Florida’s Intestate Succession Laws Provide For The Decedent’s Surviving Spouse And For The Children From A Previous Marriage

For the past several years, journalists and social media content creators have earned their bread and butter by writing about how today’s young adults can’t be bothered with so many of the things that their parents spent no effort in pursuing.  Fewer people are interested in having children, getting a driver’s license, or owning a house, and some of them openly declare that work and career goals are a low priority for them.  If you work hard all your life and end up living paycheck to paycheck and estranged from your family, then why exhaust yourself by putting forward all of that effort?  The more thoughtful among them speculate about how this will affect the retirement and estate planning strategies of Generation Z, assuming that planet Earth can still support human life by the time they reach retirement age.  Perhaps they will take the quiet quitting approach to estate planning, and come to think of it, maybe you should, too.  To engage in this and other thought experiments about how various decisions you make now will affect the ones you love after you die, contact a Tampa estate planning lawyer.

Can You Avoid the Stepparent Wars by Doing Nothing?

The motivation to write a will often comes from the fear that probate of your estate under the laws of intestate succession will be disastrous for your family.  Therefore, writing a will is an easy fix if, for example, you want your siblings to inherit some of your property even though you also have a spouse and children.  The people who stress the most about estate planning are those who married late in life and also have children from a previous marriage.

Believe it or not, the laws of intestate succession are not simply a fast track to the stepparent wars; they propose a solution where both sides of the family get their share of your estate.  If you die without a will, the state will divide your estate among your closest relatives, according to the laws of intestate succession.  If your closest surviving relatives are your spouse and children, and your spouse is a stepparent, as opposed to a legal parent, to at least one of your children, then your spouse inherits half of your estate, and the probate court divides the other half equally among your children.

If this is not what you want, you should write a will, indicating who inherits what.  If you fear that the mere existence of a will is not enough to prevent conflict between your spouse and children over your estate, you should also draft a postnuptial agreement with your spouse, if you do not already have a prenup.  It is also helpful to set up a trust for the benefit of your children and another for your spouse.

Contact David Toback About Estate Planning for Conflict Averse People

A Central Florida estate planning lawyer can help you draft an estate plan that requires as little confrontation with your family as possible.  Contact David Toback in Tampa, Florida to set up a consultation.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0732/0732.html