Removing or Replacing a Florida Personal Representative: A Probate Attorney’s Guide

Removing or replacing a Florida personal representative means asking the probate court to revoke the authority of the person currently administering an estate and, in most cases, appoint a successor in their place. Under Florida law, a court can remove a personal representative for specific statutory reasons—such as mismanagement, a conflict of interest, or simple failure to do the job—but removal is never automatic. Someone with standing has to file a petition, prove a ground for removal, and persuade the judge that the change serves the estate’s beneficiaries.

I’ve handled both sides of these disputes in Miami-Dade probate court: representing beneficiaries who watched an estate stall for two years, and defending personal representatives who were doing everything right but had become the target of an unhappy relative. The mechanics are the same either way, and they reward people who understand the statute before they file anything.

What a Florida personal representative actually does

In Florida, the person who manages a decedent’s estate is called the personal representative—not an “executor” or “administrator,” though you’ll hear those older terms used interchangeably. The personal representative collects assets, pays valid debts and taxes, and distributes what’s left to the heirs or beneficiaries. It is a fiduciary role, which is a precise legal word: it means the personal representative owes the estate and its beneficiaries the highest duty of loyalty and care the law recognizes.

That fiduciary status is the whole game when it comes to removal. You don’t get to remove someone because you dislike them, because they’re slow in a way that frustrates you, or because you wanted the job and didn’t get it. You remove them because they have breached—or are about to breach—the duties the role demands.

How someone becomes personal representative in the first place

If the decedent left a valid will, it usually nominates a personal representative, and the court appoints that person unless they’re disqualified. When there’s no will—an intestate estate—Florida Statutes section 733.301 sets the order of preference. The surviving spouse has first priority, then the person selected by a majority of the heirs, then the heir nearest in degree of kinship. This intestate succession order matters for removal, because the same statute that decides who gets appointed often decides who gets appointed next after a removal.

Who is qualified to serve—and who is not

Before you reach the question of removal, it’s worth knowing that some people are barred from serving at all. Florida Statutes section 733.303 disqualifies anyone who:

• Has been convicted of a felony;
• Is mentally or physically unable to perform the duties; or
• Is under the age of 18.

There’s also a residency rule that trips up a lot of out-of-state families. Under section 733.304, a nonresident of Florida cannot serve as personal representative unless they are a close relative of the decedent—a spouse, parent, child, sibling, or certain other blood or adoptive kin—or the spouse of such a relative. A friend who lives in New Jersey, no matter how trustworthy, generally cannot serve over a Florida estate. If a disqualified person somehow got appointed, that disqualification is itself a ground for removal.

Statutory grounds for removing a Florida personal representative

This is the heart of the matter. Florida Statutes section 733.504 lists the grounds for removal, and a judge will expect you to point to one of them. The statute is specific, and the more specific your evidence, the stronger your petition. The recognized grounds include:

1. Adjudication of incapacity or physical or mental incapacity rendering the personal representative incapable of serving;
2. Failure to comply with a court order, unless the order has been superseded on appeal;
3. Failure to account or to perform any duty pertaining to the office;
4. Wasting or maladministration of the estate;
5. Failure to give bond or security for any purpose;
6. Conviction of a felony after appointment;
7. Insolvency of, or the appointment of a receiver or liquidator for, a corporate personal representative;
8. Holding or acquiring conflicting or adverse interests against the estate that will or may interfere with the administration as a whole (the statute carves out an exception for interests the decedent already knew about);
9. Revocation of the probate of the decedent’s will that authorized the appointment;
10. Removal of domicile from Florida and, in the case of a nonresident, failure to maintain a registered agent; and
11. The personal representative would not now be entitled to appointment—meaning circumstances have changed so that they’d no longer qualify under sections 733.301–733.305.

Notice what’s not on this list: “the beneficiaries don’t get along with this person.” Personality conflict alone is not a ground. Florida courts have repeatedly held that hostility between a personal representative and the beneficiaries, by itself, is not enough—although hostility that actually impairs the administration can tip into “maladministration” or a conflicting interest. The line is whether the dispute is hurting the estate, not whether it’s making everyone miserable.

The grounds that show up most often in Miami estates

In practice, a handful of these dominate the docket. Failure to account is the single most common complaint I see—a personal representative who never files the inventory or the annual accounting the rules require, leaving beneficiaries in the dark about what the estate holds. Self-dealing and conflicts of interest come a close second: the relative who pays themselves an unjustified fee, sells estate property to a friend below market, or moves into the decedent’s house and stops paying anything. And waste—letting a property go into foreclosure, missing tax deadlines, allowing assets to deteriorate—is the kind of harm that judges take seriously because the damage is concrete and measurable.

How the removal process works in probate court

Removing a personal representative is a litigated proceeding, governed by the Florida Probate Rules. Here’s the realistic sequence.

1. Confirm you have standing

Only an “interested person” can petition for removal—generally a beneficiary, an heir in an intestate estate, a creditor whose claim is affected, or a co-personal representative. If you have no stake in the outcome, you have no standing, and the petition won’t survive.

2. File a petition for removal

The petition is filed in the same probate case, in the circuit court where the estate is pending—for a Miami estate, that’s the Probate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County. It must state the specific statutory ground or grounds and the facts supporting them. Vague accusations get dismissed; dated, documented facts get hearings.

3. Serve formal notice on all interested persons

The personal representative and other interested parties must receive formal notice and an opportunity to respond. This is not optional, and skipping it is one of the fastest ways to lose.

4. The hearing—and the possibility of suspension

At the hearing, you carry the burden of proving the ground for removal. The court may also exercise its power under Florida Statutes section 733.505 to enter an order restraining a personal representative, or under section 733.506 to suspend their powers and appoint a curator to protect the estate while the dispute is resolved. A curator is a temporary, court-appointed custodian—essentially a placeholder who safeguards assets when there’s a credible risk of harm but the removal question hasn’t been finally decided.

5. Appointment of a successor

If the court removes the personal representative, the administration doesn’t end—it continues with a new fiduciary. The successor is chosen under the same priority rules that governed the original appointment, and the removed representative must turn over all estate property and records and file a final accounting of their tenure. These same dynamics drive in other states as well, where contested fiduciary removals follow a closely parallel logic.

What happens to an intestate estate when the administrator is removed

When there’s no will, the stakes around removal feel higher to families, and for good reason: there’s no document expressing the decedent’s wishes about who should be in charge. The court is working purely from the statutory order of preference.

Say a decedent’s adult son was appointed administrator of an intestate Miami estate because the other heirs agreed to it, and he then stops responding, never files an inventory, and lets the homestead property fall behind on its taxes. If the court removes him, it doesn’t hand the estate to whoever filed the petition. It goes back to section 733.301: the heirs can again select someone by majority, or the court appoints the heir nearest in kinship who is willing and qualified. Intestate removals frequently turn into a contest among siblings over who serves next, which is exactly why getting the appointment right the first time—and documenting everyone’s agreement—saves so much grief.

A note specific to Florida: homestead property has its own constitutional protections and often passes outside the probate estate entirely. A personal representative’s mishandling of a homestead can be a removal ground, but the homestead analysis itself is separate from ordinary estate assets. Don’t assume the two move together.

Common mistakes that sink a removal petition

• Treating slowness as a ground. Probate legitimately takes months. “Too slow” only becomes actionable when it crosses into failure to perform a specific required duty, like filing an overdue accounting after a court order.
• Filing on emotion instead of evidence. Judges want bank statements, missed deadlines, and documented self-dealing—not a narrative about family resentment.
• Ignoring the bond. If the personal representative was bonded, a removal for waste may also implicate a claim against the surety bond. Many families leave that recovery on the table.
• Forgetting the successor problem. Remove the current representative without a viable, qualified successor lined up, and you can leave the estate in limbo—sometimes worse off than before.

When to call a Miami probate attorney

Removal litigation is one of the few areas of probate where doing it yourself is genuinely dangerous. The statutory grounds are narrow, the notice requirements are strict, and a poorly pleaded petition can not only fail but expose the petitioner to a fee award. If you’re a beneficiary who can’t get answers, or a personal representative being threatened with removal, the early move is to get a clear-eyed read on whether a recognized ground actually exists.

Our firm handles contested Florida estate matters and works alongside Morgan Legal’s broader network, including its and its New York team handling for families with assets in multiple states. You can also review our overview of Florida probate and how a will affects who serves as personal representative, or reach us directly through our contact page to discuss your situation.

Whether you need to remove a fiduciary who has failed the estate or defend yourself against an unfounded petition, the path runs through the same statutes—and the side that knows them cold usually prevails.