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

Where the Washington County Probate Court Actually Sits

Washington County probate is heard in the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, at the Washington County Courthouse at 1293 Jackson Avenue in Chipley, where the Clerk’s office is Suite 101 and is open Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Central time. Filings go through the Washington County Clerk of Court and Comptroller, and mail goes to Post Office Box 647, Chipley, FL 32428.

Washington probate is heard by the chief judge of the six-county circuit, which is worth knowing before a hearing because it shapes how his calendar works and how his procedures read. Chief Judge Christopher N. Patterson carries the whole Washington circuit docket alongside circuit-wide administration, and his procedures document is the most detailed in the Fourteenth and the most recently revised. One instruction in it decides whether a notice of hearing is accepted. The courthouse has no room number, so the location line on the notice reads Circuit Courtroom, and a notice involving any remote appearance also carries his Zoom information.

The only published evidence of a Washington case-number format sits on the Clerk’s own Will on Deposit form, which preprints the file number with a WL segment, so a deposited will takes a WL number of its own rather than the estate number that comes later. No posted example of a Washington decedent estate number was found.

The probate counter is at the Washington County Courthouse, 1293 Jackson Avenue, Suite 101, Chipley, FL 32428, Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Central time, (850) 638-6008, the estates, wills and guardianships line in the Clerk’s departmental directory. Two of the Clerk’s own pages give two different probate numbers, because the Clerk’s probate FAQ sends a caller to the main line at (850) 638-6285 while the departmental directory gives (850) 638-6008 for estates, wills and guardianships. Try the directory number first. Mail goes to Post Office Box 647, Chipley, FL 32428. Washington County runs on Central time, an hour behind Miami, so the counter closes at 4:00 p.m. Central. No room number is published for a probate counter, because Suite 101 is the whole Clerk’s office. The Clerk does post a probate FAQ worth reading before you call, and one line in it saves a wasted trip, namely that document images for probate cases are not available through online public access even though the case itself can be searched. A statement of claim is filed in duplicate within three months of first publication and carries no filing fee, a certified copy is $1.00 a page plus $2.00 to certify, and the $231.00 disposition filing fee is paid in cash, by cashier’s check or by money order.

• The clerk’s probate page for Washington County
• Fourteenth Judicial Circuit judges directory
• Administrative orders of the Fourteenth 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 Washington County, her estate is a Washington 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 Chipley, Vernon, Wausau, Caryville, Ebro, and Sunny Hills are all Washington 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 Washington County?

Probate cases in Washington 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.

• Christopher N. Patterson, all Washington County circuit proceedings, which is where probate sits, held as chief judge of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit with circuit-wide general administration and oversight of six counties, chambers at the Washington County Courthouse in Chipley and a second office in Panama City, assigned July 1, 2026 under the current assignment plan, which runs to January 1, 2029; the day he first took the Washington docket is not published, because the earlier plans were not read for his row (Administrative Order 2026-00-03).

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 Washington County Probate Court Is

The state court system counts every petition filed in the circuit probate division, and the FY 2024-25 figures for Washington County are 140 probate filings, 13 guardianship filings and 0 trust filings, plus 49 Baker Act and Marchman Act cases that the same division carries. The division closed 120 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.

How a Case Gets Filed in Washington 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 Washington 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.

A Washington County estate is filed once and goes to Chief Judge Christopher N. Patterson, who holds 100 percent of Washington County circuit proceedings under the assignment plan effective July 1, 2026. Probate is not named in his assignment line, which reads as a catch-all for circuit proceedings, and Jackson is the only outer county in this circuit whose probate is written as its own line. Probate is circuit jurisdiction in Florida and no other judge is assigned any Washington circuit work, so the probate docket is his by that catch-all. County court matters go to Judge Colby Peel, the administrative county judge for the outer counties, and a decedent estate is never his.

Are Washington County Probate Hearings Remote?

Probate hearings in Washington County can be held remotely on Zoom, and the division decides which matters must be in person. Washington runs a hybrid virtual courtroom under Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration 2.530, so a hearing may be in person or remote and neither is automatic. The chief judge publishes a standing room at https://zoom.us/j/5750510920, Meeting ID 575 051 0920, with telephone access on 1-312-626-6799 and the same identifier followed by the pound key. Three rules decide the rest. A hearing needing more than one hour is generally scheduled in person, everything shorter may be set on Zoom upon agreement of all parties, a request for an in-person hearing has to be made at the time the hearing is coordinated rather than later, and any objection to remote appearance has to be filed no later than fourteen days before the hearing. Conduct is enforced, with a private quiet location and never a moving vehicle, camera on when joining and kept on until the court says otherwise, and the party calling a remote witness responsible for testing that witness’s camera, microphone and connection.

