Florida Statutes Protect Your Estate Plan After a Divorce, Does That Mean You Shouldn’t Amend? Think Again.

Divorce lawyers frequently advise their clients – update your  estate plan for your post divorce life. Sometimes though the hectic nature of divorce litigation can lead to it being pushed to the back burner. What happens when you forget? The old rules were quite harsh but Florida law has evolved to allow for leniency in this area, do you know how? Learn how the law has developed in Florida in regards to wills, trusts and now insurance beneficiaries.

Old Law: Too Bad So Sad

• It is used to be up to you, if you failed to get rid of your old will with your ex-spouse still in it, then you were the one who suffered.
• In reality though courts recognized that it was actually the West Palm Beach beneficiaries who suffered, after all the testator was gone.
• In 1951 Florida enacted a statute automatically cutting divorced spouses out of each other’s wills.
• This makes sense after all.
• Do you know where to find this rule?
• You can start by checking out Fla. Stat. 732.507(2).
• In 1989 the Florida legislature went even further.
• They added a similar rule regarding revocable trusts.
• That rule can be found in Fla. Stat. 736.1105.
• Yet again in 2012 the Florida legislature recognized a need to give divorced parties more support in estate planning.
• Fla. Stat. 732.703 does just that and gets to one of the often forgotten parts of estate planning — the insurance benefits.
• Don’t forget often time West Palm Beach citizens will get life insurance as a benefit of their work and on day 1 they pick a beneficiary and never think about it again.
• In the midst of a heated divorce it is easy to see how this could fall by the way side.
• Florida legislatures were sick of courts having to deal with this issue and thus the statue has come to us rather recently.

New Laws: Best Not to Have to Take Advantage of Them

• Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators will tell you, its probably best that you never have to use these rules.
• Just take the time to edit your estate plan post divorce, if anything let your estate planner know you are going through a divorce and that you want them to contact you in six months of a year.
• Do not make the courts employ these legal gymnastics because it is going to mean yourbeneficiaries/ heirs will have to fight it out in West Palm Beach probate court.
• That is not cheap.
• Avoid the hassle now rather than later.