You've lost someone — and you've been named Trustee.

First, a word about pace

Nothing in the Florida Trust Code asks a grieving trustee to act on the day of the funeral. The clocks that do exist are measured in months, not hours: the two beneficiary notices run 60 days from acceptance and from learning that the trust has become irrevocable (§736.0813), creditor claims are barred two years after death (§733.710), and the federal estate tax return, where one is needed at all, is due nine months after death. The notice of trust is filed "upon the death of a settlor" (§736.05055), which in practice means when the death certificate arrives and the trustee has the trust in hand.

What cannot wait is quieter than a deadline. Property that is not secured can be lost: a lapsed insurance policy, an unattended house, an account nobody is watching, mail piling up with bills inside. And one decision cannot be unmade — distributing trust property before the debts, expenses and taxes are known. Almost every other step can be taken in order, with a clear head.

Days 1 to 30: find, read, secure

Start with the documents. The signed trust agreement and every amendment or restatement; any certification of trust (§736.1017); deeds; account statements; beneficiary designation forms for retirement accounts and life insurance; and the will, which in a trust-based plan is usually a pour-over will that sends anything left outside the trust into it through probate. Read the distribution provisions closely. Some trusts call for outright distribution after death; many hold property in continuing trusts for a spouse, for children until an age, or for a beneficiary with special needs, and the trustee's job is different in each.

Then decide whether to accept. Under §736.0701 a person named as trustee accepts by substantially complying with the trust's acceptance method or, if the trust names none, by accepting delivery of trust property, exercising a trustee's powers or performing a trustee's duties. Acting can itself be an acceptance, which is why many people read first and act second. A person who does not accept within a reasonable time is treated as having declined, and the trust's succession provisions or the court then supply the next trustee. Declining is a recognized path, not a failure.

Order several certified death certificates; banks, brokerages, insurers, the property appraiser and the court will each want one. Banks and title companies will also ask for evidence of the trustee's authority, and a certification of trust under §736.1017 answers that question without handing over the whole instrument.

Secure the property the trust owns. Section 736.0809 makes it the trustee's duty to take reasonable steps to take control of and protect trust property: confirm insurance on the house and vehicles is in force and that the carrier knows who is responsible now; change locks if keys are unaccounted for; forward the mail; keep utilities on; find the passwords and the safe-deposit key; and stop automatic payments that no longer make sense while keeping the ones that protect an asset.

Do not assume every asset belongs to the trust. Title decides. A house deeded to the trust is trust property; a house still in the settlor's individual name is probate property, even if the trust names it. Joint accounts pass to the survivor; accounts with payable-on-death or transfer-on-death designations pass to the named person; retirement accounts and life insurance pass by beneficiary designation. A trustee who lists every asset with its title and its named beneficiary in the first month has done a large part of the inventory already.

• Trust agreement, amendments and restatements; certification of trust; the will
• Deeds, titles, statements and beneficiary designation forms, sorted by how each asset is titled
• Several certified death certificates
• Insurance confirmed in force; the house, vehicles and mail secured
• A written list of what the trust owns and what passes outside it

Days 30 to 60: the notices

The Florida Trust Code's information duties are the part new trustees most often miss, and they carry the only fixed early deadlines. Section 736.0813 requires the trustee to keep the qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed of the trust and its administration, and it names two notices with 60-day clocks.

Within 60 days after accepting the trusteeship, the trustee gives notice to the qualified beneficiaries of the acceptance, the trustee's full name and address, and that the fiduciary lawyer-client privilege in §90.5021 applies to the trustee and any attorney the trustee employs (§736.0813(1)(a)). Within 60 days after acquiring knowledge that a formerly revocable trust has become irrevocable, which is usually the settlor's death, the trustee gives notice of the trust's existence, the identity of the settlor, the beneficiaries' right to request a complete copy of the trust instrument, their right to accountings, and the same privilege statement (§736.0813(1)(b)). The two notices are often sent together, in one dated letter, with the statutory references on the page.

Who is a qualified beneficiary is a defined term, not a family judgment. Under §736.0103 it includes the beneficiaries who currently may receive distributions and those who would receive them if the current interests ended or the trust terminated on that date. A child who inherits only after a surviving spouse is usually a qualified beneficiary now, not later. Getting the list right is the kind of question a licensed Florida attorney of your choosing answers quickly and a trustee guesses at slowly.

The notice of trust is a separate filing. Under §736.05055, upon the death of the settlor of a trust described in §733.707(3), the trustee files a notice of trust with the court of the county where the settlor lived and with the court handling the estate, if one is open. It states the settlor's name and date of death, the title and date of the trust, and the trustee's name and address. It does not disclose the trust's terms or its assets; its purpose is to tell creditors and the court that a trust exists that may answer for the estate's obligations.

Keep a copy of everything sent, with the date and the address it went to. When a beneficiary asks for a copy of the trust instrument, or for information about the trust's assets, liabilities and administration, the statute has the trustee provide it on reasonable request (§736.0813(1)(c) and (e)); a dated record of each request and each response is the trustee's best evidence later.

