What Happens to Debt When Someone Dies in Florida?

1. Do Heirs Pay the Debts of the Deceased?

Heirs do not pay the debts of the deceased in Florida. A debt belongs to the person who signed for it, and at death it becomes a claim against that person’s estate, meaning everything the person owned in their own name. The personal representative (Florida’s word for the executor) pays the claims from the estate, and the family inherits what is left.

A family member becomes responsible in two situations. The first is a debt the family member signed, such as a car loan a son cosigned or a credit card a wife held jointly with her husband. The second is property received too early. Florida makes the people who receive property through a summary administration personally liable for valid claims, up to the value each one received, until the two-year bar runs.

2. Who Pays Debt When Someone Dies?

The personal representative pays the debts from the estate, in an order Florida law sets out in eight classes. Each class is paid in full before the next one gets anything, and when the money runs out partway through a class, that class shares what is left in proportion to each claim.

A revocable living trust does not escape the list. Florida makes the trust answer for the estate’s expenses and debts when the probate estate is too small to pay them, and the trustee pays the amount the personal representative certifies. Our guide to Florida trust administration covers the trustee’s side.

3. How Long Do Creditors Have to Collect?

A creditor has 3 months after the first publication of the notice to creditors to file a claim in the probate case. A creditor the personal representative knew about or could reasonably find must be served with the notice, and that creditor has the later of the 3 months or 30 days after service. A late claim is barred unless the court extends the time for fraud, estoppel or insufficient notice.

Behind that clock sits a second one. Two years after the death, neither the estate, the personal representative nor the beneficiaries are liable for any claim against the person who died, whether or not anyone ever opened a probate case. The Florida Supreme Court held in 2000 that the two-year limit is jurisdictional, so a court cannot extend it and a personal representative cannot waive it. Our page on how long you have to file probate explains how that bar affects a family that waits.

Secured debt follows different rules. A recorded mortgage or other lien survives both deadlines, so the lender can still foreclose on the property it holds as security.

4. What Happens With Credit Card Debt When Someone Dies?

Credit card debt is unsecured, so it falls in the eighth and last class. The card company files a claim like any other creditor, and it is paid only after the costs of the probate, the funeral, the taxes, the last-illness medical bills and the family allowance. When the estate runs dry before the eighth class, the card company writes off the balance and the family owes nothing.

Who is on the account matters. A joint account holder signed the card agreement and owes the full balance after the death. An authorized user only had a card to spend on the account and is not liable for it. A collector who calls a grown child about a parent’s card can be directed to the personal representative, and a child who pays from personal funds has made a gift to the card company that the law never required.

5. What Can Creditors Not Touch?

Florida keeps several kinds of property out of the creditors’ reach, and the largest is the home. The Florida Constitution’s homestead protection passes to the surviving spouse or heirs, so a Florida homestead that goes to the family is protected from the unsecured creditors the same way it was during the owner’s life. A credit card company cannot force the sale of a parent’s Florida home to collect a balance.

A surviving spouse, or the children if there is no spouse, can also claim exempt property free of creditors, including household furniture and appliances up to $20,000 and two cars used by the family. A life insurance policy payable to a named beneficiary goes to that beneficiary free of the insured’s creditors. Accounts with a named beneficiary pass outside probate entirely, which our guide to property that skips probate explains.

The exception is a mortgage. The lender keeps its lien, so whoever takes the house takes it subject to the loan. Federal law stops a lender from calling the loan due because the house passed to a relative at the borrower’s death, and our guide to an inherited house with a mortgage covers the payments.

6. Am I Responsible for My Spouse’s Debt After Death?

A surviving spouse is responsible only for debts the spouse signed, such as a joint credit card, a joint loan or a mortgage both spouses signed. Florida is not a community property state, so a debt in one spouse’s name stays that spouse’s debt and goes to that spouse’s estate. The Florida Supreme Court abolished the old common-law rule that made a husband pay his wife’s necessaries in 1995, so a widow or widower does not owe the hospital for care the other spouse received unless the survivor signed for it.

Property the couple held as tenants by the entirety passes to the survivor at the first death and is not part of the estate the creditors of the first spouse can reach.

7. Does Medicaid Take Money From the Estate?

Medicaid can file a claim against the estate for what it paid after the person turned 55, and that claim ranks in the third class, ahead of credit cards and most medical bills. Medicaid received before age 55 creates no debt. The personal representative must serve the notice to creditors and a copy of the death certificate on the state’s Medicaid agency within 3 months after first publication whenever the person was 55 or older at death.

Florida law stops the claim from being enforced at all if the person is survived by a spouse, by a child under 21, or by a child who is blind or permanently and totally disabled. The claim also cannot reach property exempt from creditors, which includes the homestead, and the agency may not recover where recovery would cause undue hardship for the heirs, a waiver an heir who lived in the home can request. Our page on Florida Medicaid estate recovery covers how families plan around it.

What Does It Cost to Settle an Estate With Debts?

Summary administration, for estates of $150,000 or less after exempt property or any death more than two years ago, is a flat fee from $2,500. A routine formal administration, which includes the notice to creditors and the claims process, is a flat fee from $3,500. Filing fees, newspaper publication and certified copies are government and third-party costs, additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Fighting a disputed creditor claim in court is litigation, which we quote per matter. Our Florida probate cost calculator shows the statutory benchmark, and our guide to whether you need probate covers the cases that need no court at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The son who got the collection call. A father dies owing $14,000 on two credit cards, with a paid-off homestead and $9,000 in checking. The son, who never signed either card, gets a call asking him to set up a payment plan. He declines and refers the caller to the estate. The house passes to the children as protected homestead, the checking account goes first to the funeral and the probate costs, and the card companies are paid only what reaches the eighth class.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §733.2121(1)-(3)(d) (notice to creditors, publication once a week for 2 consecutive weeks, service on reasonably ascertainable creditors, service on the Agency for Health Care Administration when the decedent was 55 or older); §733.702(1),(3),(4)(a) (claims period of 3 months after first publication or 30 days after service; extensions only for fraud, estoppel or insufficient notice; liens unaffected).
• Fla. Stat. §733.707(1)-(3) (order of payment in eight classes, funeral capped at $6,000, last 60 days of final illness, ratable payment within a class, revocable trust liable when the estate is insufficient); §733.710(1)-(3) (2-year limit on claims; recorded mortgages and liens unaffected); §735.206(4)(e)-(f) (recipients under summary administration personally liable to the value received; 2-year limit).
• Fla. Const. art. X, §4(a)-(b) (homestead exemption inures to the surviving spouse or heirs); Fla. Stat. §731.201(33) (protected homestead); §732.402 (exempt property, furniture to $20,000, two motor vehicles); §732.403 (family allowance to $18,000); §222.13(1) (life insurance proceeds to a named beneficiary exempt from the insured’s creditors).
• Fla. Stat. §409.9101(3),(6),(7),(8) (Medicaid debt for benefits paid after age 55; not enforced against an estate survived by a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child; no enforcement against exempt property; hardship waiver); 12 U.S.C. §1701j-3(d)(5) (no due-on-sale enforcement on a transfer to a relative resulting from the borrower’s death); 31 U.S.C. §3713(b) (personal liability of a representative who pays other debts before a federal claim).
• Cases, each read in full from the opinion text on the local CourtListener corpus, retrieved October 1, 2026: May v. Illinois National Insurance Co., 771 So. 2d 1143 (Fla. 2000) (the two-year limit is a jurisdictional statute of nonclaim, not subject to waiver or extension); Connor v. Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center, Inc., 668 So. 2d 175 (Fla. 1995) (common-law doctrine of necessaries abrogated); Estate of Shearer v. Agency for Health Care Administration, 737 So. 2d 1229 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999) (retold below).

What a Two-Day Delay Did to a Medicaid Claim

In one case I have reviewed, the deadline that families fear worked in a family’s favor, and the creditor was the State of Florida.

A woman who had received Medicaid died in March 1996, and a personal representative was appointed for her estate in April 1997. The notice was published on May 5, 1997, so the 3-month window for claims closed on August 5. Florida’s Medicaid office filed a claim on May 12 for $28,209.14 and wrote on its face that the amount was not final and might be amended. Two days after the window closed, on August 7, it filed an amended claim for $108,088.55. The estate’s only real asset turned out to be the settlement of a wrongful death suit the personal representative later brought against the nursing home where she had lived. Medicaid explained that its first figure came from computer records covering only her last 18 months, and the rest sat on microfiche. The probate judge allowed the larger claim. The appeals court reversed in 1999 and struck the increase, because the added amount covered different services that needed their own proof, and Medicaid had all of those records in its own files before the window closed. I have a few take-home points.

The first is the calendar. The family’s exposure dropped by roughly $80,000 because of a date on a newspaper notice. The practice pointer is to publish the notice to creditors promptly and to docket the 3-month date the day it runs, because every claim that matters is measured from it.

The second is the objection. The personal representative objected to both claims in writing within weeks. Avoid paying a claim simply because it arrived on official letterhead, since a late or inflated claim stays on the books unless someone objects to it.

The third is notice. Florida now requires the personal representative to serve the notice and the death certificate on the Medicaid agency within 3 months whenever the person who died was 55 or older, so the agency cannot claim it never knew. One limit is worth stating plainly. In 1997 the claims window ran from a notice of administration, the law has been rewritten since, and the opinion does not say how much of the original $28,209.14 the estate ended up paying.

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.