You should review your Florida estate plan at least once every three to five years, and immediately after any major life event such as a marriage, divorce, death, birth, or significant change in your finances. A review confirms that your will, trusts, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney still reflect your wishes and still comply with current Florida law. For blended families and second marriages, this periodic check is not optional housekeeping; it is the single most reliable way to keep a stepparent’s death from accidentally disinheriting children from a prior marriage.
I have practiced estate and probate law in South Florida long enough to see the same heartbreak repeat in different families. A document drafted in good faith ten years ago quietly becomes a trap because nobody updated it after a remarriage, a move from another state, or a change in the tax law. The plan didn’t fail because it was poorly written. It failed because it was never reviewed.
What a Florida estate plan review actually involves
A proper review is more than reading your old will and nodding. It is a structured look at every instrument that controls where your money and your authority go. In Florida that typically includes:
- Your last will and testament, executed under the formalities of Fla. Stat. § 732.502 (two witnesses, proper signing).
- Any revocable living trust and confirmation that assets are actually titled in the trust’s name (an unfunded trust controls nothing).
- Beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, and annuities, which pass outside your will entirely.
- Your durable power of attorney under Florida Statutes Chapter 709, which Florida law made stricter in 2011 by eliminating “springing” powers and requiring specific authority for certain acts.
- Your designation of health care surrogate and living will under Chapter 765.
- Property titling and any homestead considerations, which in Florida carry constitutional protections that can override what your will says.
That last point deserves emphasis. Florida’s homestead rules under Article X, Section 4 of the state constitution restrict how you can leave your primary residence if you are survived by a spouse or minor child. You can write whatever you want in your will, but the constitution can rewrite it for you. A review catches that conflict before your family discovers it in court.
The life events that should trigger an immediate review
Calendar-based reviews matter, but life rarely waits for the calendar. Certain events should send you straight to your attorney’s office, regardless of when you last looked at your documents.
Marriage or remarriage
In Florida, a spouse you marry after signing your will may have rights as a pretermitted spouse under Fla. Stat. § 732.301, entitling them to an intestate share unless the will provides otherwise or a valid marital agreement exists. Florida also grants a surviving spouse an elective share equal to 30% of the elective estate under §§ 732.201–732.2155. For second marriages, this is the fault line. A husband who wants to provide for his new wife and preserve assets for the children of his first marriage cannot leave that balance to chance. The elective share can pull assets away from those children unless the plan is built deliberately, often with a marital trust or a properly executed prenuptial or postnuptial waiver.
Divorce
Florida law automatically voids gifts and fiduciary appointments to a former spouse upon dissolution of marriage (§ 732.507 for wills, § 732.703 for beneficiary designations). That sounds protective, and it is, but it is also a trap. The statute does not rewrite the rest of your plan. If your ex-spouse was your only named beneficiary, your assets may now pass under default rules you never intended. Divorce always warrants a fresh draft, not a patch.
Death of a spouse, beneficiary, or named fiduciary
When the person you named as executor, trustee, or guardian dies, your plan has a hole in it. Naming successors is good practice, but successors get stale too. After a death in the family, confirm that every role still has a living, willing, and appropriate person attached to it.
Birth or adoption of children and grandchildren
A new child or grandchild may need to be added, and the way you structure inheritances for minors matters enormously. Leaving money outright to a 19-year-old rarely ends well. Trusts with staggered distributions or a designated trustee protect young beneficiaries from themselves and from predatory influences.
Moving to Florida from another state
This is one of the most overlooked triggers, and Boca Raton sees a lot of it. Estate documents drafted in New York, New Jersey, or Illinois are generally valid here, but “valid” and “optimal” are different things. Florida has no state estate tax and no income tax, different homestead rules, different power-of-attorney requirements, and its own probate procedures. A will that was perfectly tuned for another jurisdiction may produce clumsy or unintended results once you become a Florida resident. If you recently relocated, a Florida-specific review should be near the top of your list. Our colleagues across the country handle this constantly; the a New York office builds, for instance, follows different rules than Florida’s, which is precisely why a cross-state move demands a second look.
Significant changes in assets or business interests
Selling a business, buying a second home, receiving an inheritance, or watching a retirement account grow substantially can all knock a plan out of alignment. A formula that made sense when your estate was $800,000 may distribute poorly at $4 million.
Why blended families need to review more often, not less
Most estate planning advice is written for a tidy nuclear family: one marriage, shared children, aligned interests. That is not the world many Boca Raton families live in. Second marriages, stepchildren, his-and-hers assets, and children with competing loyalties create planning problems that a generic will simply cannot solve.
Consider the classic blended-family failure. A husband leaves everything to his second wife, trusting that she will “take care of” his children from his first marriage after he is gone. There is no legal obligation behind that trust. When he dies, the assets become hers outright. She can spend them, remarry, or rewrite her own will to leave everything to her own children. His children receive nothing, and they have no recourse. This happens more often than people imagine, and it is almost always avoidable.
