Living Trust in Florida: Cost, Rules & How It Works (2026)

Q: What Is a Living Trust in Florida?

A living trust in Florida — also called an inter vivos trust, a revocable living trust, or in Spanish a fideicomiso en vida — is a private written agreement between you and a trustee. You are the grantor (Florida's Trust Code calls you the settlor). In almost every Florida plan you are also the initial trustee, so nothing about your daily life changes: you keep signing, selling, spending, refinancing and investing exactly as before. What changes is title. Assets you retitle into the trust are owned by "the Revocable Trust dated " instead of by you individually. When you die, those assets do not belong to a dead person, so there is nothing for a probate court to transfer. Your successor trustee steps in and distributes them under the terms you wrote. Florida living trusts are governed by the Florida Trust Code, Chapter 736, Florida Statutes. Section 736.0402 sets out what it takes to create a trust at all: you must have capacity, you must intend to create a trust, there must be a definite beneficiary, the trustee must have duties to perform, and the same person cannot be both sole trustee and sole beneficiary.

Q: How Does a Living Trust Work in Florida?

A Florida living trust operates in three distinct phases, and most of the confusion about trusts comes from blurring them together.

Q: Does putting your house in a trust destroy the creditor protection?

No. Article X, section 4(a) exempts homestead "owned by a natural person," and Florida appellate courts have consistently held that a home held in your own revocable trust is still owned by a natural person — because you retained the right to revoke, you can revest title in yourself at any moment, and you therefore never gave up ownership in any meaningful sense. The leading case is Engelke v. Estate of Engelke, 921 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006). The Fourth District held that a residence held in a revocable living trust was constitutionally protected homestead and could not be sold to pay the claims and expenses of the grantor's estate, reasoning that the decedent "retained all control over his homestead during his lifetime, conveying no vested property interest in the homestead to the trust." The Third District reached the same conclusion in Cutler v. Cutler, 994 So. 2d 341 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008), confirming that the Florida Constitution does not limit the form of ownership that can qualify. The Second District reaffirmed the rule most recently in Schiro v. Elliott, No. 2D2025-2366 (Fla. 2d DCA May 29, 2026), holding that when real property is held in a revocable trust it is owned

Q: Can you leave your Florida homestead to anyone you want?

Not if you are survived by a spouse or a minor child. Article X, section 4(c) provides that homestead "shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child, except the homestead may be devised to the owner's spouse if there be no minor child." Many people assume a trust sidesteps this. It does not. Section 732.4015(2) closes the door in two moves: § 732.4015(2)(a) — "Owner" includes the grantor of a trust described in s. 733.707(3), i.e. a revocable trust, "as if the interest held in trust was owned by the grantor." § 732.4015(2)(b) — "Devise" includes a disposition by trust of the portion of the trust estate that, if titled in the grantor's name, would be the grantor's homestead. The Third District confirmed the point in Aronson v. Aronson, 81 So. 3d 515 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), holding that the Legislature made clear the constitutional restriction applies equally to property held by a revocable trust as to a testamentary bequest. Because the decedent was survived by a spouse and the condominium was held in his trust, the surviving spouse took a life estate, the sons took a vested remainder, and the sons as trustees had no power to sell or transfer

Q: What should you not put in a living trust?

Qualified retirement accounts. Retitling an IRA or 401(k) into a trust is treated as a distribution of the whole account. Name a beneficiary instead. Health savings accounts. Same problem. Use the beneficiary designation. Vehicles you drive daily, in many cases — some insurers price trust-titled vehicles differently, and Florida's small-estate procedures can handle them. Property you are about to sell, if the closing is imminent and retitling would just complicate the settlement. Assets already carrying a good beneficiary designation, where the designation accomplishes the same result more simply. Accounts you actively use for a business with third-party payment processors, until you have confirmed the processor will accept the retitling.

A living trust in Florida is a written agreement you sign during your lifetime that takes title to what you own. You stay in complete control of everything while you are alive and competent. When you die, the person you named steps in and distributes it — without probate, without a courtroom, and without your family waiting months on a judge.

Almost every one of these is a revocable living trust, revocable because you can change it or tear it up whenever you like. Set up correctly, it is the most reliable way to avoid probate in Florida and keep your affairs out of the public record. It also does something a will simply cannot: if you lose capacity, your successor trustee takes over the same week, and nobody has to petition a court for a guardianship.

It is also the estate planning tool most often sold badly. A trust that is signed but never funded avoids nothing at all, and Florida courts have refused to repair that after the fact. A trust drafted from a national form can be void as to everything it was meant to accomplish at your death, because Florida living trust laws require two witnesses that most out-of-state templates never mention. And a trust that mishandles your Florida homestead can strip away the constitutional protection your home has carried for decades.

So this guide answers what people actually search for. What a Florida revocable trust does and does not do. How much a living trust costs in Florida. Living trust vs. will. Whether you should put your house in one. How to fund it, asset by asset. What your trustee has to file, and by when. And the downsides, which nobody else seems willing to list.

Every legal statement below rests on the Florida Trust Code — Chapter 736 — the Florida Constitution, or a Florida appellate decision, and each citation links to the primary source so you can read it for yourself.

It is written by a practicing Florida trust attorney, not by a marketing department. If you have been searching for a living trust attorney or a trust lawyer near me, read the section on what a trust does not do before you call anyone — including us. It is the fastest way to tell whether the person across the desk is advising you or selling you.

¿Prefiere leer esta guía en español? Vea Fideicomiso Revocable en Vida en Florida.

Written by Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq., Florida Bar No. 107002 — probate, trust and estate counsel serving clients throughout Florida. Reviewed and current as of September 2026.

Key Takeaways

Table of Contents

A living trust in Florida avoids probate only for assets actually retitled into it. An unfunded trust avoids nothing, and Florida courts have refused to fix that after the fact.
The execution statute is Fla. Stat. § 736.0403(2)(b), not § 736.0402. The testamentary parts of a Florida revocable trust must be signed with will formalities — two attesting witnesses. A notary is not required for validity.
A revocable trust gives you no creditor protection during your lifetime. Section 736.0505(1)(a) says so directly.
After your death your trust is liable for the expenses and enforceable claims of your estate if the probate estate cannot cover them — § 733.707(3), § 733.607(2) and § 736.05053.
A living trust is private, but not secret. Your trustee must file a Notice of Trust with the court after you die (§ 736.05055) and must give your beneficiaries a copy of the trust on request (§ 736.0813).
Your Florida homestead keeps its constitutional protection from creditors inside a revocable trust — but only if it passes to an heir. Leave it to a friend or a charity and the protection is gone.
A revocable trust cannot disinherit your spouse. Trust assets are pulled into the elective estate by § 732.2035(5).
Florida raised the summary administration threshold from $75,000 to $150,000 effective July 1, 2026 (§ 735.201). Many pages still publish the old number.

What Is a Living Trust in Florida?

A living trust in Florida — also called an inter vivos trust, a revocable living trust, or in Spanish a fideicomiso en vida — is a private written agreement between you and a trustee. You are the grantor (Florida’s Trust Code calls you the settlor). In almost every Florida plan you are also the initial trustee, so nothing about your daily life changes: you keep signing, selling, spending, refinancing and investing exactly as before.

What changes is title. Assets you retitle into the trust are owned by “the [Your Name] Revocable Trust dated [date]” instead of by you individually. When you die, those assets do not belong to a dead person, so there is nothing for a probate court to transfer. Your successor trustee steps in and distributes them under the terms you wrote.

Florida living trusts are governed by the Florida Trust Code, Chapter 736, Florida Statutes. Section 736.0402 sets out what it takes to create a trust at all: you must have capacity, you must intend to create a trust, there must be a definite beneficiary, the trustee must have duties to perform, and the same person cannot be both sole trustee and sole beneficiary.

The terms you need to know

Term	What it means in a Florida living trust
Grantor / Settlor	You — the person who creates and funds the trust. Chapter 736 uses “settlor.”
Trustee	Whoever holds legal title and manages the assets. Normally you, during your life.
Successor trustee	The person or institution that takes over on your incapacity or death.
Beneficiary	Anyone entitled to receive from the trust. During your life, that is you.
Qualified beneficiary	A defined class under § 736.0103(19) that your trustee must notify and account to after your death.
Funding	Retitling assets into the trust’s name. Without it the trust is an empty container.
Trust corpus / res	The property the trust actually holds.
Pour-over will	A short will that sweeps anything you missed into the trust — through probate.
Revocable	You may amend or revoke at any time. The default in Florida under § 736.0602(1) for trusts created on or after July 1, 2007.
Irrevocable	You give up control. Different tool, different purpose — see below.
Protected homestead	Defined at § 731.201(33). Florida’s constitutional homestead, with its own rules.
Notice of Trust	The public court filing your trustee must make after you die — § 736.05055.
Certification of trust	A short summary you give a bank instead of the whole trust — § 736.1017.

How Does a Living Trust Work in Florida?

A Florida living trust operates in three distinct phases, and most of the confusion about trusts comes from blurring them together.

Phase 1 — While you are alive and well

You sign the trust, you serve as your own trustee, and you retitle your assets into it. You keep every power you had before: buy, sell, mortgage, spend, invest, amend the trust, or tear it up entirely. For income tax purposes the trust is a grantor trust — it uses your Social Security number, files no separate return, and changes nothing on your Form 1040. Your homestead exemption, your Save Our Homes cap, and your creditor protections all continue, subject to the rules in the homestead section below.

Phase 2 — If you become incapacitated

This is the phase people underestimate. If you own everything in your own name and you lose capacity, your family may have to petition a court for a guardianship — an expensive, public, ongoing court proceeding with annual reporting. If the same assets sit in your trust, your named successor trustee simply begins acting under the authority you already gave them. No petition, no examining committee, no judge. Avoiding guardianship is, for many Florida families, a more valuable benefit than avoiding probate.

Phase 3 — After you die

Your revocable trust becomes irrevocable. Your successor trustee accepts the role, notifies your qualified beneficiaries within 60 days, files a Notice of Trust with the clerk, obtains a tax ID number, gathers and values the assets, deals with debts and taxes, distributes what remains, and accounts. That sequence, with every deadline, is set out in full further down this page — it is the part almost no one publishes, and it is the part your family will actually live through.

What a Florida Living Trust Does Not Do

Start here, not with the benefits. Most bad trust outcomes in Florida come from a client who believed one of the following.

The belief	The reality	Authority
“A trust protects my assets from lawsuits and creditors.”	False for a revocable trust. Everything in it is reachable by your creditors during your lifetime exactly as if you still owned it outright. Property that would be exempt if you owned it directly — homestead, annuities, qualified retirement accounts — stays exempt; nothing else gains protection.	§ 736.0505(1)(a)
“A trust protects assets from my creditors after I die.”	No. If your probate estate cannot pay the expenses of administration and enforceable claims, your trustee must pay them from the trust on the personal representative’s written certification.	§ 733.707(3); § 736.05053
“A trust saves estate tax.”	No. Because you kept the power to revoke, everything in the trust is in your gross estate for federal estate tax. A revocable trust is tax-neutral by design.	IRC §§ 2036, 2038
“A trust saves income tax.”	No. It is a grantor trust while you live. Same return, same rates, same Social Security number.	IRC §§ 671–679
“A trust lets me disinherit my spouse.”	No. Revocable trust property is expressly pulled into the elective estate, and the elective share is 30%.	§ 732.2035(5); § 732.2065
“A trust lets me leave my house to whomever I want.”	Not if you are survived by a spouse or minor child. The constitutional restriction on devising homestead applies to trust dispositions word for word.	§ 732.4015(2)
“A trust helps me qualify for Medicaid.”	No. Assets you can reach are assets Medicaid counts. A revocable trust does nothing for long-term-care eligibility.	42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)
“A trust is completely private and never touches a courthouse.”	Not quite. The trust document itself is not filed, but a Notice of Trust is a mandatory public filing, and your beneficiaries have an enforceable right to a copy of the whole instrument.	§ 736.05055; § 736.0813
“A trust means no probate at all, guaranteed.”	Only for funded assets. Anything left in your own name at death still goes through probate, and a probate is often opened deliberately to cut the creditor window from two years to three months.	§ 733.702; § 733.710
“A trust can’t be contested, and my no-contest clause will stop them.”	No. Florida makes penalty clauses for contesting a trust unenforceable.	§ 736.1108

If asset protection is the goal, a revocable trust is the wrong instrument. Florida’s real asset-protection tools are the homestead exemption under Article X, section 4 of the state constitution, tenancy by the entireties for married couples, statutorily exempt assets such as annuities and qualified plans, and — in the right circumstances — a properly structured irrevocable trust. Those are separate engagements with separate rules.