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. Washington posts a Will on Deposit form, which none of its neighbours in this circuit does, and the form is worth reading before the trip. The custodian uses it to instruct the Clerk’s Probate Division to deposit the original without recordation, and it asks for the decedent’s full legal name, the date of death and the last four digits of the Social Security number, along with the custodian’s name, address, telephone number and signature, with tick boxes for a will or a codicil. One warning about the form itself. The version posted in 2019 still letterheads 1331 South Boulevard, an address the Clerk no longer publishes, while the Clerk’s contact block, the circuit’s court-location record and the judge’s own procedures all give 1293 Jackson Avenue. Use Jackson Avenue and expect the old address to keep turning up on paper. The Clerk’s probate FAQ also answers flatly that a will cannot be deposited before the person dies, which is a fair question to have, given that the same page posts a deposit form.

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 Washington 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. The Fourteenth Judicial Circuit has no probate-specific administrative order and no Washington-only order, so the local layer comes from two places. The first is the circuit’s attorney-certified probate checklists, on a forms page captioned as serving all six counties, covering the opening and closing of a formal administration, summary administration as revised in July 2026 for the $150,000 threshold, homestead, exempt property, an Affidavit of Heirs, an Affidavit of Diligent Search and Inquiry for Creditors and the small-estate intestate set. Each ends with the filing attorney certifying personally that it was reviewed and is accurate, and several of them are footered for the Bay County probate judge, so ask the judicial assistant whether they are wanted in a Washington estate. The second is Chief Judge Patterson’s twelve-page practices and procedures, revised January 30, 2026, which is the only published statement of how he runs a hearing. Everything goes to the judicial assistant by email with the case name and number in the subject line and all parties copied, and the office does not accept text messages. A hearing longer than fifteen minutes should be expected to sit at least twenty days out. The request email carries six things, the case style, the case number, the type of motion, the time needed, the first date the movant is available and the names of counsel. Nothing is noticed before the confirmation email arrives, and a motion that was noticed but never scheduled will not be heard. Materials are due three business days before, with electronic exhibits going to a OneDrive folder requested at least three days out. Proposed orders are due fourteen days after the hearing, in .docx with a PDF cover letter, in the circuit’s placeholder format, with no fill-in blanks and no section breaks and a final paragraph making the submitting party responsible for serving anyone not on the portal, and one that does not comply will be rejected. The honest limit is that the document is the civil edition and never uses the words probate, estate or guardian, so it reaches an estate because a probate matter is a circuit civil proceeding before him. On the Clerk’s side, the probate FAQ walks a disposition of personal property without administration through in detail, including that the decedent must have been domiciled in the county and that the filer brings the death certificate, a receipt showing the funeral bill is paid in full and a current bank statement or other asset document.

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 Washington 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 Washington County as of September 16, 2026.

• Administrative Order 2026-00-03, Judge Assignment Plan, July 1, 2026 to January 1, 2029 (created June 11, 2026, effective July 1, 2026, rescinding Administrative Order 2025-00-13 on the face of the document). Gives the chief judge 100 percent of Washington County circuit proceedings. Probate is not named in his assignment line, which reads as a catch-all, and probate is circuit jurisdiction in Florida with no other judge holding any Washington circuit work, so the probate docket is his by that catch-all rather than by a stated probate assignment. The court posts the order as a scanned image with no text layer, and the circuit’s order index describes it as rescinding a different order than the one the document itself names.
• Administrative Order 2026-00-04, Administrative Plan for the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, July 1, 2026 to January 1, 2029 (effective July 1, 2026, rescinding Administrative Order 2025-00-10). Sets the circuit’s administrative structure and gives the administrative probate and guardianship judge, who sits in Bay County, oversight of the probate and guardianship divisions across all six counties, Washington included, and responsibility for monitoring the probate and guardianship time standards the rules set.
• Chief judge memorandum of December 15, 2020, Submission of Proposed Orders to Judiciary (December 15, 2020). Sets the placeholder format every proposed order in the circuit has to use, with a companion instruction sheet naming what causes a submission to be rejected, namely a space before the signature codes, a page or section break, and any memo, note or comment left in the file. The memorandum is this judge’s own, written as chief judge, and it is a memorandum rather than an order, which is why it never appears on the order index.

The division also publishes its own procedures, last revised January 30, 2026, the printed revision date on the twelve-page civil edition, and the points a filer most needs are these.