The fix is usually structural rather than a matter of choosing better beneficiaries. Tools that protect both a surviving spouse and the children of a prior marriage include:
- QTIP and marital trusts that give a surviving spouse income for life while preserving the principal for the first spouse’s children.
- Irrevocable life insurance earmarked specifically for children, kept separate from the marital pot.
- Properly drafted marital agreements that waive or define the elective share so it cannot derail the plan.
- Clear, current beneficiary designations that name the right people directly, bypassing probate disputes.
Each of these has moving parts that age. Insurance lapses. Children grow up. A spouse’s needs change. That is exactly why blended families should review on the shorter end of the three-to-five-year window. The complexity that makes your plan necessary is the same complexity that makes it go stale faster.
How law changes can quietly break a working plan
Even a plan you never touch is changing underneath you, because the law moves. The federal estate and gift tax exemption, for example, is scheduled to drop significantly at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts, roughly cutting the exempt amount in half. Plans built around the higher exemption may need restructuring. Beyond taxes, Florida has revised its power-of-attorney statute, its trust code, and its electronic wills provisions in recent years. A power of attorney executed before 2011 may not function the way modern banks and title companies expect, and outdated documents are routinely rejected at the worst possible moment.
You do not need to track these changes yourself. That is what a periodic review with a Florida attorney is for. When you work with a firm that handles , the burden of monitoring legislative change shifts off your shoulders and onto a professional whose job is to notice.
Special situations worth a closer look
A few circumstances deserve individual attention during any review. If you have a child or family member with special needs who receives means-tested public benefits, leaving them money directly can disqualify them. A supplemental needs trust preserves their eligibility while still providing for them. Similar logic drives arrangements used in long-term-care planning, where excess income is sheltered so a beneficiary can still qualify for assistance. Florida families navigating elder care and Medicaid face their own version of these questions, and a review is the moment to raise them.
Likewise, if you own property in more than one state, you may be exposing your heirs to ancillary probate in each jurisdiction. A revocable trust can often consolidate that and spare your family duplicate court proceedings.
A practical Florida estate plan review checklist
When you sit down to review, walk through these questions honestly:
- Has my family changed through marriage, divorce, birth, or death since I last signed?
- Are the people I named as executor, trustee, guardian, and agent still alive, willing, and the right choice?
- Do my beneficiary designations match my will and trust, or do they contradict each other?
- Is my revocable trust actually funded with my assets?
- Did I move to Florida from another state without updating my documents?
- For my blended family, is there a structure that protects both my spouse and my children, or am I relying on trust and goodwill?
- Have my assets grown, shrunk, or changed in character enough to require new planning?
If you answered “yes” or “I’m not sure” to any of these, it is time. You can learn more about the foundational documents on our wills page, see how Florida administration works on our Florida probate overview, or simply reach out to our Boca Raton office to schedule a review.
The bottom line
An estate plan is not a monument you build once and admire forever. It is a living set of instructions that has to keep pace with your life, your assets, and the law. Review it on a schedule, review it after every major event, and review it especially carefully if you are part of a blended family or a second marriage. The cost of a periodic review is small. The cost of an outdated plan, paid by the people you love most, can be devastating and permanent.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I review my Florida estate plan?
Review it at least every three to five years, 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 significant change in assets, or a move to Florida from another state. Blended families and second marriages should lean toward the shorter end of that window because their plans go out of alignment faster.
Does my out-of-state will still work after I move to Florida?
Generally yes, a will validly executed in another state is recognized in Florida, but valid is not the same as optimal. Florida has no state estate or income tax, unique homestead protections under the state constitution, stricter power-of-attorney requirements, and its own probate procedures. A Florida-specific review ensures your documents produce the results you actually want here.
How can a second marriage accidentally disinherit my children?
If you leave everything outright to a new spouse trusting they will provide for your children, there is no legal obligation behind that trust. The surviving spouse can spend the assets, remarry, or rewrite their own will. Florida’s 30% spousal elective share can also pull assets away from your children. Structures like QTIP or marital trusts and properly executed marital agreements prevent this.
What happens to my estate plan if I get divorced in Florida?
Florida law automatically voids gifts and fiduciary appointments to a former spouse in your will (Fla. Stat. § 732.507) and in many beneficiary designations (§ 732.703). However, the statute does not rebuild the rest of your plan, so assets can pass under default rules you never intended. Divorce should always trigger a fresh draft, not a patch.
Will the 2025 federal estate tax exemption change affect my plan?
It might. The elevated federal estate and gift tax exemption is scheduled to drop significantly at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts, roughly cutting the exempt amount in half. Plans built around the higher exemption may need restructuring, which is one more reason to have a Florida attorney review your documents before the change takes effect.
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For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of estate planning in Boca Raton. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles .
