When To Consider Creating An Estate Plan
Many people do not consider creating an estate plan until they are nearing or beyond retirement age. However, several times before that day, you should consider what will be done with your estate once you die. Not only are these times when you should consider creating one if you do not already have one, but they are also times you should review and update your plan as needed. An experienced Florida estate planning attorney at Loughlin Law, P.A. may be able to assist you with creating, reviewing, or revising your estate plan. Call (561) 677-8384 to book a consultation and review your estate planning needs.
Benefits of Creating an Estate Plan
Before deciding when it is appropriate to consider creating an estate plan, individuals must understand the benefits of doing so. Many people understand an estate plan to be a plan for what happens to their wealth after they die. This partial truth often leads them to believe they have no reason to create a plan. They may think they can wait until they are older, do not have the wealth required to make a plan, or that a Last Will and Testament is all they need. However, none of these is necessarily true, either. There are several benefits to having an estate plan, regardless of your age or level of wealth.
Protect Loved Ones
An estate plan ensures that an individual’s assets go to those they care about. Under FL Stat. § 732.101, if an individual dies without a will or an estate plan, their estate is distributed based on Florida law. This starts with a surviving spouse if there is one, and continues through various relatives until reaching the family of the individual’s last deceased spouse or being escheated (reverted) to the state, if there is no other living family. By drafting an estate plan, individuals can ensure that the ones they love inherit their estate instead of a distant cousin they have never met.
An estate plan can also minimize conflict among family members over the individual’s estate. By drafting an estate plan and outlining who gets what under what circumstances, the individual reduces arguments over whether they intended an asset to go to a particular person or claims that an asset was promised to multiple people. While a family member may still dispute the estate plan, putting it in writing clarifies the individual’s wishes.
Avoid Probate
A well-structured estate plan can assist the individual’s family in avoiding the lengthy, expensive, and public probate process. Creating a trust, combined with other estate plan options such as ladybird deeds for real estate and transfer-on-death accounts, can bypass the probate process and give loved ones direct and immediate access to their inheritances. A knowledgeable estate planning attorney can review an individual’s estate and offer guidance regarding the most beneficial options for ensuring their loved ones receive the assets intended for them without going through probate.
Minimize Estate Taxes
Florida does not have an inheritance or an estate tax. However, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does have a federal estate tax that applies to estates worth $13,990,000 or more in 2025. Estate planning allows the individual to incorporate strategies that can minimize or eliminate this estate tax, if it applies. If a loved one lives outside of Florida and may owe an inheritance tax in their state, estate planning may also help reduce or eliminate that tax. This allows the individual’s loved ones to receive more of the wealth being passed to them.
Ensure Privacy
Probate is a public process. This means that the individual’s estate and final wishes are accessible to anyone who wants to find the information. This includes details about which family members receive which assets. This can put those loved ones at risk from scammers. Some people also simply do not want that information available to everyone. A well-crafted estate plan can protect the deceased individual and their family’s privacy, ensuring that only those who need to know can access the details of the estate.
Control Your Legacy and Your Assets
Without an estate plan, an individual’s estate is subject to state intestacy laws. If a will is declared invalid, intestacy laws may also apply unless there is an older will that can be revived. Creating an estate plan can eliminate any possibility of this happening by ensuring that everything is legal and valid.
A well-crafted estate plan does not necessarily rely on a will as the sole or primary method of distributing assets. Instead, the plan uses trusts, transfer-on-death accounts, ladybird deeds, life insurance policies, beneficiary designations, business succession plans, and other methods for passing assets on to loved ones. This building block approach allows the individual to change specific components when needed rather than having to rewrite an entire will or rework their entire estate plan. For example, they can swap a beneficiary designation on a life insurance policy after the initial beneficiary has died without changing anything else in the plan. This allows more granular control over their estate, encouraging the individual to make necessary changes as needed rather than dreading making a simple change because it would require significant effort.
Care for Your Dependents
An estate plan allows parents or others who provide for dependents to ensure they are cared for. Parents can name a guardian for their children and create a trust to provide for their care or preserve an inheritance for when they become adults. Individuals who have other dependents, such as a disabled sibling or elderly parents, can also use their estate plan to ensure that their loved one is still cared for. The flexibility of trusts allows the individual to ensure they provide for their loved one while also indicating what should happen with the assets left for that loved one’s care, such as if the loved one should die before the care is needed or the assets have been depleted.
Plan for Business Succession
When someone owns a business, they must eventually plan to exit it. Even if they do not wish to leave the company, death, disability, or even divorce will ultimately force them to do so. An estate plan allows them to outline succession plans for their holdings and the business’s operations. They can create multiple plans, with one for their death, another for their disability, and so on.
By including business succession plans in their estate plan, the individual also ensures they have a clear plan to show their potential successors. For example, they can explain to their children how or when they will take over the business, particularly if more than one child may be involved. If their plan is for the business to be sold after their disability or death, they can outline to whom, or how, it should be sold. For example, they may have a business partner who should be offered the chance to buy their shares before offering them to others.
Care for Your Pet
Many people consider their pets to be family members and want to ensure that they are still cared for after the owner dies. FL. Stat. § 736.0408 provides that pet owners can create a trust to care for a pet that is alive during the individual’s lifetime. These trusts terminate upon the death of the animal or the death of the last animal when the trust is created to care for more than one animal. Many people opt to name one person as trustee of the pet’s trust and another person as the pet’s guardian to ensure their pet is taken care of out of love rather than a desire to access the trust, but there are many options for ensuring a pet is properly loved and cared for after the owner’s death in a carefully drafted estate plan.
