Florida
Florida built the friendliest heir door in the country and one strict condition into it: under chapter 717, the Department of Financial Services can pay a deceased owner's property on an affidavit signed by all beneficiaries — no probate order required. The catch is the word 'all,' and the second catch is a finder cap that half the internet still states wrong. Both are on this page.
Chapter 717 lets DFS pay the claim when the affidavit carries every beneficiary. In practice Florida asks for a signed claim form and ID from every heir (or the personal representative files for the estate). One heir who won't sign, can't be found, or simply hasn't been told will stall the entire family's claim — Florida does not pay partial families on the affidavit route. If your family is scattered, the work is the signature chase, and it starts before you file: the kit's coordination pack is the letter, the explanation, and the tracker.
If the affidavit route doesn't fit — a disputed share, a will that needs a court — Florida's simplified court route is summary administration, for estates of $75,000 or less (Fla. Stat. §735.201).
Florida law gives DFS a 90-day determination window from a complete filing, extendable by 60 days for cause (§717.124). A claim that sits past that window with a complete packet deserves a written status demand citing the statute — the wording is in the kit's tracking chapter.
Florida's finder cap today is 20% per account, with a hard ceiling of $1,000 in total fees per account (Fla. Stat. §717.135). The 15% and 25% figures still quoted across the web are repealed pre-2005 text. Run the math on a $10,000 single-account claim: 20% would be $2,000, but the $1,000 ceiling binds — a finder may legally take at most $1,000, and filing yourself takes $0. Agreements signed within 45 days of the property appearing in the state's database are void (§717.1381). We corrected our own dataset to the current statute and logged it publicly — see the correction log.
Florida's program is FLTreasureHunt.gov — free to search, free to file, and heir claims can be filed online. Run the checker first: a small Florida claim with you as the only heir is one of the simple ones it sends straight to the free door.
Run your own claim. The free checker takes your state, your relationship, and your amount — and returns the probate-skip verdict, your document chain in order, the signatures you'll need, and the finder fee you'd avoid. Run the checker →
The pages above are the map. The kit is the paperwork: the per-state checklists, the Table of Heirs worksheet, the letters that line up every heir's signature, and the chapter for the state's reply.
One payment, yours to keep. We never file for you and never touch your money — you file everything yourself, with the state. See everything inside the kit →