Common Estate Planning Questions Florida Families Ask

Estate planning is one of those things nearly everyone intends to get around to. When clients finally sit down to talk it through, the same questions come up again and again. Here are the ones I hear most, answered for Florida families.

What is homestead property?

In Florida, homestead is a constitutional protection for your primary residence, and it carries real advantages. Property owned by an individual qualifies as homestead if it is:

• Up to 160 contiguous acres of land and improvements located outside a municipality, or
• Up to one half acre of contiguous land inside a municipality, limited to the residence of the owner or the owner’s family

Those definitions come from Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution.

Homestead matters in estate planning for two reasons. It shields the property from most creditors, and it limits who you are allowed to leave it to. If you are survived by a minor child, your homestead cannot be devised at all. If you are survived by a spouse and no minor child, you may leave it to your spouse. Those limits come from the constitution and from section 732.4015 of the Florida Statutes, and a will that ignores them does not get its way. This restriction surprises people constantly, and it is one of the first things I look at when I review an existing plan.

What happens if I die without a will?

If you die without a will, Florida writes the plan for you. Chapter 732 of the Florida Statutes decides both who inherits and how much each person gets. Those rules are rigid, and they do not bend toward what you would have wanted.

A few outcomes that catch people off guard:

• If you are married and have no descendants, your spouse inherits your entire intestate estate.
• If all of your descendants are also your spouse’s, and your spouse has no children from anyone else, your spouse still inherits everything.
• Blended families are where this catches people. If you leave a child who is not also your spouse’s child, your spouse’s share drops to one half. The other half passes to your lineal descendants. If your spouse has a child who is not yours (even if you raised that child as your own), your spouse’s share also drops to one half, and your spouse’s child from another relationship does not inherit from your estate. Couples in this situation are often surprised by the law.
• If you leave children but no spouse, your entire estate passes to your children.

Without a plan, decisions a family could have worked out around a kitchen table end up in front of a judge, with lawyers billing on both sides. Selling a house, managing a business interest, deciding when a child receives money, much of it can require court approval, and the delay and expense come straight out of what you meant to leave behind.

Then there is the human part. Grief has a way of magnifying old tensions, and when the statute’s default rules do not match what everyone assumed you wanted, reasonable people end up on opposite sides of a case. It is not unusual for siblings who got along for decades to stop speaking over an estate that would have been straightforward if someone had simply written down their wishes. Planning cannot guarantee harmony, but it removes most of the guesswork that families fight about.

Is a handwritten will valid in Florida?

This one has a clear answer, and it is usually not the answer people expect.

A holographic will, meaning a will written entirely in the maker’s own handwriting and not properly witnessed, is not valid in Florida. Section 732.502(2) of the Florida Statutes goes further: a holographic will is invalid here even if it was signed in another state where that kind of will is perfectly legal. Oral wills are not recognized either.

Handwriting itself is not the problem. A will can be handwritten and still be valid, as long as it satisfies Florida’s execution requirements. It must be in writing, signed by you at the end, and signed by two attesting witnesses who watched you sign and who signed in your presence and in the presence of each other.

Homemade wills are a reliable source of expensive litigation, almost always because the person who wrote one did not know the formalities. Whatever you save by writing your own will, your family tends to pay back several times over sorting it out later.

What property does not pass under my will?

More than most people expect. Your will controls only your probate assets. These commonly pass outside of it:

• Life insurance proceeds and retirement accounts, which go to whoever is named as beneficiary
• Payable on death and transfer on death accounts
• Bank or brokerage accounts held jointly with right of survivorship, which pass to the surviving owner
• Real property held with survivorship rights, or transferred through an enhanced life estate (Lady Bird) deed
• Anything already titled in the name of a trust

This is exactly why beneficiary designations deserve a careful look. An outdated form, an ex-spouse still named on a retirement account, or accounts titled in a way that contradicts your will can quietly dismantle the plan you thought you had.

What is a personal representative?

A personal representative is the person who administers the decedent’s estate. Other states call this role the executor or the administrator. Florida calls it the personal representative.

Florida also restricts who is allowed to serve. A personal representative generally must be a Florida resident, or, if they live out of state, a close family member such as a spouse, child, parent, sibling, or certain other relatives. A trusted friend who lives in another state usually cannot serve, which is a frequent and unwelcome surprise for families who named one years ago.

What does administration of an estate involve?

Administration is the process of gathering assets, paying valid debts, expenses, and taxes, and then distributing what is left to the beneficiaries or heirs. In Florida, it happens under the probate court’s supervision, but not every estate follows the same route.

Florida offers a few paths:

• Formal administration. The standard process, used for most estates. The court appoints a personal representative, creditors receive notice, and the estate is settled under Chapter 733.
• Summary administration. A shorter and less expensive option, available when the value of the estate subject to administration in Florida, less the value of property exempt from creditors’ claims, does not exceed $150,000, or when the person has been deceased for more than two years. That threshold was raised from $75,000 effective July 1, 2026, so older articles and forms still cite the lower figure.
• Disposition without administration. A narrow option for very small estates, generally used to reimburse someone who paid final expenses.

Which path fits depends on the size and makeup of the estate, how long it has been since the death, whether there are creditors, how much the beneficiaries agree, how complicated the assets are, and what is required to clear title to property. Where a simpler procedure is available and appropriate, we use it, because it moves faster and costs your family less.

What is a trustee?

A trustee is the person or institution that holds and manages property for someone else’s benefit. That someone else is the beneficiary.

Clients often show up with a poor impression of trusts, usually built on a story about a beneficiary who could not pry money out of a trust that had plenty in it. That version of a trust is largely a relic. Modern drafting and modern trustees let a trust be shaped around nearly any goal you have, provided it is funded well enough to do the job. I usually recommend giving trustees broad and adaptable powers so they can respond to circumstances nobody predicted, rather than boxing them in with restrictions that looked sensible on paper and fail in real life.

Choosing the trustee deserves genuine thought. The family member who springs to mind first may not want the job, and may not be suited to managing money and paperwork. If a professional or corporate trustee makes sense, it is worth meeting with a trust officer before you decide. It is also wise to give someone, such as a named individual or a small committee, the power to replace a trustee, so your family is not forced into court just to make a change.

Who will raise my minor children if I die?

If the other parent is living, your children go to that parent. The harder question is who steps in if neither parent survives.

You can name the guardian you prefer in your will. Florida courts give that nomination serious weight, although the judge makes the final appointment based on what serves the child best. If you name no one, that decision falls entirely to a judge who never met your family. This is a choice worth making yourself.

Parents often name their own parents first, and sometimes that is exactly right. It is still worth doing the math. If your youngest is three and your mother is fifty-eight, she will be seventy by the time that child turns fifteen, which is not always the easiest stretch of parenting to take on.

It is often better to look first at your own generation, such as brothers, sisters, or cousins, and then at close friends whose children are near the ages of yours. Whoever you have in mind, ask them before you name them. This is not a role to spring on someone in a will.

Finally, plan the money alongside the person. Sometimes it makes sense to establish a trust for minor children, funded at the death of both parents, with a trustee empowered to make distributions that support the guardian’s household, including paying for an addition to their home if taking in your children means they need more room. A guardian who is not under financial strain is in a far better position to give your children a steady, settled home.

If any of these questions have been sitting in the back of your mind, that is usually a sign it is time to put something in place. I am always glad to talk through your situation and help you sort out what actually needs doing.