Insolvent Probate Estate Claim-Payment Priority in Florida
At a glance
| Statutory payment order | Eight classes paid in stated order; earlier class before an underfunded later class (§ 733.707(1)–(2)). |
|---|---|
| Administration costs | Class 1: costs, administration expenses, representative compensation and specified attorney fees (§ 733.707(1)(a)). |
| Funeral and last illness | Class 2 funeral/interment/marker, aggregate $6,000 cap; class 4 necessary medical/hospital expenses of last 60 days; excess class 8 (§ 733.707(1)(b),(d),(h)). |
| Family and homestead allowances | Class 5 family allowance (§ 733.707(1)(e)). |
| Taxes and public claims | Class 3: federal-preference debts/taxes, specified statutory claims, state unpaid court costs, fees or fines (§ 733.707(1)(c)). |
| Secured claims | Mortgages, security interests and liens on specific property remain enforceable despite estate execution limits (§ 733.706). |
| Support and special debts | Class 6 court-ordered child-support arrears; class 7 qualifying postdeath business-continuation debts limited to business assets (§ 733.707(1)(f)–(g)). |
| General claims | Class 8 other claims, lifetime judgments/decrees and excess over class 2 or 4 limits (§ 733.707(1)(h)). |
| Underfunded class | After earlier classes, insufficient assets in the next class are paid ratably by claim amount (§ 733.707(2)). |
Requirements one by one
Funeral and last illness
Section 733.707(1) puts reasonable funeral, interment, and grave-marker expenses in class 2, but prefers only an aggregate $6,000. Reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the decedent's last 60 days of illness fall in class 4. The statute moves any excess over those class limits into class 8.
Secured claims
Section 733.706 generally requires court approval for execution against estate property. Its last sentence expressly preserves enforcement of mortgages, security interests, and liens on specific property; the eight class labels should not be read as erasing that security.
Underfunded class
Fla. Stat. § 733.707(2) requires the representative to pay preceding classes before dividing insufficient assets among creditors of the next class “ratably in proportion to their respective claims.”
What trips people up
A lifetime judgment belongs in class 8 under § 733.707(1)(h); its status as a judgment does not itself move it above the listed classes. Class 7 business debts qualify only when acquired after death through continuation of the decedent's business under the specified provision, and only to the extent of that business's assets.
Common questions
Where does court-ordered child-support arrearage fall? Section 733.707(1)(f) places it in class 6.
Does class 3 decide which federal debts have preference? Section 733.707(1)(c) refers to debts and taxes that have preference under federal law; it does not itself decide which federal claims qualify.
Statutes and sources
- Fla. Stat. §§ 733.706 and 733.707(1)–(2). Verbatim official text, URL, and access dates appear in the source fields above.
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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