Estate Planning

A Florida will names who inherits what you own in your sole name, who serves as your personal representative, and who raises your minor children. Florida asks for two witnesses and a self proving affidavit before a notary, so the court can accept the will years later without hunting down those witnesses.

Without it:Without one, Florida's intestacy statutes decide who inherits, and a judge chooses the guardian for your children.

A revocable living trust holds title while you keep full control, and it names the successor trustee who steps in at incapacity or death. Property titled in the trust passes privately, with no Florida probate case. It fits homeowners, families who own property in more than one state, and anyone who wants an out of state child spared a court file.

Without it:A trust that was never funded controls nothing, and whatever is still in your own name goes through probate anyway.

An irrevocable trust trades some control for protection a revocable trust cannot offer: protecting assets from future creditors, positioning for long term care Medicaid ahead of the sixty month look back, and holding an inheritance for a child whose benefits or circumstances make an outright gift risky.

Without it:Without early planning, only crisis options remain, and transfers made close to a Medicaid application can create a penalty period.

This names the person who can pay your bills, deal with the bank, and handle your property if you cannot. Florida requires two witnesses and a notary, and the document works the moment you sign it, because Florida no longer allows new springing powers. Authority to make gifts or change beneficiary designations has to be separately initialed, or your agent does not have it.

Without it:Without one, your family has to ask a court for guardianship to do what a signed page would have allowed.

This names the person who talks with your doctors and decides for you when you cannot, and it can be written so that person may see your records immediately rather than waiting for a physician to declare you incapacitated. Every adult needs one at eighteen, including a college student still on your insurance.

Without it:Without it, the hospital works down Florida's statutory list of proxies, and a divided family ends up in front of a judge.

A living will states whether you want life prolonging procedures if you are ever terminally ill, in an end stage condition, or in a persistent vegetative state. Florida honors it when two witnesses sign and one of them is not your spouse or a blood relative. Its real work is lifting that decision off your children.

Without it:Without it, your family guesses at what you would have wanted, and sometimes they guess differently from one another.