You should review your Florida estate plan every three to five years, and immediately after any major life event such as a marriage, divorce, death, birth, move to a new state, or significant change in assets. A review confirms that your will, revocable trust, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations still reflect your wishes and still work under current Florida law. An estate plan is not a one-time document set; it is a living structure that has to keep pace with your life, your family, and the statutes that govern it.
I have sat across the table from more grieving families than I would like to count, and the pattern repeats itself. The plan was sound the day it was signed. Then a decade passed. A spouse died, a child divorced, a Texas brokerage account got rolled into a Florida one, and nobody went back to look. By the time anyone read the documents again, they were in my office because the plan no longer matched reality. Most of those problems were preventable with a thirty-minute review at the right moment.
What Does It Mean to Review an Estate Plan?
Reviewing an estate plan means re-reading your core documents with fresh eyes and asking a simple question: if I died or became incapacitated tomorrow, would these papers do exactly what I want? For most Florida residents, that core set includes a last will and testament, often a revocable living trust, a durable power of attorney, a designation of health care surrogate, and a living will. It also includes the things people forget are part of the plan at all: the beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, and annuities, and the way title is held on bank and brokerage accounts.
A review is not the same as a rewrite. Sometimes the only thing that changes is a successor trustee who has since moved out of state. Sometimes nothing changes and you simply confirm the plan is still sound. The point is to catch drift before it becomes a probate dispute.
Why Florida Is a Special Case
Florida estate law has features that surprise people who moved here from elsewhere, and those features make periodic review more important, not less. Three deserve special attention:
- The spousal elective share. Under Florida Statutes Chapter 732, Part II, a surviving spouse is entitled to an elective share of roughly 30% of the elective estate, which sweeps in far more than the probate estate alone. A plan that tried to limit a spouse without a valid waiver can be overridden by statute.
- Homestead protection and restrictions on devise. Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution shields the homestead from most creditors, but it also restricts how you can leave that home if you are survived by a spouse or minor child. A will that ignores those limits simply does not control the house.
- The personal representative qualification rules. Florida Statutes Section 733.304 limits who may serve as a personal representative. A non-relative who lives out of state generally cannot serve. Name the wrong person and the court will not honor the choice.
None of these are obscure traps. They are the everyday architecture of Florida probate, and they are exactly the kind of thing a review catches.
Life Events That Should Trigger an Immediate Review
The calendar is one prompt to review your plan. Life is the other, and life does not wait for the calendar. When any of the following happens, do not wait for your next scheduled check-in.
Marriage, Divorce, or Remarriage
Marriage creates elective-share and homestead rights that may override your existing documents. Divorce does the opposite. Under Florida Statutes Section 732.507, a divorce automatically voids provisions of your will that favor your former spouse, treating them as if they predeceased you, and Section 732.703 does something similar for many beneficiary designations. That sounds protective, and it often is, but it can also leave gaping holes. If your ex was your named successor trustee, your power of attorney agent, and your contingent beneficiary, the automatic revocation may strip out the person you trusted without naming anyone in their place. Remarriage, especially a second marriage with children from a first, is the single most common situation where a stale plan produces litigation.
Birth, Adoption, or the Coming of Age of a Child
A new child or grandchild needs to be accounted for, and Florida’s pretermitted child statute, Section 732.302, will give an omitted child a share whether you intended it or not. Equally important: when a child turns eighteen, any minor’s trust or guardianship nomination you built may need to evolve into something appropriate for an adult, or extended if that adult is not ready to manage an inheritance.
Death of a Spouse, Beneficiary, or Named Fiduciary
If the person you named as personal representative, trustee, health care surrogate, or power of attorney agent has died or become unable to serve, your plan has a hole in it right now. The death of a beneficiary raises the question of where that share goes. Anti-lapse rules under Section 732.603 provide a default, but defaults are rarely what a thoughtful person actually wants.
A Move Into or Out of Florida
This is the one out-of-state transplants underestimate most. A will executed in another state is generally valid in Florida if it was valid where signed, but validity is not the same as optimization. Out-of-state documents frequently miss the self-proving affidavit requirements of Section 732.503, name a personal representative who cannot legally serve here, or ignore homestead entirely. If you have just made Florida your domicile, treat a review as mandatory, not optional.
A Material Change in Assets or Health
Selling a business, receiving an inheritance, buying property in another state, or a diagnosis that changes your time horizon all warrant a look. For high-net-worth families, a jump in net worth can move you from a simple plan into territory where federal estate tax exposure, asset protection, and long-term care planning need real attention.
Changes in the Law: The Trigger People Forget
Your documents can sit untouched for a decade while the ground shifts beneath them. The federal estate and gift tax exemption is the clearest example. It is indexed and periodically reset by Congress, and the difference between the current high exemption and a future lower one can be measured in real tax dollars for affluent families. Plans drafted around an old exemption figure, with formula clauses tied to it, can misfire badly when the number changes. I will not quote a specific exemption amount here because it moves; the point is that it moves, and your plan should be checked against where it stands today rather than where it stood when you signed.
