When and Why to Review Your Florida Estate Plan: A Palm Beach Attorney’s Guide

You should review your Florida estate plan every three to five years and after any major life or financial change—marriage, divorce, a new child, a move to or from Florida, a significant change in net worth, or the death or incapacity of someone named in your documents. A review confirms that your will, revocable trust, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations still reflect your wishes and still comply with current Florida law. For physicians, business owners, and other professionals whose assets and exposure shift quickly, the right cadence is often closer to three years than five.

I have sat across the table from too many surviving spouses holding a fifteen-year-old will that named an ex-husband as personal representative, or a trust that was funded on paper but never actually retitled. The documents were technically valid. They were also wrong. An estate plan is not a monument you carve once; it is a living set of instructions that drifts out of alignment with your life if you let it sit. Below is how I counsel Palm Beach clients to think about timing—and the specific triggers that should send you back to your attorney.

What “reviewing” your estate plan actually means

A real review is not just rereading your will to confirm your name is spelled correctly. It is a structured audit of three things working together:

• Your documents — the will, revocable living trust, durable power of attorney, designation of health care surrogate, and living will.
• Your titling — how each asset is actually owned (individually, jointly, in trust, with a transfer-on-death provision).
• Your beneficiary designations — on retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities, which pass outside your will regardless of what the will says.

That last category causes more failed estate plans than any drafting error. A 401(k) or IRA goes to whoever is named on the beneficiary form, full stop. I have seen a meticulously drafted trust completely bypassed because a retirement account still listed a deceased parent. Reviewing the plan means reconciling all three layers so they tell one consistent story.

The baseline: every three to five years

Even if nothing dramatic has happened, a calendar-driven review every three to five years is the floor. Florida law changes. Your assets grow. The people you trusted as agents age, move, or fall out of your life. A document signed during a different chapter of your career may name guardians for children who are now adults, or a trustee you no longer speak to.

For physicians and high-earning professionals I usually recommend the shorter end of that range. Your malpractice and creditor exposure, partnership interests, and concentrated equity positions move faster than the average household’s, and asset-protection structures need to keep pace. If you own a practice, a closely held entity, or rental real estate, treat three years as your default interval.

Life events that should trigger an immediate review

Do not wait for the calendar when one of these happens. Each can quietly break a plan that was perfectly sound the day before.

Marriage, divorce, or remarriage

Florida treats divorce harshly—and helpfully—by operation of law. Under Florida Statutes § 732.507(2), a provision in your will in favor of a former spouse is void upon dissolution of marriage, as if the ex-spouse predeceased you. A parallel rule in § 732.703 revokes most beneficiary designations in favor of a former spouse on assets like life insurance and retirement accounts. These statutes are safety nets, not substitutes for actually updating your documents. They do not cover every asset class, they create unintended gaps where contingent beneficiaries were never named, and they do nothing about a former spouse still serving as your agent under a power of attorney.

Remarriage raises the opposite problem. Florida’s elective share (§ 732.201) entitles a surviving spouse to 30% of the elective estate—a broad definition that reaches well beyond the probate estate. A blended-family plan drafted before remarriage almost always needs restructuring so that children from a first marriage and a new spouse are both provided for intentionally rather than by accident.

Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild

Florida’s “pretermitted child” rule (§ 732.302) can give an after-born child a statutory share, scrambling the distribution you intended. More practically, a new child or grandchild is the moment to name guardians, set up trusts for minors, and decide whether distributions happen at 18, 25, or in staged tranches. Eighteen-year-olds rarely manage a lump sum well.

Death or incapacity of a named fiduciary or beneficiary

If your personal representative, trustee, health care surrogate, or agent under a power of attorney dies, becomes ill, or simply moves out of state, your chain of backups needs to be confirmed. The same is true if a primary beneficiary predeceases you and you never named a contingent. Empty lines in a document are where probate litigation grows.

A significant change in your net worth or asset mix

Selling a practice, exercising options, receiving an inheritance, or buying out a partner can push you across planning thresholds—particularly the federal estate and gift tax exemption, which is scheduled to drop substantially after 2025 under current law unless Congress acts. High-net-worth professionals should revisit gifting strategies, irrevocable trusts, and life insurance ownership whenever a liquidity event occurs.

Why moving to Florida changes everything

If you executed your estate plan in another state—say New York—and then relocated to Palm Beach, a review is not optional. A will valid where signed is generally still valid here, but “valid” and “optimal” are different words.

Florida has its own formalities and its own opportunities. Our homestead protection (Article X, § 4 of the Florida Constitution) is among the strongest creditor protections in the country, but it also imposes strict descent-and-devise rules: if you are survived by a spouse or minor child, you cannot freely leave your homestead to anyone you choose, and a will provision that ignores those rules will be partially overridden. Out-of-state plans routinely miss this.

