Forms and Instructions to Help With Developmental Guardianships
This website provided by Jeffrey A. Rapkin, Esq.
Tel: (C) 941-916-4096 guardianadvocate@yahoo.com
How to Electronically File
Your Annual Report
The State of Florida has an E-Filing System. Follow along as we E-File our annual report together. This is NOT difficult. You DO NOT need an attorney. You CAN do this!!!!
Your very first step when E-Filing is to register with the E-Filing portal. Click (upper right) where it says "Begin E-Filing."
At the bottom of this page, you will see where it says: "Role" and "Select Role." Click on the little "down" arrow and choose: "Self-Represented Litigant." Then click "Register."
This takes you to the fill-in page. We've all seen pages like this before. Fill it out, but be sure to write down the security question, the email you use, and all the important stuff. Or fill it out and take a screenshot with your phone. Just be sure to save the information.
Successful Registration gives you this page:
Now, check your email and verify:
You verify by answering your security question:
Once you put in your email (which is also your username) and password, you click on "sign in." (At this point ignore the box that asks about "role" and "register" because you've already done that.) Once you login, you will then be taken to this page. Choose "I have my documents prepared and I'm ready to E-file," then click "continue."
You will then be taken to this page. Use the little down arrow in the first box that says "Select Type of Court" to choose "Trial Courts." Then under "Jurisdiction," choose your county. Choose "File Document(s) on Existing Case to Clerk."
You will next be taken to this page. Put your county in, choose "probate," then put the year the case was filed, and the rest of the case number goes under "sequence." Ignore the box titled "party identifier" and ignore "branch location." You can also leave "matter" blank as well. Finally, if your case number has "GA" on the end of it, choose "Guardianship (GA). My case number is: 240000145GA. After you put this information in, you click the "SEARCH" button. (NOT NEXT YET) This is how it looks right before I click the "Search" button:
After you click "search" it will look like this, with the case name in it showing at the top. (Ignore where it says "status" of being closed.)
You don't have to put anything else in any boxes, at this point you click the "next" button on the bottom of the page.
The next page looks like this. Choose your name and click "next."
Click "Add"
Then you are taken to this page. Type "notice" into the "search" box and hit enter.
After you type "notice" in the box it will look something like this. Then you check the "notice" box and click on "browse." You can then find where you scanned and stored the pdf of your annual report.
Remember, you are uploading a file you've already prepared. You have filled out, signed and scanned your report then saved it to your computer as a PDF. Once you find it and select it, then it will show right here.
Then you click "save" and it will look like this.
Then click "next."
The next page looks like this. Click "serve all", then click "next."
The next page looks like this. Just click "next."
The next page looks like this. Click "Submit."
If you've done everything correctly, the next page will look like this.
You will also IMMEDIATELY get an email from the portal. *** very important. open the "eservice" email and click on your document to download it. You can only do this for 14 days after filing!!!!! Do it now so you don't forget!!!!
And that's it!!!! Congratulations. You have E-Filed your Annual Report!