Levy County Probate Court: Where to File and What to File

Where the Levy County Probate Court Actually Sits

Levy County probate is heard in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, at the Levy County Courthouse at 355 South Court Street in Bronson. Filings go through the Levy County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, whose civil office takes probate and answers at (352) 486-5266. Chiefland, Williston and Cedar Key estates are all filed in Bronson, because the county keeps one courthouse and one clerk’s office and the county seat holds both.

One circuit judge holds Levy County probate and guardianship, and he carries an Alachua County family division alongside it, so the working docket sits with the circuit’s general magistrate in Gainesville under his oversight. The court calendar then does something no other regional county in this circuit does. The calendar sets a probate hearing morning at 9:30, once a month, on a Thursday in the third week in nine months of 2026, with adoption hearings behind it at 10:30.

A Levy County estate opened in 2026 carries a case number beginning 38-2026-CP, because a 2018 assignment order gives the county the designator 38 and files decedent estates under CP, guardianships under GA and incapacity cases under MH.

The probate counter is at the Levy County Courthouse, 355 South Court Street, Bronson, FL 32621, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., excluding major holidays, (352) 486-5266. The Clerk publishes no room or window for the probate counter, so call before you carry an original will in. Probate is worked by the civil office, which also answers at [email protected], and a probate deputy clerk completes a disposition of personal property without administration at the counter and verifies the assets. Depositing a will costs nothing, and the Clerk says so on both its probate page and its frequently asked questions. Read that probate page for the counter details rather than for the law. The page still describes a family administration with a $60,000 ceiling, a proceeding Florida repealed, puts the minor guardianship trigger at $5,000 where the current figure is $15,000, and cites the notice of trust to the chapter the Florida Trust Code replaced.

• The clerk’s probate page for Levy County
• Eighth Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Eighth Judicial Circuit
• Local probate forms and checklists

One thing worth settling before you go any further. The case belongs in the county where the person was domiciled when they died, and Florida law fixes that rather than letting anyone choose it. If your mother lived in Levy County, her estate is a Levy County case, even if you live in another state and even if a different courthouse would be more convenient for everyone involved. It is the county that decides, not the town, so estates from Bronson, Chiefland, Williston, Cedar Key, Inglis, Yankeetown, and Otter Creek are all Levy County cases filed with the same clerk. Which division or section then hears the case is a separate question, and the next section answers it.

Which Judges Hear Probate Cases in Levy County?

Probate cases in Levy County are heard by the judges the chief judge assigns to the division, and the circuit publishes who they are. Knowing who has the division tells you whose procedures apply to your hearing, and how long a judge has had it tells you how settled those procedures are.

• Craig C. DeThomasis, the circuit judge holding the Levy County family, domestic violence, juvenile dependency, probate and guardianship and mental health divisions, each footnoted in the order as coverable by a magistrate or hearing officer under judicial oversight, and he carries an Alachua County family division alongside them, assigned August 24, 2026, the effective date of the current general assignment order, which does not say when he first took the docket (AO 9.03 (v 2026-3)).

The circuit’s judicial directory is the source, read on September 16, 2026. Assignments rotate, usually at the start of a calendar year, so check it before a hearing.

How Busy the Levy County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Levy County are 236 probate filings, 14 guardianship filings and 9 trust filings, plus 40 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 224 probate cases in the same year.

Statewide the probate column was 73,282 filings against 141,166 for the whole division in FY 2024-25, so more than a third of what a Florida probate judge signs has nothing to do with an estate. The figures come from the Office of the State Courts Administrator's Statistical Reference Guide, chapter 6, and the next fiscal year's edition usually appears the following autumn.

When the Levy County Courthouse Is Closed

Florida sets nine paid state holidays by statute, and a circuit may close on more. The Levy County courthouse follows the Eighth Judicial Circuit calendar, which adds Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Christmas Eve and Day before New Year’s to the statutory nine. The practical point is simple. E-filing accepts a document at any hour, but nothing is reviewed, docketed or signed on a day the courthouse is dark, so a petition filed the night before a closure sits until the next business day, and a deadline counted in days runs on regardless.

There is one caution about counting. A Florida deadline stated in days does not pause for a holiday in the middle of it, and only the last day matters. When the final day of a period falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a legal holiday, the period runs to the end of the next day that is none of those. The circuit posts the calendar on its court holidays page, read on September 17, 2026, and it publishes the following year well in advance.

How a Case Gets Filed in Levy County Today

Florida runs one statewide electronic filing system, the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, and every circuit court in the state receives filings through it. Attorneys have no choice about it. The rule says attorneys must file through the portal, and no other method is permitted except in the narrow situations the rule itself lists.

A self-represented person is in a different position, and this is the part almost nobody is told. You may elect to register for the portal and file electronically, or you may hand or mail paper to the clerk, who converts it to electronic format for the official court file. Both routes are proper and both land in the same queue. One caution rides along with the choice. Once you elect to file electronically, you cannot go back to paper without the court’s permission.

Registering costs nothing and filing itself costs nothing. What you pay is the statutory filing fee for the case, plus a payment convenience fee that depends on whether you pay by card or by electronic check.

The practical consequence is that a Levy County estate does not require anyone to be in Florida. An out-of-state family can open, run, and close a case from a kitchen table in another state, because the filings, the notices, and the proposed orders all move electronically. The exceptions are physical documents, and there are only a few of them.

Levy County keeps one courthouse and one probate docket, so there is no division to draw and no second building to work out, and who hears the case is settled by the circuit’s assignment order rather than by anything a family does. One circuit judge holds Levy probate and guardianship, the circuit’s general magistrate carries the working docket under his oversight for represented and self-represented filers alike, and the scheduling runs through the probate case manager’s email address. What varies in this county is the calendar rather than the courthouse. The court sets one probate morning a month and reaches everything else by request, so a filing that lands the week after that morning waits for the next one unless somebody asks for a date.

Are Levy County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Levy County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. The circuit limits remote appearance to routine case management conferences, uncontested matters and non-evidentiary hearings of 15 minutes or less, and keeps contested and evidentiary matters in the room. No standing meeting room exists here, so the meeting number and the password arrive on the notice of hearing, and a notice involving any remote appearance has to carry them. To appear remotely at an event set in person you file a motion at least 10 days before showing good cause, the other side’s position and the steps taken to avoid prejudice, and email a copy to the probate address. Travel time and cost alone are not good cause. Video is required to testify or to offer evidence. Levy County’s own probate morning looks like a courthouse setting rather than a video one, because the 2026 master calendar marks child support, mortgage foreclosure and some dependency settings as Zoom and carries no such marking on the monthly probate block.

The division’s remote hearing instructions carry the current links and the dress and conduct rules, which judges enforce on camera exactly as they do in the room.

Where the Original Will Goes

Here is the rule that catches almost everyone, and it is stricter than families expect. Whoever is holding the original will has to deposit it with the clerk of the court that has venue over the estate, within 10 days of receiving information that the person has died. Read that trigger carefully. The clock does not start at the death, it starts when the custodian learns of the death, and the duty belongs to that custodian personally. It does not wait for a lawyer, it does not wait for the family to agree on anything, and it applies whether or not anybody intends to open a probate case. When the will goes in, the clerk also wants the date of death or the last four digits of the deceased person’s Social Security number.

The original itself travels on paper. Whatever a county does about an electronic copy, the physical document has to reach the clerk, and how it gets there is settled county by county rather than statewide. In Levy County the original goes to the Clerk at the courthouse in Bronson on paper, and depositing it costs nothing, which the Clerk states on both its probate page and its frequently asked questions. The Clerk publishes no room or window for the probate counter, so call (352) 486-5266 before you carry an original in, and go before 5 p.m., when the counter closes. This circuit also wants the original will and any codicils filed with the petition itself, alongside a certified copy of the death certificate, an Affidavit of Heirs and proof of formal notice.

Three things families routinely get wrong here are worth naming. Depositing the will is not probating it, so handing the original to the clerk does not open an estate, does not appoint anyone, and does not make you responsible for the debts. It is a filing, not a job. A copy is not a substitute either, because a court can admit a lost or destroyed will but proving one is a separate proceeding with a heavier burden, which is a poor trade for a document that could have been walked to a counter. And sitting on a will is a genuinely bad idea. A custodian can be compelled to produce it, and where the court finds there was no just or reasonable cause for holding it back, Florida awards costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney fee against that person personally.

Two small mercies. If the original goes in attached to the petition, Florida treats it as deposited, so it is not a second errand. And once the clerk has it, the original is kept in its original form for at least 20 years whether or not it is ever admitted to probate. Scanning a will does not replace it.

Which Forms You Actually Need

The honest answer surprises people, so here it is plainly. Florida has an official statewide form set for family law, approved by the Supreme Court and free for anyone to use. It has never built the same thing for probate. The state’s own self-help service says as much, telling visitors that it does not provide any forms related to the probate process and to ask a lawyer which form is needed.

So when you search for the Levy County probate forms, you are looking for something that does not exist as one official packet, which is why the results are a scatter of clerk pages, circuit pages, and companies selling you a template. What actually controls comes from three layers, and you need all three.

• The Florida Probate Rules, which prescribe contents rather than forms. The rule on the petition for administration lists eleven things the petition must state, from the decedent’s domicile to whether the proposed personal representative has been convicted of a felony. A document that satisfies the rule is legally sufficient even if it looks nothing like anyone’s template. The rules do carry a small set of forms of their own, but they are almost entirely guardianship forms, and the rules say outright that those forms are not intended to be part of the rules and are provided for convenience only. The one decedent-estate form actually written into the probate rules is the oath of the personal representative.
• The practitioner form set. Most Florida probate documents you will ever see are built from a numbered probate form set published by a private nonprofit and sold commercially. Lawyers treat it as the standard. It is not court-approved, and nothing obliges a court to accept it.
• The local layer, which is the one that rejects you. Levy County runs on the circuit’s practice and on one packet of its own. Every probate communication goes by email to [email protected] carrying the county name, the full case number and the style of the case, and the circuit’s probate case manager reads it rather than the magistrate. An email that leaves the other side off is returned unread. Then comes the part that decides your timing. A hearing is not requested until every required document is filed and formal notice is complete or the waivers are on file, and the request names the county, the full case number, the motions to be heard, the parties and the time needed. All hearing materials reach the court five business days before, and proposed orders go in Word to that same address or through the portal, preferably before the hearing and no later than five days after it. Represented and self-represented probate cases in Levy County both sit with the same general magistrate, because the split that sends self-represented filers to a second magistrate is written for Alachua County alone. The magistrate is based in Alachua County, so binders, case law and exhibits are mailed to her attention at 201 E. University Avenue in Gainesville or dropped off with Court Administration on the 4th floor, and the court will not read an exhibit on a screen or take a flash drive. Every regional county’s weekly courtroom calendar carries a Wednesday courier run, which is the physical link between the courthouse in Bronson and the magistrate’s office in Gainesville. The local layer on top of that is the Levy Clerk’s own probate packet, whose forms come pre-captioned for Levy County with the case number already stamped 38, and which names the four documents this circuit wants in every probate case, a certified copy of the death certificate, an Affidavit of Heirs, the original will and any codicils, and proof of formal notice or the joinders and waivers of everyone entitled to it. Use the packet for its forms rather than for its figures, because it still prints the $75,000 summary administration ceiling the Legislature raised to $150,000 on July 1, 2026.

So start at the bottom of that list rather than the top. The circuit and the clerk publish what they want on their own forms and checklists page, and half an hour there before you draft anything is the cheapest half hour in the case.

The Administrative Orders That Govern Probate in Levy County

Each circuit adds its own layer on top of the Florida Probate Rules through administrative orders signed by the chief judge and the procedures each division publishes, and that layer is where a petition gets rejected. These are the orders that govern probate practice in Levy County as of September 16, 2026.

• AO 9.03 (v 2026-3), General Assignments (ordered August 12, 2026, effective August 24, 2026). Gives Levy County family, domestic violence, juvenile dependency, probate and guardianship and mental health to one circuit judge, and gives the circuit’s probate work outside Alachua County to a general magistrate under his oversight. A second general magistrate takes self-represented probate cases, and that assignment is written for Alachua County only, so in Levy County a family filing without a lawyer goes to the same magistrate as everyone else.
• AO 9.02 (v 2018-1), Assignment of Circuit and County Cases by Case Type in Baker, Bradford, Levy, Gilchrist and Union Counties (ordered and effective March 20, 2018). Gives Levy County the county designator 38 and tells the Clerk how to number what it opens. An estate under chapters 731 to 735, a deposited will and a petition to amend a death certificate are all CP cases, a guardianship is GA, and a chapter 744 incapacity case is MH. Alachua County has a divisional order of its own and Levy County does not, so this order assigns case types rather than divisions.
• AO 7.01 (v1), Probate Case Management (ordered October 5, 2012, nunc pro tunc November 29, 1995). Sets an estate open more than eight months for a case management conference, lets a status report filed ten days before covering publication, creditors, tax certificates, litigation, distribution and closing continue the conference, and has the Clerk report an overdue inventory for a show-cause hearing.
• AO 7.14 (v1), Determination of Homestead Property Prior to Determination of Creditors’ Claims (January 30, 2015). No order determining homestead is entered before the publication period and the known creditor claim period expire, unless the petitioner moves on good cause and sets a hearing before the presiding judge. In practice this order decides when a house in the estate can be sold.

The division also publishes its own procedures, and the points a filer most needs are these.

• Every probate communication in this circuit goes by email to [email protected] carrying the county name, the full case number and the style of the case, and the circuit’s probate case manager reads it rather than the magistrate. The telephone, 352-264-6991, is the second choice, and an email that leaves the other side off is returned unread.
• Represented and self-represented probate cases in Levy County both sit with the same general magistrate, under the oversight of the Levy circuit judge. The split that sends self-represented filers to a second magistrate is written for Alachua County alone, so a Bronson family without a lawyer meets the same officer as the lawyers do.
• A hearing is not requested until every required document is filed and formal notice is complete or the waivers are on file. The request names the county, the full case number, the motions to be heard, the parties and the time needed, and all hearing materials reach the court five business days before.
• Proposed orders go in Word to the probate email address or through the portal, preferably before the hearing and no later than five days after it.
• Hard copies cross the circuit. The general magistrate is based in Alachua County, so binders, case law and exhibits are mailed to her attention at 201 E. University Avenue in Gainesville or dropped off with Court Administration on the 4th floor, five days before the hearing. The court does not review exhibits on a screen and does not accept flash drives or discs. Every regional county’s weekly courtroom calendar carries a Wednesday courier run, which is the physical link between the courthouse in Bronson and the magistrate’s office in Gainesville.
• The Levy Clerk posts a probate packet whose forms are pre-captioned for Levy County with the case number already stamped 38, and it names the four documents this circuit wants in every probate case, a certified copy of the death certificate, an Affidavit of Heirs, the original will and any codicils, and proof of formal notice or the joinders and waivers of everyone entitled to it. Use the packet for its forms rather than for its figures, because it still prints the $75,000 summary administration ceiling the Legislature raised to $150,000 on July 1, 2026.

The full procedures are on the court’s site, and they change more often than the statutes do.

The Checklist for Opening an Estate in Levy County

This is the sequence for a formal administration, which is the full version. A smaller estate skips most of it, and the section after this one covers that. Each step below happens in this order for a reason, because the later ones depend on the earlier ones being done.

1. Order certified death certificates. The funeral home usually orders them and will ask how many you want. Ask for more than feels sensible, often five to ten, because the court, each bank, each insurer, and the property records all want their own certified copy, and reordering later is slow.
2. Find the original will and deposit it with the clerk. The 10-day clock runs from when the custodian learns of the death, not from when anyone files anything, and it is the one deadline that can already be running while the family is still planning a funeral. Where the original goes in Levy County is above, and it is never just a matter of uploading it.
3. Decide which kind of administration the estate needs. Formal administration is the default. Summary administration and disposition without administration are lighter and cheaper, and they are worth ruling out before you file anything, because you cannot un-file a formal case cheaply.
4. Confirm the county. Venue follows the decedent’s domicile at death, or for someone who lived out of state, a county where they owned property. This is one of the few things in probate that is genuinely hard to fix later.
5. Prepare and e-file the petition for administration, with the local extras. The petition is verified, meaning signed under penalty of perjury, and it has to name every interested person, which is the line that most often comes back to bite an estate later. File it with whatever Levy County adds on top, because that is what a rejection is usually about. The filing fee is $399 to $401.
6. File the oath, the address designation, and the designation of resident agent. All three are due before letters issue. The oath is a sworn promise to faithfully administer the estate, and the appointment rests on it. The address designation puts the representative’s street and mailing address on the record. The resident agent designation, signed by the agent accepting the job, is required unless the representative is a corporate fiduciary with a Florida office or a Florida Bar member who lives and keeps an office in Florida, which in practice means nearly every family representative files one and the attorney usually is the agent. These can be folded into the petition or the oath rather than filed separately.
7. Get the order and the letters of administration. Once the petition is in and the will is admitted, the court appoints the representative, sets or waives bond, and confirms the oath and resident agent papers are on file. Letters of administration then issue, and the letters are the thing that carries weight in the outside world. Order roughly ten certified copies at once, because banks, brokerages, and title companies each keep one and many will not accept letters more than 60 to 90 days old.
8. Get an estate tax identification number and open the estate account. This comes right after the letters and before anything else useful can happen, because no bank will open an account for the estate without both.
9. Serve the notice of administration. Florida says promptly rather than naming a day count. It goes to the surviving spouse, the beneficiaries, anyone who may be entitled to exempt property, and the trustee and qualified beneficiaries of certain trusts. Service starts a 3-month clock for the person served to challenge the validity of the will, the venue, or the court’s jurisdiction, and after that those objections are barred. That deadline is close to unextendable, because Florida allows an extension only for estoppel based on a misstatement by the personal representative about the deadline itself, and expressly not for failure to disclose information or for other misconduct. The clock also runs only against people who were actually served, so leaving someone off the list does not save time, it leaves the case open. The same notice starts a 4-month window to claim exempt property and a 6-month window for a surviving spouse to elect against the estate.
10. Publish the notice to creditors, serve the ones you know about, and document the search. The notice runs in a newspaper in the county once a week for two consecutive weeks. An unknown creditor then has 3 months from the first publication, and a creditor who had to be served gets the later of that or 30 days from service. The representative has to make a diligent search for reasonably ascertainable creditors, though Florida does not demand an impracticable one, and a verified statement about that search goes in within 4 months of the first publication, with proof of publication filed within 45 days. One item gets missed constantly. If the person who died was 55 or older, a copy of the notice and a death certificate go to Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration within 3 months of the first publication. And a reasonably ascertainable creditor who was never served keeps a claim for up to two years from the death.
11. File the inventory within 60 days of the letters, then close the estate. The inventory lists each asset at its date-of-death value and is served on the residuary beneficiaries and the surviving spouse. After the creditor period runs and the claims are resolved, the estate distributes and the representative files a final accounting and a petition for discharge. Florida puts a real deadline on that too, generally within 12 months after the letters issued for an estate that files no federal estate tax return. A straightforward case runs 6 to 12 months from letters to discharge, and the creditor window is what sets the floor.

What It Costs to File in Levy County

These are the charges the clerk posts, not anyone’s legal fee.

Posted August 2026. The Levy County Clerk posts no schedule of charges that could be read on September 16, 2026, on its probate page, its court services page, its online forms page, its contact page or its own site map, and the Clerk’s probate packet answers the question by telling the reader to call. The ranges above run from the statutory base charge plus the $4 statutory add-on to the highest total any Florida clerk posts, so the real figure sits inside them. Confirm it at (352) 486-5266 before you file. Fee schedules move, so confirm the current charge with the clerk before you file. The reason the number looks the same everywhere is that it is the same number. Florida law sets the base charge for opening a formal administration and adds a small statutory service charge on top, so the entire statewide spread across the ten largest counties is one dollar. Our county-by-county filing fee study has all ten posted schedules.

And then there is the number that dwarfs every line above. Florida publishes an attorney fee schedule that is presumed reasonable and scales with the size of the estate, and it is a ceiling the estate may agree to rather than a mandate. On a $100,000 estate the schedule calls $3,000 reasonable. That, not the clerk’s $399 to $401, is what probate costs a family. You can run your own numbers in the Florida probate cost calculator.

When the Estate Does Not Need All of This

Before you open a formal administration, rule out the three lighter paths, in this order.

• No probate at all. Only assets in the deceased person’s sole name with no other instruction go through probate. Life insurance and retirement accounts with a named beneficiary, pay-on-death bank accounts, jointly held property with survivorship, property in a funded trust, and a home that passed under a lady bird deed all move without a court case. Sometimes the whole estate turns out to be in that category. Our page on whether you need probate in Florida walks the test.
• Disposition without administration. For the smallest estates, with no real property and not much more than the final bills, whoever paid those bills can ask the clerk to release what is left. It is a request rather than a case, and it costs $230 to $232 here. See how disposition without administration works.
• Summary administration. Available when the probate estate is worth $150,000 or less after exempt property, a threshold raised from $75,000 on July 1, 2026, or when the person died more than two years ago. No personal representative is appointed, and the case can close in weeks rather than months. The summary administration guide has a short qualifier.

One warning about that last figure, because it will confuse you if you go looking. Florida publishes its statutes once a year, and the edition on the official statute site still shows the old $75,000 line. The increase to $150,000 is real, it came from a 2026 session law, and the probate rule on summary administration has already been amended to match. Check the rule rather than the posted statute until the new edition appears.

If none of the three fits, the estate needs a formal administration, and the checklist above is the map.

Doing It Yourself, and Where Families Stop

Florida does not require you to hire anyone to file a document. It does require something else, and this is where most families stop. Under the Florida Probate Rules, every personal representative has to be represented by an attorney admitted to practice in Florida unless the representative remains the sole interested person in the estate, or is a Florida-admitted lawyer appearing for himself or herself in that role. Those are the only exceptions. Read it as the practical test it is. One heir, nobody else with an interest, no creditors, and you may proceed alone. A second sibling, or a creditor, and the court expects counsel regardless of how well everyone is getting along.

The smaller paths are different. Disposition without administration is designed to be done without a lawyer, and clerks routinely help with it. Summary administration sits in between, simple on its face and easy to get wrong in ways that surface years later when someone tries to sell the house.

If you do want counsel for a Levy County estate, our probate attorney page for Bronson covers what we charge and how the remote process works. And if you would rather do it yourself, nothing on this page is holding anything back. Everything above is the actual sequence.

What Changed at the Levy County Probate Court This Year

Court practice changes without much announcement. These are the developments in the last year that affect a Levy County probate filer, each with its source.

• August 24, 2026. The current general assignment order took effect, ordered August 12, keeping Levy County probate and guardianship with one circuit judge and the circuit’s probate work with a general magistrate in Gainesville. The order still prints a judge who is retiring and does not carry a judge appointed in July, so another version should follow. Source.
• July 22, 2026. The Governor appointed Lorelie Brannan of Macclenny to the Eighth Circuit on the retirement of Judge Robert K. Groeb, who holds the Levy County circuit criminal division, and she starts January 1, 2027. The probate assignment is untouched on the face of the current order. Source.
• July 22, 2026. Judge James M. Colaw was elected chief judge for the remainder of the current term, January 5, 2027 through June 30, 2027, on Chief Judge Davis’s retirement. The chief judge signs the assignment orders, so a new version of the general assignments is close to certain early in 2027. Source.
• October 2, 2025. The Levy County Clerk launched e-Recording, which matters to an estate that has a deed to record once the court authorizes a sale. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The estate that watched the probate morning go by. A Chiefland family e-filed everything the statute asks for and waited for the monthly probate hearing morning, which came and went twice. In this circuit a hearing is requested by email to the probate case manager, naming the county, the case number, the style, the motions to be heard, the parties and the time needed, and only after every required document is filed and formal notice is complete. Filing put the case on the docket. Nothing put it on the calendar.

The family planning around a proceeding Florida repealed. A daughter in Williston read the Clerk’s probate page, found a family administration with a $60,000 ceiling, and built her plan around qualifying for it. Florida repealed family administration. The same page puts the minor guardianship trigger at $5,000 where the current figure is $15,000, and the summary administration ceiling at $75,000 where the 2026 figure is $150,000. Her estate qualified for the shorter path on the current number, and the page that sent her the other way is the first one a search engine offers.

Sources of Law

Statutes and rules retrieved August 19, 2026. Court, clerk, and filing-fee data retrieved on the dates noted. Local requirements change without much announcement, so confirm the current version at the links above before you file.

• Rules cited are the Florida Probate Rules, current through the opinion issued July 16, 2026, and the Florida Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration, effective July 1, 2026.
• Filing. Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.525(b)(1) (attorneys must file through the portal; no other method permitted except as the rule provides), 2.525(b)(2) (an unrepresented party may elect to file through the portal, and once made the election may not be withdrawn without leave of court), 2.525(c)(1)(A) (a paper document may be submitted to the clerk, who converts it, where filed by an unrepresented party who has not elected). Filings move through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, operated by the Florida Courts E-Filing Authority, which states there is no cost to register and no fee to file electronically, apart from the statutory filing fee and a convenience fee based on the payment method.
• The original will. Fla. Stat. §732.901(1) (custodian must deposit within 10 days after receiving information that the testator is dead, with the clerk having venue, supplying the date of death or the last four digits of the social security number), (2) (custodian may be compelled; costs, damages, and a reasonable attorney fee where there was no just or reasonable cause), (3) (an original submitted with a petition is deemed deposited), (4) (clerk preserves the original in original form for at least 20 years; digitizing does not eliminate the requirement). Fla. Prob. R. 5.043 (deposit of wills and codicils; retained in original form).
• Opening the estate. Venue, Fla. Stat. §733.101. Petition, §733.202 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.200 (the eleven required contents). Preference in appointment, §733.301. Nonresident personal representatives, §733.304. Oath before letters, Fla. Prob. R. 5.320 (which also carries the only decedent-estate form written into the rules). Address designation and designation of resident agent with acceptance, both before letters, with the corporate-fiduciary and Florida-Bar-member exceptions, Fla. Prob. R. 5.110. Issuance of letters and bond, Fla. Prob. R. 5.235 and §733.213.
• Notices and claims. Notice of administration served promptly, the persons served, the 3-month objection window for the validity of the will, venue, or jurisdiction, and the estoppel-only extension, Fla. Stat. §733.212 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.240 (exempt property 4 months, elective share 6 months). Notice to creditors published once a week for 2 consecutive weeks, the diligent search for reasonably ascertainable creditors, and notice to the Agency for Health Care Administration within 3 months where the decedent was 55 or older, Fla. Stat. §733.2121 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.241 (proof of publication within 45 days; verified statement of the search within 4 months). Claim deadlines, the later of 3 months from first publication or 30 days from service, §733.702. Two-year bar after death whether or not letters ever issued, §733.710.
• Running and closing. Inventory within 60 days after issuance of letters at date-of-death value, Fla. Stat. §733.604 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.340. Final accounting and petition for discharge within 12 months after issuance of letters for an estate filing no federal estate tax return, Fla. Prob. R. 5.400(c). Attorney required for the personal representative unless the representative remains the sole interested person or is a Florida-admitted attorney appearing in that role, Fla. Prob. R. 5.030(a). Presumed-reasonable attorney compensation, §733.6171.
• Smaller estates. Summary administration, Fla. Stat. §735.201 and Fla. Prob. R. 5.530(a)(7). Reading note. The statute as officially published still shows $75,000, because Florida publishes its statutes annually and the 2026 edition is not yet posted. The $150,000 figure comes from CS/HB 1337 (2026), ch. 2026-57, Laws of Florida, section 7, effective July 1, 2026, and Rule 5.530 has been amended to match. Disposition without administration, §735.301.
• Forms. The Florida Probate Rules place their forms in Part V and state that the forms are not intended to be part of the rules and are provided for convenience only; the Part V set is essentially guardianship forms. The Florida State Courts System’s self-help service states that Florida Courts Help does not provide any forms related to the probate process, in contrast with the Supreme Court-approved family law forms. The practitioner form set commonly used in Florida probate is published and sold by a private nonprofit and is not court-approved.
• Cost. Probate filing service charges, Fla. Stat. §28.2401. Posted Levy County charges read from the clerk’s own schedule, retrieved 2026-08-09; all ten largest counties are documented in our probate cost by county study.
• Caseload. Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator, FY 2024-25 Statistical Reference Guide, Chapter 6, Circuit Probate, tables of filings and dispositions by circuit, county and category, retrieved September 15, 2026.
• Levy County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · AO 9.03 (v 2026-3) · AO 9.02 (v 2018-1) · AO 7.01 (v1) · AO 7.14 (v1). Judge assignments come from the circuit’s assignment orders cited above. The parking and coffee notes are conveniences for visitors, not court information, and the research file with every source is reference/research/probate-court-pilot/levy-county.md.
• Levy County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Eighth Judicial Circuit administrative orders · judges directory · local forms and checklists.

Updated on September 16, 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. This page is general information about Florida court procedure, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. Court addresses, local checklists, and clerk charges change; confirm them at the official links before you file. We serve Bronson residents wherever you are, and this is not a Levy County office.