Updating your estate plan after divorce, marriage, or a move to Florida means revisiting your will, trust, powers of attorney, and—often overlooked—your beneficiary designations so they reflect your current family and comply with Florida law. Each of these life events can silently rewrite who inherits, who controls your affairs, and how much a spouse is legally entitled to receive. In Florida, statutes like the elective share and the automatic revocation-on-divorce rule can override what your old documents say, so a plan drafted in another state or before a marriage rarely survives contact with reality.
I’ve sat across the table from too many surviving spouses and adult children who assumed “Mom’s will took care of everything,” only to discover that a five-year-old document, an outdated 401(k) form, or a quiet move from New Jersey to Naples had quietly upended the whole plan. The good news is that all three of these transitions are predictable, and each has a clean checklist for fixing what they break.
Why Divorce, Marriage, and Relocation Demand a Fresh Look
An estate plan is a snapshot of your life at the moment you signed it. It assumes a particular spouse, a particular set of beneficiaries, and a particular state’s laws. Change any one of those variables and the snapshot goes stale. The three events below are the ones that most often turn a once-sound plan into a liability.
The trap of the “set it and forget it” plan
Most people sign their documents, slide them into a drawer, and never look again. But Florida doesn’t freeze the law in place for your convenience. Marriage can create rights for a spouse you never mentioned in your will. Divorce can strip out provisions you forgot to remove. And relocation can subject your entire plan to a body of probate and homestead law your old attorney never contemplated. The drawer doesn’t update itself.
What Happens to Your Estate Plan After Divorce in Florida
Divorce is the event with the most aggressive statutory cleanup—and also the one people most dangerously over-trust. Florida law does some of the work for you, but only some.
Under section 732.507(2), Florida Statutes, any provision of your will that affects your former spouse becomes void upon the dissolution of your marriage, whether the will was signed before or after the marriage. The probate court reads the will as if your ex-spouse had died on the date the divorce became final. That means gifts to the ex, an appointment naming the ex as personal representative, and any power of appointment granted to the ex all fall away by operation of law. Florida applies a parallel rule to revocable trusts under section 736.1105.
So far, so reassuring. Here’s where people get hurt: this automatic revocation does not reach your beneficiary designations on most contracts. Life insurance, IRAs, 401(k) and other employer retirement plans, annuities, and payable-on-death bank accounts are governed by the designation form you filed with the institution—not by your will. If your ex is still named on that form, the insurer or plan administrator will, in many cases, pay your ex. Federal law (ERISA) preempts state revocation rules for employer-sponsored retirement plans, which is exactly why so many ex-spouses collect six-figure 401(k) balances years after the marriage ended.
After a Florida divorce, your update list should look like this:
- Re-execute your will so it cleanly reflects your post-divorce intentions instead of relying on a statute to scratch out names.
- Restate or amend your revocable trust, naming new successor trustees and beneficiaries.
- Update every beneficiary designation—life insurance, retirement accounts, annuities, POD/TOD accounts. Confirm in writing that the institution processed the change.
- Replace your powers of attorney and health care surrogate if you named your former spouse. These documents are not automatically revoked by divorce the way will provisions are, though Florida’s durable power of attorney act terminates a former spouse’s agency upon dissolution under section 709.2109—still, you want a clean, named successor rather than a gap.
- Review any marital settlement agreement obligations. If your divorce judgment requires you to keep your ex as an irrevocable life insurance beneficiary, that obligation survives and overrides the revocation rule.
One nuance worth knowing: as of July 1, 2021, Florida lets you intentionally re-designate a former spouse after the divorce if that’s truly what you want. It has to be deliberate and documented—not an accident of inertia.
How Marriage Rewrites Your Florida Estate Plan
Marriage is the quieter disruptor. Nobody warns you that saying “I do” can hand your new spouse statutory rights that your existing will never anticipated.
The pretermitted spouse rule
If you signed a will and then married, Florida’s pretermitted spouse statute—section 732.301—steps in. Unless the will provided for the new spouse, the will discloses an intent not to provide for them, or a valid pre- or postnuptial agreement waives the right, your surviving spouse is entitled to the share they’d receive if you had died with no will at all (their intestate share). For many couples that’s a substantial slice of the estate, carved out of gifts you intended for children or others.
The elective share: Florida’s anti-disinheritance backstop
This is the heart of why surviving-spouse planning matters so much in Florida, and the issue I see catch second-marriage families most often. Under section 732.2065, a surviving spouse may claim an elective share equal to 30% of the elective estate. The “elective estate” is broad—it reaches well beyond the probate estate to capture revocable trust assets, certain joint accounts, POD/TOD accounts, and other property the decedent controlled at death. You generally cannot disinherit a spouse in Florida by simply leaving them out of the will or funneling everything through a trust.
The spouse must affirmatively claim it. Under section 732.2135, the election must be filed by the earlier of six months after service of the notice of administration or two years after the date of death. Miss that window without a court-approved extension and the right can be lost.
If you’re remarrying—especially with children from a prior relationship—you have real planning tools here. A properly drafted and disclosed prenuptial or postnuptial agreement can waive the elective share, pretermitted-spouse rights, and homestead protections. Marital trusts (including QTIP trusts) can satisfy the elective share while still steering remainder assets to your children. These are not DIY exercises; the formalities matter, and a defective waiver is worse than none. Our structure these arrangements so both the new spouse and prior-marriage children are protected without litigation after death.
Moving to Florida: Why Your Out-of-State Plan Needs a Florida Tune-Up
An estate plan drafted in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, or anywhere else is generally still valid when you move to Florida—but “valid” and “optimized” are different things. Florida has its own quirks, and several of them can ambush an unrevised plan.
- Homestead is its own universe. Florida’s constitutional homestead protections (Article X, Section 4) restrict how you can devise your primary residence if you’re survived by a spouse or minor child. A will that leaves the house “to my children” can be partially void if it violates these rules, and the spouse may instead take a life estate or elect a half-interest as tenant in common. Out-of-state wills routinely ignore this.
- No state estate or inheritance tax. Florida imposes neither, which is great news—but it also means tax-driven structures built for a high-tax state may now be unnecessary complexity.
- Self-proving formalities differ. A self-proving affidavit valid in another state may not match Florida’s requirements under section 732.503, which can slow probate. Re-executing in Florida avoids the friction.
- Health care and financial documents should be Florida-form. Hospitals and banks honor Florida designations of health care surrogate and Florida durable powers of attorney without hesitation; out-of-state forms sometimes draw pushback.
- Witness and notary practices vary. Florida permits—and tightly regulates—electronic and remote online notarization for estate documents, with specific procedures you’ll want followed correctly.
If your new spouse or a child has special needs, relocation is also the moment to confirm your planning vehicles still work. A trust drafted out of state should be reviewed to ensure it preserves means-tested benefits. Firms experienced in this area—such as Morgan Legal’s work on a —can confirm whether your existing structure survives the move or needs to be restated under Florida law.
A Practical Update Checklist for All Three Life Events
Whatever brought you to this article, the core documents to revisit overlap heavily. Walk through each of these:
- Last will and testament — beneficiaries, personal representative, and guardian nominations for minor children.
- Revocable living trust — trustees, successor trustees, distribution terms, and funding.
- Beneficiary designations — life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, POD/TOD accounts. This is the single most-missed item.
- Durable power of attorney — who can manage your finances if you’re incapacitated.
- Designation of health care surrogate and living will — who speaks for your medical decisions.
- Marital agreements — confirm any prenup or postnup is current and enforceable.
- Titling and homestead — how your home and key accounts are held.
The foundation of any of these plans is a properly drafted will. If you’re starting from scratch or comparing approaches, Morgan Legal’s overview of a is a useful primer on how the core document fits within a larger plan—and the same structural principles apply in Florida once the document is conformed to state law. You can also review our Florida wills page or learn how administration works on our Florida probate overview.
When to Call an Attorney
If you’ve finalized a divorce, remarried, or established Florida residency within the last year and haven’t touched your documents, you’re carrying avoidable risk. The stakes are highest in blended families, where the elective share and homestead rules can pit a surviving spouse against stepchildren in a way that drains the estate through litigation. A focused review—often a single meeting—catches the gaps before they become a courtroom. Reach out to our office to put your plan back in step with your life.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does divorce automatically remove my ex-spouse from my will in Florida?
Largely, yes. Under section 732.507(2), Florida Statutes, provisions of your will that affect a former spouse become void upon dissolution of marriage, and the court reads the will as if your ex had died at divorce. The same idea applies to revocable trusts under section 736.1105. But this does NOT cover most beneficiary designations—life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, and POD accounts still pay whoever is named on the form, so you must update those separately.
Can I disinherit my spouse in Florida by leaving them out of my will?
No, not without a valid waiver. Florida’s elective share (section 732.2065) entitles a surviving spouse to 30% of the broadly defined elective estate, which reaches trust assets and certain non-probate property. The spouse must claim it within the earlier of six months after the notice of administration or two years after death. A properly drafted and disclosed prenuptial or postnuptial agreement can waive this right.
I just moved to Florida from another state. Is my old will still valid?
Generally yes, an out-of-state will executed validly elsewhere is recognized in Florida. However, it may not account for Florida’s homestead devise restrictions, self-proving affidavit requirements (section 732.503), or Florida-form powers of attorney and health care surrogate designations. A Florida-specific review and often a re-execution is strongly recommended so probate runs smoothly and your home passes the way you intend.
What is a pretermitted spouse in Florida?
Under section 732.301, if you signed a will and then married, your surviving spouse is a ‘pretermitted spouse’ entitled to the intestate share they’d receive if you had no will—unless the will provided for them, showed an intent to exclude them, or a marital agreement waived the right. Remarrying without updating your will can therefore redirect a large share of your estate to the new spouse.
Which document do people most often forget to update?
Beneficiary designation forms. Life insurance policies, retirement accounts, annuities, and payable-on-death accounts pass by contract, outside your will and trust. Because Florida’s revocation-on-divorce rule and ERISA preemption don’t fix these for you, an outdated form is the most common reason an ex-spouse or unintended person collects a major asset after death.
