What are Letters of Administration?
Letters of Administration aka Letters is essentially a court order issued by a Probate (What is Probate?) judge during the administration of an estate. The Letters appoint the Personal Representative aka Executor of the estate and grants the Personal Representative with full powers to administer the estate such as to ask, demand, sue for, recover and receive the property of the decedent; to pay the debts of the decedent as far as the assets of the estate will permit and the law directs; and to make distribution of the estate, according to Florida law. To learn more about the order of preference on who is appointed as the Personal Representative, please read the Florida statute here.
Why Do I Need Letters of Administration?
When a person dies solely owning an asset like a bank account, insurance policy, and retirement account, etc. and doesn’t provide for a beneficiary on the account, the financial institution will request a Letters of Administration from the person who is responsible for administering the estate of the decedent. They will not simply distribute the money to any family member requesting the funds. Why not? Because the financial institution doesn’t want to be responsible for distributing the asset to the wrong person, so they put that responsibility solely on the Probate courts.
Letters Testamentary is the same thing as Letters of Administration, but that terminology is not used in Florida, but other states.
However, the only way of receiving Letters of Administration in the State of Florida, the heir (or other interested party) interested in receiving the assets, must open the estate via Probate Court with the assistance of a Probate Attorney.
