Specific Bequests of Tangible Personal Property in a Florida Will

What Is a Specific Bequest?

Florida wills make four kinds of gift, and each behaves differently when something goes wrong:

Almost everything on this page turns on being in the first row. A specific devise of tangible personal property is the most protected gift in a Florida will — and, if the item disappears before you do, the most fragile.

What Counts as Tangible Personal Property in Florida?

The line that matters is tangible versus intangible. A stock certificate is a piece of paper, but its value is entirely in the ownership right it evidences — that makes it intangible. A promissory note, a bank passbook, a certificate of deposit and a life insurance policy are the same. The paper is not the asset.

The Florida Separate Writing — Fla. Stat. § 732.515

People call this a personal property memorandum, a tangible personal property list, or a TPP memo. The statute calls it a separate writing. They are the same document.

What § 732.515 Actually Requires

Four things, and only four:

1. Your will must refer to it. The statute reaches “a written statement or list referred to in the decedent’s will.” This is not a formality — it is the whole foundation, and Florida’s Fourth District has treated the will’s reference as essential to admitting the writing. Adkins v. Woodfin, 525 So. 2d 447 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988). A list your will never mentions has no legal effect at all.
2. You must sign it, and it must be written. That is the only execution requirement — no witnesses, no notary, no particular form. But it does have to exist on paper: oral instructions do not satisfy the statute. In re Estate of Corbin, 645 So. 2d 39 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994).
3. It must describe the items and the people with reasonable certainty. “My jewellery to my daughters” is not reasonable certainty. “The 1.2-carat solitaire engagement ring, appraised 2019, to my daughter Clara Ruiz” is.
4. The item must be tangible personal property not used in trade or business, and not already given away by the will itself.

Can You Write It After the Will Is Signed? Can You Change It Later?

That flexibility is why the separate writing exists. Without it, changing who gets the china means executing a codicil — a formal amendment requiring two witnesses and the same ceremony as the will itself. With it, you cross out a line, initial it, re-sign, re-date, and you are finished.

Does a Florida Personal Property Memorandum Need to Be Notarized?

Notice how far that departs from the will itself. Under § 732.502, a Florida will must be signed at the end by the testator in the presence of two attesting witnesses, who must sign in the presence of the testator and of each other. Florida does not recognise handwritten (holographic) wills that lack those witnesses, no matter how clearly they express intent.

Yet a handwritten separate writing, signed by you alone, works — because § 732.515 imposes no form requirement beyond your signature. That is a genuine and counterintuitive quirk of Florida law: the informal list is valid where the informal will is not.

Can You Sign It Electronically?

Section 732.522 took effect on 1 July 2020 and reaches revocable trusts as well as wills. One wrinkle: subsection (4) requires an electronically signed instrument to state the creator’s intent to execute it under Florida law, and it is not settled whether that statement has to appear in the writing itself. No Florida appellate court has yet applied § 732.522 to a § 732.515 writing at all. If the list is doing real work — a valuable collection, a fragile family — sign a paper original and keep it with the will.

Where the List Should Live

With the original will, and your lawyer should know it exists. There is no self-proving affidavit for a separate writing and no registry for it. If it is never found, it never operated; the items fall into the residuary and are divided with everything else. A list in a drawer nobody opens is the most ordinary way this planning fails.

Why This Is Not “Incorporation by Reference”

Read the two statutes side by side and the problem is obvious:

Section 732.515 was written precisely because § 732.512 does not work here. Each of its distinguishing sentences reverses a § 732.512 requirement.

The Clause Language That Fails, and the Language That Works

And you do not get a second chance to explain what you meant. In Adkins, the Fourth District held that where the will’s language is unambiguous, it is error to admit parol evidence of the testator’s intent to supply the missing reference. The reference has to appear on the face of the will.

A clause drafted on the incorporation-by-reference model typically reads something like:

A clause that tracks § 732.515 does not have that problem:

Note the last sentence. It closes the gap the statute leaves open — what happens to the things nobody remembered to list.

What Cannot Go in the List

The trade-or-business exclusion is asset-specific, not owner-specific. A tractor on a hobby farm can be listed. The same tractor on a working farm cannot. A camera used for family photographs can be listed; the same camera in a working photographer’s kit cannot.

Can You Leave Cash in a Florida Personal Property Memorandum?