• Everything for the judicial office goes to the judicial assistant by email, with the case name and case number in the subject line, and every email copies all parties unless the law authorises an ex parte communication. The office does not accept text messages. A self-represented litigant or an attorney excused from email service may telephone (850) 638-6255 instead, and the office aims to answer substantively within one business day.
• Anticipate at least twenty days between the request and the hearing date for any hearing longer than fifteen minutes.
• The request email carries six things, the case style, the case number, the type of motion, the amount of time needed, the first date the movant is available, and the names of counsel. The document also states that Washington County is in the Central time zone.
• Do not file a notice of hearing before the confirmation email arrives. A motion that was noticed but never scheduled with the judicial assistant will not be heard, and no dates are given for motions that have not been filed.
• The courthouse has no room number, so the location line on a notice of hearing reads Circuit Courtroom, and a notice involving any remote appearance carries the judge’s Zoom information.
• Materials are due three business days before the hearing. Courtesy copies of case law go three days out, electronic exhibits go to a OneDrive folder requested from the judicial assistant at least three days out with all counsel copied, and a party without computer access mails exhibits to the judge’s office at 1293 Jackson Avenue at least seven days out. Do not send copies of anything already in the court file.
• Proposed orders are due fourteen days after the hearing, through the portal option for submitting proposed orders to the judiciary, in .docx with a PDF cover letter, in the circuit’s placeholder format, with no fill-in blanks and no section breaks, and with a final paragraph making the submitting party responsible for serving the signed order on anyone not registered on the portal. A proposed order that does not comply will be rejected, and a PDF converted to Word has to be proofread character by character first.
• Continuances are disfavored. A motion for continuance is filed at least three business days before the court date barring exigent circumstances, is signed by the party except for good cause shown, and states the basis, when it became known, whether it is opposed, the steps and dates that will make the movant ready, and the proposed ready date. Successive continuances are described as highly disfavored, and lack of diligence is not grounds.
• Matters are heard in docket order, with matters involving represented parties and in-custody defendants generally taken first, and a genuine emergency is set unilaterally once the court finds one.
• One honest limit on all of the above. The document is the civil edition and never uses the words probate, estate or guardian. A probate matter is a circuit civil proceeding before this judge, and these are the only published rules for how he runs a hearing, so read them that way rather than as probate-specific rules.

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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington County

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

Posted August 2026. Washington posts two probate figures and no formal or summary administration charge. The $231.00 disposition fee and a $41.00 caveat come from the Clerk’s probate FAQ, read on September 16, 2026, which also says a statement of claim carries no filing fee at all. The Clerk’s only fee page is a civil schedule headed as effective June 1, 2009, and it has no probate line on it. The ranges above run from the statutory base charge plus the $4 statutory add-on to the highest total any Florida clerk posts. Call the estates, wills and guardianships line at (850) 638-6008 before you file, and bring cash, a cashier’s check or a money order for a disposition. 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 $231 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 Washington County estate, our probate attorney page for Chipley 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 Washington County Probate Court This Year

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

• January 30, 2026. The chief judge’s civil practices and procedures were revised, and the twelve-page document carries that printed revision date. What governs a Washington hearing is this document, and it is the freshest judicial procedures document in the circuit. Source.
• June 2026. The circuit reissued its judge assignment plan for July 1, 2026 to January 1, 2029 and kept the chief judge on 100 percent of Washington County circuit proceedings, which is where probate sits. Source.
• July 1, 2026. A new administrative plan for the circuit took effect, keeping circuit-wide oversight of the probate and guardianship divisions with the administrative probate judge in Bay County. Source.
• July 2026. The order appointing the county canvassing boards for the five outer counties named the Washington County Clerk of Court as the alternate member and the county judge as chair, which is the current formal styling of the Clerk’s office. Source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The objection to Zoom filed thirteen days out. A niece in Pensacola wanted the accounting hearing held in the courtroom rather than on screen, and her lawyer filed the objection thirteen days before the date. Any objection to remote appearance in this division has to be filed no later than fourteen days before the hearing, and a request for an in-person hearing has to be made when the hearing is coordinated rather than afterwards. One day decided it. The hearing went ahead on Zoom.

The will posted to South Boulevard. A custodian in Georgia downloaded the Clerk’s own Will on Deposit form, read the letterhead, and mailed her brother’s original will to 1331 South Boulevard in Chipley. The form was uploaded in 2019 and the Clerk now publishes 1293 Jackson Avenue everywhere else, with mail going to Post Office Box 647. The will came back to her a week later. The ten-day clock had run most of the way out by then, and a week is most of the deadline.

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 Washington 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.
• Washington County local court layer, retrieved September 16, 2026, from the judicial directory · Administrative Order 2026-00-03 · Administrative Order 2026-00-04 · Chief judge memorandum of December 15, 2020. 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/washington-county.md.
• Washington County practice, retrieved 2026-08-12: clerk probate page · Fourteenth 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 Chipley residents wherever you are, and this is not a Washington County office.