Our Florida Estate Planning Lawyers Explain Your Options for Keeping Your Estate—and Your Family’s Inheritances—Out of Probate Probate is anything but a forgiving process. If you’re worried that probate could jeopardize your heirs’ rights to an inheritance, you don’t have to accept court-monitored administration as an inevitability. Beacon Legacy Law has spent years helping our clients in Palm Beach, Stuart, and surrounding areas create estate plans that meet their needs and afford the peace of mind that they deserve. Read more to learn about common strategies for avoiding probate, or contact us today to speak to a probate lawyer and schedule your initial consultation. An Overview of Florida Probate You can’t own assets after you’ve passed away. In Florida, the sum of most everything you own in life becomes part of your estate in death. The terms of your succession will, in most cases, be determined by the details of your estate plan. If you don’t have an estate—or it consists of little more than a will and testament—your assets will most likely pass through probate, a formal type of administration conducted by an executor and overseen by a court. Probate can vary in length and in complexity, but it almost always consists of the following steps: Your executor initiates probate by presenting a copy of your last will and testament to your county’s probate clerk. After initiating probate, your executor sends notices to interested parties. These parties include your designated heirs, your close living relatives, and any potential creditors. Your executor will catalog and manage your assets. If your estate owes money to creditors, then your debts must be paid from estate assets before inheritances can be distributed. At any point after probate begins, interested parties may try to file a contest against your estate. In this context, a “contest” is a lawsuit. After your estate’s debts have been paid and any outstanding contests have been resolved, your heirs may receive their inheritances and your estate can be dissolved. Probate typically takes at least several months to complete. However, if your estate is anything but simple, it can last much longer, potentially becoming a headache for your executor and a burden for your estate beneficiaries. 5 Tips for Avoiding Probate in Florida A lot can go wrong before and during probate. Even if you’ve written a will, there’s no guarantee that its terms will be respected—not by your heirs, not by your creditors, not even by the court. Mistakes, no matter how minor, can have big repercussions for everyone involved in a case. However, there’s no reason you have to leave your legacy in the air. You can protect your wishes and your heirs’ inheritances working with our Florida estate planning lawyers. 1. Write a Will If you don’t already have a will or a trust, your estate will be subject to Florida’s rules of intestacy. In an intestate succession, the court adheres to a rigid formula that determines who gets to be your heir. This formula privileges close living relations: your spouse, your children, or your parents. However, Florida’s intestacy statutes won’t account for your other preferences or your family dynamics. Without a will, you won’t be able to choose which child should receive what assets, and your estate won’t be permitted to set aside gifts for siblings or cousins or close friends. Although writing a will won’t keep your estate out of probate, it may well spare your family from probate’s most unforgiving form. 2. Keep Your Estate Plan Up-to-Date Your estate plan only works when it’s regularly revised. If your will isn’t up-to-date, your estate could run into trouble with: Estranged children and other “pretermitted heirs” A divorced spouse receiving money from an insurance policy Creditors with more claim to your estate than your own children As a general rule, you should always review your estate after any major life event. Here, a major life event could include a marriage, the birth of a new child, a divorce, or any substantial change to your personal or financial circumstances. 3. Iron Out Inconsistencies Your estate planning documents don’t all take the same precedence, but our Florida estate planning lawyers can help you iron out the inconsistencies. Beneficiary designations, for instance, allow the transfer of assets outside of probate. However, these designations can only be changed by filling out the right paperwork—not by revising your will or amending the terms of a trust. So, although beneficiary designations can work wonders for probate avoidance, they work best when they’re integrated within a comprehensive and consistent plan. 4. Leave Detailed Instructions for Incapacity Your estate plan does more than protect your assets—it can protect your health and your well-being, too. A living keeps your family out of court by letting you: Nominate a health care proxy Structure an advance care directive that determines what sort of end-of-life care you’re willing to receive Delegate powers of attorney in the event that you are ever incapacitated by physical illness, mental disability, or age-related cognitive decline 5. Establish a Trust A trust is a legal relationship between you, a successor trustee, and your beneficiaries. During trust formation, you’ll have the chance to select the type of trust that best suits your purposes. Common types of trusts include, but are not limited to, the following: Revocable living trusts Irrevocable living trusts Special needs trusts Education trusts Medicaid trusts Different types of trusts serve different purposes. However, by forming a trust, you separate trust-controlled assets from your estate assets. This can provide several advantages. Aside from minimizing liability-related risks, trust assets can be distributed to heirs outside of probate and with little threat to your family’s privacy.