When and Why to Review Your Florida Estate Plan

You should review your Florida estate plan every three to five years and after any major life event — a marriage, divorce, death, birth, move, or significant change in assets. A “review” means re-reading your will, trust, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation, and every beneficiary form to confirm they still name the right people and still do what you intend under current Florida law. The plan you signed is a snapshot of one moment; your life, your family, and the statutes all keep moving after the ink dries.

In a place like the Florida Keys, where so many households are second marriages, blended families, and snowbirds who split the year between states, an out-of-date plan is not a minor housekeeping problem. It is the single most common reason perfectly loving families end up fighting in probate court. Below is how to think about timing — the calendar triggers, the life triggers, and the specifically-Florida traps that catch blended families off guard.

Why estate plans go stale (and why it matters more in Florida)

People tend to treat an estate plan like a deed: sign it once, file it away, done. But a will and trust are living instruments. The law underneath them changes, your assets change, and the relationships you were planning around change. A document that was airtight in 2015 can quietly become a liability without a single word of it being altered.

Florida adds its own wrinkles. We are a homestead state with constitutional protections that override what your will says about your house. We have a forced elective share for surviving spouses. And we draw an enormous number of people who moved here from New York, New Jersey, Illinois, or Ohio carrying documents drafted under another state’s rules. A New York revocable trust does not automatically misfire in Florida, but the homestead, witnessing, and self-proving affidavit requirements are different enough that an out-of-state plan deserves a fresh set of Florida eyes.

For second marriages and blended families, the stakes climb higher still. The classic arrangement — “everything to my spouse, and we trust each other to take care of all the kids” — is exactly the setup that collapses when the surviving spouse later remarries, rewrites their own plan, or simply has a falling-out with a stepchild. Reviewing the plan on a schedule is how you catch that drift before it becomes irreversible.

The life events that should trigger an immediate review

Forget the calendar for a moment. Certain events should send you back to your attorney within weeks, not years, because each one can change who inherits or who has legal authority over you.

• Marriage or remarriage. Under Florida Statute §732.301, if you marry after signing your will and don’t account for the new spouse, that spouse becomes a pretermitted spouse and can claim an intestate share — potentially upending the plan you made for your children from a prior relationship.
• Divorce or annulment. Florida Statute §732.507(2) automatically voids the provisions of your will that benefit a former spouse, treating them as if they predeceased you. That sounds protective, but it can leave gaps — and it does not automatically fix beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs, and 401(k)s, which are governed separately.
• Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild. A child born after your will is signed may be a pretermitted child with statutory inheritance rights.
• Death of a spouse, beneficiary, or named fiduciary. If your personal representative, trustee, or health care surrogate has died or become unavailable, your plan may have no working chain of command.
• A move into or out of Florida. Domicile drives which state’s law governs your estate, your homestead protection, and your taxes.
• A major change in assets. Selling a business, buying a second property, receiving an inheritance, or a large swing in net worth can break the math of a plan built around different numbers.
• A serious change in health or capacity — yours or a beneficiary’s. A child who develops a disability may need a special needs trust instead of an outright gift.
• A change of heart about people. Estrangement, reconciliation, a new son- or daughter-in-law, or simply growing distrust of a once-obvious choice of executor.

If any of these has happened since you last signed, treat it as a hard trigger. Don’t wait for the five-year mark.

The calendar rule: review every three to five years

Even when life is quiet, schedule a review on a cadence. Three to five years is the working standard most Florida estate attorneys use, and there’s a reason it isn’t “only when something happens.” The things that erode a plan in the background — statutory amendments, federal estate-tax thresholds, the slow accumulation of new accounts and properties, the aging of the people you named — rarely announce themselves.

A periodic review is short and cheap compared to the alternative. It’s an hour confirming that the document still names living, willing fiduciaries; that your trust is actually funded (an unfunded revocable trust is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes we see); and that nothing in the law has shifted the ground under your strategy.

What a thorough review actually checks

1. The people. Are your personal representative, successor trustee, health care surrogate, and agent under your durable power of attorney all alive, competent, and still the right choice?
2. The beneficiaries. Do the named beneficiaries still reflect your wishes — and do the percentages still add up the way you intended after life’s additions and subtractions?
3. The non-probate assets. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, annuities, and life insurance pass outside your will. A perfect will can be completely defeated by a stale 401(k) form still naming an ex-spouse.
4. Trust funding. If you have a revocable living trust, are your accounts and real property actually titled in its name?
5. Florida-specific provisions. Homestead language, the elective share, and whether out-of-state documents meet Florida’s execution formalities.
6. Incapacity planning. Florida durable powers of attorney signed before the 2011 statutory overhaul may not work the way modern banks expect; many need updating.

Blended families and second marriages: the Florida traps that demand a review

This is where timing becomes everything. In a first marriage with shared children, “all to my spouse” usually works out. In a blended family, that same sentence can quietly disinherit your own children. Here is what a review needs to surface.

The elective share can override your will entirely

Florida’s elective share, set out in Florida Statute §732.201, gives a surviving spouse the right to claim 30 percent of the “elective estate” — a broad pool that reaches well beyond probate assets to include certain trusts, jointly held property, and pay-on-death accounts. A surviving second spouse can elect against your will even if your will leaves them less, and even if you intended that 30 percent for your children. If you and your spouse have an understanding that differs from this default, you generally need a properly executed prenuptial or postnuptial agreement to waive the elective share — and that waiver should be reviewed for validity, not assumed to be airtight.

Homestead has a mind of its own

Florida’s constitutional homestead protection can override your will’s instructions for your primary residence. If you’re married and have minor children, you cannot freely devise the homestead; the surviving spouse and descendants receive constitutionally defined interests. A blended-family plan that leaves the house “to my children” may collide head-on with these rules, producing a life estate or a tenancy nobody wanted. This is precisely the kind of mismatch a review is built to catch.

“I trust my spouse to do right by my kids” is not a plan

The most painful blended-family cases we handle in probate almost always trace back to an outright gift to a second spouse with an unwritten promise to pass the remainder to the first marriage’s children. Once your spouse owns those assets, they can leave them to anyone — their own children, a new partner, a charity. The fix is structural: a properly drafted marital trust, often a QTIP-style arrangement, that supports your surviving spouse for life while guaranteeing the remainder flows to your children. If your plan relies on trust rather than terms, that is a five-alarm reason to review now.

For families with a disabled beneficiary, the timing of a review matters even more, because an outright inheritance can disqualify someone from needs-based benefits. Specialized vehicles exist to solve this without sacrificing care — our colleagues describe both a and a as tools used to preserve eligibility for public benefits. The same planning logic applies in Florida; the mechanics and look-back rules differ, so the right move is to review your plan with Florida-specific counsel rather than assume a strategy from another state still fits.

What happens if you don’t review

The cost of a stale plan is rarely abstract. It shows up as an ex-spouse collecting a life insurance payout because nobody changed the form. It shows up as children from a first marriage receiving nothing because the surviving spouse rewrote everything. It shows up as a homestead tangled in litigation, or an elective-share claim that drains the estate of the very money you set aside for your kids. Each of these is preventable with a routine review — and each becomes far harder, or impossible, to fix once you’ve passed away.

None of this requires tearing your plan up and starting over. Often a review confirms everything still works. When it doesn’t, the correction is usually a focused amendment, a restated trust, or an updated beneficiary form — small, deliberate steps that keep your wishes intact. You can read more on the building blocks at our wills overview and our guide to Florida probate.

How to get your Florida plan reviewed

Start by gathering your documents in one place: your will, any trusts, your durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation, and a current list of accounts with their beneficiary designations. Then sit down with a Florida estate planning attorney who can read those documents against today’s statutes and your today’s family. If you live part of the year out of state — as so many of our clients do — bring the out-of-state documents too, so they can be checked for Florida compatibility.

Our firm handles exactly this kind of review for blended families and second marriages across South Florida; you can learn more about our or reach out to schedule a consultation. A short review today is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy against a long, expensive fight your family never wanted.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I review my Florida estate plan?

Review it every three to five years even if nothing has changed, and immediately after any major life event such as a marriage, divorce, death, birth, move into or out of Florida, or a significant change in your assets. The periodic schedule catches statutory and asset changes that happen quietly in the background, while the event-driven reviews address the moments most likely to upend who inherits.

Does a Florida divorce automatically update my will?

Partly. Florida Statute 732.507(2) automatically voids the provisions of your will that benefit a former spouse, treating them as if they predeceased you. However, it does not change beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs, or 401(k) accounts, which pass outside your will. Those must be updated manually, or an ex-spouse can still collect.

Can my second spouse override the will I made for my children in Florida?

Yes, in part. Under Florida’s elective share (Statute 732.201), a surviving spouse can claim 30 percent of the elective estate regardless of what your will says, unless they validly waived that right in a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Florida homestead protections can also override how you devise your primary residence. This is why blended families should review their plans carefully and often use a marital trust.

What documents should I bring to an estate plan review?

Bring your will, any revocable or irrevocable trusts, your durable power of attorney, your health care surrogate designation, and a current list of your accounts with their beneficiary designations. If you moved to Florida from another state, bring the original out-of-state documents so they can be checked against Florida’s execution and homestead requirements.

What is the biggest estate planning mistake blended families make in Florida?

Leaving everything outright to a second spouse with an unwritten understanding that they will pass the remainder to the first marriage’s children. Once the spouse owns those assets, they can leave them to anyone. A properly drafted marital trust, such as a QTIP arrangement, supports the surviving spouse for life while guaranteeing the remainder goes to your own children.