When and Why to Review Your Florida Estate Plan

You should review your Florida estate plan at least every three to five years, and immediately after any major life or financial change, because Florida law, family circumstances, and asset values shift faster than most people expect. A plan that was airtight the day you signed it can quietly drift out of alignment with your wishes, your beneficiaries, and current statutes. Reviewing it is the cheapest way to keep a small problem from becoming a probate dispute.

I have sat across the table from too many surviving spouses holding a will their late husband or wife signed fifteen years ago, in another state, before a second marriage, before a condo was refinanced, before the children grew up. The documents were valid. They just no longer described the family that existed on the day of death. That gap is where litigation lives.

Why reviewing your Florida estate plan matters

An estate plan is not a monument. It is a set of instructions that only works if it matches your assets, your relationships, and the law as it stands when you die. All three of those move.

Florida is its own animal. We have a constitutional homestead provision that overrides what your will says about your house. We have an elective share that gives a surviving spouse a guaranteed slice of the estate no matter what the will provides. We have specific rules about how a surviving spouse, minor children, and creditors interact with the homestead. None of that is intuitive, and almost none of it carries over cleanly from a plan drafted in New York, New Jersey, or Ohio before someone retired to Miami.

Reviewing the plan periodically does three things. It confirms your documents still say what you mean. It catches changes in the law that affect you. And it lets you fix beneficiary designations and titling, which are the parts of an estate plan most likely to be silently broken.

Life events that should trigger a review

Some triggers are obvious. Others are the ones that catch people. Treat any item on this list as a prompt to pull your documents out of the drawer:

• Marriage or remarriage. A new spouse acquires statutory rights in Florida the moment you say “I do” — including the elective share and homestead protections — whether or not your will mentions them.
• Divorce. Florida Statutes section 732.507 voids provisions in your will favoring a former spouse, but it does not automatically fix a stale beneficiary designation on a 401(k) or life insurance policy. Those have to be changed by hand.
• Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild. A child born after your will is signed may be a “pretermitted” heir under section 732.302 and take a share you never intended to carve out.
• Death of a spouse, beneficiary, or named fiduciary. If your personal representative, trustee, or health care surrogate has died or become unable to serve, you need successors named.
• Moving to Florida from another state. Out-of-state documents are usually valid here, but self-proving affidavits, witness requirements, and homestead rules differ enough to warrant a fresh look.
• A child or beneficiary developing a disability. An outright inheritance can disqualify someone from Medicaid or SSI; a special needs trust preserves both the gift and the benefits.
• A beneficiary’s divorce, bankruptcy, addiction, or creditor trouble. These are reasons to leave assets in trust rather than outright.

If you are a surviving spouse who just lost a partner, the review is not optional housekeeping — it is urgent. The plan you and your spouse built together now has gaps where your spouse used to be, and your own documents almost certainly name that person as your primary beneficiary and decision-maker.

Financial changes that quietly break an estate plan

Money moves even when life feels stable. The following changes can render a perfectly drafted plan inaccurate:

1. Buying or selling real estate. Florida homestead drives who can inherit the family home. If you remarried and own homestead in your name alone, your surviving spouse and any minor children have rights under Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution and section 732.401 that can override a devise to anyone else.
2. Opening or retitling accounts. Adding a “payable on death” or joint owner to an account changes who inherits it, regardless of what your will or trust says. I see well-drafted trusts undone by a single bank form.
3. A significant change in net worth. Whether your estate grew or shrank, the math behind your bequests, tax planning, and the elective share calculation under section 732.2035 changes with it.
4. Funding — or failing to fund — a revocable trust. A trust controls only the assets actually titled in its name. An unfunded trust is an expensive piece of paper that sends everything to probate anyway.
5. New retirement accounts, annuities, or insurance. These pass by beneficiary designation, outside your will entirely. They are the single most common source of “but that’s not what Mom wanted” disputes.

The surviving spouse and Florida’s elective share

This is the issue I want every reader near or in a second marriage to understand. Under Florida Statutes section 732.201 and following, a surviving spouse is entitled to an elective share equal to 30% of the elective estate. The elective estate is broad — it reaches well beyond the probate estate to include certain trusts, jointly held property, pay-on-death accounts, and other transfers. You cannot simply disinherit a spouse by leaving everything to your children or to a trust.

That cuts two ways. If you are the spouse who feels shortchanged by a plan, you may have a statutory right to claim against it — but the election must be made within strict deadlines, generally within six months of being served with the notice of administration or within two years of death, whichever is earlier. Miss the window and the right is gone. If you are the planning spouse, you need to understand that your wishes have a statutory floor, and that a properly drafted marital trust or a valid waiver in a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement is the only clean way to plan around it.