Plan for Incapacity
Another benefit that many people do not consider when thinking about estate plans is the ability to plan for incapacity. This means filling out forms such as durable powers of attorney, living wills, or other advance directives that ensure the individual’s wishes are honored if they cannot speak for themselves. These documents would be used when the individual is incapacitated, such as being unconscious from an accident, under anesthesia, in a coma, or diagnosed with a terminal illness. An experienced estate planning attorney at Loughlin Law, P.A. may be able to assist you with completing these documents and reviewing your wishes with your loved ones.
When You Become a Legal Adult
Eighteen is the legal age of adulthood in Florida. Upon turning eighteen, individuals can work, drive, sign contracts, join the military, and do almost anything that adults can do (other than drinking alcohol). Many people at this age are caught up in the excitement of being a legal adult, often feel invincible, and do not consider the possibility that something may happen. They also frequently believe that because of their age and the seemingly meager accumulation of assets they have, there is no need for an estate plan.
However, everything an individual owns, including the clothes they wear, the car they drive, and gifts they have been given, is a part of their estate and should be protected with a plan. Even if their plan is as simple as writing a will to leave everything to their parents or a sibling, and putting advance directives in place for potential incapacity, new adults should consider creating an estate plan.
When You Get Married or Divorced
Any change in marital status warrants creating or revising an estate plan. Whether adding a new spouse upon marriage or removing a former spouse upon divorce, individuals will want to ensure their estate plan promises assets to the right people.
Even individuals who are not married but have a committed romantic partnership with someone should have an estate plan. In fact, if they have an unmarried partner, having an estate plan in place can be even more critical. Without one, any assets they may want to leave to that partner might go to the other family instead. Additionally, if the individual becomes incapacitated, their partner may have no say in what happens unless they have given the partner durable power of attorney and left other advance directives that offer guidance about their wishes.
When You Have Dependents
Most people think of minor children when they think of dependents. While that is the most common use of the word in this context, there are other dependents that an individual may have. Aging parents, disabled siblings, disabled adult children, aunts, uncles, nieces, or nephews may all be considered dependents. If they live with the individual and the individual provides support, they may want to include provisions in their estate plan. Pets may also be provided for in an estate plan.
When You Buy a House or Property
A common reason that people claim for not having an estate plan is that they do not own anything of value. While the value of an individual’s assets may play a role in estate planning, such as determining which strategies will best protect their assets, it is not a determining factor in whether they need an estate plan. In other words, no set value indicates when a person should create an estate plan.
However, the purchase of a house or other real estate is significant. Real estate is a significant investment for the individual, and in most cases, it will increase in value over time. Therefore, protecting that asset can be critical. An estate plan allows the individual to work with an attorney to determine the most suitable method for passing that real estate to loved ones after death. Many factors go into this determination, including whether the individual is married, whether there are other property owners, and whether the individual owns other real estate.
When Your Finances Change Significantly
People frequently claim a lack of wealth as a reason for not having an estate plan. Therefore, significant changes in finances, such as an inheritance, large lottery winnings, or increased income, are good times to create an estate plan. However, negative financial changes, such as a career change that reduces income or a significant investment loss, are good reasons to create or revise an estate plan.
When Family Circumstances Change
Whenever an individual’s family circumstances change, they should consider creating an estate plan or revising an existing one. This includes the births or adoption of children or grandchildren, the marriages or divorces of adult children or other beneficiaries, and beneficiaries’ deaths. Other changes in family circumstances that may warrant drafting or revising an estate plan include if a family member develops a gambling or substance addiction, incurs significant debts or liability that may put any inherited assets at risk in a lawsuit, or becomes disabled and requires government aid, such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income, which has resource limits and even a small inheritance may make them ineligible for that aid.
When Your Health Changes
Estate plans do not just dictate how an individual’s assets are distributed after death. Estate plans also allow the individual to express their wishes about medical care if they cannot express those wishes themselves. Durable powers of attorney, living wills, and other advance directives allow the individual to ensure that someone can speak on their behalf and make decisions about the medical care they receive, and to express their wishes about what kind of care they want to receive if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness and no longer able to indicate what they want, such as whether they wish to receive artificial hydration or nutrition or if they want mechanical ventilation if they are in a coma.
Therefore, if someone is diagnosed with a significant health change, they should consider creating an estate plan. Even if the change is not predicted to have immediate effects, the sooner they create a plan, the better. This allows them to be thoughtful and intentional about their wishes, and ensures that what they put in place cannot be disputed later by claiming they may not have been of sound mind.
How a Florida Estate Planning Attorney May Benefit You
Creating an estate plan does not require a special occasion. Any individual over eighteen should consider creating one to protect whatever assets you may have and ensure your wishes for medical care are honored, even if you cannot express those wishes yourself. However, certain life events are good times to create or revise an estate plan. A skilled Florida estate planning attorney at Loughlin Law, P.A., may be able to assist with determining what strategies are most suited to your estate, drawing up advance directives, and ensuring everything is in order before the inevitable happens. Call (561) 677-8384 to schedule an appointment and discuss your estate planning needs.
