"Can I sell Mom's furniture now?"
Not until someone has the authority to. If the house and contents were in a revocable trust, the successor trustee usually has authority immediately. If they pass under a will, or there is no will, the court has to appoint a personal representative and issue Letters of Administration first — and until then nobody, not even the person named in the will, can legally sell estate property. You can secure, photograph, sort and get evaluations. Selling and distributing wait.
"Do the contents even go through probate?"
Property titled in a trust, or passing by beneficiary designation or joint ownership, generally doesn't. Tangible personal property — furniture, silver, art, jewelry, cars — is usually owned outright by the person, so it does pass through probate unless it was assigned to a trust. Many Florida trusts include an "assignment of tangible personal property" for exactly this reason; check the trust documents.
"Does the house need a formal appraisal?"
Sometimes. The personal representative must file an inventory of estate assets at their date-of-death fair market value — within sixty days of the Letters, in formal administration — and the contents are on it. For ordinary household contents a reasonable good-faith figure is customary; for a significant collection, valuable art or silver, an estate that will file a federal estate-tax return, a charitable donation of valuable items, or a family that disagrees, the attorney will want a qualified appraisal from a credentialed appraiser. A dealer's free evaluation is useful for the inventory and for planning, but it is not that document. The difference, and when you need which.
"What is 'exempt property'?"
Florida lets a surviving spouse — or, if there's no spouse, the decedent's children — claim certain property as exempt from creditors' claims and from the residue of the estate. It includes household furniture, furnishings and appliances in the decedent's usual home up to a statutory net value (currently $20,000), plus vehicles and certain other items. The claim has to be filed within a set period, so the question needs to come up early — ideally before any furniture is sold. It matters most in estates with debts.
"Grandma left a handwritten list of who gets what. Does it count?"
It may. Florida allows a will to refer to a separate written statement disposing of tangible personal property — a signed list of specific items and recipients that can be written or changed after the will. If the will references such a list and the list meets the statute's requirements, it's binding. Look for one in the desk, the safe, or with the attorney's copy of the will before anything is divided.
"Can we split things among the family before probate is done?"
Not formally. The personal representative has a duty to preserve the estate until debts and expenses are known; distributing the silver in week two is the kind of thing that gets undone later. What families can do is agree on a division — using honest values, so it's fair — and carry it out when the attorney says the estate can distribute. In practice, in estates with no creditor problems, that's often sooner than people fear.
"Who pays for the clean-out, the movers, the appraisal?"
Reasonable costs of administering the estate — including securing, appraising, storing and selling its property — are estate expenses, paid from estate funds and accounted for in the final accounting. Keep receipts for everything: donation receipts, invoices, the dealer's written offer and paid receipt. The attorney will want them.
"There's no will. Who gets the things?"
Florida's intestacy rules decide: broadly, the surviving spouse takes everything if all the children are shared, or a defined share otherwise; then children; then parents; then siblings, and so on. Personal property is divided along with the rest. An attorney can tell you the shares in one conversation. Sentiment doesn't enter into the statute, which is why families are wise to agree among themselves within it.
"Our parents were snowbirds. Is this a Florida estate at all?"
Probate is generally opened in the state where the person was domiciled — their permanent home — with an ancillary proceeding in Florida for Florida property if they lived elsewhere. Domicile is a facts-and-intent question (driver's license, homestead exemption, voter registration, where they spent time), and it's one of the first things the attorney will sort out. The contents of the Naples condo are Florida property either way.
"How long does this take?"
Trust administration: often weeks to a few months. Summary administration (small estates, or death more than two years ago): a couple of months. Formal administration: commonly six months to a year, sometimes longer, because of the creditor period (creditors have three months from the published notice, as of this writing) and the paperwork. The contents can usually be evaluated, planned and — once authority exists — sold well before the estate itself closes.
"Where do I start?"
- Find the will and any trust; call a Florida estate attorney.
- Secure the house and the small valuables. The first-week checklist.
- Photograph everything and get a written evaluation of the contents — free, from us or someone like us. How that works.
- Ask the attorney the four questions above: authority, inventory and appraisal, exempt property, separate writing.
- Plan the division and the sale; carry it out when the attorney says the estate can. The whole process, step by step.
Where to read the actual law: the Florida Legislature publishes the statutes online at no charge — see Chapter 732 (wills, intestacy, exempt property) and Chapter 733 (administration of estates). The Florida Bar's consumer pamphlets are the clearest plain-language summaries.