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 revising your will, trust, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations so they reflect who you actually want in charge and who you want to inherit. A major life change can quietly invalidate parts of an old plan, trigger state-specific default rules, or leave the wrong person holding legal authority. The fix is usually straightforward, but only if you act before a crisis forces the question.

I have spent years sitting across the table from adult children who discovered, often at the worst possible moment, that a parent’s estate plan said something nobody intended. A father remarries and never updates his beneficiary forms; his new spouse inherits the retirement account his kids assumed was theirs. A mother moves from Long Island to Naples to be closer to family and assumes her decade-old New York will still works exactly the same way. It usually does work, but “usually” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Here is what actually changes, and what you should do about it.

Why Life Changes Quietly Break an Estate Plan

An estate plan is a snapshot of your intentions at one moment in time. Divorce, marriage, and relocation each shift the legal ground underneath that snapshot. Some changes happen automatically by operation of law. Others require you to act, and the law assumes you meant whatever the old document says until you say otherwise.

The dangerous middle ground is the document that is half-right: a will that still names an ex-spouse as personal representative, a trust funded with a house you sold three years ago, or a health care surrogate form that points to someone you no longer trust. None of those will announce themselves. They sit quietly until a death or an incapacity makes them suddenly, expensively relevant.

Updating Your Estate Plan After Divorce

Divorce is the change people most assume “takes care of itself.” It partly does, and that partial protection is exactly what trips people up.

What Florida law revokes automatically

Under Florida Statutes section 732.507(2), a divorce or annulment automatically voids any provision of your will that benefits your former spouse, and any provision naming the former spouse as personal representative, as if the ex-spouse had predeceased you. Florida applies a similar rule to revocable trusts under section 736.1105, and to many other “governing instruments” — including some payable-on-death and beneficiary designations — under section 732.703. The statute treats the ex-spouse as if they died at the moment the marriage ended.

That sounds like full protection. It is not, for three reasons:

• Some assets sit outside Florida’s revocation rules. Retirement accounts governed by federal ERISA law are controlled by federal preemption, which means a 401(k) or pension can still pay your ex-spouse even after divorce unless you submit a new beneficiary form. This is one of the most common and painful surprises I see.
• The automatic fix can leave a gap. If your will named your ex-spouse as the sole beneficiary and named no alternate, voiding that gift can push your estate into intestacy, where the state’s default heirs inherit — possibly not who you would have chosen.
• It does nothing about your fiduciary appointments outside the will. Your durable power of attorney and health care surrogate may still name your former spouse. If you are incapacitated before you revoke them, the person you just divorced could be making your medical and financial decisions.

The divorce-update checklist

1. Execute a new will and, if you have one, restate your revocable trust.
2. Replace your durable power of attorney and health care surrogate designation immediately — do not wait for the rest.
3. Submit fresh beneficiary forms for life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, and annuities.
4. Re-title jointly held property and review any survivorship deeds.
5. Name backup beneficiaries and backup fiduciaries so no single voided appointment collapses the plan.

Updating Your Estate Plan After Marriage

Marriage cuts the other direction. Where divorce removes a person, marriage adds one — and Florida grants spouses rights that override an outdated plan whether you intended it or not.

The pretermitted spouse rule

If you signed your will before the marriage and never updated it, Florida’s “pretermitted spouse” statute, section 732.301, generally entitles your new spouse to the share they would have received if you had died with no will at all — unless the will provided for the spouse, the omission was intentional and shown in the will, or you signed a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement waiving the right. In other words, the law assumes you simply forgot your new spouse and corrects for it.

The elective share and the homestead

Two further protections matter enormously for blended families. Under the elective share statute, sections 732.201 through 732.2155, a surviving spouse in Florida may claim 30 percent of the “elective estate,” a broad pool that reaches well beyond the probate estate to include trusts, certain joint accounts, and other transfers. You cannot disinherit a Florida spouse by simply leaving them out, absent a valid waiver.

Florida’s homestead protections, rooted in Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution, also restrict how you can leave your primary residence if you are survived by a spouse or minor child. A devise of homestead that violates these rules is invalid, and the property passes under constitutional defaults instead. For a remarried parent who wants the house to ultimately go to children from a first marriage, this is a planning problem you want to solve on purpose, with a properly drafted plan — often involving a trust or a life estate arrangement — rather than discovering the default after the fact.

For the adult child reading this about a remarrying parent: the kindest, least adversarial move is to encourage a clear, written plan and, where appropriate, a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. It protects everyone, including the new spouse, from a future fight nobody wants.

Updating Your Estate Plan After a Move to Florida

Relocation is the change people most underestimate. A New York will is not void in Florida — under section 732.502, a will valid where executed is generally valid in Florida. But “valid” and “optimal” are different words, and the gap between them can be costly.

Why your out-of-state will may not work the way you expect

• Self-proving affidavits differ. Florida lets a properly self-proved will be admitted to probate without tracking down witnesses, which can shave months off the process. An older out-of-state will often lacks Florida-compliant self-proving language, slowing everything down.
• Personal representative restrictions. Florida limits who can serve as personal representative. A non-resident generally must be a close relative — spouse, sibling, child, parent, or certain others — or the appointment fails. The trusted friend in New York you named years ago may be legally ineligible to serve here.
• Homestead and creditor rules are uniquely Florida. Florida’s homestead protections from creditors and its descent-and-devise rules have no real equivalent in New York. A plan drafted without them in mind can produce results you never intended.
• Domicile drives taxation and probate. Where you are legally domiciled determines which state administers your estate and, for some families, which state’s tax authorities come knocking. Half-finished moves — Florida house, New York driver’s license, New York voter registration — invite disputes about domicile.

What to do after establishing Florida residency

Have a Florida attorney review and, in most cases, re-execute your core documents under Florida law: will, revocable trust, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate, and living will. Florida’s durable power of attorney statute, Chapter 709, is notably specific about what an agent can and cannot do; powers must often be expressly granted, so a New York power of attorney may not give your agent the authority you assume. Update the deed on your Florida home, confirm your homestead exemption, and align your domicile markers — license, registration, and declaration of domicile — so there is no ambiguity later.

If you still own property in New York, you may need coordinated planning in both states to avoid ancillary probate. A retained life estate or a properly structured transfer can keep a New York home from triggering a second, separate probate proceeding. For families straddling both states, this is where coordinated counsel earns its fee. Morgan Legal’s guidance on home transfers and retained life estates in New York State walks through exactly that kind of cross-border situation, and their overview of the last will and testament in New York is a useful primer if a parent still holds New York assets. On the Florida side, the firm’s Florida estate planning practice handles the documents that need to be re-executed under Florida law.

The Documents to Review After Any Major Change

Whatever the trigger, the review list is the same. Pull these out and read them with fresh eyes:

• Last will and testament
• Revocable living trust, including who is named as successor trustee
• Durable power of attorney
• Designation of health care surrogate and living will
• Beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, and annuities
• Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death account designations
• Deeds and titles, especially anything held jointly or with survivorship rights

If you want to understand how the individual pieces fit together, our overviews of wills and the Florida probate process explain what happens to each document when it is finally put to use — and why getting it right now spares your family the harder version later.

A Word to the Adult Children Doing This for a Parent

You cannot rewrite a competent parent’s estate plan for them, and you should not try. What you can do is start the conversation early, while your parent has full capacity and the freedom to make their own choices. Frame it around their wishes, not your inheritance. Offer to gather the documents, schedule the appointment, and sit in if invited. The families who handle this well treat it as ordinary maintenance, like updating insurance after buying a house — not as a deathbed emergency.

Divorce, marriage, and a move across state lines are exactly the moments when default rules and old paperwork quietly diverge from real intentions. A focused review closes that gap. If your family is navigating one of these transitions on Long Island or in Florida, reach out to discuss your situation with an attorney who handles estate planning in both states.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Yes, in large part. Florida Statutes section 732.507(2) treats your former spouse as having predeceased you, voiding will provisions that benefit them or name them as personal representative, with similar rules for trusts and many beneficiary designations. But ERISA-governed retirement accounts can still pay an ex-spouse until you file a new beneficiary form, and your power of attorney and health care surrogate are not affected, so you should still update everything manually.

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

Generally yes. Under section 732.502, a will validly executed in another state is recognized in Florida. However, it may lack Florida-compliant self-proving language, may name a personal representative who is now ineligible because they are an out-of-state non-relative, and likely was not drafted with Florida’s homestead and durable power of attorney rules in mind. A Florida attorney should review and usually re-execute your core documents.

Can I leave my new spouse out of my estate plan in Florida?

Not easily, and not by accident. Florida’s pretermitted spouse rule (section 732.301) and elective share statutes (sections 732.201 to 732.2155) give a surviving spouse significant rights — including a 30 percent claim on the elective estate — unless they validly waived those rights in a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Homestead rules add further limits. To control where your assets go in a blended family, plan it deliberately with proper documents and waivers.

What estate planning documents should I update after a major life change?

Review and, where needed, replace your will, revocable trust and successor trustee, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate and living will, and all beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts. Also check payable-on-death account designations and any deeds held jointly or with survivorship rights. Beneficiary forms and joint titles often override your will, so they deserve special attention.

My out-of-state parent named a non-Florida friend as executor. Is that a problem?

It can be. Florida restricts who may serve as personal representative: a non-resident generally must be a close relative such as a spouse, child, sibling, or parent. A trusted out-of-state friend usually cannot serve, which means the appointment fails and the court turns to other eligible candidates. If your parent has moved to Florida, this is worth fixing now by naming an eligible representative and a backup.