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 reviewing and re-executing your will, trusts, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney so they reflect your current family, your current assets, and the law of your new home state. A life change that reshapes who you love or where you live almost always outdates documents drafted under different circumstances. In Florida, certain changes happen automatically by statute, but many do not, which is exactly why a deliberate review matters more here than people assume.

I’ve sat across the table from too many Palm Beach clients who believed their out-of-state will would simply “carry over.” It often does, technically. Whether it still does what they want is a different question entirely. Below is how I walk high-net-worth clients through the three life events that most reliably break an estate plan, and what to fix when they happen.

Why a Move to Florida Triggers a Full Estate Plan Review

Florida recognizes wills validly executed in other states. So your New York or New Jersey will isn’t void the moment you change your driver’s license. But “valid” and “optimal” are not the same word, and for affluent families the gap between them can be expensive.

The first issue is execution formalities. Florida does not permit holographic (handwritten, unwitnessed) wills, and it imposes specific witnessing requirements under Florida Statutes Chapter 732. A will that leaned on another state’s relaxed rules can create friction in probate even when it ultimately stands.

The second issue is the part most people overlook: Florida’s homestead protections. Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution shields your primary residence from most creditors and sharply restricts how you can leave that home if you have a surviving spouse or minor child. You cannot simply will your Palm Beach house to your children if your spouse survives you—the law overrides the document. Out-of-state plans drafted without Florida homestead in mind frequently collide with this rule.

Third, Florida has no state estate tax and no income tax, which changes the math on trusts, gifting, and asset location. A plan engineered around a high-tax state may now carry structure—and cost—you no longer need, or it may miss opportunities you couldn’t use before.

• Re-execute your will and revocable trust under Florida formalities.
• Update your durable power of attorney to comply with Florida Statutes Chapter 709, which requires specific, enumerated authority rather than broad catch-all language.
• Replace your health care directive and designation of health care surrogate with Florida-compliant versions under Chapter 765.
• Reconsider trust situs and asset titling now that no state income tax applies.
• Confirm your homestead strategy aligns with Florida’s constitutional limits.

For families relocating with significant real estate, the way you hold and eventually transfer property deserves particular attention. Strategies like a retained life estate can preserve use of a residence while shifting future value—our colleagues describe the mechanics well in this overview of , and the underlying concepts translate, with adjustments, to Florida holdings.

How Divorce Changes Your Florida Estate Plan

Divorce is the life event Florida law treats most aggressively—and most helpfully. Under Florida Statutes § 732.507(2), when a marriage ends in divorce or annulment, any provision in your will favoring your former spouse is automatically void, as though the ex-spouse predeceased you. A parallel rule in § 736.1105 applies to revocable trusts. The law presumes you didn’t intend to leave your estate to someone you just spent two years and a small fortune divorcing.

That automatic revocation is real protection, but treating it as a substitute for actually updating documents is a mistake. Here’s why.

What the Automatic Revocation Statute Does Not Cover

The statute reaches wills and revocable trusts. It does not reach everything that moves money at death. Several of the largest assets in a high-net-worth estate pass by contract, outside probate, and outside the automatic-revocation rules:

1. Life insurance beneficiary designations. Federal law (notably ERISA for employer-sponsored coverage) can preempt state revocation statutes, meaning your ex may still collect unless you affirmatively change the form.
2. Retirement accounts—401(k)s, IRAs, pensions. Same exposure. The plan administrator pays whoever is named on file.
3. Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts. The bank follows the card you signed.
4. Jointly titled real estate held with rights of survivorship, which passes by operation of law regardless of your will.

I tell clients to picture it this way: the will is the document everyone watches, while the beneficiary forms are the ones that quietly control the biggest checks. After a divorce, you have to chase down every one of them.

Don’t Forget Fiduciary and Agency Roles

Divorce voids your former spouse’s role as personal representative, trustee, health care surrogate, and agent under your power of attorney by statute—but the people who step in next are whoever you named as alternates, possibly years ago. If you named your then-mother-in-law as backup trustee, that’s still on the books until you change it. Review and rebuild your entire fiduciary bench.

How Marriage and Remarriage Reshape an Estate Plan

Marriage creates spousal rights that can quietly rewrite your intentions. Florida grants a surviving spouse an elective share equal to 30% of the elective estate under Florida Statutes §§ 732.201–732.2155, and the elective estate is broad—it sweeps in many non-probate assets, revocable trusts, and certain transfers. A new spouse you didn’t provide for can elect against your plan and claim that share regardless of what your documents say.