This is worth getting right, because almost every article on this topic states the old rule. Before 2001, § 732.515 excluded “money and property used in trade or business.” Chapter 2001-226, section 48, Laws of Florida rewrote the section and struck “money and,” leaving only the trade-or-business exclusion. Any page telling you Florida law forbids money in a separate writing is quoting a statute that has not existed for a quarter of a century.

But the practical limit survives by a different route. In Baldwin v. Estate of Winters, 944 So. 2d 437 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), the decedent left signed letters directing her personal representative to give a man “a new car of his choice from [her] estate.” The court held that could not take effect as a separate writing: it was a devise of a monetary amount — the cost of a car that did not yet exist — and so had to satisfy the ordinary will formalities of § 732.502 instead.

The line to hold is existing chattel versus dollar value. Your existing car can go in the list. Money to buy a car should not.

Gold and Silver: What Changed on 1 July 2026

The definition that does the work sits in § 215.986, enacted by chapter 2025-100. “Gold coin” there means gold “in the shape of rounds, bars, ingots, or bullion coins, which is valued for its metal content and stamped or imprinted with its weight and purity” at at least 99.5 percent purity. Silver is the same at 99.9 percent. Both definitions expressly exclude jewellery, items of utility, and collectibles.

What Happens if You Leave Two Lists That Disagree?

That is a partial revocation rule, and it is more forgiving than people expect. A 2024 list leaving the piano to your son and a 2026 list leaving the piano to your daughter is resolved in the daughter’s favour — but every other entry on the 2024 list survives untouched, because there is no conflict as to those items.

The catch is proof. The statute requires no date. If two lists surface and neither is dated, “most recent” becomes a question of evidence, and evidence in probate means a hearing. Date every list. Better still, when you make a change, sign a clean new list dated that day and destroy the old one.

The Blanket Clause and the List: Which One Wins?

The case that gets cited here is Babcock v. Estate of Babcock, 995 So. 2d 1044 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008). It was decided on an exempt-property question, not a separate-writing question, but two things it said matter here.

First, a will article giving household goods, jewellery, clothing and automobiles is a specific bequest, because those items are “particularly designated” — which is what put the property outside exempt property under § 732.402(5). Second, the surviving spouse argued that a separate article reserving the right to dispose of tangible personal property by a written list made the blanket gift general rather than specific. The court rejected that: the reservation simply allowed a more particular designation, which would control over the blanket bequest.

That second point is reassuring — and there is a reason for it. The will in Babcock was drafted properly. Its blanket clause gave “all of my clothing, jewelry, household goods, personal effects, automobiles and all other tangible personal property not otherwise specifically devised herein or pursuant to the written statement or list described in Article Third.” The subordination was already in the text, which is precisely why the court could say the list would control.

Copy that structure. One phrase in the blanket clause removes the question entirely:

Without them, a perfectly executed list becomes an argument about statutory construction, litigated by the people you were trying to keep out of court.

What if the Item Is Gone? Ademption in Florida

Florida’s Nonademption Statute — § 732.606

Section 732.606 rescues the specific devisee in defined circumstances:

• Sold by a guardian of the property. If specifically devised property is sold by a guardian of the property, or a condemnation award or insurance proceeds are paid to a guardian of the property, the specific devisee has the right to a general pecuniary devise equal to the net sale price, the award, or the proceeds. This applies mechanically — it does not depend on proving what the testator intended.
• Unpaid purchase price. The devisee takes any balance of the purchase price still owing from a buyer at death, plus any security interest.
• Unpaid condemnation award. Any part of an award for the taking of the property unpaid at death.
• Unpaid insurance proceeds. Any proceeds unpaid at death on fire or casualty insurance on the property.
• Foreclosure. Property owned at death as a result of foreclosure, or taken instead of foreclosure, on the security for a specifically devised obligation.

Two qualifications. The guardian-sale rule does not apply if the testator’s disability is later adjudicated to have ceased and the testator survives that adjudication by one year — the theory being that a testator restored to capacity for a year had time to revise the will. And the statute is not limited to testators who were adjudicated incompetent; it applies generally. Ott v. Ott, 418 So. 2d 460 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982). Where the statute applies at all, the testator’s intent is beside the point — the devisee takes the pecuniary equivalent as of right. Owen v. Wilson, 399 So. 2d 498 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981).

Read the insurance rule carefully. It protects proceeds unpaid at death. If the painting burned, the insurer paid the testator, and the money went into a general account and was spent, the statute does nothing.

The Power-of-Attorney Gap Florida Has Never Closed

Since the durable power of attorney is far more common than guardianship, this is where most real ademption disputes start. Where a client is likely to need long-term care and has made specific gifts of valuable chattels, the planning answer is to address it directly in the will — for example, by providing that if a specifically devised item is disposed of by an agent under a power of attorney during any period of the testator’s incapacity, the devisee shall receive a general pecuniary devise equal to the net proceeds. The statute will not supply that; the document has to.

Florida’s Intent Exception

The exception has two conditions, and both must be met: the property must be traceable to an asset still in the estate, and the testator must not have intended to alter the testamentary scheme. In re Estate of Budny, 815 So. 2d 781 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) states it that way; In re Estate of Jones, 472 So. 2d 1299 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985) describes Florida as embracing the minority intent theory. The Florida Supreme Court got there first in In re Watkins’ Estate, 284 So. 2d 679 (Fla. 1973) — no ademption, where the property is traceable and no act of the testator manifests a change of intent — and in Eisenschenk v. Fowler, 82 So. 2d 876 (Fla. 1955), where the prime concern was said to be the testator’s intent.

Where the testator’s own deliberate act removed the item, the courts enforce the ademption. In re Estate of Murphy, 340 So. 2d 107 (Fla. 1976) — the testator sold the apartment, and the specific devise was extinguished.

Two practical notes. Where § 732.606 applies, intent is irrelevant: the statute operates mechanically and the devisee takes the pecuniary equivalent whatever anyone meant. And the intent exception is a route through litigation, not a safety net — it costs more than most of the objects it is invoked to save.

A Different Thing With a Similar Name

Ademption by extinction — everything above — is what happens when the item is gone. Ademption by satisfaction under § 732.609 is different: it asks whether a gift you made during your lifetime was meant to count against what the will leaves that person. If you gave your daughter the ring in 2024 and the will still names her for it, the question is satisfaction, not extinction. Say which you intend, in writing, at the time.

A Note on Securities — § 732.605

Securities cannot go in a separate writing, but if your will specifically devises shares, § 732.605 carries the devise through changes the company caused — splits, stock dividends, mergers, reinvestment plans. Changes you caused, such as exercising purchase options, and cash distributions received before death, do not follow the gift.

What if the Person Is Gone? Florida’s Antilapse Statute

So the ring left to your niece passes to your niece’s children if she predeceases you. The ring left to your best friend simply lapses and falls into the residuary.

Specific Bequests and Florida Exempt Property — the Surprise in § 732.402(5)

Start with what exempt property is. Section 732.402 gives the surviving spouse — or, if there is no surviving spouse, the decedent’s children — four categories free of the claims of estate creditors:

The $20,000 figure was set in 2009 and has not been adjusted since. Now the part that changes planning decisions:

Two practical consequences, and they point in opposite directions depending on what you are trying to achieve:

• If you want the furniture and the cars to go to a particular person — say a child from a first marriage — specifically devise them. Doing so takes them out of exempt property, so a surviving spouse cannot claim them under § 732.402.
• If you want your spouse to have the creditor protection exempt property provides, do not specifically devise those items. A general or residuary gift leaves the exemption available. And if the specific devisee happens also to be the person who would qualify — the spouse, or a child where there is no spouse — the second sentence of § 732.402(5) lets them petition for the creditor shield anyway.

Will Your Belongings Be Sold to Pay Your Debts?

Under § 733.805(1), estate assets are consumed to pay debts, expenses and statutory claims in this order:

1. Property passing by intestacy
2. Property devised to the residuary devisees
3. Property not specifically or demonstratively devised (general devises)
4. Property specifically or demonstratively devised

So the residue is exhausted, and the cash legacies are exhausted, before anyone touches the ring. And § 733.805(2) adds a safety valve: “When property that has been specifically devised or charged with a devise is sold or used by the personal representative, other devisees shall contribute according to their respective interests to the devisee whose devise has been sold or used.” The court fixes the amounts, and they are paid or withheld before distribution.

Two caveats. Estate tax apportionment under § 733.817 is applied first. And exempt property and the family allowance are paid out of the estate under § 733.805(1) alongside debts — which is exactly why the § 732.402(5) point above matters.

Can a Florida Revocable Trust Use a Personal Property Memorandum?

