Updating Your Estate Plan After Divorce, Marriage, or a Move to Florida

Updating your estate plan after divorce, marriage, or a move to Florida means revisiting your will, trust, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney so they reflect your current family and your current state of residence. Major life changes can silently break an old plan, and Florida law treats these documents differently than the state you came from. The safest rule of thumb: review everything within ninety days of any divorce, marriage, or relocation, then sign new documents that are valid under Florida statutes.

I have sat across the conference table from more Boca Raton clients than I can count who assumed their decade-old will from New Jersey or New York would simply “carry over.” It usually does carry over in the sense that Florida will recognize a will validly executed in another state. But carrying over is not the same as protecting you. A plan written for one marriage, one set of children, and one tax regime can quietly turn into a trap after a second marriage, a new mortgage, or a snowbird’s permanent move south.

Why Life Changes Quietly Break an Estate Plan

Estate plans are snapshots. They freeze your wishes, your relationships, and the law as they stood on the day you signed. Life keeps moving. The three events that most reliably break a plan are the same three in this article’s title, and each one breaks it in a different way.

• Divorce removes a person you almost certainly named everywhere: executor, trustee, health care surrogate, primary beneficiary.
• Marriage adds a person with brand-new legal rights that override parts of your old documents whether you intended that or not.
• A move to Florida swaps out the entire body of state law that governs how your documents are read, who must witness them, and what your spouse is automatically entitled to receive.

For blended families and second marriages, all three can land within a few short years. That combination is exactly where I see the most expensive mistakes, because the documents and the family stop matching each other.

Updating Your Estate Plan After Divorce

Florida gives you a partial safety net after a divorce, but you should never rely on it to do the whole job. Under Florida Statutes section 732.507, when a marriage is judicially dissolved, any provision of your will that affects your former spouse is read as if that ex-spouse had died at the time of the divorce. In plain terms, the gifts to your ex and the appointment of your ex as personal representative are voided automatically.

A parallel statute, section 732.703, applies the same logic to many payable-on-death and beneficiary designations, including certain life insurance policies, annuities, and retirement-style accounts governed by Florida law. The dissolution of the marriage treats the ex-spouse as predeceased for those assets as well.

So why do anything if the law cleans up after you? Because the safety net has real holes:

1. It does not cover everything. Accounts governed by federal law, most notably employer 401(k) plans under ERISA, ignore Florida’s revocation-on-divorce rule. The named beneficiary on the form controls, even an ex-spouse, until you change it.
2. It can create unintended results. Treating your ex as “predeceased” may send assets to a contingent beneficiary you never updated, or push them into intestacy.
3. It says nothing about your incapacity documents. A divorce does not automatically reshuffle every power of attorney or health care designation, so your ex could still hold authority you forgot to revoke.

After a divorce I want clients to do three concrete things: execute a brand-new will or amend the trust, sign a fresh durable power of attorney and health care surrogate designation, and personally re-file every beneficiary form with each financial institution. Do not assume the bank knows you got divorced. Send the paperwork.

Updating Your Estate Plan After Marriage or Remarriage

Marriage is the mirror image of divorce: instead of removing rights, it grants them. A new spouse in Florida arrives with protections that can quietly override an older plan, and these are the provisions that most surprise people in second marriages.

The Florida Elective Share

Florida law guarantees a surviving spouse a slice of the deceased spouse’s estate, the elective share, governed by Florida Statutes sections 732.201 through 732.2155. The elective share is thirty percent of the “elective estate,” a deliberately broad figure that reaches well beyond the probate estate into trusts, certain joint accounts, and other transfers. A surviving spouse can claim this share even if your will or trust leaves them nothing. You cannot disinherit a Florida spouse by accident, and you cannot fully disinherit one without a valid waiver.

The Pretermitted Spouse

If you signed your will before the marriage and never updated it, your new spouse may qualify as a pretermitted spouse under section 732.301. That spouse is generally entitled to a share equal to what they would have received if you had died with no will at all, unless the omission was intentional and shown in the document, or a marital agreement controls. I see this constantly with remarriages where the old will still names the children of a first marriage and no one ever revisited it.

Florida Homestead and Your Surviving Spouse

Florida’s homestead protections, rooted in Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution, sharply restrict how you can leave your primary residence when you are survived by a spouse or minor child. If you try to devise homestead property contrary to those rules, the law overrides your will and grants the surviving spouse a life estate (or, by election, a one-half interest as tenant in common) with the remainder to your descendants. For a Boca Raton couple in a second marriage, this single rule decides whether the new spouse can stay in the house and whether the kids from the first marriage ever inherit it.

The tool that reconciles all of this is the prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, paired with a properly drafted trust. A valid marital agreement can waive the elective share, waive homestead rights, and define exactly what each spouse keeps for their own children. When I build plans for blended families, that waiver plus a well-structured marital or QTIP trust is what lets you provide for a new spouse during life while still protecting your children’s eventual inheritance. The same care that goes into a applies here, because a sloppy document is what gets litigated after you are gone.

