Summary
This Florida House of Representatives staff analysis of CS/HB 923 (2024) details amendments to the Florida Probate Code and the Uniform Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act. The bill expands the types of probate records clerks must record, creates a new dispute resolution mechanism for community property claims that is exempt from probate creditor claim procedures and subject to a two-year statute of repose, and clarifies that a surviving spouse’s one-half share of community property is not part of the decedent’s probate estate. The legislation responds to Johnson v. Townsend, 259 So. 3d 851 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018), which applied creditor claim time limits to community property title disputes, risking forfeiture of spousal rights.
Topics
Practice areas
Key quotations
“The community property system comes from the custom of the women of the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes sharing the fighting and the spoils of war with their men; it owes its strength to the civilized view that marriage is a full partnership. Husband and wife are equal partners. Each has a present, vested half interest in all community property. All property accumulated during marriage is community property, unless it is received by gift, devise, or inheritance...Thus, on death...the community [property] is divided equally. Neither spouse has testamentary disposition over the other’s half of the community [property].”
Factual background
This document is a Florida House of Representatives staff analysis of CS/HB 923, a bill amending probate and community property rights statutes. It describes current law governing probate records, creditor claims, marital property disposition, and the Florida Uniform Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act. The analysis notes a 2018 Fourth District Court of Appeal decision, Johnson v. Townsend, which applied creditor claim limitations periods to community property disputes, potentially resulting in forfeiture of surviving spouse rights.
Procedural history
CS/HB 923 passed the House on February 28, 2024, and the Senate on March 1, 2024. It is subject to the Governor's veto powers.