Florida Estate Planning After Your Spouse Dies

Settling a spouse's estate forces you to confront every gap in your own planning. You watch firsthand how the absence of a will creates chaos, how a forgotten beneficiary designation on a life insurance policy redirects money to the wrong person, or how joint accounts frozen by the bank leave the surviving spouse unable to pay the mortgage for weeks. Then, exhausted from the process, most surviving spouses do nothing about their own affairs for months — sometimes years.

That is exactly the wrong response. The period following a spouse's death is actually the best time to revisit and rebuild your estate plan, because you now know precisely what works and what does not. Here is what Florida law requires you to address.

Update — or Create — Your Will Immediately

If you do not have a will, Florida's intestate succession laws will determine who inherits your estate. Under F.S. §732.102, if you die without a will and have children from the current marriage only, your surviving spouse gets everything. But if you have children from a prior relationship, your spouse and your children split the estate. That may not be what you want.

If you already have a will, several things may have changed:

Your spouse was likely named as your primary beneficiary. You need a new primary beneficiary. Without updating the will, the remainder of the estate flows to your contingent beneficiary — which might be a child from a prior marriage, a sibling, or whoever you named decades ago.

Your spouse may have been named your personal representative (executor). You need to name someone else. Dying without a valid personal representative designation forces the court to appoint one, which slows everything down and costs the estate money.

The marital deduction no longer applies. Assets you planned to pass to your spouse tax-free via the federal estate tax marital deduction now go to the next beneficiary. At the federal level, this matters less in 2026 because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act permanently raised the federal estate tax exemption to $15 million per individual. Florida has no state estate tax. But for large estates — particularly those with business interests or investment real estate — a CPA should review the changed tax picture.

Update All Beneficiary Designations

This is the single most important step and the one most people skip. Beneficiary designations on financial accounts override your will entirely. It does not matter what your will says — if your late spouse is still named as the beneficiary on your IRA, 401(k), life insurance policy, or bank account, that money goes nowhere when you die (because the named beneficiary is deceased) and may end up in probate unnecessarily.

Update beneficiary designations on every account:

• Life insurance policies (contact each insurer directly)
• IRAs and 401(k)s (update with the plan administrator)
• Bank and credit union accounts (add a POD beneficiary)
• Brokerage accounts (add a TOD beneficiary)
• Florida Retirement System accounts (file the updated beneficiary form with the Division of Retirement)

Name both a primary beneficiary and a contingent beneficiary. The contingent beneficiary inherits if the primary dies before you — which is now a realistic scenario you have just lived through.

Revisit Homestead and Property Title

The primary residence in Florida likely changed title after your spouse's death, either through the probate process, a court order determining homestead status, or because it was already titled in both names with right of survivorship. Regardless, verify the current title situation before doing anything else with the property.

If the home is now in your name alone: You hold it outright, but it passes through your estate when you die. If you want to keep it out of probate for your heirs, consider a Florida Lady Bird deed (also called an enhanced life estate deed), which allows you to transfer the property to a named beneficiary automatically at death while retaining full control and use during your lifetime. A Lady Bird deed also defeats Florida Medicaid estate recovery, because the property is not part of the probate estate at death.

If you want to add a child to the title: Be careful. Adding a child as a joint tenant with right of survivorship triggers a gift tax analysis (though the federal gift tax exemption is high in 2026) and may complicate Medicaid planning if you need nursing home care in the future. Adding an adult child to your home title also means that child's creditors could potentially reach the property. Discuss this with an estate planning attorney before acting.

Property tax exemptions to re-examine: As a surviving spouse, you qualify for the $5,000 Widow/Widower property tax exemption (F.S. §196.202) — but you must file with the county property appraiser by March 1. If your spouse was a disabled veteran or first responder, you may have already claimed the 100% exemption under F.S. §196.081. Verify the current exemption status and re-file if ownership changed as part of the estate settlement.

Execute or Update Powers of Attorney and Health Directives

Your spouse was probably your healthcare surrogate and your financial power of attorney. Both designations died with them. If you become incapacitated without valid current documents, your children — or a court-appointed guardian — will manage your finances and medical care. That is a slow, expensive process you can prevent entirely with proper documents now.

Durable Power of Attorney: Names someone to manage your financial affairs if you are incapacitated. Under Florida's 2011 Power of Attorney Act, you can grant very specific or very broad financial authority. The document must be signed before two witnesses and a notary to be valid.

Designation of Health Care Surrogate: Names someone to make medical decisions on your behalf if you are incapacitated. In Florida, this person has authority to make decisions about life-prolonging treatment.

Living Will: Documents your specific wishes regarding life-prolonging procedures. Now that you understand what that process looks like in practice — having just watched a hospital or hospice setting manage your spouse's end of life — you are in a uniquely clear-eyed position to document your own wishes precisely.

PDMO: If you have an existing or developing serious medical condition, work with your physician on a Patient-Directed Medical Order, Florida's 2026 comprehensive end-of-life medical order under SB 312.

Consider Whether a Trust Makes Sense Now

Probate was likely frustrating. Even a straightforward Florida summary administration takes 4 to 8 weeks and requires court involvement. A revocable living trust avoids probate entirely for assets held in the trust, keeps your affairs private (probate filings are public record), and provides seamless management of your assets if you become incapacitated before death.

The $15 million federal exemption under the OBBBA means estate tax planning via irrevocable trusts is largely unnecessary for most Florida families. But a revocable living trust remains valuable for probate avoidance, Medicaid planning, and asset management in blended family situations. If your estate includes a business or significant real estate, a trust becomes more important as a governance tool.

Work With the Right Professionals

Estate planning after a spouse's death involves at least two professionals:

An estate planning attorney to draft or revise the will, powers of attorney, trust if applicable, and Lady Bird deed. Do not use a generic online will service for this — Florida has specific execution requirements and local nuances that a national template will miss.

A CPA to review the changed tax picture, file your spouse's final income tax return (Form 1040, due April 15 of the year following death), and determine whether to elect portability on a federal Form 706 to capture your late spouse's unused federal estate tax exemption for your own estate.

Start With What You Can Do Right Now

Before you sit down with an attorney, do the following: pull every beneficiary designation on file, identify who is named on each account, and make a list of changes needed. Print the current deeds on your property. Locate your own existing will, power of attorney, and healthcare directive. Bring all of this organized to your attorney meeting. Attorneys bill by the hour, and arriving organized can cut a two-hour meeting to forty-five minutes.

For a complete checklist of every Florida benefit to claim in the near term — and the specific deadlines attached to each — the Florida Survivor Benefits Navigator walks through everything step by step.

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