Updating Your Estate Plan After a Move to Florida

Relocating to Florida is the change clients underestimate the most. Your out-of-state will is probably still valid, but “still valid” leaves several traps in place.

Execution Formalities and the Self-Proving Affidavit

Florida requires that a will be signed by the testator and two witnesses, all present together, under section 732.502. Florida also strongly favors a self-proving affidavit under section 732.503, a notarized add-on that lets the will be admitted to probate without tracking down your witnesses years later. Many out-of-state wills lack a Florida-compliant affidavit. The will still works, but probate becomes slower and more expensive, which is the opposite of what you wanted.

Holographic and Oral Wills Are Not Recognized

Florida does not honor handwritten (holographic) wills that lack proper witnesses, even if your former state did, and it does not recognize oral wills. If you relied on an informal document up north, it may be worthless here.

Out-of-State Trusts and Powers of Attorney

A revocable living trust generally travels well, but it should be reviewed for Florida tax and administration rules, and the trustee provisions should still make sense for your new life. Florida’s durable power of attorney statute (Chapter 709) is notably demanding: it generally requires specific, enumerated authority for major acts and proper witnessing and notarization. A power of attorney that worked fine in another state may be rejected by a Florida bank or title company. Re-executing it locally avoids that fight at the worst possible moment.

Establishing Domicile and the No State Income Tax Advantage

One of the great reasons people move here is that Florida has no state income tax and no state estate or inheritance tax. To capture that benefit and avoid a “dual residency” tax dispute with your former state, you must genuinely establish Florida domicile: file a Declaration of Domicile, register to vote, get a Florida driver’s license, update your address everywhere, and spend the time here. For couples relocating from states with their own estate taxes, getting domicile right is often worth more than any single document. Clients who still own a home up north should also coordinate how that out-of-state real estate transfers; our colleagues handle for exactly these split-state situations.

A Practical Checklist Before You Sign Anything New

Whether your trigger was a divorce, a wedding, or a moving truck headed to Palm Beach County, walk through the same list:

• Revoke and replace your old will; do not just cross things out.
• Review and restate your revocable trust under Florida law.
• Re-execute a Florida durable power of attorney and health care surrogate.
• Update every beneficiary designation directly with each institution.
• Confirm how Florida homestead affects your primary residence.
• Put any second-marriage understanding in a written marital agreement.
• File a Declaration of Domicile if you have relocated.

If you would like to see how these pieces fit together for your family, our Boca Raton team and our regularly rebuild plans for blended families and recent transplants. You can also read more on our wills page, learn what to expect from Florida probate, or simply reach out to schedule a review.

The Bottom Line for Boca Raton Families

An estate plan is not a “set it and forget it” document. Divorce strips out the people you removed from your life. Marriage adds people the law insists you protect. A move to Florida changes the rulebook entirely. Each event, on its own, is enough reason to schedule a review, and for the blended families we serve every day, those events tend to arrive together. Update the documents while you are healthy and clear-headed, and you spare the people you love a courtroom fight after you are gone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does divorce automatically remove my ex-spouse from my Florida will?

Largely, yes. Under Florida Statutes section 732.507, dissolving your marriage voids the provisions of your will that favor your former spouse and treats them as if they had predeceased you. But this does not cover ERISA-governed accounts like 401(k)s, where the named beneficiary controls until you change the form, and it does not fully address every power of attorney. You should still sign new documents and re-file your beneficiary designations.

Is my out-of-state will still valid after I move to Florida?

Usually it is recognized if it was validly executed in your former state, but recognition is not the same as protection. Florida does not honor handwritten or oral wills lacking proper witnesses, and many out-of-state wills lack a Florida self-proving affidavit, which makes probate slower and costlier. Florida’s homestead and elective-share rules may also override parts of your old plan, so a review is strongly recommended after relocating.

Can I leave my spouse out of my Florida estate plan after a second marriage?

Not without a valid waiver. Florida guarantees a surviving spouse an elective share equal to 30 percent of the elective estate under sections 732.201 and following, plus homestead protections and possible pretermitted-spouse rights. You can only override these with a properly executed prenuptial or postnuptial agreement waiving those rights, which is a common and important tool in blended-family planning.

How soon should I update my estate plan after a major life change?

Aim to review and update everything within about ninety days of a divorce, marriage, or move to Florida. These events change who has legal rights to your estate and which state’s law applies, and waiting risks an outdated document controlling at the worst possible time.

What does establishing Florida domicile have to do with my estate plan?

Florida has no state income, estate, or inheritance tax, but to claim those benefits and avoid a dual-residency tax dispute with your former state, you must genuinely establish domicile. That means filing a Declaration of Domicile, getting a Florida driver’s license, registering to vote, updating your records, and actually living here, which works hand in hand with re-executing your documents under Florida law.