Florida Estate Planning Attorney

What a Florida Estate Plan Actually Is

An estate plan is a coordinated set of documents, not one piece of paper. Together they control who gets what and when, who acts for you if you can’t, and how to keep your family out of probate and guardianship court. With no will, Florida’s intestacy statute (§§732.101 to 732.111) decides your heirs and their shares for you, and your estate goes through probate anyway. Planning is how you take that pen back.

The Core Documents Every Florida Adult Needs

• A will (or, for many, a revocable living trust plus a pour-over will) to direct your property and name a guardian for minor children.
• A durable power of attorney so someone can handle money and property if you’re incapacitated. This is the document that avoids a guardianship.
• A designation of health-care surrogate for medical decisions, a living will for end-of-life wishes, and a HIPAA authorization so the people you name can actually get medical information.
• For homeowners, a lady bird deed to pass the Florida homestead outside probate while you keep full control.

Will vs. Revocable Living Trust: Who Needs Which

A will alone still goes through probate and controls only the probate estate. A revocable living trust avoids probate on funded assets, manages them seamlessly if you lose capacity, and keeps the plan private, but only for assets actually re-titled into it. Choose a trust for multiple or out-of-state property, minor children, blended families, special-needs beneficiaries, privacy, or strong incapacity management. A will-based plan can be enough for simpler estates, often paired with a lady bird deed and beneficiary designations. Not sure? Try the deed selector →

Incapacity Planning: The Half People Forget

Estate planning is not only about death. The durable power of attorney (ch. 709), the health-care surrogate and living will (ch. 765), and a successor trustee keep your life running if you’re hospitalized or develop dementia, and keep your family out of a public, slow, expensive guardianship. Three Florida traps: a springing POA does not work here (a durable POA is effective immediately, §709.2108); the seven “superpowers” (gifts, creating or amending trusts, changing beneficiaries) must be separately initialed (§709.2202); and a HIPAA release is what lets your agent prove the incapacity that starts their authority.

Avoiding Probate in Florida

Probate means months of delay, a public record, and attorney’s fees set against the estate’s value (§733.6171, presumed reasonable, not mandatory). The avoidance toolkit is a funded revocable trust, a lady bird deed on the homestead, and proper beneficiary, pay-on-death, and transfer-on-death designations on accounts. The right mix depends on what you own and how it’s titled. See what probate actually costs → or read the probate guide.

Florida Homestead: The Rule That Breaks DIY Plans

Your homestead cannot be devised if you’re survived by a spouse or a minor child, with a narrow exception that it may go to the spouse if there’s no minor child (Art. X §4; §§732.4015, 732.401). A will that ignores this is ineffective, and the home descends by statute instead (the spouse takes a life estate with remainder to descendants, or elects a one-half tenancy in common). This is exactly why the home, the will, the trust, and any deed have to be reconciled together.

Protecting a Spouse: What a Will Can’t Override

A surviving spouse has rights you cannot cut out by will alone: the elective share of 30% of the elective estate (§732.2065), computed across an estate that pulls in revocable-trust assets (§732.2035), so a trust doesn’t defeat it either, plus homestead, exempt property (§732.402), and a family allowance (§732.403). These can be waived only by a valid written marital agreement (§732.702). It matters for every married client, and especially blended families.

Blended Families, Minor Children, and Special Needs

Minor children can’t inherit outright, so we use a trust plus a guardian nominated in the will. Blended families balance a current spouse against children from a prior relationship, usually with a trust (a marital or QTIP structure plus defined children’s shares) and a §732.702 waiver. For a special-needs beneficiary, a supplemental-needs trust preserves SSI and Medicaid eligibility; never leave assets to a disabled beneficiary outright. These provisions add $750; a standalone special-needs trust starts at $4,000.

Florida-Specific Advantages (and Limits)

Florida has no estate or inheritance tax, and federal estate tax reaches only very large estates (about $15 million and up in 2026), so for nearly all families the goal is probate avoidance, incapacity protection, and a full basis step-up at death (IRC §1014). Two honest limits: a revocable trust does not protect assets from your creditors during life (§736.0505) and does not help Medicaid eligibility. For those goals see asset protection and our Medicaid planning pages. New to Florida? An out-of-state plan should be re-checked under Florida law. See domicile →

What It Costs, and How We Work

Flat fees, no surprises. Trust-based plan: $3,200 individual / $4,500 couple (trust + pour-over will + durable POA + health-care directives + one funding deed). Will-based plan: $1,200 individual / $1,950 couple (will + POA + surrogate + living will + HIPAA). Add-on provisions $750. Single documents from $350. Government recording and filing costs are additional, at cost. We work in three steps: a free 30-minute consult, a draft you review in plain English, then a guided signing with Florida formalities, and we handle funding so the plan actually works. See full pricing →

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The young family with a house and two kids. A Miami couple in their late 30s think they’re too young to need a plan. With no will, no guardian is named for the children, and homestead rules plus the minors-can’t-inherit-outright problem would put a court in charge of both the kids and the house. A will-based plan with a guardian nomination, minors’ trust provisions, and a lady bird deed solves it.

The retiree who moved from up north. A widow relocates to Naples with a trust drafted in New Jersey, never updated for Florida: wrong homestead handling, a POA missing the Florida superpowers, out-of-state execution. A Florida restatement plus a fresh durable POA and directives makes it enforceable here.

The blended family. A remarried man with adult children from a first marriage and a current spouse. A simple “all to my wife” will would disinherit his kids; doing nothing leaves the spouse’s 30% elective share fighting the children. A trust with a marital provision and defined children’s shares, plus a marital waiver, gives everyone certainty.

Sources of Law

• Wills, intestacy, homestead devise, spousal rights: Fla. Stat. ch. 732 (§732.502 execution; §§732.101 to 732.111 intestacy; §§732.4015, 732.401 homestead; §732.2065 elective share with §732.2035 trust inclusion; §732.402 exempt property; §732.702 waiver). Homestead: Art. X §4, Fla. Const.
• Revocable trusts: ch. 736 (§736.0505, §736.1109). Powers of attorney: ch. 709 (§709.2104, §709.2108, §709.2202). Health-care directives: ch. 765. Probate fees §733.6171. Federal: IRC §1014. (retrieved 2026-06-07)

Updated June 7, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. A consult doesn’t create that relationship; please don’t send confidential details until we’re engaged.