Reviewing your plan is when these collisions get found. A surviving spouse who reviews promptly after a death preserves the election deadline. A married couple who reviews together can decide, on purpose, how to satisfy the elective share rather than leaving the survivor to claim it through litigation. For more on how surviving spouses fit into the broader process, our overview of Florida probate walks through what to expect after a death.

Changes in the law are their own trigger

You do not control the legislature, and tax thresholds in particular are moving targets. The federal estate tax exemption has historically been scheduled to change, and plans built around an old exemption — with formula clauses that fund a credit-shelter trust “up to the exemption amount” — can behave very differently than intended when the number shifts. Florida has no state estate tax, which simplifies things, but it does not insulate you from federal changes or from amendments to the Florida Probate Code and Trust Code.

I do not recommend chasing every legislative headline. I recommend a standing review on a calendar — every three to five years for most families, more often if your estate is large or complex — so a competent attorney can tell you whether anything that actually affects you has changed. That is far cheaper than discovering a broken formula clause at death.

What a real estate plan review covers

A proper review is more than re-reading the will. When I sit down with a client, we work through a checklist:

• Core documents: will, revocable trust, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation, and living will. Are the named fiduciaries still alive, willing, and trusted?
• Beneficiary designations: retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, and transfer-on-death accounts, cross-checked against the will and trust so nothing contradicts.
• Titling and trust funding: is the homestead handled correctly, and are the assets you intended to be in trust actually titled in the trust?
• Spousal rights: elective share exposure, homestead, and whether any waiver in a marital agreement is current and enforceable.
• Powers of attorney: Florida’s durable power of attorney statute, section 709.2201, requires specific authority for certain “superpowers” like making gifts or amending a trust. Older forms often lack the language banks now demand.

If you do not yet have these documents in place at all, start with the basics — our guide to Florida wills explains what a valid will requires here, and you can always contact our Miami office to schedule a review.

Coordinating across state lines

Many Miami families have one foot in another state — a co-op in New York, parents up north, a beneficiary who lives elsewhere. Planning techniques that make sense in one jurisdiction need a local counterpart. For example, families managing eligibility for needs-based benefits often use a to protect a disabled beneficiary’s resources, and a parallel special needs trust strategy may be appropriate for a Florida beneficiary. Similarly, clients who want to keep a home in the family while controlling its eventual transfer sometimes look at tools like a — and the Florida analysis, driven by our homestead rules, can come out quite differently. The point is that multi-state estates need attorneys who talk to each other.

For Florida-specific planning, our colleagues handle , and a coordinated review keeps your New York and Florida documents from contradicting one another.

How often is often enough?

For a typical family with a stable situation, every three to five years is a sensible cadence. If your estate is large, you own a business, you have a blended family, or you have a beneficiary with special needs, review annually or whenever the underlying facts move. And regardless of the calendar, review immediately after any of the life or financial triggers above. The review itself is usually quick and inexpensive; the cleanup after a neglected plan rarely is.

The recurring theme in every contested estate I have litigated is the same: nothing was wrong with the plan when it was made. The world simply moved, and no one looked. Looking is the whole job.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I review my Florida estate plan?

Most families should review their estate plan every three to five years and immediately after any major life or financial change. Larger or more complex estates, blended families, and those with a special-needs beneficiary should review annually.

What life events should trigger an estate plan review in Florida?

Marriage or remarriage, divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, the death of a spouse or named fiduciary, a move to Florida from another state, buying or selling real estate, and a beneficiary developing a disability or creditor problems all warrant a review.

Can I disinherit my spouse in Florida?

Generally no. Under Florida’s elective share statute (section 732.201 and following), a surviving spouse is entitled to 30% of the elective estate, which reaches beyond the probate estate. You can only plan around it with a properly drafted marital trust or a valid prenuptial or postnuptial waiver.

What is the deadline for a surviving spouse to claim the elective share?

The election generally must be made within six months after being served with the notice of administration, or within two years of the decedent’s death, whichever is earlier. Missing the deadline forfeits the right, so a prompt review after a spouse’s death is critical.

Does an out-of-state will work in Florida?

An out-of-state will executed properly under another state’s law is usually valid in Florida, but homestead rules, self-proving affidavit requirements, and the elective share differ enough that you should have it reviewed by a Florida attorney after relocating.