When and Why to Review Your Florida Estate Plan: A Snowbird’s Guide

You should review your Florida estate plan every three to five years, and immediately after any major life event such as a move to Florida, a marriage or divorce, a death in the family, or a significant change in your assets. A plan is not a one-time document you sign and file away; it is a set of instructions that has to keep pace with your life, your family, and the law. For retirees and seasonal residents who split their year between the North and South Florida, reviewing the plan is especially important, because the rules that govern your will, your homestead, and your estate change the moment you become a Florida resident.

I have sat across the table from too many Miami families holding a will drafted in New York or New Jersey twenty years earlier, naming an executor who has since died and leaving property the client no longer owns. The document was valid. It was also useless for the life the client was actually living. This guide explains when to review your Florida estate plan, why those moments matter, and what an experienced estate planning attorney looks for.

What Does It Mean to Review a Florida Estate Plan?

Reviewing an estate plan means examining your existing documents—your will, any revocable living trust, your durable power of attorney, your designation of health care surrogate, and your beneficiary designations—to confirm they still reflect your wishes, your family situation, your assets, and current Florida law. A review does not always end in changes. Sometimes you sign nothing and walk out reassured. Often, though, a review surfaces a gap you did not know existed.

The core documents most Florida residents should keep current include:

• Last will and testament — directs who inherits and names a personal representative (Florida’s term for an executor).
• Revocable living trust — used by many snowbirds to avoid probate in two states and keep affairs private.
• Durable power of attorney — governed by Florida’s Power of Attorney Act, Chapter 709, Florida Statutes; a power of attorney signed in another state may not be honored cleanly by a Florida bank.
• Designation of health care surrogate — authorized under Chapter 765, Florida Statutes, letting someone make medical decisions if you cannot.
• Living will — your instructions about life-prolonging procedures.
• Beneficiary designations — on retirement accounts, annuities, and life insurance, which pass outside the will entirely.

That last point trips up more families than any clause in any will. A beneficiary designation overrides your will. If your IRA still names an ex-spouse, the IRA goes to the ex-spouse, no matter what your will says. A review catches that. For a deeper look at the document itself, see our overview of Florida wills.

The Three-to-Five-Year Rule (And Why It Exists)

If nothing in your life has changed, you should still pull your documents out and read them every three to five years. The reason is not your life—it is the law and the people you named. Tax thresholds shift. Florida amends its probate and trust statutes. The friend you named as personal representative moves to Oregon, or passes away, or simply is no longer someone you would trust with the job.

The federal estate tax exemption is the clearest example of a moving target. It sits at a historically high level today, but it is scheduled to change, and plans drafted to thread a much lower exemption may now contain trust formulas that no longer make sense. Florida itself has no state estate tax and no state income tax, which is one of the great planning advantages of becoming a resident—but that does not mean your federal exposure stays still. If your plan was built around old numbers, the structure may be working against you.

Life Events That Should Trigger an Immediate Review

Forget the calendar when one of these happens. Each of the following should send you back to your attorney within weeks, not years:

1. You became a Florida resident. This is the big one for snowbirds and the subject of the next section.
2. Marriage or remarriage. Florida’s elective share law, Chapter 732, Florida Statutes, gives a surviving spouse a right to roughly 30% of the elective estate—whether or not your will provides for them. Blended families need this addressed deliberately.
3. Divorce. Florida law voids gifts to a former spouse in your will upon divorce, but it does not fix everything automatically, and out-of-state documents may not get the same treatment.
4. A death. If your spouse, personal representative, trustee, or a named beneficiary dies, your plan may now point to no one.
5. The birth or adoption of a child or grandchild. New people you may want to provide for—or protect with a trust.
6. A meaningful change in assets. Selling the Northern house, buying a Miami condo, an inheritance, or a business sale all reshape the estate.
7. A health diagnosis. Particularly one raising the prospect of long-term care, which makes asset-protection planning urgent rather than theoretical.
8. A move out of Florida, or a child moving away who was serving as your agent or surrogate.

