Panhandle · Circuit 1

Escambia County probate help.

We serve Escambia County (including Pensacola, Century, Pensacola Beach, and surrounding areas) under the 1st Judicial Circuit, with the county seat in Pensacola. Probate, estate planning, and trust administration — all on flat fees, all remote-friendly.

Call 941.352.1006 Join the waitlist

Escambia is Florida's westernmost county — bordered by Alabama to the north and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Pensacola is the seat — Florida's oldest European settlement footprint. About 320,000 residents, all under the 1st Judicial Circuit (shared with Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton).

— A probate attorney near you

Looking for a probate or estate planning attorney near you in Escambia County?

We serve all of Escambia County — Pensacola, Century, Pensacola Beach, Perdido Key, and the surrounding communities — with flat-fee probate, estate planning, wills, and trusts. Most of it happens by phone, email, and e-signature, so “near me” really means wherever you are in Escambia County.New-client intake is closed until late October 2026; the Escambia County filing details on this page stay free to use.

— At a glance

Where you'll go. What you'll need.

The courthouse

M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building

Address190 W Government St, Pensacola, FL 32502Phone(850) 595-4300HoursMonday–Thursday, 8:00am – 5:00pm · Friday, 8:00am – 4:00pm

Probate, Guardianship & Mental Health division. Metered street parking and a paid public garage nearby; metal-detector security screening at entry. E-filing via myflcourtaccess.com.

Clerk's website ↗E-file portal ↗

Death certificates

FL Department of Health in Escambia · Vital Statistics

Address1295 W Fairfield Dr, Pensacola, FL 32501Phone(850) 595-6543HoursMonday–Friday, 8:00am – 4:30pm

Cost · $11 per certified copy · order 8–12 copies for an estate

Order 8–12 certified copies — banks, title companies, the IRS, and the court each need their own. Ordering more upfront saves trips back later.

Order online ↗

— Local notes

Probate in Escambia County, as we see it.

Escambia probate runs in the 1st Judicial Circuit, which spans the four westernmost Panhandle counties. Cases are heard at the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building in downtown Pensacola — historic, walkable, and well-organized. The clerk's probate division uses the statewide myflcourtaccess.com portal.

NAS Pensacola shapes a meaningful share of our work here: active-duty, retired military, and DoD-civilian decedents bring SCRA compliance issues, VA benefit coordination, Survivor Benefit Plan questions, and out-of-state survivors (deployed or relocated heirs) into nearly every military case. Cross-border families with property in Mobile or Baldwin County, Alabama trigger frequent ancillary administration on both sides of the line.

Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key carry their own quirk: barrier-island properties are held under long-term leases from the Santa Rosa Island Authority rather than fee-simple. That structure changes how 'real property' shows up in inventories and how homestead is analyzed. We catch this at intake on every barrier-island case.

— What's different about probate here

Local quirks worth knowing.

1st Judicial Circuit. Same circuit as Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton — judges and procedures are consistent across the four westernmost counties.
Naval Air Station Pensacola. Heavy military and military-retiree population; SCRA, VA, SBP, and out-of-state heir issues are everyday work.
Pensacola Beach leasehold structure. Santa Rosa Island properties are held under long-term SRIA leases — not fee simple. Affects inventory and homestead analysis.
Hurricane history. Ivan (2004) and Sally (2020) created title-record disruption; older estates may have unresolved insurance assets or post-hurricane partition issues.
Cross-border with Alabama. Mobile and Baldwin County (AL) connections drive frequent ancillary administration on both sides of the state line.

— Cities & neighborhoods