Estate planning can make difficult moments easier for the people who care about you. It records your choices, identifies people you trust, and gives them a practical framework for helping you during life and carrying out your wishes after death. These three areas are a useful starting point.
1. Plan for decisions during your lifetime
A durable power of attorney can authorize an agent to handle specified financial and legal matters and remain effective if you become incapacitated. A Florida power of attorney generally takes effect when executed. New springing powers tied to a future incapacity are generally ineffective, subject to narrow statutory exceptions, including certain older documents and military powers.
Health care decisions need their own planning. A health care surrogate designation lets you choose a person to assist with medical decisions and information. You may expressly make that authority effective immediately while retaining control of your own decisions while capable. A living will addresses treatment preferences in the circumstances it describes.
Choose people who understand your wishes, discuss the responsibilities with them, and make the documents accessible. If no valid surrogate is available, Florida law may provide a health care proxy; financial authority often requires a different solution.
2. Give clear instructions for property at death
A properly executed will directs the distribution of probate property, subject to protections that Florida law gives a surviving spouse and certain family members. It also lets you nominate a personal representative and a guardian for minor children. Court appointment and a surviving parent’s rights still matter.
Property with an effective beneficiary designation or survivorship arrangement generally passes outside the will. Without an effective will, probate property passes under Florida’s intestacy rules. Reviewing all of these arrangements together helps prevent gaps and conflicting instructions.
3. Decide whether a trust serves your goals
A properly funded revocable trust can help manage its property during incapacity and transfer it after death without probate for those assets. It can also continue to hold an inheritance for a beneficiary rather than distribute everything at once. A beneficiary does not automatically become the outright owner of all trust property immediately after your death.
Trusts can provide practical support for children, beneficiaries with disabilities, or family members who would benefit from help managing money. They also require appropriate drafting, funding, and administration. A revocable trust does not by itself reduce your income taxes or protect your property from your own creditors.
You do not need every available document or trust. You need a coordinated plan suited to your family and property. Speak with me about the people you want to provide for and the choices ahead.
Sources: Florida power-of-attorney effective-date rule; Florida health care surrogate designation; Florida intestacy statute.
Updated October 26, 2026.