Estate Planning & Business Succession
A plan that keeps your family out of probate court, keeps your affairs private, and keeps your business running if you are not there to run it.
Trust-based planning, built to actually work.
- Revocable living trusts. The core of most plans we build, and the reason your family can avoid Florida probate entirely.
- Pour-over wills. The backstop that catches anything not titled in the trust.
- Durable powers of attorney. So someone can act for you financially if you cannot, without a guardianship proceeding.
- Health care surrogate and living will. So your medical wishes are known and someone has the authority to carry them out.
- Trust funding. Retitling assets into the trust. This is the step that gets skipped, and an unfunded trust does almost nothing.
- Business succession planning. Coordinating your operating agreement with your estate plan so the business survives the transition.
A will is not an estate plan
This is the single most common misunderstanding we correct. A will does not avoid probate. It is a letter to the probate judge explaining how you want your estate distributed, and the estate still has to go through the court to get there. If avoiding probate matters to you, and for most Florida families it does, the plan has to be built around a funded trust.
If you own a business, the two plans are one plan
An estate plan that ignores your company and an operating agreement that ignores your death will contradict each other at the worst possible moment. We draft them to work together. If you have not yet formed or cleaned up the entity itself, that is business formation and governance.
When a plan is eventually administered, that work is trust administration. When there is no plan, it is probate.
Your investment
Recommended for most Florida families
Trust-Based Estate Plan
Starting at
$3,500
Plus applicable recording and administrative fees
A Florida estate plan built around a revocable living trust, designed to help your family avoid probate.
Request a consultationWill-Based Estate Plan
Starting at
$1,500
Plus applicable recording and administrative fees
A Florida estate plan built around a will, for clients whose needs are straightforward.
Request a consultationStarting investments reflect attorney fees. Your final investment depends on the scope of your matter and is confirmed in a written engagement agreement before any work begins.
Common questions
Does a will avoid probate in Florida?
No. A will is a set of instructions for the probate court, so an estate passing under a will still goes through probate. Avoiding probate generally requires a funded revocable living trust or another non-probate transfer.
Why do most of your plans use a trust instead of just a will?
Because a funded revocable living trust keeps the estate out of probate, stays private rather than becoming a public court record, and works if you become incapacitated rather than only at death. A will does none of those three things.
What documents are in a typical Florida estate plan?
Usually a revocable living trust, a pour-over will, a durable power of attorney, a designation of health care surrogate, and a living will. The trust only works if it is actually funded, which is the step most plans get wrong.
What is business succession planning?
It is the plan for what happens to your business when you retire, become incapacitated or die. For most Florida owners it means coordinating the operating agreement, the estate plan and often insurance, so the business can keep operating and your family is not negotiating with your partners during a funeral.
In our clients’ words.
★★★★★
“We have a blended family so our situation is a bit more complex and Kristen did a great job structuring our trust and estate plan so everything was clear, everyone was protected, and we had a plan in place to help avoid probate.”
★★★★★
“She really listened to our goals and ideas, explained the pros and cons of different options, and offered several recommendations for how to structure the trust to best accomplish what we wanted.”
★★★★★
“She also kept the process moving without making us feel rushed to make these big decisions…everything felt very organized and smooth.”
Put it in place while it is easy.
Estate planning is the only legal work that gets harder the longer you wait and impossible at exactly the wrong moment.