My mother needs info please

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Florida

My mothers husband passed away on May 17th of 2004...He left $1000.00 to his estranged daughter and everything else to my mother. There's not alot of money involved here, there's like $3500.00 in savings and $500.00 in checking and 2 cds totalling $2000.00 Her question is, does she still need to take the will to the courthouse to file it since there's not a big estate and how long does she have till she has to do that? Does she need to retain a probate lawyer? Thank you for your help, have a nice day....

If the husband's bank accounts do not name a beneficiary or joint account co-owner, then the account monies will need to be probated by the executor. At this point it does not look like a probate attorney is needed unless your mother (or whoever the executor is going to be) just wants to get some basic questions answered about the process.

If your father has any other assets, then probate will be needed.

The CD's pass outside of probate if they named beneficiaries.