Palm Beach County is home to thousands of mixed-status households — families where one spouse is a U.S. citizen, another holds a green card, and perhaps a child or parent is still working through the immigration system. If that describes your family, a standard estate plan written for a household of citizens can leave dangerous gaps. The two areas of law most newcomers think about separately — estate planning and immigration — are deeply connected, and decisions in one can quietly undo your goals in the other.
Our firm focuses on Florida estate planning, not immigration. We work alongside trusted immigration counsel so that both sides of your plan fit together. For the immigration side, we routinely recommend a Miami immigration attorney whose office handles the petitions and status questions that fall outside our practice.
The non-citizen spouse problem: the marital deduction and QDOT trusts
When a U.S. citizen dies and leaves assets to a U.S. citizen spouse, the unlimited marital deduction lets those assets pass free of federal estate tax. But that deduction does not automatically apply when the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen — even a lawful permanent resident. Congress was concerned that a non-citizen spouse might take inherited wealth and leave the country before any estate tax could be collected.
The standard solution is a Qualified Domestic Trust, or QDOT. Property passing into a properly drafted QDOT can qualify for the marital deduction, deferring estate tax until distributions of principal are made or the surviving spouse dies. A QDOT carries strict requirements — including at least one U.S. trustee and, for larger trusts, a U.S. bank or security arrangement. For couples with significant assets where one spouse is not yet a citizen, overlooking this can expose the estate to tax that careful planning would have deferred. Notably, if the surviving spouse later naturalizes, the calculus can change, which is one reason your estate plan and a pending naturalization case should be coordinated rather than handled in isolation.
Non-resident aliens and U.S. estate tax exposure
Status matters even more for clients who are not U.S. residents at all for tax purposes. Non-resident aliens are subject to U.S. estate tax on their U.S.-situated assets — which can include Florida real estate and shares of U.S. companies — and they receive a far smaller exemption than citizens and domiciliaries. A Palm Beach vacation condo owned by an overseas relative can create an unexpected estate tax bill and a Florida probate. Anyone buying Florida property while still living abroad should understand this before they sign, and should bring both estate and immigration counsel into the conversation.
Florida documents that protect everyone, regardless of status
Some protections do not depend on citizenship. Florida’s homestead protection shields a primary residence from most creditors and restricts how it can be devised, and it applies to non-citizen residents who genuinely make Florida their home. A valid Florida will under Section 732.502 — signed by the testator and two witnesses, all present together — is enforceable whether you are a citizen or not. Revocable and irrevocable trusts under Chapter 736 of the Florida Statutes work the same way. The key is making sure these documents account for your family’s actual situation rather than assuming everyone is a citizen.
Two documents deserve special attention for immigrant families:
- Guardianship designations for children. Parents who are not yet citizens, or who travel for consular appointments, need a clear, legally sound plan for who cares for their minor children if something happens. This is even more urgent when the chosen guardian’s own status differs from the parents’.
- Durable powers of attorney and health care designations. Clients frequently travel abroad for visa interviews, green-card processing, or family matters. A durable power of attorney lets a trusted person manage finances and property in Florida while you are out of the country, and a health care surrogate ensures someone can make medical decisions in an emergency.
Coordinating your estate plan with a pending immigration case
Inheritance can intersect with immigration in ways that surprise people. A large, poorly timed gift or distribution can affect public-benefit and self-sufficiency considerations; naming a beneficiary who lives abroad raises questions about how assets will actually reach them; and a change from green-card holder to citizen can reshape the right trust structure. These are not reasons to delay planning — they are reasons to plan with both lawyers at the table. If your family is still building its immigration foundation through a petition for a spouse, parent, or child, your estate plan should anticipate where each person will stand. For that side of the work we point clients to family-based immigration counsel who can sequence the petitions while we structure the trusts and wills.
Newcomers to Florida need both
If you have recently moved to Palm Beach and your household includes non-citizens, you need an estate plan and immigration counsel working in tandem — not one or the other. An estate plan built around your real status protects your spouse from avoidable tax, your children from uncertainty, and your property from unnecessary probate. We are glad to handle the Florida estate side and to coordinate directly with your immigration attorney so nothing falls through the cracks.
Have a question about your estate?
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For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of estate planning in Palm Beach. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles .
