage and three minor children with his second wife, so his five children were his only heirs, and the main asset looked to be a wrongful death claim. His sister, who lived in Pasco County and worked for the clerk of court, filed to be personal representative that December. The two adult children consented. She served the younger children’s mother with formal notice, which gave the children 20 days to respond. The mother filed her objection four days after the 20 days ran, arguing that her three children held 60 percent of the estate and so she could choose who served. The court appointed the sister, and letters issued once she posted a $15,000 bond.

The case then went to the Second District twice. In 2011 the court held that a parent cannot vote a minor child’s share, because only a court-appointed guardian of the child’s property can, and that the probate court should have given the mother a reasonable time to get that appointment. The court also held that working for the clerk did not disqualify the sister. The mother became guardian of the property in November 2011 and nominated a local lawyer. The probate court rejected him because he had already appeared in the case as a lawyer for the mother and her children, which put him on one side of a two-family estate, and in 2013 the Second District affirmed. More than three years after the crash, the aunt was still the personal representative.

My reading of that case is that nobody in it behaved badly, and the family still lost years. I have a few take-home points.

The first is the minors’ vote. When children under 18 are heirs, the vote for personal representative belongs to a guardian of their property, and getting that guardian appointed takes longer than the 20 days a formal notice allows. The practice pointer is to start the guardianship of the property at the same time the estate is opened, before anyone else files.

The second is the notice itself. Twenty days is short, and a written objection filed before letters issue keeps the question open. Avoid setting aside a formal notice from the probate court until the family has talked, because the clock runs while they talk.

The third is the choice of nominee. Where the heirs come from two households, a court looks hard at whether the person nominated can treat both fairly, and someone who has already worked for one side may not pass. A neutral professional, or a relative both sides trust, is the safer name. One limit is worth stating plainly. Neither opinion says how the wrongful death recovery was finally divided, so the cost of those years cannot be counted in dollars.

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 October 1, 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.