Living Trust vs. Will in Florida: Which Do You Actually Need?

This is the most searched question on the topic. People phrase it as living trust vs will, trust vs will, will vs living trust, or living will vs living trust — and the last of those is a different question entirely, covered further down. The honest answer to the real one is that most Florida families with a home need both a trust and a will: the trust for the assets, and a pour-over will as the safety net and as the only place you can name a guardian for your children.

	Florida Will	Florida Revocable Living Trust
Probate required?	Yes. A will is an instruction manual for probate — it does not avoid it.	No, for assets actually retitled into the trust.
Public record?	Yes. The will is filed and becomes public.	The instrument stays private; only a Notice of Trust is filed.
Works if you become incapacitated?	No. A will does nothing until you die.	Yes. Successor trustee steps in immediately.
Can name a guardian for minor children?	Yes — only a will can do this.	No.
Covers out-of-state real estate?	No — triggers a separate ancillary probate in that state.	Yes, if the out-of-state property is deeded into the trust.
Upfront cost	Lower.	Higher, and requires funding work.
Cost and delay at death	Higher — attorney’s fees, filing fees, months of court supervision.	Lower — administration, not litigation.
Execution formalities	Two witnesses (§ 732.502).	Two witnesses for the testamentary parts (§ 736.0403(2)(b)).
Protects from creditors?	No.	No.
Can be contested?	Yes.	Yes.

When a will alone is genuinely enough

You rent, or your only real estate is a Florida homestead that will pass to your spouse.
Your accounts already have valid payable-on-death or transfer-on-death designations and your beneficiaries are adults you trust with a lump sum.
Your total non-exempt probate estate is comfortably under the $150,000 summary administration threshold in § 735.201.
You have no blended-family, special-needs, incapacity, or out-of-state property complications.

When a trust earns its cost

You own real estate in more than one state — the trust replaces two or three probates with one administration.
You have a blended family and want your children protected after your spouse.
You want controlled distributions — at ages, in stages, or for stated purposes — rather than a lump sum to a 22-year-old.
A beneficiary has special needs, a creditor problem, an addiction, or a shaky marriage.
Incapacity is a realistic risk and you want to keep your family out of a guardianship court.
You expect conflict, and you would rather your family administer than litigate.
You value privacy — you do not want your assets and beneficiaries indexed in a public court file.

Revocable vs. Irrevocable Trust in Florida

“Living trust” describes when a trust is created — during your life. “Revocable” describes whether you can change it. Nearly every Florida living trust is revocable, which is why the terms get used interchangeably. But the difference is the entire point.

	Revocable Living Trust	Irrevocable Trust
Can you change it?	Yes, any time you have capacity.	Generally no — that is the trade.
Who controls the assets?	You.	An independent trustee.
Creditor protection	None (§ 736.0505(1)(a)).	Potentially substantial, depending on structure.
Estate tax	Assets remain in your taxable estate.	Properly structured, assets can be removed.
Income tax	Grantor trust — your SSN, your 1040.	Often a separate taxpayer filing Form 1041.
Medicaid planning	No benefit.	Possible, subject to the five-year lookback.
Avoids probate	Yes, if funded.	Yes, if funded.
Typical use	Probate avoidance, incapacity planning, privacy, controlled distribution.	Asset protection, estate tax reduction, Medicaid, life insurance, special needs.

Florida does allow changes to irrevocable trusts in defined circumstances — decanting under § 736.04117, nonjudicial modification under § 736.0412, and judicial modification or termination under § 736.04113. “Irrevocable” is not always permanent, but you should never sign one assuming it can be undone.

Living Trust vs. Living Will vs. Will: Three Different Documents

These three get confused constantly, and the confusion is understandable — two of them contain the word “living” and two contain the word “will.” They do completely unrelated jobs, and you almost certainly need all three.

	Living Trust	Living Will	Last Will and Testament
What it does	Holds and distributes your property	States your wishes about end-of-life medical treatment	Directs who receives your property through probate
When it operates	From signing, through incapacity, and after death	Only while you are alive and cannot speak for yourself	Only after death
Involves money?	Yes — that is its entire function	No. It has nothing to do with property	Yes
Avoids probate?	Yes, for funded assets	Not applicable	No
Names a guardian for your children?	No	No	Yes — only the will can
Typical cost	Part of a trust-based plan	Usually included in any estate plan at little or no separate cost	Lower than a trust

A living will is an advance directive under Chapter 765 — it tells your physicians and your health care surrogate what you want if you are terminally ill, end-stage, or in a persistent vegetative state. It never touches a dollar of your estate. If you are here because you searched for the cost of a living will in Florida, that is a different and much smaller question, and we cover it at what is a living will in Florida. A living will is normally bundled into an estate plan rather than priced separately.

A complete Florida plan for most families is: a funded revocable living trust, a pour-over will, a durable power of attorney, a designation of health care surrogate, a living will, and a HIPAA release. Missing any one of them leaves a gap somebody eventually has to go to court to fill.

What Types of Trusts Do Florida Families Use?

“Trust” is a category, not a product. These are the trusts that come up most often in Florida planning, and knowing which is which will save you a wasted consultation.

Type of trust	What it is for
Revocable living trust	The workhorse. Probate avoidance, incapacity planning, privacy, controlled distribution. Fully changeable. This page is about this one.
Irrevocable trust	Asset protection, estate tax reduction, Medicaid planning. You give up control in exchange.
Testamentary trust	Created by your will, so it comes into existence only after probate. Useful, but it does not avoid probate.
Joint trust (married couples)	One trust for both spouses. Simple and common in first marriages with aligned goals.
Separate trusts (married couples)	One each. Usually right for blended families, unequal assets, or tax planning.
Marital / QTIP trust	Provides for a surviving spouse for life while preserving the remainder for your children — the standard blended-family answer.
Credit shelter (bypass) trust	Preserves a deceased spouse’s federal estate tax exclusion. Relevant only to larger estates.
“Family trust”	Not a legal term of art. People usually mean a revocable living trust for a family, or the credit shelter share inside one. Ask what someone means before you agree to it.
Special needs trust	Provides for a disabled beneficiary without displacing SSI or Medicaid. See Florida special needs trusts.
Spendthrift trust	Not a separate trust — a provision under § 736.0502 restraining a beneficiary’s creditors and their own poor judgment.
Dynasty trust	A long-duration trust designed to pass wealth across generations without repeated transfer taxation. Florida’s rule against perpetuities permits very long terms.
Irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT)	Holds a life insurance policy so the death benefit sits outside your taxable estate.
Qualified income trust (Miller trust)	An elder-law tool that lets an applicant whose income exceeds the Florida Medicaid cap still qualify for long-term care benefits. Nothing to do with probate avoidance.
Medicaid asset protection trust	An irrevocable trust used in advance of need, subject to the five-year lookback.
Community property trust	An elective trust under §§ 736.1501–736.1512 for a double basis step-up. See below.
Florida land trust	A title-holding vehicle under § 689.071, used for privacy in real estate. Not an estate plan. See Florida land trusts.
Personal property trust	The same land-trust concept applied to personal property — vehicles, vessels, aircraft, notes — again for privacy of ownership rather than estate planning.
Gun trust	Holds NFA-regulated firearms so possession and transfer comply with federal law and the items pass without probate exposure.
Pet trust	Authorized by § 736.0408 — funds the care of an animal alive during your lifetime.
Charitable remainder trust	Pays you income for a term or life, with the remainder to charity.

How Much Does a Living Trust Cost in Florida?

Most Florida firms will not publish a number. Here are ours, as flat fees, so you can compare before you call anyone.

Plan	Flat fee	What is included
Individual trust-based plan	$2,500 – $3,500	Revocable living trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, designation of health care surrogate, living will, HIPAA release, one deed transferring your Florida homestead into the trust, and a written funding roadmap for your accounts.
Married couple’s plan	$3,500 – $5,000	Everything above for both spouses — joint or separate trusts depending on your situation — plus coordination of beneficiary designations.
Complex planning	$5,500+	Blended families, special needs sub-trusts, business interests, out-of-state or foreign property, tax-sensitive estates, creditor-aware structuring, community property trusts.
Additional Florida deed	$675	Each additional Florida parcel deeded into the trust, recording included.
Online form / DIY kit	$0 – $500	Document only. No advice, no funding, no homestead analysis, no execution supervision — see the section on why these fail in Florida.

What actually moves the price: the number and type of assets, whether real property is involved and in how many states, whether your family structure is blended, whether a beneficiary needs protected distributions, whether business interests must be assigned, and whether tax planning is required. Drafting and signing typically takes two to three weeks from your first meeting. Funding — the part that determines whether any of it works — takes longer, because banks and transfer agents move at their own pace.

What is the cheapest way to do a living trust — and is it worth it?

The cheapest way is an online template, at roughly $0 to $500. The honest assessment is that in Florida this is usually the most expensive option, because the savings are realized today and the cost is paid by your family later, when the only remedy is litigation. The three specific ways a cheap Florida trust fails are execution (the two-witness rule), homestead (the devise restriction and the life-interest clause), and funding (nobody deeds the house). None of those show up until you are gone.

If money is genuinely tight, the better sequence is not a cheap trust. It is a properly drafted will, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation and living will — and a lady bird deed for the home, which handles Florida real estate for a few hundred dollars and passes it outside probate. That combination costs a fraction of a trust and covers most of what a modest Florida estate actually needs. A trust is worth its price when the complexity is real.

What probate would cost instead

A trust is not an expense in isolation; it is a comparison. Florida’s presumed-reasonable attorney fee schedule for a formal probate administration sits at § 733.6171, and the personal representative is entitled to a separate commission under § 733.617. On top of that come clerk filing fees, publication of the notice to creditors, certified copies, bond if required, and appraisals.

County	Formal administration filing fee	Summary administration filing fee
Miami-Dade	$401	$346
Broward	$401	$346
Palm Beach	$401	$346
Orange	$400	$345

Filing fees are the small part. The two real costs of probate are time — a Florida formal administration commonly runs six months to well over a year, longer if anyone objects — and exposure: everything filed is public, and a public file is where will contests start. See our detailed breakdown at the cost of probate in Florida and the Florida probate process.

Summary administration is now $150,000

Effective July 1, 2026, Florida doubled the threshold for summary administration from $75,000 to $150,000 in non-exempt assets, by chapter 2026-57, Laws of Florida, amending § 735.201. The Florida Supreme Court conformed Florida Probate Rule 5.530 on July 16, 2026, and raised the disposition-without-administration ceiling in Rule 5.425 from $10,000 to $20,000 in the same opinion.

This matters directly to trust planning. The threshold excludes exempt property and excludes anything already inside your trust — so a well-funded trust with a small forgotten bank account will now very often qualify for the streamlined summary procedure instead of a full formal administration. Note that most published guidance on Florida trusts, including some very prominent pages, still quotes the old $75,000 figure.

Legal Requirements for a Living Trust in Florida

Florida separates two questions that are constantly confused: what it takes to create a trust, and what it takes to execute one.

Creation — § 736.0402

Section 736.0402 requires that the settlor have capacity, indicate an intent to create the trust, name a definite beneficiary (or create a charitable, animal, or noncharitable-purpose trust), give the trustee duties to perform, and avoid making the same person sole trustee and sole beneficiary. This is the substance. It is not the execution statute, and a page that tells you § 736.0402 governs how you sign your trust is citing the wrong section.

Execution — § 736.0403(2)(b), and the two-witness rule

The controlling provision is Fla. Stat. § 736.0403(2)(b): the testamentary aspects of a revocable trust executed by a settlor who is a Florida domiciliary at the time of execution are invalid unless the instrument is executed with the formalities required for the execution of a will in Florida. “Testamentary aspects” means the provisions that dispose of trust property at or after your death to anyone other than your estate — which is essentially the whole dispositive plan of any living trust.

Those will formalities are in § 732.502:

You must sign at the end of the document (or direct someone to sign your name in your presence);
Your signature or your acknowledgment of it must be made in the presence of at least two attesting witnesses; and
Those witnesses must sign in your presence and in the presence of each other.

A notary is not required for your trust to be valid. This is one of the most commonly repeated errors about Florida trusts, and you will find it stated wrongly in AI-generated answers. Notarization matters for two other things: the self-proving affidavit under § 732.503, which lets the document be proved later without hunting down your witnesses, and remote online notarization of an electronic instrument under § 117.285. And separately, the deed that moves your house into the trust does require acknowledgment before a notary in order to be recorded.

These formalities cannot be waived by anything written in the trust: § 736.0105(2) lists them among the mandatory rules of the Trust Code.

What happens if the formalities are missed

Only the testamentary aspects fail — the trust survives as a valid inter vivos instrument. But the testamentary aspects are the reason you made the trust, so in practical terms the plan collapses and the property falls back into your probate estate, passing under your will or by intestacy.

Florida courts apply this strictly. In Kelly v. Lindenau, 223 So. 3d 1074 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017), amendments to a trust were signed in front of two people but signed by only one witness. The Second District held the amendments invalid, refused to fix the defect through reformation under § 736.0415 — because reformation addresses mistakes in the terms of a trust, not errors in how it was signed — and declined to impose a constructive trust to rescue the intended beneficiary. The same principle voided an amendment changing charitable remaindermen in Greensburg Public Library v. Alzheimer’s Lifeliners Ass’n, 787 So. 2d 947 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001).

One additional requirement applies to real estate. Under § 689.05 — Florida’s statute of frauds for trusts of land, preserved by § 736.0403(2)(a) — a declaration or creation of a trust in Florida real property must be manifested by a signed writing or it is “utterly void and of none effect.” That threshold requires a signature, not witnesses; but for a Florida domiciliary’s living trust holding a Florida home, both § 689.05 and § 736.0403(2)(b) have to be satisfied.

Your Florida Homestead and Your Living Trust

This is the section that separates a Florida trust from a trust drafted anywhere else, and it is the area where do-it-yourself trusts and out-of-state forms cause the most damage. Florida homestead is really three separate protections that live in different parts of the law and answer to different rules:

Protection from forced sale by creditors — Art. X, § 4(a) and (b), Florida Constitution.
Restrictions on who you can leave it to — Art. X, § 4(c), and § 732.4015.
The property tax exemption and the Save Our Homes cap — Art. VII, § 6, § 196.031, § 196.041 and § 193.155.

Putting your house in a trust affects all three, in different ways.

Does putting your house in a trust destroy the creditor protection?

No. Article X, section 4(a) exempts homestead “owned by a natural person,” and Florida appellate courts have consistently held that a home held in your own revocable trust is still owned by a natural person — because you retained the right to revoke, you can revest title in yourself at any moment, and you therefore never gave up ownership in any meaningful sense.

The leading case is Engelke v. Estate of Engelke, 921 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006). The Fourth District held that a residence held in a revocable living trust was constitutionally protected homestead and could not be sold to pay the claims and expenses of the grantor’s estate, reasoning that the decedent “retained all control over his homestead during his lifetime, conveying no vested property interest in the homestead to the trust.” The Third District reached the same conclusion in Cutler v. Cutler, 994 So. 2d 341 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008), confirming that the Florida Constitution does not limit the form of ownership that can qualify. The Second District reaffirmed the rule most recently in Schiro v. Elliott, No. 2D2025-2366 (Fla. 2d DCA May 29, 2026), holding that when real property is held in a revocable trust it is owned by a natural person for purposes of the constitutional homestead exemption, and rejecting judgment creditors’ attempt to reach it.

The Trust Code confirms the result from the other direction. Section 736.0505(1)(a) exposes revocable trust property to your creditors only “to the extent the property would not otherwise be exempt by law if owned directly by the settlor” — and homestead is exempt if owned directly. The exemption follows the property into the trust.

The debt-payment clause trap

Nearly every trust contains boilerplate directing the trustee to pay the grantor’s debts and final expenses. Read literally, that language could be used to argue the homestead must be sold. Florida law says otherwise.

Section 736.1109(2) provides that “a power of sale or general direction to pay debts, expenses, and claims within the trust instrument does not subject an interest in the protected homestead to the claims of decedent’s creditors, expenses of administration, and obligations of the decedent’s estate.” That codifies Engelke, and the Legislature made it expressly retroactive — § 736.1109(5) applies it to decedents who died before, on, or after July 1, 2021.

But there is a limit worth knowing, and it is why trust language still matters: § 736.1109(3) provides that if the trust specifically directs the sale of property that would otherwise be protected homestead, and the property is not subject to the constitutional devise restrictions, title stays in the trustee under the trust’s terms. A general direction to pay debts is harmless. A specific direction to sell the homestead is not. Out-of-state forms sometimes contain exactly that language.

The non-heir trap — the mistake almost nobody warns you about

Here is the single most expensive homestead error we see in Florida trusts, and you will not find it discussed on competing pages.

Article X, section 4(b) says the homestead exemption from forced sale “shall inure to the surviving spouse or heirs of the owner.” In Snyder v. Davis, 699 So. 2d 999 (Fla. 1997), the Florida Supreme Court held that “heirs” means anyone within the class of persons described in Florida’s intestacy statute, § 732.103 — not merely the person who would actually inherit — and that the term includes devisees, so choosing to leave the homestead to a family member does not destroy its protection. The Third District had put the test memorably in Bartelt v. Bartelt, 579 So. 2d 282 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991): the question “is not how title was devolved, but rather to whom it passed.”

That principle reaches trust beneficiaries. In HCA Gulf Coast Hospital v. Estate of Downing, 594 So. 2d 774 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991), the First District held the homestead exemption inured to a beneficiary of a spendthrift trust who would have been entitled to claim homestead protection had title passed to her directly, because Article X, section 4 “defines the class of persons to whom the decedent’s exemption from forced sale of homestead property inures; it does not mandate the technique by which the qualified person must receive title.” Schiro v. Elliott applied exactly that reasoning in 2026 to pass the protection to a settlor’s adult children through her revocable trust.

Now the trap. If your trust leaves the homestead to someone outside the § 732.103 intestacy class — a friend, an unmarried partner, a caregiver, a church, a charity, a former stepchild you never adopted — the constitutional creditor protection does not inure. The home becomes an ordinary asset available to pay your creditors and the expenses of your estate. The First District confirmed the result in the will context in Webb v. Blue, 243 So. 3d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018), and the analysis turns on who receives the property, not on the instrument used to give it.

So a Florida homeowner with significant debt who leaves the house to a partner rather than a child may hand the creditors the very asset the constitution was written to shield. That outcome is entirely avoidable — but only if someone identifies it before the trust is signed.

Can you leave your Florida homestead to anyone you want?

Not if you are survived by a spouse or a minor child. Article X, section 4(c) provides that homestead “shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child, except the homestead may be devised to the owner’s spouse if there be no minor child.”

Many people assume a trust sidesteps this. It does not. Section 732.4015(2) closes the door in two moves:

§ 732.4015(2)(a) — “Owner” includes the grantor of a trust described in s. 733.707(3), i.e. a revocable trust, “as if the interest held in trust was owned by the grantor.”
§ 732.4015(2)(b) — “Devise” includes a disposition by trust of the portion of the trust estate that, if titled in the grantor’s name, would be the grantor’s homestead.

The Third District confirmed the point in Aronson v. Aronson, 81 So. 3d 515 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), holding that the Legislature made clear the constitutional restriction applies equally to property held by a revocable trust as to a testamentary bequest. Because the decedent was survived by a spouse and the condominium was held in his trust, the surviving spouse took a life estate, the sons took a vested remainder, and the sons as trustees had no power to sell or transfer the property.

What happens if the trust violates the restriction

The trust disposition is void, and title passes by operation of law. Section 736.1109(1) provides that if a devise of homestead under a trust violates Art. X, § 4(c), “title shall pass as provided in s. 732.401 at the moment of death.” Nothing in the trust can change it, and no court order is needed to make it happen.

Under § 732.401(1), if you are survived by a spouse and one or more descendants, your surviving spouse takes a life estate in the homestead with a vested remainder to your descendants in being at your death, per stirpes. That is frequently the worst possible outcome for everyone: the spouse is stuck with a house she cannot sell without the remaindermen’s cooperation and is responsible for carrying it, and the children own a remainder they cannot use.

The surviving spouse’s six-month election — a deadline nobody publishes

Section 732.401(2) gives the surviving spouse an alternative: instead of the life estate, she may elect to take an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common, with the other half vesting in the descendants per stirpes.

The election must be made within six months after the decedent’s death and during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. It is made by filing a notice of election, containing the legal description, for recording in the official records of the county where the property sits. Once made, it is irrevocable. The six-month window is strictly enforced and the probate court cannot extend it except in the narrow situation where an attorney-in-fact or guardian timely petitions for authority.

Six months moves fast in a grieving family, and the choice is genuinely consequential — a life estate versus a one-half fee interest are very different assets. If you are a surviving spouse and your late husband or wife owned a Florida homestead, this deadline should be on your calendar the week of the funeral.

Spousal joinder and the § 732.7025 deed waiver

Article X, section 4(c) also requires that an owner, “joined by the spouse if married,” may alienate homestead by mortgage, sale or gift. Deeding your homestead into your revocable trust is an alienation. If you are married, your spouse must join in that deed — or validly waive.

Section 732.7025 provides a statutory safe harbor: a spouse waives the § 4(c) devise restrictions if the deed contains the statutory language, or language substantially similar to it. Two limits are written into § 732.7025(2), and they are routinely misunderstood:

The waiver is not a waiver of the protection against the owner’s creditors during life or after death; and
It is not a waiver of the requirement that the spouse join in any future mortgage, sale, gift, or deed.

Courts have policed the language closely. In Stone v. Stone, 157 So. 3d 295 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014), a deed that used the words “releases” and “hereditaments” was sufficient to waive the surviving spouse’s homestead rights, making the homestead freely devisable. In Thayer v. Hawthorn, 363 So. 3d 170 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023), a warranty deed that merely “granted, bargained and sold” the property, with no language of release or conveyance of hereditaments, was not a waiver. A spousal waiver under § 732.702 must be signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

The practical rule: the deed that puts your Florida home into your trust is not a form-fill exercise. It carries the joinder question, the waiver question, the doc-stamp question, and the homestead-recital question all at once.

Does putting my house in a trust affect my homestead tax exemption?

It should not — but it can, and this is where paperwork failures cost real money.

Article VII, section 6 grants the exemption to a person with “legal or equitable title” who maintains a permanent residence on the property, and § 196.031(1)(a) requires legal title or beneficial title in equity. Once the trust holds legal title, your claim rests on equitable title — and that is supplied by § 196.041(2), which declares that a person whose possessory right is “based upon an instrument granting to him or her a beneficial interest for life” holds “equitable title to real estate” for exemption purposes.

Read that phrase again: beneficial interest for life. The trust has to actually give you one. Florida-drafted trusts contain a homestead occupancy provision for exactly this reason — a clause confirming your right to use and occupy the residence as your homestead for life and stating the intent to satisfy § 196.031 and § 196.041(2). Generic national trust forms and out-of-state templates frequently omit it. When a property appraiser sees title move to a trust and finds no life interest in the instrument, the exemption is at risk, and so is everything built on top of it. The Florida Attorney General reached the same conclusion in AGO 90-70, and the opposite conclusion where a trust granted only a term of years rather than an interest for life in AGO 94-50.

Two more practical points. The deed into the trust should recite that the grantors maintain the property as their homestead and are the sole lifetime beneficiaries of the trust — it heads off the appraiser’s question before it is asked. And the deed must be recorded; § 196.031(1)(a) conditions the exemption on it.

The exemption is not automatic — March 1

Section 196.011 requires an application with the county property appraiser, and the deadline is March 1. Nothing about creating a trust files that application for you. If you deed your home into a trust and no one confirms the exemption carried over, you may discover the problem in a November tax bill.

Save Our Homes: it survives the transfer, and it resets at your death

The Save Our Homes cap of Art. VII, § 4, implemented by § 193.155, limits annual increases in assessed value to 3% or the change in the CPI, whichever is lower. Property is reassessed at just value in the year following a “change of ownership.”

Deeding your homestead into your own revocable trust is not a change of ownership. Section 193.155(3)(a)1.b. excepts a transfer between legal and equitable title where the same person remains entitled to the exemption. Your cap carries over untouched.

Your death is a different story. When the trust distributes the home to a beneficiary, that is a change of ownership. The property is reassessed at just value as of January 1 of the following year, and the new owner must file their own homestead application by March 1 to start a new cap from a new — and usually much higher — baseline. Families who have held a Florida home for twenty years are often shocked by the first tax bill after mom’s death. A trust does not prevent that. Nothing does, short of the beneficiary’s own homestead and portability planning.

The personal representative has no power over protected homestead

Section 733.607(1) gives the personal representative the right to take possession of the decedent’s property “except the protected homestead,” and § 733.608(1) excludes protected homestead from the assets available to pay administration expenses and estate obligations. Section 733.608(2) gives the PR only a narrow custodial power — to preserve, insure and protect apparently-homestead property that no interested person is occupying, pending a determination of its status.

When the homestead sits in a revocable trust the exclusion operates twice over: the property is not in the probate estate at all, and even the PR’s § 733.607(2) reach into trust assets cannot touch protected homestead because of § 736.1109(2). The Fifth District applied the principle in Lanford v. Phemister, 338 So. 3d 1049 (Fla. 5th DCA 2022), holding that homestead sale proceeds passed outside the probate estate and the personal representative’s fees and costs could not be paid from them.

If a homestead question does arise, § 736.0201(7) lets a proceeding to determine the homestead status of trust-owned real property be filed right in the settlor’s probate.

Funding a Living Trust in Florida: Asset by Asset

Funding the trust is the difference between an estate plan and a expensive folder. A trust controls only what it owns. Every asset left in your personal name at death is a probate asset no matter how carefully the trust was drafted.

Asset	How it goes in	Florida notes
Florida homestead	New deed to you as trustee, recorded in the county where the property sits.	Spousal joinder or § 732.7025 waiver; homestead recital; confirm the exemption and Save Our Homes carried over.
Other Florida real estate	Deed to the trust, recorded.	Documentary stamp tax under § 201.02 is charged on consideration, and mortgage debt on the property counts as consideration. Miami-Dade applies its own rate and surtax under § 201.031. A transfer of unencumbered property into your own revocable trust for no consideration is generally nominal; a mortgaged property needs to be looked at before the deed is drawn.
Out-of-state real estate	Deed prepared under that state’s law.	This is the single biggest reason snowbirds use a trust — it eliminates a second ancillary probate.
Bank and credit union accounts	Retitle at the branch using a certification of trust.	Some institutions insist on closing and reopening. Direct deposits and autopays must be redirected.
Brokerage and non-retirement investment accounts	Retitle in the trust’s name.	Cost basis is unaffected. No taxable event.
IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, pensions	Do not retitle. Name a beneficiary.	Retitling a retirement account into a trust is a full taxable distribution. Naming the trust as beneficiary is sometimes right and often not — this needs a conversation, not a checkbox.
Life insurance and annuities	Beneficiary designation, not retitling.	Naming the trust keeps proceeds out of probate and lets you control timing for minors.
LLC and partnership interests	Written assignment plus an amendment to the operating agreement and the company records.	Check transfer restrictions and consent requirements first. Update Sunbiz records.
Closely held corporate stock	New certificate or book entry in the trust’s name.	If it is an S corporation, the trust must qualify as an eligible shareholder — get this right or you can blow the S election.
Vehicles, boats and vessels	Retitle with the FLHSMV, or leave out.	Florida has no transfer-on-death titling for vehicles or vessels. Small numbers of vehicles are often handled through summary administration instead.
Tangible personal property	A general assignment of tangible personal property.	Jewelry, art, collections, furniture. A written personal property memorandum can direct specific items.
Digital assets and cryptocurrency	Assignment plus a real access plan.	See the digital assets section below — Chapter 740 controls fiduciary access, and self-custodied crypto is lost forever without keys.
Timeshares	Deed, subject to the resort’s transfer rules and fees.	Confirm assessments are current. See inherited Florida timeshares.
Safe deposit boxes	Retitle the box or add the trustee.	A box titled only to a decedent is a common source of delay.
Promissory notes and mortgages receivable	Assignment, recorded if it is a recorded mortgage.	Often forgotten.

What should you not put in a living trust?

Qualified retirement accounts. Retitling an IRA or 401(k) into a trust is treated as a distribution of the whole account. Name a beneficiary instead.
Health savings accounts. Same problem. Use the beneficiary designation.
Vehicles you drive daily, in many cases — some insurers price trust-titled vehicles differently, and Florida’s small-estate procedures can handle them.
Property you are about to sell, if the closing is imminent and retitling would just complicate the settlement.
Assets already carrying a good beneficiary designation, where the designation accomplishes the same result more simply.
Accounts you actively use for a business with third-party payment processors, until you have confirmed the processor will accept the retitling.

What Happens If You Never Fund the Trust

Nothing good, and Florida courts will not repair it for you.

In McGee v. McGee, 419 So. 3d 1132 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025), a settlor signed a new revocable trust in 2021 intending to leave everything to his wife, but never retitled his assets from his earlier 2014 trust into it. A trial court tried to fix the problem by reforming the 2021 trust into a restatement of the 2014 trust. The Second District reversed. Reformation under § 736.0415 requires a mistake affecting the terms of the trust. The terms said exactly what the settlor meant. The failure was in funding, and a failure to capitalize a trust is not a mistake in its terms — so the court was powerless to reform it.

The lesson generalizes. In Vaughan v. Boerckel, 963 So. 2d 915 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007), the decedent’s trust made specific gifts of real estate, but the properties had never been deeded to the trust — they sat inside a corporation he owned. The Fourth District held the properties were never part of the trust corpus and the gifts lapsed. The intended recipients received nothing.

Two practical consequences follow. First, when you want to change an existing trust, a restatement is almost always safer than a brand-new trust, because a restatement keeps the same trust — and therefore the same title on everything you already funded. Second, funding is not a one-time event. Every refinance, every new account, every property purchase is a chance to leave something outside.

The Pour-Over Will — and Why It Does Not Avoid Probate

A pour-over will is a short will that leaves your residuary estate to the trustee of your living trust. Section 732.513 authorizes it and validates the devise even though the trust is amendable and revocable, even though it was amended after the will was signed, and — importantly — even if the only asset of the trust is the expectancy of receiving the devise.

Florida courts have confirmed that a pour-over provision does not make the trust testamentary. In Bravo v. Sauter, 727 So. 2d 1103 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999), the Fourth District held that establishing an inter vivos trust is an act of independent significance, so a change to the trust does not require a change to the will and does not convert the trust into a testamentary instrument.

Here is what most pages leave out: the pour-over runs through probate. The will must be admitted, a personal representative appointed, and the estate administered before anything reaches the trust. Martin v. Martin, 687 So. 2d 903 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997), confirms that assets already in the trust are outside the probate estate — but that only helps property you funded during your life.

So a pour-over will is a safety net, not a plan. Its job is to catch the forgotten checking account, not to carry the estate. If your entire strategy is “the will pours it into the trust,” you have bought a trust and kept the probate.

Is a Florida Living Trust Really Private?

Mostly — and far more private than probate — but the flat claim that a living trust “is never filed with the court” is wrong, and you should know exactly where the line falls before you rely on privacy as a selling point.

What stays private

The trust instrument itself is not filed with the court and does not become a public record. Your dispositive terms — who gets what, in what shares, on what conditions, and why — stay out of the file. Compare that with a Florida probate, where the will is filed, admitted, and available to anyone who walks into the clerk’s office or pulls it up online, along with the inventory of assets in many cases.

What becomes public: the Notice of Trust

Section 736.05055(1) is mandatory: “Upon the death of a settlor of a trust described in s. 733.707(3), the trustee must file a notice of trust with the court of the county of the settlor’s domicile and the court having jurisdiction of the settlor’s estate.” Section 733.707(3) covers any trust over which you held a right of revocation at death — which is every standard revocable living trust.

Section 736.05055(2) fixes the contents, and they are deliberately thin:

the name of the settlor;
the settlor’s date of death;
the title of the trust, if any;
the date of the trust; and
the name and address of the trustee.

That is all. No beneficiaries, no assets, no dollar figures, no distribution terms. The clerk indexes it like a caveat, or files it in the probate proceeding if one is open and sends a copy to the personal representative. The duty cannot be waived by anything in your trust — § 736.0105(2) lists it as mandatory.

What your beneficiaries can demand

Section 736.0813 requires your trustee to keep qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed, and to provide a complete copy of the trust instrument on reasonable request. It also requires annual accountings. These duties are mandatory and cannot be drafted around.

The honest summary: a Florida living trust keeps your affairs out of the public record, but it does not keep them from the people who inherit under it. If your concern is that a disappointed relative will read your terms, understand that any qualified beneficiary is entitled to the whole document.

Trusts and Creditors After Death in Florida

This is where the “asset protection” myth does the most damage, because the truth is more interesting than the myth: a revocable trust gives your family a procedural advantage against creditors and essentially no substantive one.

Creditors cannot sue your trust directly

Section 736.1014(1) provides that after a settlor’s death, no creditor of the settlor may bring, maintain, or continue any direct action against a § 733.707(3) trust, its trustee, or a beneficiary that depends on the settlor’s individual liability. Claims must be presented and enforced against the estate under part VII of Chapter 733, and the personal representative may then obtain payment from the trustee.

That is a real benefit. Your family deals with an orderly claims process, not a creditor with a lawsuit against the trust.

But the trust still pays

Three statutes work together:

§ 733.707(3) — any portion of a trust over which the decedent held a right of revocation at death is liable for the expenses of administration and obligations of the estate, to the extent the estate is insufficient.
§ 733.607(2) — the personal representative is entitled to payment from the trustee of the amount the PR certifies in writing is required.
§ 736.05053(1) — the trustee shall pay those certified amounts, charged as expenses of the trust.

Section 736.05053(2) sets the order in which trust gifts are cut back: first the residue, then property not tied to a specific item, then specifically identified gifts. Section 736.05053(4) contains a rule trustees should know: the trustee pays the expenses of trust administration — including trustee and attorney compensation — before and in preference to the estate’s expenses and obligations.

Certain assets are carved out of § 733.707(3) itself, including qualified retirement plans under IRC §§ 401, 403 and 408 and charitable remainder trusts under IRC § 664. And protected homestead is shielded by § 736.1109(2), as discussed above.

The creditor clock — three months, four months, two years

Period	What it governs	Authority
2 years from death	Absolute repose. After two years neither the estate, the personal representative, nor the beneficiaries are liable on a claim against the decedent — whether or not letters of administration were ever issued. Narrow exceptions for timely-filed claims and duly recorded mortgages or security interests.	§ 733.710
3 months from first publication	If a probate is opened and notice to creditors is published, unknown creditors have three months to file, or 30 days from service for a creditor entitled to be served.	§ 733.702; § 733.2121
4 months from first publication	The personal representative’s window to object to a filed claim (or 30 days from the claim, whichever is later).	§ 733.705(2)

Read those together and a counterintuitive planning point emerges: sometimes you open a probate on purpose. If a decedent had meaningful debt or any risk of a claim, a trust-only administration leaves that exposure open for two full years. Opening a probate and publishing notice can cut it to three months. Distributing trust assets before that window closes is how a successor trustee ends up personally exposed.

Florida’s trust-claims counterpart worked the same way historically; in Becklund v. Fleming, 869 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), the Second District applied a two-year nonclaim provision to bar all claims against a trust, its trustee and its beneficiaries where the creditor failed to timely serve the trustee.

Can a Living Trust Disinherit My Spouse in Florida?

No. This is one of the few questions in Florida estate planning with a clean answer.

Section 732.201 gives the surviving spouse of a Florida domiciliary the right to an elective share, and § 732.2065 fixes it at 30 percent of the elective estate.

The elective estate is not just the probate estate. Section 732.2035(5) expressly includes property the decedent transferred “to the extent that at the time of the decedent’s death the transfer was revocable by the decedent alone or in conjunction with any other person.” That language is aimed squarely at revocable living trusts. Section 732.2035(6) captures property where the decedent retained the right to, or in fact enjoyed, the income or use. The elective estate also reaches protected homestead, pay-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts, survivorship property, and certain life insurance cash values.

Section 732.2075 sets the order in which the share is satisfied, with the probate estate and revocable trusts in the first class — meaning your trust is among the first places the money comes from.

The elective share can be waived, but only properly: § 732.702 requires a written contract, agreement or waiver signed by the waiving party in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, before or after the marriage. That is what a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement does. Without one, your surviving spouse’s claim against your trust is not something the trust can defeat.

For blended families this is the central design problem, and the answer is usually a marital trust structure that provides for the surviving spouse for life while preserving the remainder for children of a prior marriage — not an attempt to cut the spouse out, which will not work.

The Florida Community Property Trust — the Tool Almost Nobody Mentions

Florida is a common-law property state, but since July 1, 2021 married couples here have been able to elect into community property treatment for assets held in a qualifying trust. The Community Property Trust Act lives at Fla. Stat. §§ 736.1501–736.1512, created by chapter 2021-183, Laws of Florida.

Why it matters: the double step-up in basis

When one spouse dies, ordinary jointly-owned property gets a basis adjustment on the decedent’s half only. Community property is different: under IRC § 1014(b)(6), both halves are treated as acquired from the decedent, so the survivor’s half also steps up to fair market value. Section 736.1511 declares that, for purposes of IRC § 1014(b)(6), a Florida community property trust is a trust established under the community property laws of the state.

For a couple holding decades of appreciation in a rental property, a concentrated stock position, or a business, the capital gains saved on the survivor’s half can dwarf every other planning decision they make.

The four requirements — § 736.1503

The trust must expressly declare that it is a community property trust under this part.
It must have at least one qualified trustee — a Florida resident individual or a company authorized to act as trustee in Florida. Either or both spouses may also serve as trustee alongside the qualified trustee.
It must be signed by both spouses with the formalities Chapter 736 requires.
It must carry the statutory all-capitals warning at the very beginning of the agreement, telling the spouses the consequences are extensive as to creditors, marriage, divorce and death, and that separate counsel is strongly advisable.

Homestead in a community property trust

Section 736.151, as amended effective June 20, 2025 by chapter 2025-159, resolved what had been a real worry. It confirms that property in a community property trust continues to qualify as homestead under Art. X, § 4(a)(1); that the settlor spouses are deemed to hold beneficial title in equity for all purposes, including the § 196.031 tax exemption; and that the transfer is not a change of ownership for reassessment purposes, qualifying instead as a transfer between spouses under § 193.155(3)(a)2. The Save Our Homes cap survives.

The honest risks

No IRS ruling validates opt-in community property trusts. The statute invokes § 1014(b)(6) and analogous statutes in Alaska, Kentucky, South Dakota and Tennessee have gone unchallenged, but there is no ruling or reported decision confirming the double step-up for a Florida CPT. This is a supported position, not a guaranteed one, and it belongs in a written disclosure.
You lose tenancy by the entireties. Section 736.1506 lets a creditor of one spouse reach that spouse’s one-half of the trust. Entireties property can only be reached by joint creditors. For a physician, a contractor, or anyone with individual liability exposure, this trade is usually a bad one.
Step-down risk. If assets have declined, both halves adjust downward — worse than holding them separately.
Deathbed funding fails. IRC § 1014(e) denies the step-up where property was gifted to the decedent within a year of death and passes back to the donor.
Divorce is mechanical. Section 736.1508 terminates the trust on dissolution with a mandatory 50/50 split, and expressly makes Florida’s equitable distribution statute, § 61.075, inapplicable.
Bad for blended families. Converting separate property to community property is the opposite of what most second marriages need.

One genuine upside for planning: § 736.1507 provides that the decedent spouse’s one-half is not included in the elective estate, reinforced by § 732.2045(1)(f).

The best candidates are couples in stable first marriages with highly appreciated, low-basis assets and no individual creditor exposure — and couples relocating to Florida from California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Louisiana, New Mexico or Wisconsin, who can preserve the community property character of what they bring with them.

Living Trusts and Medicaid in Florida

Two different questions get collapsed into one here, and the answers point in opposite directions. Read both halves.

Eligibility: a revocable trust does nothing for you

Assets in a revocable living trust are countable resources for Florida Medicaid long-term care eligibility. The logic is unavoidable: you can revoke the trust and take the money back, so the money is available to you. Federal law treats trust assets that can be distributed to or for the individual as available (42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)), and Florida’s eligibility rules follow.

If someone tells you a revocable living trust will help you qualify for Medicaid, or that it starts a lookback clock, they are wrong. Medicaid planning in Florida uses different tools — irrevocable trusts, qualified income (Miller) trusts, personal services agreements, spousal transfers — and it is a separate area of practice with its own five-year lookback.

Estate recovery: a narrower point, stated carefully

Florida’s Medicaid Estate Recovery Act is Fla. Stat. § 409.9101. It directs the agency to recover by “filing a statement of claim against the estate of a deceased Medicaid recipient as provided in part VII of chapter 733” — that is, through the probate claims process.

Federal law permits a state to define “estate” broadly enough to capture assets that pass outside probate, including revocable trust assets. Florida has not done so. Recovery in Florida runs against the probate estate.

The practical consequence is a consequence of probate avoidance, not a Medicaid strategy: assets that never enter the probate estate are generally outside the reach of a § 409.9101 claim. Three caveats belong with that sentence, and none of them is optional:

Section 409.9101(6) already bars recovery entirely if the recipient is survived by a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or permanently disabled child — so for a great many families the question never arises.
Section 409.9101(7) bars recovery against property exempt from creditors under Florida law, which protects the homestead either way.
The Legislature can change the definition of “estate” at any time, and this should never be the reason you create a trust.

If long-term care is a live concern in your family, the conversation you need is about eligibility planning, not about estate recovery.

Taxes and a Florida Living Trust

Tax	Effect of a revocable living trust
Florida estate tax	None. Florida has no state estate tax.
Florida inheritance tax	None. Florida has no inheritance tax. See Florida inheritance tax.
Federal estate tax	No effect. Because you retained the power to revoke, trust assets are in your gross estate under IRC §§ 2036 and 2038. Tax planning requires additional structure — credit shelter, QTIP, ILIT — layered on top.
Income tax during your life	No effect. Grantor trust: your Social Security number, your Form 1040, no separate return.
Income tax after your death	The trust becomes a separate taxpayer. The successor trustee obtains an EIN and files Form 1041 for each year until termination. Distributions carry income out to beneficiaries on Schedule K-1.
The § 645 election	IRC § 645 lets the trust be treated as part of the estate for income tax purposes — one return instead of two, plus the ability to use a fiscal year. The election period runs two years from death if no estate tax return is required, or six months after final determination of estate tax liability if one is.
Basis step-up	Unaffected — assets in a revocable trust receive the same date-of-death basis adjustment under IRC § 1014 as assets held outright. A trust does not cost you the step-up. (A lifetime gift does.)
Documentary stamp tax on funding	Florida doc stamps apply to consideration on a deed at $0.70 per $100 statewide. A transfer of unencumbered property into your own revocable trust for no consideration is generally minimal; a transfer of mortgaged property can be taxable on the debt.
Property tax	No reassessment on transfer to your own revocable trust (§ 193.155(3)(a)1.b.), but you must keep the exemption current and reassessment does occur when the property passes at your death.

What Happens After You Die: The Successor Trustee’s Timeline

Almost no page on this topic tells you what actually happens next. Here it is, with the statutory deadlines. Hand this to whomever you name.

Step	Deadline	Authority
1. Accept the trusteeship — by the method the trust specifies, or by taking delivery of trust property and acting as trustee. A designated trustee who does not accept within a reasonable time is deemed to have declined.	No fixed deadline; act promptly	§ 736.0701
2. Notice of acceptance to qualified beneficiaries — acceptance, the trustee’s full name and address, and that the fiduciary lawyer-client privilege applies.	60 days from acceptance	§ 736.0813(1)(a)
3. Notice that the trust is now irrevocable — its existence, the settlor’s identity, the right to request a complete copy of the instrument, and the right to accountings.	60 days from knowledge it became irrevocable	§ 736.0813(1)(b)
4. File the Notice of Trust with the court of the settlor’s domicile and the court with jurisdiction of the estate.	No statutory deadline, but file immediately — proceedings affecting estate obligations before you file are binding on you, and failing to file does not excuse the duty to pay	§ 736.05055(1), (6), (7)
5. Obtain an EIN for the trust and open a trust account.	Promptly — nothing can be administered without it	IRS
6. Decide whether to open a probate — for unfunded assets, for homestead determination, to trigger the creditor bar, or to address the elective share.	Before distributing anything	§ 736.0201(7); § 733.2121
7. Marshal, secure, insure and value the trust assets; obtain date-of-death valuations.	Ongoing	§ 736.0809
8. Creditor window — 3 months from first publication if a probate is opened; otherwise the full 2-year repose applies.	3 months / 2 years	§ 733.702; § 733.710
9. Pay the PR’s certified amounts if the estate is insufficient, following the abatement order — and pay trust administration expenses first.	On written certification	§ 736.05053(1)–(4)
10. File Form 1041 for each tax year; consider the § 645 election.	15th day of the 4th month after year end	IRC §§ 641, 645
11. Federal estate tax return (Form 706) if required, or a portability-only return for a surviving spouse.	9 months from death, extendable 6 months	IRC § 6018
12. Account annually to qualified beneficiaries in the form the statute requires.	At least annually, on termination, and on change of trustee	§ 736.08135
13. Send a limitation notice with each accounting to start the six-month clock on beneficiary claims.	6 months from receipt of the disclosure document or the limitation notice, whichever is later	§ 736.1008(2), (4)
14. Distribute per the trust terms, funding any continuing sub-trusts.	After reserves and claims are resolved	Trust terms
15. Obtain discharge — including, where available, the new nonjudicial settlement and discharge procedure.	60-day objection window after the disclosure document	§ 736.10081

Two recent changes help successor trustees. Section 736.08125, amended effective June 20, 2025, protects a successor trustee from liability for the acts of a prior trustee — squarely relevant where the prior trustee was you — and bars claims by a qualified beneficiary who fails to make a written demand within six months of acceptance, provided proper notice was given. And § 736.10081, created by chapter 2026-54, allows a trustee in substantial compliance with the duty to inform and account to obtain a binding discharge without going to court when the trust terminates or the trustee resigns or is removed, if no written objection arrives within 60 days of the required disclosure document. Note its applicability limit: it reaches trusts that are irrevocable, or that become irrevocable, on or after its effective date.

Choosing Your Successor Trustee

This decision causes more trust litigation than any drafting choice. The job is administrative, financial, fiduciary and interpersonal all at once, and it is unpaid gratitude at best.

Nominating your oldest child by default is not a plan. Birth order is not a qualification.
Naming co-trustees who must act jointly creates a veto. If they disagree, the trust deadlocks and someone files a petition. If you use co-trustees, say explicitly how a tie breaks.
Naming a beneficiary as trustee is common and often fine, but it puts that person in a conflict every time they exercise discretion. Where distributions are discretionary, consider an independent trustee.
Always name backups. People predecease, decline, resign and lose capacity.
Consider a corporate trustee for long-term, complex, or contentious trusts. They charge a fee; they also do not die, do not have a sibling rivalry, and carry insurance.
Out-of-state trustees are permitted, but be aware Florida courts will not always have personal jurisdiction over a nonresident institutional trustee for claims arising from administration conducted elsewhere.

Trustees are entitled to reasonable compensation, and a trustee who successfully defends a breach-of-trust action may generally pay the defense from trust assets. See Florida trust litigation if you are already in a dispute.

Certification of Trust: What to Give the Bank

When you retitle an account, the bank will ask for the trust. You should not hand over the whole document — it discloses your beneficiaries and your terms to a teller.

Section 736.1017 authorizes a certification of trust — a short sworn statement confirming the trust exists, its date, the identity of the settlor and the currently acting trustee, the trustee’s powers relevant to the transaction, and that the trust has not been revoked or amended in a way that makes the certification incorrect. A person may rely on it, and the statute allows recovery of damages and attorney’s fees from an institution that refuses in bad faith to accept one.

If a bank still insists on the entire instrument, that is a conversation your attorney should have, not you at the counter.

Amending, Restating and Revoking a Florida Living Trust

Section 736.0602(1) makes a Florida trust revocable by default unless it expressly says otherwise, for trusts created on or after July 1, 2007.

Section 736.0602(3) allows you to revoke or amend by substantial compliance with a method stated in the trust, or — if the trust states no method — by a later will or codicil that expressly refers to the trust or specifically devises property that would have passed under it, or by any other method showing your intent by clear and convincing evidence. The Third District treated the substantial-compliance standard as a matter of first impression in Bernal v. Marin, 196 So. 3d 432 (Fla. 3d DCA 2016).

“Substantial” is not “approximate.” In Grassfield v. Grassfield, 381 So. 3d 628 (Fla. 2d DCA 2023), the trust required amendments to be written, signed, notarized, and delivered to the trustee during the settlor’s lifetime. The settlor signed amendments removing a co-trustee but never delivered them. The Second District held the delivery requirement was not a technicality given a trust structure that required two trustees to act, and the amendments were ineffective.

And § 736.0602(3) is expressly subject to § 736.0403(2). Even a perfectly executed amendment under the trust’s own method fails as to its testamentary provisions unless it carries the two-witness will formalities. The safe practice is simple: sign every amendment exactly the way you signed the trust.

Restate rather than replace. A restatement amends the existing trust in full, so title to everything you already funded stays put. A brand-new trust means re-funding everything — and, as McGee shows, no court will fix it if you do not.

Trust protectors and built-in flexibility

Because a revocable trust becomes irrevocable at your death, the terms you write today have to work in a world you cannot see. Florida permits several release valves. A trust protector — a third party given defined powers in the instrument, such as the power to modify administrative terms, replace a trustee, change situs or governing law, or in some drafting even adjust beneficial interests — can be appointed to adapt the trust after you are gone. Florida courts have enforced broad trust protector powers where the instrument conferred them clearly, so the drafting matters: say precisely which powers exist and whether any duty of inquiry is mandatory or merely suggested.

Beyond a protector, the Code itself allows decanting into a new trust under § 736.04117, nonjudicial modification by agreement under § 736.0412, and judicial modification or termination under § 736.04113. A trust that cannot bend is a trust your children will litigate.

Snowbirds, New Florida Residents, and Out-of-State Trusts

If you moved to Florida with a trust drafted in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan or anywhere else, this section is the most important one on the page for you.

Does my out-of-state trust still work in Florida?

Yes — the original trust remains valid. Section 736.0403(1) provides that a trust not created by will is validly created if it complies with the law of the jurisdiction where the instrument was executed, or the law of the jurisdiction where the settlor was domiciled at creation. The Florida two-witness requirement in § 736.0403(2)(b) applies only to a settlor who was a Florida domiciliary at the time of execution — not to someone who signed elsewhere and later moved here.

The amendment trap

Here is what catches people. Once you become a Florida domiciliary, every amendment you sign is signed by a Florida domiciliary — and its testamentary provisions must therefore meet Florida’s will formalities.

That is precisely what happened in Kelly v. Lindenau, 223 So. 3d 1074 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017). The settlor’s Illinois trust was validly executed under Illinois law and stayed valid after he moved to Florida. But he then had his Illinois attorney prepare two amendments, executed under Illinois practice with a single witness signature. The Second District held the amendments invalid because he was a Florida domiciliary when he signed them. The intended beneficiary of a residence lost it, and neither reformation nor a constructive trust could save the gift.

The safe answer for anyone establishing Florida domicile is a complete Florida restatement of the existing trust, executed with two witnesses in front of a Florida attorney, promptly after the move. It preserves the trust’s identity — and therefore the title on everything already funded — while bringing the whole instrument under Florida formalities. At an absolute minimum, no amendment should ever be signed after the move without Florida execution.

A Florida move should also trigger a review of your durable power of attorney, your health care surrogate designation, your living will, your homestead filing, and your domicile documentation generally — Florida’s formalities and forms differ meaningfully from other states’.

Out-of-State Property and Ancillary Probate

Real property is governed by the law of the state where it sits. If you die owning a cabin in North Carolina, a condo in New York, or farmland in Ohio in your own name, your family opens a Florida probate for the Florida assets and an ancillary probate in each other state — separate courts, separate lawyers, separate fees, separate timelines.

A funded living trust collapses all of it into one administration, because the trust already owns the property everywhere. For many multi-state families this is, by itself, the entire economic case for a trust. The reverse is also true for out-of-state decedents who own Florida real property — see Florida ancillary probate and serving as an out-of-state executor in Florida.

Foreign Nationals Who Own Florida Property

Buyers from Latin America, Canada and Europe frequently hold Florida condominiums and homes, and the planning is materially different from a U.S. citizen’s.

A non-resident alien gets a federal estate tax exemption of only $60,000 on U.S.-situs assets — not the multimillion-dollar exclusion available to U.S. citizens and domiciliaries. Florida real estate is U.S.-situs.
Owning Florida property in your own name means a Florida ancillary probate for your family, conducted from abroad, in a language many of them do not read.
Sales of U.S. real property by a foreign person trigger FIRPTA withholding, and how title is held affects the analysis.
A revocable trust solves the probate problem and nothing else. Cross-border planning usually calls for additional structure, and it must be coordinated with counsel in the home country — an instrument that works beautifully in Florida can create tax exposure in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Spain or Venezuela.

We handle these matters in Spanish and English. Do not copy a plan designed for a U.S. citizen.

Minor Children, Special Needs, and Blended Families

Minor children

Florida will not hand a substantial inheritance to a minor. Absent a trust, the money goes into a court-supervised guardianship of the property until the child turns 18 — and then it is handed over in full, on their eighteenth birthday, with no strings. A trust replaces both problems: your trustee manages the funds, and you decide when and how distributions happen. Note that only a will can nominate a guardian of the person for your children; the trust handles the money, the will handles the guardianship nomination. This is one of the clearest reasons Florida families need both documents.

A beneficiary with special needs

An outright inheritance can disqualify a beneficiary from SSI and Medicaid overnight. A properly drafted third-party special needs trust inside your living trust lets you provide for them without displacing benefits. See Florida special needs trusts. This must be drafted before your death — a beneficiary cannot fix it afterward without far worse options.

Blended families and second marriages

The design problem is providing for a surviving spouse without disinheriting children from a prior marriage. Because the elective share reaches trust assets, an attempt to exclude the spouse will fail. What works is a marital trust — often a QTIP — that supports the spouse for life with the remainder passing to your children, combined where appropriate with a properly executed prenuptial or postnuptial waiver under § 732.702. And remember the homestead: if you are survived by a spouse, the constitutional devise restriction applies no matter what the trust says.

Protecting an inheritance after you are gone

A revocable trust does nothing for your creditors — but the continuing trusts it creates for your beneficiaries can protect theirs. A spendthrift provision under § 736.0502 restrains voluntary and involuntary transfer of a beneficiary’s interest, and a discretionary standard under § 736.0504 limits what a creditor can compel. Divorce, lawsuits, bankruptcy and bad judgment are all foreseeable; leaving an inheritance in trust rather than outright is one of the few genuinely protective moves available.

Digital Assets and Cryptocurrency in a Florida Trust

Fiduciary access to digital assets in Florida is governed by the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, Chapter 740, Florida Statutes. A trustee’s authority over your online accounts depends on a hierarchy: an online tool offered by the provider (such as a legacy contact) overrides everything; if there is no online tool, your trust or other governing instrument controls; only then do the provider’s terms of service apply.

Practical points for a trust:

Grant explicit authority over digital assets and electronic communications in the trust — Chapter 740 distinguishes content of communications from catalogue information, and silence limits your trustee.
Self-custodied cryptocurrency is different in kind. No statute, court order or trustee power can recover a private key. If your Bitcoin sits in a hardware wallet and no one can reach the seed phrase, it is gone permanently. The trust must be paired with a real, secure key-succession plan.
Exchange-held crypto behaves more like a brokerage account and can often be retitled or transferred on death — but each exchange has its own process.
Business and income-producing digital assets — domains, monetized channels, app store accounts, client lists — should be assigned into the trust like any other business asset.

Can a Florida Living Trust Be Contested?

Yes. Trusts are contested on the same grounds as wills — lack of capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, mistake, and improper execution — and the execution ground is the one that succeeds most reliably, because it is objective. A missing second witness is not a matter of opinion.

Three Florida rules shape trust contests:

No-contest clauses do not work here. Section 736.1108(1) makes a provision penalizing an interested person for contesting a trust unenforceable. Florida does the same for wills at § 732.517. If you were counting on an in terrorem clause to deter a challenge, it will not.
You cannot contest a revocable trust while the settlor is alive. Section 736.0207 defers a judicial proceeding to contest validity until the trust becomes irrevocable.
Claims against a trustee can be cut off in six months. Under § 736.1008, a beneficiary is barred from suing for breach of trust as to a matter adequately disclosed in a trust disclosure document unless suit is commenced within six months of receiving that document or an accompanying limitation notice, whichever comes later.

If you expect a challenge, the defenses are built at signing: independent counsel, contemporaneous capacity documentation, disinterested witnesses, no beneficiary in the room, a clear record of instructions, and — where the plan departs sharply from expectation — a written explanation of why. See contesting a will in Florida and Florida trust litigation.

What Are the Downsides of a Living Trust in Florida? Pros and Cons, Honestly

Every page on this topic lists the benefits. Here are the disadvantages and downsides — the other half of the pros and cons. If a firm cannot give you this list, they are selling rather than advising.

It costs more upfront. A trust-based plan is several times the price of a simple will. If your estate would qualify for summary administration anyway, that premium may buy you very little.
Funding is real work, and it never fully ends. Deeds, retitling, beneficiary designations, business assignments — and every new account or property you acquire is another chance to leave something outside.
It is not asset protection. Zero creditor benefit during your life; liable for estate obligations after your death.
It saves no taxes by itself. No income tax benefit, no estate tax benefit, no Medicaid eligibility benefit.
Privacy is not absolute. A Notice of Trust is public, and every qualified beneficiary can demand the entire instrument.
Administrative friction. Some banks, title companies, transfer agents and insurers handle trusts poorly, and refinancing a trust-held home occasionally requires deeding it out and back.
It does not shorten the creditor period on its own. Without a probate and published notice, creditors have two years rather than three months.
It cannot name a guardian for your children. Only a will can.
The homestead rules still bind you. A trust gives you no additional freedom to devise homestead if you are survived by a spouse or minor child.
A poorly drafted or unfunded trust is worse than no trust, because it created a false sense of completion — and Florida courts will not reform a funding failure.

Why DIY Living Trust Forms Fail in Florida

Searches for a “Florida living trust form,” a “revocable living trust PDF,” a template, or a free download are among the most common on this topic. We do not provide one, and the reason is not that the document is difficult to produce — it is that in Florida the document is the smallest part of the job, and the form is where the failures start.

These are the failure modes we actually see, in the order they cause damage:

Execution. A national form does not know about § 736.0403(2)(b). Many instruct you to sign before a notary alone. The trust is then valid as an inter vivos instrument and void as to everything it was meant to accomplish at your death — which nobody discovers until you are gone. Kelly v. Lindenau is what that looks like in court.
Homestead. The form has no idea Florida homestead exists. It will not tell you your spouse must join the deed, it will not include a § 196.041(2) life-interest occupancy provision, it will not warn you that leaving the house to a non-heir strips its creditor protection, and it will not stop you from writing a devise that Art. X, § 4(c) makes void the moment you die.
The debt-payment clause. Some national forms contain a specific direction to sell real property to pay debts — the one kind of language § 736.1109(3) actually gives effect to against a homestead.
Funding. No form deeds your house, retitles your accounts, or assigns your LLC interest. The single most common trust failure in Florida is an unfunded trust, and a form guarantees it by leaving the work entirely to you.
The elective share and blended families. A form cannot see that you are on a second marriage with children from the first, and it will produce a plan that your surviving spouse can override.
Retirement accounts. A form will not stop you from naming your trust as IRA beneficiary in a way that accelerates income tax for your children.
No one to ask. When the bank refuses your certification, when the appraiser questions the exemption, when your successor trustee needs to know what to file — the form has no phone number.

The other cost is invisible: your family cannot fix any of this. Every one of these errors surfaces after your death, when the only remedy is litigation among the people you were trying to protect.

Alternatives to a Living Trust in Florida

Tool	What it does	Where it falls short
Lady bird deed (enhanced life estate deed)	Passes Florida real property at death without probate while you keep full control, including the right to sell or mortgage without the remainderman’s consent. Preserves homestead and Medicaid treatment.	Covers one parcel only. No incapacity planning, no controlled distributions, no protection for a minor or vulnerable beneficiary. See lady bird deeds in Florida and lady bird deed vs. living trust.
Payable-on-death / transfer-on-death accounts	Bank and brokerage accounts pass directly to a named beneficiary.	Lump sum, no conditions, no protection. Beneficiaries go stale. Included in the elective estate. No help if you are incapacitated.
Beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs and annuities	Direct, immediate, private transfer.	Outdated designations are one of the most common causes of an unintended result. Naming a minor forces a guardianship of the property.
Joint ownership with right of survivorship	Property passes automatically to the survivor.	Exposes the asset to the joint owner’s creditors and divorce, may be a taxable gift, and only postpones the problem to the survivor’s death. See right of survivorship in Florida.
Tenancy by the entireties	Powerful creditor protection for married couples, with survivorship.	Ends at the first death. Nothing beyond that point.
Summary administration	Streamlined probate for estates under $150,000 in non-exempt assets, or where the decedent died more than two years ago.	Still a court proceeding, still public, and unavailable if the will directs formal administration.
Florida land trust (§ 689.071)	A title-holding vehicle for real property offering privacy of ownership.	A different instrument entirely — it is not an estate plan and does not substitute for a living trust. See Florida land trusts.
Doing nothing	—	Florida’s intestacy statutes decide who inherits, a court decides who administers, and if you become incapacitated a court decides who acts for you.

Who Needs a Living Trust in Florida — and Who Doesn’t

You probably do if

You own real estate in more than one state.
You own a home and want your family to avoid probate in Florida entirely.
You have minor children, or beneficiaries you do not want receiving a lump sum.
You are in a blended family or a second marriage.
A beneficiary has special needs, a disability, creditor problems, or an unstable marriage.
Incapacity is a real concern and you want to avoid guardianship.
You own a business interest, rental property, or anything requiring continuous management.
Privacy matters to you.
You anticipate conflict among your heirs.
You are a snowbird, a new Florida resident, or a foreign national holding Florida property.

You probably don’t if

Your non-exempt probate estate is well under $150,000 and everything else has a valid beneficiary designation.
Your only real property is a Florida homestead passing to your spouse, or is already covered by a lady bird deed.
Your beneficiaries are adults you trust completely with an outright distribution.
There is no incapacity concern, no blended family, no out-of-state property and no special-needs beneficiary.
You would rather spend the money on a durable power of attorney, a health care surrogate designation, and a well-drafted will — which everyone needs regardless.

Any competent Florida estate planning attorney should be willing to tell you that you do not need a trust. If nobody has raised that possibility with you, ask why.

How to Set Up a Living Trust in Florida

Inventory everything. Every account, deed, policy, business interest, vehicle, and digital asset — with how each is currently titled and who is currently named as beneficiary. Titling is the whole ballgame.
Decide what you actually want. Outright or in stages? Equal or not? Who is protected from whom? Who raises your children? Who decides if you cannot?
Choose your trustees and their backups, and your health care and financial agents.
Have the plan designed — trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate designation, living will, HIPAA release, and the homestead deed.
Sign correctly. Two witnesses for the trust and the will, notary for the self-proving affidavit and the deed, with the deed recorded in the county where the property sits.
Fund it. Record the deed, retitle the accounts, assign the business interests, update the beneficiary designations, and confirm the homestead exemption carried over.
Confirm and document. Get written confirmation from each institution and keep a funding schedule with the trust.
Tell your successor trustee where everything is and what will be expected of them.
Review every two to three years, and immediately after a death, birth, marriage, divorce, move, sale, purchase, or business change.

What to bring to your first meeting

Deeds for every property you own, in every state
Recent statements for bank, brokerage and retirement accounts
Life insurance and annuity policies with current beneficiary designations
Business formation documents and operating agreements
Any existing will, trust, prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, or divorce judgment
Names, addresses and dates of birth for beneficiaries, trustees and agents
Your latest property tax bill (it confirms your homestead status)
Photo identification

Florida Living Trust FAQs

How much does a living trust cost in Florida?

An attorney-drafted living trust in Florida generally runs $2,500 to $3,500 for an individual plan and $3,500 to $5,000 for a married couple, with complex planning starting around $5,500. Those fees should include the trust, a pour-over will, a durable power of attorney, a health care surrogate designation, a living will, a HIPAA release, and the deed transferring your homestead. Ask specifically whether funding and the deed are included — that is where quoted prices diverge most.

What are the disadvantages of a living trust in Florida?

Higher upfront cost than a will; the ongoing burden of funding; no creditor protection during life; liability for your estate’s expenses and claims after death; no income, estate or Medicaid tax benefit; privacy that is real but not absolute; occasional friction with banks and lenders; and the fact that it cannot name a guardian for your minor children. The worst disadvantage is a trust that was signed and never funded.

Should I put my house in a trust in Florida?

Usually yes if you want the home to pass without probate, if you own property in more than one state, or if you want a successor trustee to be able to sell or manage it if you become incapacitated. Your homestead keeps its constitutional creditor protection inside a revocable trust, and the transfer does not trigger reassessment. But three things must be handled correctly: spousal joinder on the deed, a life-interest occupancy provision so the tax exemption survives, and confirming the home will pass to an heir so the creditor protection follows it.

Does putting my house in a trust affect my homestead exemption?

It should not, if the trust is drafted for Florida. Section 196.041(2) treats a possessory right based on an instrument granting a beneficial interest for life as equitable title for exemption purposes — so the trust must actually grant you one. Generic national forms often omit that clause. The deed must also be recorded, and you must keep the annual application current by March 1 under § 196.011.

Does a trust affect my Save Our Homes cap?

No, when you deed the home into your own revocable trust — § 193.155(3)(a)1.b. excepts a transfer between legal and equitable title where the same person keeps the exemption. But the cap does reset when the property passes to a beneficiary at your death; that is a change of ownership, the property is reassessed at just value, and the new owner must apply for their own exemption.

Is a living trust better than a will in Florida?

Neither is “better” — they do different jobs. A will directs probate; a trust avoids it. A will can name a guardian for your children; a trust cannot. A trust works if you become incapacitated; a will does nothing until you die. Most Florida homeowners end up with both: a funded trust and a pour-over will as backup.

Do I need a lawyer to set up a trust in Florida?

Legally, no. Practically, the risks are concentrated in exactly the places a form cannot see: the two-witness execution requirement of § 736.0403(2)(b), the homestead devise restriction, the life-interest clause your property appraiser will look for, spousal joinder on the deed, and the funding itself. Every one of those errors surfaces after you die, when the only fix is litigation.

Can I do my own living trust in Florida?

You can sign one. Whether it works is a different question. The most common outcomes of a self-prepared Florida trust are void testamentary provisions from improper execution, a homestead devise the constitution nullifies at the moment of death, and a trust that was never funded — which Florida courts have refused to repair, as in McGee v. McGee.

How many witnesses does a Florida living trust need?

Two. The testamentary aspects must be executed with will formalities under § 736.0403(2)(b), and § 732.502 requires the settlor’s signature at the end, made or acknowledged before at least two attesting witnesses who sign in the settlor’s presence and in each other’s presence.

Does a Florida living trust have to be notarized?

Not for validity. A notary is needed for the self-proving affidavit under § 732.503, for remote online notarization of an electronic instrument under § 117.285, and for the deed that transfers your real property into the trust. But the trust itself is valid on two witnesses.

Does a revocable trust protect assets from creditors in Florida?

No. Section 736.0505(1)(a) makes revocable trust property reachable by your creditors during your lifetime, except for property that would be exempt if you owned it directly. After your death the trust is liable for your estate’s expenses and enforceable claims to the extent the probate estate falls short.

Can a creditor sue my trust after I die?

Not directly. Section 736.1014 bars a direct action against the trust, the trustee or a beneficiary based on the settlor’s individual liability. Claims go through the estate under part VII of Chapter 733, and the personal representative then obtains payment from the trustee.

Can a living trust disinherit my spouse in Florida?

No. Section 732.2035(5) pulls revocable trust property into the elective estate, and the elective share is 30 percent. A spouse can waive the right, but only in a written agreement signed before two subscribing witnesses under § 732.702.

Can I leave my Florida homestead to anyone I want through my trust?

Not if you are survived by a spouse or a minor child. Section 732.4015(2) makes the constitutional restriction apply to trust dispositions, and if the trust violates it, § 736.1109(1) passes title under § 732.401 at the moment of death — a life estate to your spouse with a vested remainder to your descendants.

What happens if my trust leaves my house to someone who is not an heir?

The constitutional protection from forced sale does not follow it. Under Snyder v. Davis, the exemption inures to the surviving spouse or to “heirs” — anyone within the intestacy class of § 732.103. Leave the homestead to a friend, an unmarried partner, a caregiver or a charity and the home becomes a general asset available to your creditors and the expenses of your estate.

How long does a surviving spouse have to elect a half interest in the homestead?

Six months from the date of death, and during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. Section 732.401(2) lets the spouse take an undivided one-half as tenant in common instead of a life estate, by recording a notice of election. It is irrevocable once made, and the deadline is strictly enforced.

Does a living trust avoid probate in Florida?

For assets actually retitled into it, yes. Anything left in your own name at death is still a probate asset. And a probate is sometimes opened deliberately — to cut the creditor period from two years to three months, to determine homestead status, or to handle the elective share.

Is probate still required in Florida if I have a trust?

Not for the trust assets. But probate may still be needed for property left outside the trust, to trigger the creditor bar, to determine homestead status under § 736.0201(7), or to address a spouse’s elective share or family allowance.

Is a Florida living trust really private?

The instrument is not filed with the court and its terms stay out of the public record — a genuine advantage over probate. But your trustee must file a Notice of Trust under § 736.05055, which is public, and every qualified beneficiary is entitled to a complete copy of the trust on reasonable request under § 736.0813.

What is a Notice of Trust and who files it?

It is a short public filing your successor trustee must make with the court of your county of domicile and the court with jurisdiction of your estate. It contains only your name, date of death, the trust’s title and date, and the trustee’s name and address — no beneficiaries, assets or terms. The duty cannot be waived by your trust.

How long does my successor trustee have to notify beneficiaries?

60 days from accepting the trusteeship, and separately 60 days from learning the trust has become irrevocable, under § 736.0813(1)(a)–(b). In practice both notices are combined and sent within 60 days of death.

Do I still need a will if I have a living trust?

Yes — a pour-over will. It catches anything you forgot to fund, and it is the only document that can nominate a guardian for your minor children. It does not avoid probate; the assets it catches pass through probate first.

Can I change or revoke my living trust?

Yes, at any time you have capacity. Section 736.0602(3) allows revocation or amendment by substantial compliance with the method the trust states. Sign every amendment with the same two-witness formalities you used for the trust, and prefer a restatement over a new trust so you do not have to re-fund everything.

What happens to a living trust when the grantor dies?

It becomes irrevocable. Your successor trustee accepts, notifies qualified beneficiaries within 60 days, files the Notice of Trust, obtains an EIN, gathers and values assets, deals with claims and taxes, distributes, and accounts. The full timeline with deadlines is set out above.

Does my trust need its own tax ID number?

Not during your lifetime — a revocable trust is a grantor trust and uses your Social Security number. After your death the trust becomes a separate taxpayer, and your successor trustee must obtain an EIN and file Form 1041. The IRC § 645 election can combine the trust and estate onto a single return.

Does a living trust avoid estate taxes?

No. Because you kept the power to revoke, everything in the trust is in your federal gross estate. Florida has no state estate tax and no inheritance tax, so for most Florida families this is not the issue — but a revocable trust is not an estate tax tool, and estate tax planning requires additional structure.

Do assets in a living trust still get a step-up in basis?

Yes. Assets in a revocable trust receive the same date-of-death basis adjustment under IRC § 1014 as assets held in your own name. A revocable trust does not cost you the step-up. Married couples wanting a step-up on both halves should look at the Florida community property trust.

Does a living trust help me qualify for Medicaid in Florida?

No. Assets you can revoke are assets you can reach, so Medicaid counts them. Long-term care planning in Florida uses different tools and involves a five-year lookback.

Does a living trust protect against Florida Medicaid estate recovery?

Florida’s Medicaid Estate Recovery Act, § 409.9101, recovers by filing a claim against the probate estate, and Florida has not adopted the broader definition of “estate” federal law would permit. Assets that never enter the probate estate are therefore generally outside a recovery claim — but that is a consequence of avoiding probate, not a Medicaid plan, and § 409.9101(6) already bars recovery where a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or permanently disabled child survives.

Can a trust own an LLC in Florida?

Yes. You assign your membership interest to the trust and amend the operating agreement and company records. Check transfer restrictions and any consent requirement first, and update the Sunbiz filing. If the entity is an S corporation, confirm the trust qualifies as an eligible shareholder before transferring.

Should I put my bank accounts in the trust?

Generally yes for accounts of meaningful size, using a certification of trust rather than the full document. Remember to redirect direct deposits and automatic payments. Keeping one small personal account outside the trust is often practical.

Should I put my IRA or 401(k) in a living trust?

Do not retitle it. Transferring a qualified retirement account into a trust is treated as a full taxable distribution. Use the beneficiary designation instead. Whether to name the trust as beneficiary is a separate and genuinely technical question with significant income tax consequences.

Should I put my car in a Florida living trust?

Often not. Florida has no transfer-on-death titling for vehicles or vessels, but a small number of vehicles can usually be handled through summary administration, and some insurers treat trust-titled vehicles differently. A high-value vehicle or a boat is a different analysis.

What happens if I forget to fund an asset?

It stays in your name and goes through probate, where your pour-over will directs it into the trust. If the trust made a specific gift of that asset, the gift may simply lapse — that is what happened in Vaughan v. Boerckel, where property never deeded to the trust was held never to have entered the corpus.

What is a certification of trust and why does my bank want one?

It is a short statement under § 736.1017 confirming the trust exists, its date, the settlor and acting trustee, and the trustee’s relevant powers — without disclosing your beneficiaries or your terms. Institutions may rely on it, and one that refuses in bad faith can be liable for damages and attorney’s fees.

Living trust or lady bird deed in Florida — which is better?

A lady bird deed is cheaper and excellent for a single Florida property passing outright to a capable adult. A trust does everything a lady bird deed does plus incapacity planning, controlled distributions, protection for minor or vulnerable beneficiaries, out-of-state property, and privacy across your whole estate. Many Florida plans use both.

What is the difference between a living trust and a Florida land trust?

They are unrelated instruments. A Florida land trust under § 689.071 is a title-holding vehicle used mainly for privacy of ownership and real estate transactions. A living trust is an estate planning instrument that holds all of your assets and directs their distribution. A land trust is not a substitute for an estate plan.

Is a revocable trust the same as a living trust?

Nearly always in Florida, yes. “Living” means created during your lifetime; “revocable” means you can change it. Because almost every Florida living trust is revocable, the terms are used interchangeably — but a living trust could in principle be irrevocable from the start.

Revocable or irrevocable trust in Florida — which do I need?

Revocable, for probate avoidance, incapacity planning, privacy and controlled distribution while keeping full control. Irrevocable, for asset protection, estate tax reduction, Medicaid planning, life insurance or special needs — accepting that you give up control in exchange.

How long does it take to set up a living trust in Florida?

Typically two to three weeks from the first meeting to signing. Funding takes longer, because banks, transfer agents and title companies move at their own pace, and the deed must be recorded.

I’m a snowbird — does my out-of-state trust still work in Florida?

The original trust stays valid under § 736.0403(1). The danger is amendments: once you are a Florida domiciliary, every amendment must meet Florida’s two-witness will formalities. In Kelly v. Lindenau an out-of-state attorney’s amendments with a single witness were held invalid. A full Florida restatement after the move is the safe course.

I own property in another state — does my Florida trust cover it?

Only if that property is deeded into the trust under the law of the state where it sits. Done properly, this is one of the strongest reasons to use a trust: it replaces a Florida probate plus one or more ancillary probates with a single administration.

Can a Florida living trust be contested?

Yes — for lack of capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, mistake, or improper execution. Improper execution is the most reliable ground because it is objective. A contest generally cannot be brought while the settlor is alive, under § 736.0207.

Are no-contest clauses enforceable in Florida trusts?

No. Section 736.1108 makes a provision penalizing an interested person for contesting a trust unenforceable. Florida takes the same approach to wills. An in terrorem clause will not deter a challenge here.

What is a Florida community property trust?

An elective trust under §§ 736.1501–736.1512 that lets a married couple treat assets as community property so that both halves receive a basis step-up at the first death under IRC § 1014(b)(6). It requires an express declaration, a qualified Florida trustee, both spouses’ signatures, and a statutory capital-letter warning. It also gives up tenancy by the entireties protection, so it is not for couples with individual creditor exposure.

What happens to my digital assets and cryptocurrency?

Fiduciary access is governed by Chapter 740, and a provider’s online tool overrides your trust — so set legacy contacts and also grant explicit authority in the trust. Self-custodied cryptocurrency is the exception to everything: without the private key, no statute and no court order can recover it.

What is the summary administration limit in Florida now?

$150,000 in non-exempt assets, effective July 1, 2026, under § 735.201 as amended by chapter 2026-57. Summary administration is also available regardless of value when the decedent has been dead more than two years. Many published sources still quote the old $75,000 figure.

What is the downside of putting your house in a revocable trust?

The paperwork, and the risk of getting three Florida-specific details wrong. You need a properly drafted deed with spousal joinder, a life-interest occupancy provision so the tax exemption survives, and confirmation that the property will pass to an heir so the creditor protection follows it. Some lenders also require the home to be deeded out and back to refinance. What is not a downside: you do not lose the homestead exemption, you do not lose Save Our Homes, you do not lose creditor protection, and you do not lose the basis step-up.

Does a living trust have to be recorded in Florida?

No. The trust instrument is not recorded and is not filed with any court during your lifetime. Three related things are public: the deed transferring real property into the trust is recorded in the county’s official records, the Notice of Trust is filed with the court after your death under § 736.05055, and a surviving spouse’s notice of election under § 732.401(2) is recorded if made.

How do I find out if someone has a trust?

There is no registry to search. After a death, the most reliable route is the Notice of Trust filed with the clerk in the decedent’s county of domicile — it names the trust, its date, and the trustee. If you are a qualified beneficiary, § 736.0813 entitles you to a complete copy of the trust on reasonable request. During someone’s lifetime, a trust is private and you have no right to see it.

Can a trustee also be a beneficiary in Florida?

Yes, and it is extremely common — you are both while you are alive. The one hard limit is in § 736.0402(1)(e): the same person cannot be the sole trustee and the sole beneficiary, because there would be no one to owe a duty to. After your death, naming one child as trustee and beneficiary alongside siblings creates a standing conflict — workable, but a common source of litigation.

How much does a trustee get paid in Florida?

If the trust says nothing, § 736.0708 entitles the trustee to compensation that is “reasonable under the circumstances,” with extra compensation available for services beyond ordinary administration. If the trust does set a fee, that generally controls, though a court may adjust an amount that has become unreasonably high or low. Family trustees often serve without compensation; corporate trustees charge a published percentage of assets.

How long does a trustee have to distribute assets in Florida?

There is no fixed statutory deadline — the standard is a reasonable time. In practice the timeline is driven by the creditor window (3 months from published notice, or 2 years without a probate), any required tax returns, and the resolution of homestead or elective share questions. A trustee who distributes before those are settled can end up personally liable. Simple trusts often wrap in six to twelve months; anything with real estate, a business, or a dispute takes longer.

How do I dissolve or terminate a trust in Florida?

While you are alive and competent, you simply revoke your revocable trust and retitle the assets back. After it becomes irrevocable it is harder but not impossible: § 736.0414 lets a trustee terminate an uneconomic trust holding less than $50,000 where the value does not justify the cost of administration; § 736.0412 permits nonjudicial modification or termination by agreement; and § 736.04113 permits judicial modification or termination.

Can a trust claim lottery winnings in Florida?

A trust or other entity can be used to claim a Florida Lottery prize where the Lottery’s own claim rules and documentation requirements are satisfied, and it is a common way to organize a large prize among family members. It does not buy you anonymity by itself: under § 24.1051, a winner’s name claiming a prize of $250,000 or more is confidential for only 90 days from the claim, after which it becomes public; the street address and telephone number stay exempt. Talk to counsel before you sign the ticket, not after.

What is a “family trust” in Florida?

It is not a legal term of art. People usually mean either an ordinary revocable living trust set up for a family, or the credit shelter share created inside a married couple’s trust at the first death. Because the phrase means different things to different advisers, ask which one is being proposed before you agree to it.

What is a gun trust in Florida?

A trust drafted to hold NFA-regulated firearms — suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and similar items — so that possession and transfer comply with federal law and the items pass to the people you choose without probate exposure. It is a specialized instrument and is normally kept separate from your main living trust.

What is a Miller trust or qualified income trust?

An elder-law tool, not an estate planning one. If an applicant’s income exceeds Florida’s Medicaid income cap, a qualified income trust (often called a Miller trust) can allow qualification for long-term care benefits by routing the excess income through the trust. It has nothing to do with probate avoidance and is unrelated to a revocable living trust.

What is the difference between a living trust and a testamentary trust?

A living trust is created and funded during your lifetime, so it can avoid probate. A testamentary trust is created by your will and comes into existence only after your will is admitted to probate — so it offers control over how beneficiaries receive assets, but no probate avoidance at all.

Is a living trust the same as a living will?

No — they are completely unrelated. A living trust holds and distributes your property. A living will is an advance directive stating your wishes about end-of-life medical treatment and never touches your assets. The similar names are the only thing they share, and most Florida plans include both.

¿Cuánto cuesta un living trust en Florida?

Un fideicomiso revocable en vida (living trust) preparado por un abogado en Florida generalmente cuesta entre $2,500 y $3,500 para una persona y entre $3,500 y $5,000 para un matrimonio, incluyendo el testamento complementario, el poder duradero, la designación de sustituto para atención médica y la escritura de su vivienda. Vea la guía completa en español: Fideicomiso Revocable en Vida en Florida.

How often should I review my living trust?

Every two to three years, and immediately after a death, birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, move to or from Florida, significant purchase or sale, business change, or any change in a beneficiary’s circumstances. Review your funding at the same time — that is where plans quietly decay.

Where We Help With Florida Living Trusts

We prepare and administer living trusts in Florida statewide, working remotely with clients throughout the state and in person from our Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale offices.

South Florida — Miami-Dade County (Miami, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Coconut Grove, Brickell, Doral, Kendall, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay, Key Biscayne, Aventura, Sunny Isles Beach, Bal Harbour, Surfside, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Miami Lakes, Miami Shores, Miami Springs, Miami Gardens, Homestead, Hialeah, South Miami, West Miami, Westchester); Broward County (Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Weston, Plantation, Davie, Coral Springs, Sunrise, Tamarac, Coconut Creek, Cooper City, Dania Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hallandale Beach, Lauderhill, Margate, Oakland Park, Pompano Beach, Southwest Ranches, Wilton Manors); and Palm Beach County (West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Jupiter, Wellington, Palm Beach Gardens).

Central Florida — Orange County (Orlando, Winter Park, Windermere, Lake Nona, Maitland, Apopka, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Dr. Phillips); Osceola County (Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Celebration); Seminole County (Sanford, Altamonte Springs, Lake Mary, Longwood, Oviedo, Winter Springs); Lake, Sumter and Marion Counties including The Villages and Ocala; and Volusia County (Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach, New Smyrna Beach, DeLand).

Tampa Bay and the Gulf Coast — Hillsborough County (Tampa, Brandon, Riverview, Ruskin, Wimauma, Plant City); Pinellas County (St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Gulfport); Pasco, Manatee (Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch), Sarasota (Sarasota, Venice, Nokomis, North Port), Charlotte (Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte), Lee (Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, Estero) and Collier County (Naples, Marco Island).

Treasure Coast, Northeast and the Panhandle — Indian River County (Vero Beach, Sebastian), St. Lucie County (Port St. Lucie, Fort Pierce), Martin County (Stuart, Palm City, Jensen Beach); Duval County (Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach), St. Johns County (St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra); Brevard County (Melbourne, Palm Bay, Titusville, Cocoa); Alachua County (Gainesville); Leon County (Tallahassee); Escambia County (Pensacola); and Okaloosa and Walton Counties (Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Miramar Beach, Crestview, Niceville).

Ready to Set Up Your Living Trust in Florida?

If you own a home in Florida, have children from more than one marriage, own property in another state, or simply do not want your family in a courthouse after you are gone, a properly drafted and fully funded living trust in Florida is the most reliable plan available to you. The document is the easy part. Getting the homestead right, getting the execution right, and getting it funded is the work — and it is the work that decides whether any of it holds up.

I handle these matters personally, in English and Spanish, from the first conversation through the recorded deed. If you already have a trust — especially one drafted in another state — bring it in and let’s confirm it does what you think it does.

If you have been searching for a living trust attorney, a Florida trust attorney, or a trust lawyer near me, the questions worth asking any candidate are these: Does the fee include the deed and the funding, or only the document? What is your position on my homestead? Who will actually answer the phone when my successor trustee needs help? A firm that cannot answer all three in plain language is quoting you a document, not a plan.

Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq. · Florida Bar No. 107002 · Lorenzo Law
Call (305) 224-6811 or send us a message to schedule a consultation.

This page is general information about Florida law, current as of September 2026, and is not legal advice for your situation. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes change and courts interpret them; confirm anything you intend to rely on with an attorney who knows your facts.