Blended families are everywhere in Miami: second marriages, stepchildren, children from prior relationships, and his-and-hers assets brought into a new household. These families are wonderful, but they create estate planning challenges that a basic will often fails to handle. Florida law has several rules that can produce surprising, and sometimes painful, results if you do not plan ahead.
The Core Tension
In a blended family, you often have two goals that can pull against each other: providing for your current spouse, and making sure children from a prior relationship eventually inherit. Without careful planning, leaving everything to your spouse can unintentionally disinherit your own children, because that spouse is free to leave those assets to anyone they choose later. Florida law gives you tools to balance both goals, but only if you use them on purpose.
Florida’s Spousal Protections
Florida strongly protects surviving spouses, which is good to know whether you are the spouse or the parent:
- Elective share. Under Florida Statutes Section 732.2065 and the sections that follow, a surviving spouse is generally entitled to 30 percent of the elective estate, even if the will says otherwise. You cannot simply write a spouse out.
- Homestead. Florida’s constitutional homestead protection (Article X, Section 4) restricts how you can leave your primary residence if you are married or have minor children. A surviving spouse typically receives a life estate or, in some cases, a half interest, with the rest going to your descendants.
These protections can override a will, so a Miami homeowner with a new spouse and grown children needs a plan that accounts for them.
Tools That Help Blended Families
A few structures are especially useful:
- A QTIP or marital trust. This can provide income and support to your surviving spouse for life, then pass the remaining assets to your children. It honors both relationships.
- A revocable living trust. Florida trusts (Chapter 736) keep your plan private, avoid probate, and let you spell out exactly who receives what and when.
- A prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Spouses can agree to waive certain rights, including the elective share, which gives you more flexibility.
- Updated beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by designation, not by your will. Old forms naming an ex-spouse are a common and costly mistake.
Don’t Rely on Verbal Promises
Many blended-family disputes start with a well-meaning but unwritten understanding. If your wishes are not documented in a valid Florida will (meeting the requirements of Section 732.502) or trust, your family may end up in the Miami-Dade probate court arguing over what you intended. Clear documents prevent that.
Talk to a Florida Attorney
Blended-family planning is where do-it-yourself forms most often go wrong, because Florida’s spousal and homestead rules are easy to trip over. A Miami estate planning attorney can build a plan that protects your spouse and your children without forcing an impossible choice. Because every family is different, consult a licensed Florida attorney before relying on this general information.
For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of estate planning in Boca Raton. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles how a will is contested in New York.