Florida 2026 probate reform — what actually changed

The Florida legislature passed CS/HB 1337 (companion SB 1500), signed April 29, 2026 as chapter 2026-57, doubling the summary administration threshold from $75,000 to $150,000. That’s the headline. The detail every attorney we’ve spoken to is getting wrong: the new threshold only applies to deaths on or after July 1, 2026.

If your loved one died before July 1, 2026, the old $75,000 cap still controls — full stop. The “I qualify now!” celebration we keep seeing in social posts is, for many cases right now, premature.

What actually changed

Four dollar figures moved, all on July 1, 2026. Read from the enrolled act:

• Summary administration (§735.201, act s. 7): $75,000 → $150,000 of non-exempt assets, excluding the homestead. The two-year-since-death route is unchanged and still has no dollar cap of its own.
• Small intestate estates (§735.304, act s. 10): the disposition-without-administration ceiling for an intestate decedent went $10,000 → $20,000, on top of exempt property and the preferred funeral and last-illness medical expenses. Still requires the death to be more than a year ago with no administration pending.
• Paying a family member straight from the bank (§735.303, act s. 9): a financial institution may release the decedent’s qualified accounts to a family member on an affidavit, no court involvement, where the combined total is now $2,000 instead of $1,000. Not earlier than six months after the death.
• Federal income tax refunds (§735.302, act s. 8): an overpayment not in excess of $5,000, up from $2,500, can be refunded without administration.

One thing that did not change, despite what you will read elsewhere: §735.301, the general disposition-without-administration section, was last amended in 2001 and this act does not touch it. Its limit is still measured by preferred funeral expenses plus the reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last 60 days of the last illness.

The act also reaches probate generally: safe-deposit-box access (§§655.933, 655.936), what a court can resolve for a personal representative (§733.603), a new power at §733.612(28), a new §733.6125 making costs and attorney fees awardable against whoever forced a PR to litigate their own authority, and §733.6171, where defending that authority is now a billable extraordinary service. There is nothing in it about digital assets — chapter 740 still governs those and predates this act by a decade.

For most families, the headline change is the only one that matters: more estates now qualify for the fast path.

Why the effective date matters

Florida summary administration is a substantive probate procedure, not a procedural one. Substantive law applies based on the date of death, not the date of filing. So an estate where the decedent died on June 15, 2026 with $120,000 of non-exempt assets still has to go through formal administration, no matter when the petition is filed. Filing in 2027 does not buy that estate the higher cap.

Practically, this means:

• Deaths January 1 – June 30, 2026: $75k cap. Estates between $75k and $150k still need formal administration.
• Deaths July 1, 2026 and after: $150k cap. Estates up to $150k can use summary.

If you’re at the $75k–$150k boundary, the date of death is everything.

What we’re telling clients

If a death is recent and the estate sits in the $75k–$150k window, we run the date-of-death calendar. For deaths after July 1, summary is now on the table — that’s a real saving (roughly $1,000 in attorney fees and 4–6 months of timeline versus formal administration). For earlier deaths, the old rules still apply and the conversation is the same as it was last year.

If you want a 30-second read on which path fits your specific case, our cost calculator and our Do I need probate? guide walk through the same logic we’d run on a free consult.

The reform is real and meaningful. The effective date is also real. Both matter when you’re trying to figure out which path your family is actually on.