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 revisiting your will, trust, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney so they reflect your new family situation and your new state’s law. A major life change does not automatically rewrite your documents the way you might expect, and a plan drafted under New York rules can behave very differently once you become a Florida resident. The safest approach is to treat each of these events as a trigger for a full review rather than a quick patch.

Most people assume their estate plan is a “set it and forget it” project. It is not. The documents you signed five years ago describe the life you had five years ago. When the people, the property, or the governing state changes, the gap between what your paperwork says and what you actually want can become a serious problem for the people you leave behind. Below is a practical walk-through of what changes after each of these events, why homestead property deserves special attention, and which Florida statutes quietly do the work.

Why a Life Change Quietly Breaks an Existing Plan

An estate plan is a set of instructions that operate at a specific moment: the day you become incapacitated, or the day you die. The trouble is that the instructions were written in the past, and they keep pointing at the past unless you revise them. A will that names your former spouse as executor and sole beneficiary will still say exactly that, word for word, on the day it matters most.

Some of these mismatches are corrected automatically by statute. Many are not. Relying on automatic fixes is risky because they are narrow, they vary by state, and they almost never reach the assets that pass outside of probate, such as life insurance, retirement accounts, and payable-on-death accounts. Those beneficiary designations are the ones that catch families by surprise.

Updating Your Estate Plan After Divorce

Divorce is the life event most likely to leave a dangerous gap, because the document still names a person you have deliberately separated from. Florida law offers a partial safety net, but it is exactly that: partial.

What Florida Law Revokes Automatically

Under Florida Statutes section 732.507(2), a provision in your will that affects your spouse is treated as void if the marriage is later dissolved or annulled. The will is read as though your former spouse predeceased you. A parallel rule, section 736.1105, applies similar treatment to revocable trust provisions that benefit a former spouse. Florida also addresses certain non-probate assets through section 732.703, which can void a death benefit designation in favor of a former spouse for things like life insurance and annuities governed by Florida law.

These statutes are helpful, but they have real limits. Section 732.703 carves out several exceptions, and it does not override federal law. That distinction matters enormously, because:

• ERISA-governed retirement plans — most employer 401(k) and pension plans — are controlled by federal law, and the U.S. Supreme Court held in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff and Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont that the plan must pay the named beneficiary, even an ex-spouse, regardless of a state revocation statute.
• Beneficiary designations you never changed on IRAs, life insurance, and transfer-on-death accounts often slip through, because people forget they exist.
• Joint property and survivorship accounts may not be reached by the revocation statutes at all.

What You Should Actively Do

Do not rely on the statute to do your work for you. After a divorce is final, you should:

1. Sign a new will and, if you have one, restate or amend your revocable trust.
2. Re-execute your durable power of attorney and your health care surrogate designation, because an ex-spouse named as agent is a serious exposure.
3. Update every beneficiary designation in writing with each institution and keep the confirmations.
4. Review titling on your home and accounts, especially anything held jointly.

If you are dividing or transferring real estate as part of the settlement, the deed mechanics deserve careful handling. Strategies like life estates and retained interests can preserve value and control; Morgan Legal’s discussion of is a useful reference for how these tools function when a residence changes hands.

Updating Your Estate Plan After Marriage

Marriage creates the opposite problem from divorce: a new person now has rights your old documents never accounted for. In Florida, a spouse is not someone you can simply leave out.

The Pretermitted Spouse and the Elective Share

If you made your will before the marriage and did not provide for your new spouse, Florida Statutes section 732.301 generally entitles that pretermitted spouse to an intestate share, unless the will was made in contemplation of the marriage, the spouse was provided for elsewhere, or a valid waiver exists. Separately, Florida’s elective share under sections 732.201 through 732.2155 gives a surviving spouse the right to claim 30 percent of the elective estate, a figure that reaches well beyond the probate estate to include many trusts, joint accounts, and certain transfers.

The practical lesson is that you cannot quietly disinherit a Florida spouse, even with a perfectly drafted trust, without either their written waiver or a structure built with the elective share in mind. If you bring children from a prior relationship into a new marriage, this tension between providing for a spouse and protecting children is the single most common reason blended families need a fresh plan rather than an edit.

Foundational Documents to Refresh

At a minimum, a newly married couple should establish or update a will for each spouse, consider a revocable living trust to coordinate assets and avoid probate, and align beneficiary designations with the overall plan. For a clear primer on the document at the center of all of this, Morgan Legal’s overview of the explains the role a will plays even when most assets pass through a trust. You can also review our own wills page for how these documents fit a Long Island and Florida household.

Updating Your Estate Plan After a Move to Florida

This is the change clients underestimate the most. Your New York documents are not automatically void in Florida — a will validly executed in another state is generally honored — but “valid” is not the same as “optimized,” and several provisions can misfire badly.

