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Most firms write wills. We try the cases when they are challenged. Will and trust contests, fiduciary removal and surcharge, and guardianship disputes, for families and beneficiaries across Tampa, Orlando and throughout Florida.
Probate litigation is its own discipline. It runs on the Florida Probate Rules and the Rules of Civil Procedure at the same time, on deadlines that bar claims outright rather than merely weakening them, and in front of a division that sees the same fiduciary problems every week. Probate litigation is filed in the circuit court probate division for the county where the decedent was domiciled, which is not always where the family lives or where the assets are. We appear across the Tampa Bay and Central Florida circuits.
Undue influence, lack of capacity, fraud, duress, and improper execution. Under section 732.5165, a will is void if its execution was procured by fraud, duress, mistake, or undue influence, and so is a revocation procured the same way.
Removal and surcharge of a personal representative or trustee, compelled accountings, self-dealing, and recovery of assets moved before or after death.
Contested incapacity petitions, competing petitions to serve, removal of a guardian, and exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
Under section 733.212(3), Florida Statutes, an interested person served with a copy of the notice of administration must object to the validity of the will, the venue, or the court’s jurisdiction within 3 months after service, or those objections are forever barred.
The statute is unusually harsh about extensions. The 3-month period may be extended only for estoppel based on a misstatement by the personal representative about the time period itself. It expressly may not be extended for any other reason, “including affirmative representation, failure to disclose information, or misconduct by the personal representative or any other person.”
In other words: a personal representative can conceal information and the clock still runs. If you have been served with a notice of administration and something feels wrong, the time to call a lawyer is now, not after you finish gathering proof.
Tell us what happened. We will tell you honestly whether you have a case, what it is likely to cost, and what deadline you are working against.
Thank you. A member of our team will contact you within one business day.
Probate litigation is filed in the circuit court probate division for the county where the decedent was domiciled, which is frequently not where the family lives or where the assets sit. Each circuit layers its own administrative orders, mandatory checklists and submission rules on top of the statewide rules, and those local requirements are a common reason a filing sits without an order. We file regularly across Hillsborough, Orange, Pinellas, Polk, Osceola, Seminole, Lake and Pasco counties.
Some of the largest assets in an estate never enter probate at all. An annuity, an IRA, a life insurance policy and a pension all pass directly to whoever is named on the contract. The Florida Supreme Court has grouped them together for exactly this reason, explaining that the owner “has to take specific steps to designate a beneficiary and death benefits pass directly to a beneficiary rather than going through probate.” Crawford v. Barker, 64 So. 3d 1246, 1253 (Fla. 2011).
That has a consequence families rarely expect. A will does not override a beneficiary designation. Neither, on its own, does a trust, a divorce settlement that divides the account, or a letter from a lawyer explaining what the owner wanted. When someone dies, the company looks at its own contract and pays the person named on it. As the Supreme Court put it, to determine who the owner intended, a court “need look no further than the plain language of the policy itself.” Cooper v. Muccitelli, 682 So. 2d 77, 79 (Fla. 1996). The Second District said the same of retirement accounts, adding that “it is the IRA owner’s responsibility to change the beneficiary designation if a change is desired.” Luszcz v. Lavoie, 787 So. 2d 245, 248 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001) (en banc).
So the fight is usually not about what the decedent wanted. It is about whether the paperwork required to change it was ever actually completed.
These contracts set their own conditions for a change, and Florida enforces them strictly. Most annuity and custodial agreements require a request in good order, meaning a complete request, on the company’s terms, received at its administrative office, and many state that the company is not bound until it acknowledges the request. If any of that did not happen, the earlier designation usually still controls.
The Fourth District applied this in 2024 to an IRA whose owner signed a new designation in his lawyer’s office and left it to be mailed. The company had no record of ever receiving it. The court held the change never took effect, and rejected the argument that substantially complying was enough: acceptance by the custodian was a material term, and “the law of substantial compliance cannot override a failure to comply with such a material term.” Sobel v. Sobel, 384 So. 3d 791, 794 (Fla. 4th DCA 2024).
Two points from that case matter in almost every one of these disputes. Your attorney is your agent, not the company’s, so handing a form to your lawyer is not delivery to the insurer. And where an owner has changed a designation before, courts will treat him as knowing what the process required.
Florida does void a designation in favor of a former spouse. Section 732.703, Florida Statutes, provides that a designation for the benefit of the decedent’s former spouse “is void as of the time the decedent’s marriage was judicially dissolved,” if it was made before the dissolution. But the statute carries a long list of exceptions, including designations governed by federal law, instruments signed after the divorce, court-ordered maintenance obligations, and irrevocable designations. Whether it applies is a question worth answering early, because the answer often decides the case.
If a death benefit was paid to the wrong person, or an insurer is holding proceeds while two families claim them, these disputes are frequently resolved on the contract and the parties’ own admissions rather than at trial. The documents that decide them are usually already in hand.
If you were served with a copy of the notice of administration, section 733.212(3) gives you 3 months from the date of service to object to the validity of the will, the venue, or the court’s jurisdiction, after which those objections are forever barred. The period may be extended only for estoppel based on a misstatement by the personal representative about the deadline itself, and not for concealment or misconduct.
Section 732.5165 provides that a will is void if its execution was procured by fraud, duress, mistake, or undue influence. Any part so procured is void, while the remainder stays valid if it is not invalid for another reason. A revocation procured the same way is also void.
Yes. Beneficiaries are entitled to information and to an accounting, and a fiduciary who will not provide one can be compelled, removed, and surcharged for losses caused by a breach of duty.
No. The case belongs in the Florida county where the decedent was domiciled, regardless of where the beneficiaries live. We routinely represent out-of-state family members in Florida estates.
If you have been served with a notice of administration, you may have three months and no more. Talk to a Florida estate litigator today.
About the author:
Brice Zoecklein, Esq.
is the Managing Attorney of Zoecklein Law, P.A., Florida Bar No. 0085615, practicing estate planning, probate, trust litigation, guardianship, and real estate law throughout Florida.
Disclaimer: This page provides general information about Florida law for educational purposes only. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for advice from a Florida-licensed attorney who has reviewed your specific facts. Florida statutes, court rules, case law, deadlines, and dollar amounts change over time, and what you read here may no longer reflect current law. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship with Zoecklein Law, P.A.