The Snowbird Problem: Why Out-of-State Plans Need a Florida Look

Most of my clients did not grow up in Florida. They retired here, or they spend their winters in Miami and their summers up North. Their estate plans were drafted by competent lawyers—in another state, under another state’s law. When you establish Florida residency, several things shift at once.

Homestead Is Not Optional

Florida’s homestead protection, rooted in Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution, is one of the strongest creditor protections in the country, but it comes with strict rules on how homestead property can pass at death. If you are married or have minor children, you cannot simply leave your Florida home to whomever you please—the Constitution restricts it. A will drafted in New York knows nothing about this. A Florida review reconciles your wishes with the homestead rules so your home does not become a probate fight.

Wills, Witnesses, and the Self-Proving Affidavit

Florida has specific execution requirements under Chapter 732, Florida Statutes, including a self-proving affidavit that lets your will be admitted to probate without tracking down witnesses years later. Holographic (handwritten) wills and out-of-state wills with unusual witnessing can create needless delay. Many snowbirds choose to re-execute their will under Florida formalities once they become residents. We walk clients through the local court process on our Florida probate page.

Power of Attorney and Health Care Documents

Florida’s power of attorney statute is demanding. It eliminated “springing” powers for documents signed after 2011 and requires specific language for certain powers. A New York power of attorney may technically be valid here yet still get rejected by a Florida bank that does not recognize the form. The same friction applies to health care surrogate designations. When you are in a Miami hospital, you want a document the hospital recognizes on sight.

Asset Protection and Long-Term Care: A Review Worth Having Early

For retirees, the conversation that gets postponed most is also the one that matters most: who pays if you need years of nursing care? Long-term care in South Florida is expensive, and Medicaid eligibility involves strict income and asset limits with a five-year look-back on transfers. The best planning happens before a crisis, not during one.

This is where specialized trusts come in. Tools such as a can shelter assets while preserving eligibility, when set up far enough in advance to clear the look-back period. For clients with income above the Medicaid cap, a can be the difference between qualifying and not. These structures have state-specific mechanics, so the right move for a Florida resident is to have them reviewed against Florida’s rules with counsel licensed here. Our colleagues handle this work through the firm’s practice, and you can read more general planning background through our .

A review is the natural moment to ask: am I exposed? If the answer is yes, the look-back clock is reason to act now rather than next year.

Beneficiary Designations and Trust Funding: The Quiet Failures

Two of the most common and most damaging problems I find on review have nothing to do with the wording of a will.

The first is stale beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities pass by designation, completely outside your will and trust. A review reconciles every account with your overall plan. The second is an unfunded trust. People pay for a beautiful revocable living trust to avoid probate—then never transfer the house, the brokerage account, or the bank accounts into it. An empty trust avoids nothing. Probate happens anyway. A periodic review checks the funding, not just the signatures.

Common Mistakes Florida Retirees Make

• Assuming the Northern will “just works” in Florida. It may be valid, but homestead, elective share, and power-of-attorney rules can still cause problems.
• Keeping two active wills—one up North, one in Florida—that contradict each other and invite a contest.
• Never re-checking the named personal representative or agent. People age, move, and pass away.
• Ignoring digital assets and online accounts, which Florida’s fiduciary access law now addresses but only if your documents grant authority.
• Waiting until a health crisis to think about long-term care, after the planning window has narrowed.

What a Thorough Review Looks Like

When clients come in, we are not just re-reading the will. We confirm that the personal representative and trustee are still able and willing to serve; we reconcile beneficiary designations across every account; we confirm any trust is actually funded; we test the plan against current Florida homestead and elective-share rules; we update powers of attorney and health care documents to forms Florida institutions accept; and we revisit tax exposure against today’s thresholds. If you are ready to start, reach out through our contact page.

The goal is simple. When the day comes that your documents are needed, your family should find a plan that fits the life you actually lived in Florida—not the one you were living when you first signed.