Execution, Witnesses, and Self-Proving Wills

Florida has specific execution formalities. A will must be signed at the end and witnessed by two people who sign in the testator’s presence and in each other’s presence, and Florida does not recognize holographic (handwritten, unwitnessed) wills even if they were valid where written. Florida also strongly favors a self-proving affidavit under section 732.503, which lets the will be admitted to probate without tracking down witnesses years later. A New York will may lack the precise Florida self-proving language, so re-executing in Florida is usually worth it.

The Out-of-State Personal Representative Trap

Here is a rule that surprises new residents: Florida Statutes section 733.304 restricts who may serve as your personal representative (Florida’s term for executor). A non-resident generally cannot serve unless they are a close relative — a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, or certain other blood relatives — or the spouse of such a relative. If your will names a trusted out-of-state friend or a non-relative as executor, Florida may disqualify that person. Discovering this during probate is exactly the wrong time.

Homestead: The Provision That Behaves Like No Other

For a real-estate-minded owner, homestead is the most important Florida concept to understand, and it is genuinely unusual. Florida homestead protection operates on three separate tracks, and people routinely confuse them:

• Creditor protection under Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution shields your homestead from most creditors, with essentially no dollar cap on value (only an acreage limit — one-half acre within a municipality, up to 160 acres outside one).
• Property tax benefits, including the homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes assessment cap that limits annual increases in assessed value.
• Restrictions on devise under Article X, Section 4(c) and Florida Statutes section 732.401, which limit how you can leave the home if you are survived by a spouse or minor child.

That third track is the one that breaks imported estate plans. If you are survived by a spouse and you try to leave the homestead to anyone else, Florida law overrides your wish: the surviving spouse takes a life estate with a vested remainder in your descendants, or — under section 732.401(2) — the spouse may elect to take a one-half undivided interest as a tenant in common instead. A homestead with a minor child generally cannot be devised at all. Pour-over plans that quietly drop the residence into a revocable trust can run headfirst into these constitutional limits. The fix is almost always state-specific drafting, sometimes paired with an enhanced life estate (a “Lady Bird”) deed, which Florida recognizes and which can pass the home outside probate while preserving homestead benefits.

Becoming a Florida Resident, Cleanly

If part of your goal is to shed New York income or estate tax exposure, residency is not a feeling — it is a documented status. File a Declaration of Domicile under section 222.17, claim the homestead exemption with your county property appraiser, register to vote, retitle vehicles, and update your driver’s license. Half-finished moves invite a New York residency audit. For Florida-specific planning and probate, our Florida probate resource and Morgan Legal’s Florida estate planning practice walk through the local mechanics in detail.

A Practical Review Checklist

Whichever event applies to you, work through the same short list and update anything that has drifted:

1. Will — beneficiaries, personal representative (and whether they qualify in Florida), and homestead provisions.
2. Revocable trust — restated to reflect the new spouse, ex-spouse, or new state; confirm the home is handled in a way that respects homestead.
3. Durable power of attorney and health care surrogate — re-executed under Florida’s statutes, with no obsolete agent.
4. Beneficiary designations — IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, annuities, and POD/TOD accounts, confirmed in writing.
5. Deeds and titling — survivorship, life estates, and Lady Bird deeds reviewed against your goals.
6. Residency documentation — domicile declaration, homestead filing, and the rest, if Florida is now home.

None of these steps is complicated on its own. The danger is in assuming an old document still says what you mean. If a divorce, a marriage, or a move has changed your life, it has almost certainly changed what your estate plan should say. A focused review now is far cheaper than a contested probate later. When you are ready to look at your own documents, reach out for a plan that matches the life you actually have.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Mostly, but not entirely. Florida Statutes section 732.507(2) treats will provisions favoring a former spouse as void after a dissolution, and section 736.1105 does the same for revocable trusts. However, federal law controls ERISA retirement plans, so an ex-spouse named on a 401(k) can still inherit it. You must update those beneficiary designations yourself.

Can I disinherit my new spouse in Florida if I have a prenuptial agreement?

You can limit a spouse’s rights only with a valid waiver, such as a properly executed prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Without one, Florida’s elective share (sections 732.201 to 732.2155) gives a surviving spouse 30 percent of the elective estate, and the pretermitted spouse rule (section 732.301) can grant a share to a spouse left out of a pre-marriage will.

Is my New York will still valid after I move to Florida?

Generally yes. Florida honors a will validly executed in another state, but it may not be optimized for Florida. Common problems include lacking a Florida self-proving affidavit, naming a non-relative out-of-state executor (restricted under section 733.304), and homestead provisions that conflict with Florida’s constitution. Re-executing in Florida is usually the safer choice.

How does Florida homestead law affect leaving my home to my children?

If you are survived by a spouse, you generally cannot leave the homestead solely to your children. Under section 732.401, the spouse receives a life estate with a remainder to descendants, or may elect a one-half tenancy-in-common interest. If you have a minor child, the homestead typically cannot be devised at all. A Lady Bird (enhanced life estate) deed is one tool to plan around these limits.

What documents should I update after any major life change?

Review your will, revocable trust, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation, and all beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance. Also check the titling and deeds on real estate, and if you have moved, file a Declaration of Domicile and claim your Florida homestead exemption.