There’s also the pretermitted spouse rule under § 732.301: if you married after executing your will and didn’t update it, your new spouse may be entitled to an intestate share as though you’d died without a will, unless the omission was clearly intentional or you provided for them otherwise. A will that predates the wedding is a trap.

Blended Families and the Second-Marriage Problem

For remarrying clients—especially those bringing substantial separate property or children from a prior marriage—the central tension is providing for a new spouse without disinheriting your own children, or vice versa. Left unaddressed, the default outcome often funnels everything to the survivor, who then leaves it to their own bloodline. Tools I use frequently here include:

• Marital (QTIP) trusts, which support a surviving spouse for life while preserving the remainder for your children.
• Prenuptial or postnuptial agreements that waive or define elective-share and homestead rights—Florida permits spouses to waive these, but only with proper, voluntary, well-documented agreements.
• Irrevocable trusts and lifetime gifting to move assets out of the elective estate where appropriate.

For clients with charitable goals or family members who receive government benefits, specialized vehicles matter. A pooled income trust, for instance, can serve specific planning and Medicaid-eligibility purposes—our New York team outlines one such structure in their discussion of the , and the strategic thinking behind it informs how we approach analogous needs in Florida.

A Practical Sequence for Updating Your Plan

When any of these three events occurs, I work through documents in a deliberate order so nothing falls through the cracks:

1. Inventory and title review. List every asset and exactly how it’s titled and who’s named as beneficiary. This is where most problems hide.
2. Core documents. Re-execute the will and revocable trust under current Florida law and current family circumstances.
3. Non-probate forms. Update every beneficiary designation, POD/TOD account, and survivorship deed.
4. Incapacity documents. Refresh the durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation, and living will.
5. Fiduciary appointments. Reconfirm personal representative, trustee, guardian, and agent choices, including alternates.
6. Tax and protection layer. Reassess homestead strategy, elective-share exposure, and any asset-protection structuring appropriate to your net worth.

This is also the right moment to coordinate with the firm’s Florida estate planning team, who handle the homestead, elective-share, and titling mechanics specific to this state; you can review the scope of that work on the page. Within our own site, clients often start with our overview of wills and trusts and, where an estate must pass through court, our guide to Florida probate.

The Cost of Waiting

Estate plans don’t fail loudly. They fail at the worst possible moment, when you’re no longer here to correct them, and the people you meant to protect inherit a contradiction instead of a plan. A divorce decree, a marriage license, or a Florida homestead exemption application are all signals that your documents are now out of sync with your life. The fix is rarely complicated. Ignoring it is what turns simple into litigated.

If you’ve experienced any of these three changes, treat this as the prompt to schedule a review. You can contact our Palm Beach office to walk through your current documents and identify what genuinely needs to change.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Generally yes—Florida recognizes wills validly executed in another state. But valid is not the same as optimal. Florida’s homestead rules, durable power of attorney requirements under Chapter 709, and lack of a state estate tax often mean an out-of-state plan no longer does what you intend. A review and, usually, re-execution under Florida formalities is strongly advisable.

Does divorce automatically remove my ex-spouse from my estate plan in Florida?

For wills and revocable trusts, yes. Florida Statutes § 732.507(2) and § 736.1105 treat your former spouse as having predeceased you. However, these statutes do not reach life insurance, retirement accounts, POD/TOD accounts, or jointly titled property—and ERISA can even preempt state law on employer plans. You must update those beneficiary forms yourself.

What happens if I marry but don't update my will before I die?

Under Florida’s pretermitted spouse statute (§ 732.301), a spouse you married after signing your will may be entitled to an intestate share unless the omission was intentional or you provided for them elsewhere. Separately, a surviving spouse can claim a 30% elective share of the elective estate. Updating the will after marriage avoids both surprises.

Can I leave my Florida home to anyone I choose in my will?

Not freely. Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution restricts how homestead property can be devised when you have a surviving spouse or minor child. You generally cannot will the home away from a surviving spouse. Any plan involving your primary residence has to be built around these homestead limits.

How often should high-net-worth clients review their estate plan?

At minimum every three to five years, and immediately after any major life event—divorce, marriage, the birth of a child, a significant change in assets, or a move to a new state like Florida. For affluent families with trusts and asset-protection structures, an annual touch-base with your attorney helps keep titling and beneficiary designations aligned with the plan.