An executor named in a will can sit silent for eight months, no notice, no inventory. Florida gives beneficiaries four ways to force the estate open.
What happens if an executor fails to act. Being named executor in a will does not make someone Florida's personal representative, that title exists only once a probate court issues letters of administration, so the first question is whether a case was ever opened for the estate at all.
Florida Statute 732.901 gives whoever holds the will ten days to deposit it with the clerk of court after a death, and any beneficiary can petition to compel production once that window closes. Once letters issue, Florida Statute 733.604 requires a verified inventory of estate property, and Florida Statute 733.504 lists the grounds, including failing to account for property, that let a court remove a personal representative under Florida Statute 733.506.
Do estate executors get paid. Florida sets compensation as a percentage of the estate's value. Can a beneficiary act as executor. Yes, if the will names them, or if a majority of the beneficiaries choose someone once the named executor never applies.
StepUpLaw walks through each option for a beneficiary stuck waiting on a probate case that never opened.
Transcript
A woman we heard from this month found out her great aunt died back in January, eight months after it happened, because nobody told her. She is named in the will, along with an uncle and a cousin, splitting the estate three ways. She signed paperwork acknowledging that will about fifteen years ago. The uncle is the one named to serve as executor, and he has done this job before, badly. When her grandparents died, he was named trustee of their trust and stopped. He never paid the taxes, never distributed anything, would not discuss it, would not open the mail. She ended up petitioning a court to remove him, a bank took over, and it took years to untangle what he left behind. Now the same man is sitting on her great aunt’s estate, and she does not know where to start.
That happened in Oregon, but the rule that answers it is set state by state, so here is how Florida handles the same problem.
Four things decide this. The first is whether a Florida court has actually opened a case for the great aunt at all, because being named in a will does not put anyone in charge of anything. The second is what the law actually requires of a personal representative once one is appointed. The third is what happens if property is sitting exposed while nobody acts. The fourth is what a beneficiary can do if the person who should be in charge will not act.
Being named executor in a will does not make a person the personal representative of an estate. In Florida that title, and the authority that comes with it, exists only once a probate court issues letters of administration. Until that happens, the person named in the will owes nobody a phone call, because legally nobody has been appointed. So the question is not why the uncle has not communicated. The question is whether anyone has opened a probate case for the great aunt at all.
That is a public record. The clerk of court in the county where the great aunt lived keeps a probate index, searchable by the decedent’s name, usually online. A search either turns up a case number or it does not. If it does, the docket shows who filed, when, and whether letters were issued and to whom. If it does not, no one has started anything, and the will may still be sitting in a drawer.
Florida Statute 732.901 puts a ten-day clock on whoever is holding that will. The custodian of a will must deposit it with the clerk of court within ten days of learning that the person who signed it has died. If those ten days have come and gone and nothing has been filed, any interested person, including a beneficiary, can petition the court to compel production of the will. If the court finds the custodian had no just or reasonable cause for sitting on it, the custodian pays the costs and a reasonable attorney’s fee. That one fact changes who is paying for the delay.
If a case does exist and the uncle has letters, Florida Statute 733.212 required him to promptly serve her with a notice of administration the moment those letters were issued. That notice starts several deadlines running, including a three-month window to challenge the will itself. If letters went out months ago and she never received that notice, that is worth raising with the clerk directly, because it means either the notice was never sent or it went somewhere she never saw it.
Once someone does have letters, Florida Statute 733.602 spells out what they owe. A personal representative is a fiduciary, held to the same standard of care as a trustee, and is under a duty to settle and distribute the estate as expeditiously and efficiently as the best interests of the estate allow. Florida Statute 733.603 backs that up directly. A personal representative moves the estate along on their own, without waiting to be told to by a judge. Florida Statute 733.604 adds a concrete deadline, a verified inventory of the estate’s property, and any beneficiary can request a written explanation of how an asset on that inventory was valued. Eight months of silence, with no inventory and no notice, is not consistent with any of that.
If there is a real risk that property is losing value while this sits, and there usually is when a house stands empty, Florida Statute 733.501 lets the court appoint a curator right away, before any fight over who gets full letters is resolved. A curator can secure the house, keep the insurance current, and stop the bleeding while the bigger question gets sorted out.
Getting appointed does not mean the job gets done. Florida Statute 733.504 lists the grounds for removing a personal representative, and two of them fit this pattern exactly. Failing to account for estate property is one. Wasting or mismanaging the estate is the other. Any interested person can petition for removal under Florida Statute 733.506, and the court then revokes the letters and appoints someone else. What happened with the grandparents’ trust does not carry over automatically here. A trustee and a personal representative are different jobs under different chapters of Florida law, so removing him from one does not remove him from the other. But the pattern he showed once, doing nothing for years until a court forced a change, is exactly what this statute exists to fix.
If he never applies for letters at all, Florida Statute 733.301 sets the order of preference for who does. He is first in line because the will names him. But if he never applies, the next in line is whoever a majority in interest of the people entitled to the estate select. That means she and her cousin, the other two beneficiaries, could agree between themselves on someone else to serve, whether that is one of them or a professional fiduciary, the same kind of solution that ended up running the grandparents’ trust.
The one thing to do this week is find out which of these situations she is actually in. A call to the clerk of court in the county where her great aunt lived, or a search of that county’s online probate index, answers it in minutes. Either a case number exists or it does not, and that answer decides whether the next filing is a petition to compel production of the will or a petition to remove a personal representative who already has the job and is not doing it. This is exactly the kind of question the firm sorts out for people every week.
Read the full guide at stepuplaw.com/florida-personal-representative
Related reading and listening at StepUpLaw
- Florida Personal Representative Fees: The Statutory Rate
- Florida Letters of Administration, and How to Get Them
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- Episode 8, No Spouse, No Kids. Leaving Your Estate to Charity in Florida
- Episode 9, Are There Downsides to a Living Trust in Florida
- Episode 5, Lady Bird Deeds, the Medicaid Look Back, and Estate Recovery
Related guides
- Florida Personal Representative Fees: The Statutory Rate
- Florida Letters of Administration, and How to Get Them
- executor vs executrix florida
Stepping Up is hosted 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. Episodes are general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and listening does not create an attorney-client relationship.