• Acceptance notice: within 60 days of accepting — name, address, the §90.5021 privilege statement
• Irrevocability notice: within 60 days of learning of the death — the trust exists, who the settlor was, the right to a copy, the right to accountings
• Notice of trust: filed with the court of the settlor's county upon the death
• A dated file of what went to whom

Days 60 to 90: money, debts, taxes

By the third month the trustee usually knows what the trust owns and who its beneficiaries are, and the work turns to value, debts and taxes. Obtain date-of-death values for everything: statements for the accounts, an appraisal or a broker's opinion for real estate, a valuation for a business interest. The accounting the trustee will owe under §736.08135 starts from these numbers, and the income tax basis of most inherited property is set at the same date.

Debts are where the two-year clock and the three-month clock meet. Under §733.710, claims against a decedent are barred two years after death whether or not a probate estate was ever opened. If a personal representative publishes a notice to creditors in a probate proceeding, §733.702 shortens the window to three months after first publication, and to 30 days after service for a known creditor who must be served. A revocable trust's property can be reached for the settlor's debts and the expenses of administering the estate: §736.05053 has the trustee pay the personal representative the amounts certified in writing as needed when the probate estate cannot. A trustee who distributes everything in month two and receives a certified demand in month eight has a personal problem. A reasonable reserve, held until the creditor window closes, is how the Trust Code expects that problem to be avoided (§736.0817).

Whether a probate estate needs to be opened is a related question. It usually does when the settlor owned property in an individual name with no beneficiary designation, when a pour-over will has something to pour, or when the shortened creditor period is worth the cost of the proceeding. It usually does not when everything of value was titled in the trust or passes by designation. The answer turns on the asset list from the first month.

Taxes come in three shapes. The settlor's final individual income tax return covers the year of death. The trust, now irrevocable and operating under its own employer identification number, files Form 1041 for its income from the date of death forward and issues a Schedule K-1 to each beneficiary who receives distributable income; the 15th day of the fourth month after the trust's year-end is the due date, and an election under §645 of the Internal Revenue Code can let the trust and the estate file together for a time. A federal estate tax return, Form 706, is due nine months after death only when the gross estate exceeds the filing threshold, or when a surviving spouse wants to preserve the unused exclusion through portability; Florida imposes no estate or inheritance tax of its own.

One Florida rule deserves its own paragraph. If the settlor's home was Florida homestead and a spouse or a minor child survives, §732.401 and §732.4015 control who receives it, and a revocable trust's distribution scheme does not override that. Selling or distributing the house before the homestead question is settled is a mistake that is hard to undo.

Florida trustee deadlines: what the statutes provide

Reviewed against the Florida Statutes on 2026-09-15. General information, not legal advice; the official text controls.

The record you keep from day one

Section 736.0810 requires the trustee to keep clear, distinct and accurate records of the administration and to keep trust property separate from the trustee's own. The accounting the qualified beneficiaries will receive under §736.08135 must show the receipts and disbursements, the assets and liabilities with their values, the gains and losses, and the compensation paid to the trustee and to the agents the trustee employed. Every item on that list is easier to report if it was recorded when it happened.

In practice the record is a trust bank account through which every dollar moves, a folder of receipts and invoices, the statements, the appraisals, a log of decisions and the reasons for them, and copies of every notice and every letter to a beneficiary. Trustee compensation is part of the record too: §736.0708 allows compensation reasonable under the circumstances when the trust is silent, and paying oneself is a self-interested transaction that reads very differently when it is documented in advance and disclosed than when it surfaces in an accounting.

What waits for later

Distribution is the step everyone asks about first and the Trust Code places last. Under §736.0817, when an event terminates a trust the trustee proceeds expeditiously to distribute the property to the persons entitled to it, subject to the right to retain a reasonable reserve for debts, expenses and taxes. Expeditiously is not immediately, and the reserve is not optional caution; it is the statute's own design.

Before the final distribution comes the final accounting, and with it the option of a limitation notice under §736.1008: a beneficiary's claim about a matter that a trust disclosure document adequately discloses is barred six months after the beneficiary receives the document when a limitation notice accompanies it. Receipts, releases and refunding agreements signed by beneficiaries after they have had adequate information close the file. Partial distributions earlier are sometimes clearly safe, and the trust's terms may direct them; a beneficiary's impatience, on its own, is not a reason.

When a licensed Florida attorney is the right next call

TrusteeClear organizes the record; it does not give legal advice, and it does not decide any of the questions above for you. Many Florida trustees bring the record to a licensed Florida attorney of their choosing at the points where the law stops being general: when a homestead is involved; when a creditor's claim, a business, out-of-state property or a possible estate tax return appears; when beneficiaries disagree or a contest is threatened; when the trust's terms are ambiguous about a distribution; and before paying themselves. An organized record makes that conversation shorter and cheaper, which is the whole point of keeping one.