Florida also has no state estate or income tax, which makes residency itself a planning tool—and makes properly documenting your domicile worth the effort. Cross-border families often keep property and accounts in more than one state, which is exactly the situation where coordinated counsel matters. Clients with continuing New York ties frequently coordinate with our colleagues at when a family member needs Medicaid or supplemental-needs planning that touches both states. Likewise, retained-life-estate and home-transfer strategies differ meaningfully by jurisdiction; if you still own a residence up north, the difference between a Florida approach and a is worth understanding before you act.

Law changes that quietly age your documents

Even a plan you love can be undermined by changes you never read about. A few that have mattered for Florida clients in recent years:

1. Powers of attorney. Florida overhauled its power-of-attorney law (Chapter 709) so that “springing” powers—those that activate only upon incapacity—are no longer permitted for new documents, and “superpowers” like the ability to make gifts or change beneficiaries must be separately initialed. Older POAs are increasingly questioned by banks and brokerages.
2. Retirement account rules. Federal changes to required distributions and the elimination of most “stretch” payouts for inherited IRAs mean trusts named as retirement beneficiaries should be re-examined; conduit-trust language drafted years ago may now produce a tax result you never intended.
3. The federal exemption sunset. The historically high gift and estate tax exemption is set to fall under current law, which changes the math for anyone with a sizable taxable estate.

You will not get a letter when these things happen. That is precisely why a periodic review—rather than a reactive one—protects you.

The funding problem nobody talks about

A revocable living trust does nothing for assets that were never transferred into it. “Funding” means retitling your home, accounts, and entity interests into the name of the trust, or naming the trust as beneficiary where appropriate. An unfunded trust is an expensive piece of paper that still sends your estate through probate—the exact outcome you paid to avoid.

Every review should include a funding audit: pull a current statement for each major asset and confirm how it is titled. New accounts opened since your last review are the usual culprits. This is mechanical, unglamorous work, and it is where most of the value of a review actually lives.

A practical review checklist

• Confirm your personal representative, trustee, and agents are still willing, able, and the right choices.
• Reconcile every beneficiary designation against your will and trust.
• Verify the trust is fully funded and new assets are titled correctly.
• Re-examine your durable power of attorney against current Chapter 709 standards.
• Refresh your health care surrogate designation and living will.
• Reassess tax exposure after any liquidity event or change in the exemption.
• Confirm Florida homestead and domicile are properly handled, especially after a move.

When to call an attorney

If you cannot remember the last time you read your documents, that is the signal. If you have married, divorced, had a child, moved states, sold a practice, or buried someone named in your plan—that is the signal. A focused review is far less expensive than the probate litigation, tax surprise, or family conflict that a stale plan invites.

Our Palm Beach team handles estate planning for professionals and physicians who need their plans to keep pace with complex, changing lives. You can learn more about our , read our overview of Florida wills, understand how Florida probate works, or contact our office to schedule a review.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I review my Florida estate plan?

Review it every three to five years at a minimum, and immediately after any major life or financial event such as marriage, divorce, a new child, a move to or from Florida, a large change in net worth, or the death or incapacity of someone named in your documents. Professionals and physicians with fast-changing assets should lean toward a three-year cadence.

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

Largely, yes. Under Florida Statutes § 732.507(2), provisions in your will favoring a former spouse become void on divorce, and § 732.703 revokes most beneficiary designations favoring a former spouse. But these statutes leave gaps—uncovered assets, missing contingent beneficiaries, and an ex still serving as your power-of-attorney agent—so you should still update your documents directly.

I moved to Florida from another state. Is my old estate plan still valid?

A will properly executed in another state is generally still valid in Florida, but it may not be optimal. Florida’s homestead descent rules, its strong creditor protections, its lack of a state estate or income tax, and its specific power-of-attorney requirements often call for revisions. Have your plan reviewed by Florida counsel after relocating.

What is the most common reason a Florida estate plan fails?

Mismatched beneficiary designations and unfunded trusts. Retirement accounts and life insurance pass to whoever is named on the form, regardless of your will, and a revocable trust controls only assets actually retitled into it. A review that reconciles documents, titling, and beneficiary forms prevents the most common failures.

Do I need an attorney to review my estate plan, or can I do it myself?

You can and should do a personal check—confirm your fiduciaries, beneficiaries, and asset titling—but recent changes to Florida’s power-of-attorney law, federal retirement-account rules, and the scheduled drop in the estate tax exemption make professional review worthwhile, especially for higher-net-worth professionals and physicians.