State law evolves too. Florida modernized its power of attorney law years ago, and older durable powers that predate those changes are sometimes rejected by banks and title companies that want to see current statutory language. The same caution applies to health care directives and to trust provisions governed by the Florida Trust Code in Chapter 736. A plan that was bulletproof under prior law may simply be ignored by an institution that wants current forms.
Asset Protection and the High-Net-Worth Review
For South Florida families with substantial estates, a review is also the moment to pressure-test asset protection. Florida is generous here. The homestead exemption, the protection of annuities and life insurance proceeds under Section 222.13 and Section 222.14, and tenancy-by-the-entireties ownership for married couples all provide meaningful shields. But these protections only work if your assets are actually titled to take advantage of them, and titling drifts over time as accounts are opened, refinanced, and consolidated.
Planning for long-term care belongs in the same conversation. The cost of nursing care can erode an estate quickly, and tools such as irrevocable trusts are often used to preserve assets while qualifying for need-based benefits. Families with complex needs sometimes look at structures used in other states as a model; for example, the way a Medicaid asset protection trust is structured in New York illustrates the planning logic, even though Florida’s Medicaid rules and look-back periods differ and must be analyzed under Florida and federal standards. For individuals with disabilities or those managing income limits, a pooled income trust arrangement is another vehicle worth understanding in concept before applying the Florida equivalent. The lesson is the same: review whether your current structure still protects what you have built.
A Practical Review Checklist
When you sit down to review, work through these in order. You can do the first pass yourself; bring anything that gives you pause to your attorney.
- Confirm your personal representative and successor are alive, willing, and legally qualified under Florida law.
- Confirm your trustee and successor trustees are current and appropriate.
- Re-read your durable power of attorney and health care surrogate designation. Are the agents still the right people, and are the documents recent enough to be honored?
- Pull every beneficiary designation: life insurance, IRA, 401(k), annuities, and payable-on-death accounts. These pass outside your will, so they must be checked separately.
- Verify how the title is held on your home and major accounts, and confirm that homestead and tenancy-by-the-entireties protections still apply where you expect them to.
- Check that any revocable trust is actually funded. An unfunded trust does nothing.
- Look at guardianship nominations for minor children and any special-needs provisions.
- Compare your plan against current federal exemption levels if your estate is large enough to face tax exposure.
If you would rather not do this alone, that is exactly what an estate planning attorney is for. Our Florida estate planning team walks clients through this review systematically, and you can also start by browsing our overview of Florida wills or learning how Florida probate works so you understand what your family would otherwise face.
Common Mistakes I See in Stale Plans
Three errors show up again and again. First, the unfunded trust: a beautifully drafted revocable trust that holds nothing because the home and accounts were never retitled into it, so the estate goes through probate anyway. Second, the orphaned beneficiary designation: an ex-spouse still named on a life insurance policy that the will never controlled in the first place. Third, the out-of-state fiduciary: a sibling in another state named as personal representative who, under Section 733.304, cannot serve, leaving the court to appoint someone the family never chose.
Every one of these is invisible until the moment it matters, and by then it is too late to fix. That is the entire argument for periodic review in a single sentence.
When to Call an Attorney
Call when a triggering event occurs, when more than three to five years have passed, when you cannot remember the last time you read your own documents, or when you simply are not certain your plan still does what you intend. A review is far cheaper than a contested probate, and it gives you something no document can: the confidence that the people you love will not be untangling avoidable problems while they grieve. Reach out through our contact page to schedule a focused review of your Florida estate plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I review my Florida estate plan?
Review your plan every three to five years as a baseline, and immediately after any major life event such as marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, the death of a spouse or named fiduciary, a move into or out of Florida, or a significant change in your assets. Changes in federal estate tax law are another important trigger.
Does my out-of-state will still work after I move to Florida?
A will validly executed in another state is generally recognized in Florida, but it may not be optimized for Florida law. Out-of-state wills often lack a proper self-proving affidavit under Section 732.503, name a personal representative who cannot legally serve here, or ignore Florida’s homestead restrictions. After establishing Florida domicile, a review is strongly recommended.
What happens to my estate plan if I get divorced in Florida?
Under Florida Statutes Section 732.507, divorce automatically voids will provisions favoring your former spouse, treating them as if they predeceased you, and Section 732.703 applies similar rules to many beneficiary designations. This can leave gaps if your ex was also your named trustee, agent, or contingent beneficiary, so the plan should be updated to name replacements.
Do beneficiary designations override my will in Florida?
Yes. Assets with named beneficiaries, such as life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, and payable-on-death accounts, pass directly to the named beneficiary outside your will and outside probate. That is why every review must check these designations separately rather than assuming the will controls them.
Why is reviewing an estate plan important for high-net-worth families?
Affluent families face federal estate tax exposure that shifts as the exemption changes, and their asset protection depends on assets being correctly titled to use Florida’s homestead, annuity, life insurance, and tenancy-by-the-entireties protections. Titling and tax law both drift over time, so periodic review preserves both tax efficiency and creditor protection.