It is worse than a mere gap, because § 736.0403(2)(b) works against it:

A separate list telling the trustee who gets the china after the settlor dies is, by that definition, a testamentary aspect. And a document signed by the settlor alone does not meet will formalities, which under § 732.502 require two attesting witnesses. The very informality that makes the list useful is what puts it outside § 736.0403(2)(b).

Incorporation by reference does not rescue it either: the common-law doctrine carries the same requirement that the writing exist when the instrument is executed, so a list written afterwards is not incorporated.

No Florida appellate court has squarely decided this question either way. What we are describing is a strong textual argument and the safe architecture, not settled law.

There is one instructive decision at the margin. In Flagship National Bank of Boynton Beach v. Kelley, 516 So. 2d 1067 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), the decedent’s living trust referred to a list of personal assets to be attached to the trust — and the list was never attached. Her will separately contained a § 732.515 provision. A list was found in her safe with both documents. The Fourth District affirmed the determination that the property passed under the estate, through the will’s separate-writing provision, because the conveyance into the trust had never been completed.

That is not a holding that a trust can never use a list. It is a clean illustration of where the mechanism actually lives — and of how easily the trust route fails on a step everybody forgets.

The Architecture That Works

1. Do not fund tangible personal property into the revocable trust. Leave the furniture, jewellery, art and vehicles titled in your own name.
2. Put the § 732.515 reference in the pour-over will. The will is the instrument the statute authorises, and it is executed with formalities anyway.
3. Have the will devise the tangible personal property directly — to named people or a class, subject to and after giving effect to the separate writing. Do not pour tangible property into the trust and then try to direct it from there.
4. Understand the boundary. A pour-over will that refers to a § 732.515 writing can reach tangible property that was never assigned to the trust. It cannot reach items already sitting in the trust — those are governed by the trust instrument, and a specific disposition in the trust will not take effect for an item the will or the separate writing has also disposed of.
5. If an item genuinely must sit in the trust — a boat already retitled to it, for instance — name the recipient inside the trust instrument and amend the trust, with formalities, when your wishes change.
6. Belt and braces. Where a client insists on a list that works in both directions, execute it with full will formalities — signed at the end, two witnesses. It then functions as a § 732.515 writing under the will and satisfies § 736.0403(2)(b) if the trust route is ever needed. The cost is that casual pen changes are no longer safe. Under current Florida law you cannot have both the convenience and the trust-side certainty.

Assets That Need Their Own Treatment

Cars, Boats and Anything With a Title

The trap is one word on the certificate of title. Under § 319.22(2)(a)2., two owners joined by “or” hold with a right of survivorship — the car passes automatically to the survivor at death and never enters the estate. Joined by “and,” it does not. A memorandum entry cannot override a survivorship title. Check the title before you list a vehicle.

Transferring the title afterwards runs through § 319.28, which is more flexible than most people expect:

• Where the owner died intestate, no probate order is needed if the application is accompanied by an affidavit that the estate is not indebted and the surviving spouse and heirs have amicably agreed on a division.
• Where the owner died testate, a certified copy of the will plus a solvency affidavit is the ordinary route.
• An affidavit attested by a Florida-licensed attorney identifying the rightful heirs establishes a presumption of ownership, and no copy of the will is necessary.
• A surviving spouse who wants to sell rather than keep the vehicle may assign the decedent’s existing certificate of title straight to the buyer, without first putting it in their own name.

Florida offers no transfer-on-death or beneficiary designation on a vehicle title, whatever the practice may be in the state you moved from. See transferring a car title after a death in Florida.

Firearms

Points worth knowing:

• The prohibited categories in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) include felony convictions, unlawful drug use, certain mental-health adjudications, qualifying domestic-violence restraining orders and misdemeanour domestic-violence convictions. Florida adds its own prohibition in § 790.23. Neither restricts your right to leave a firearm — both restrict the recipient’s right to have it.
• Out-of-state beneficiaries are fine. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(5) contains an express exception for a transfer made to carry out a bequest, provided the recipient may lawfully possess the firearm under the law of their home state.
• NFA items — suppressors, short-barrelled rifles, machine guns — transfer to a lawful heir tax-free on ATF Form 5, and ATF will refuse the transfer if any law prohibits the heir from receiving it. An unregistered NFA item found in a safe is contraband; the estate cannot register it and must contact ATF.
• Gun trusts remain the standard device for anyone holding NFA items, because the trust continues past death and can build in eligibility screening.

Never list a firearm in a memorandum alone. Pair it with a will provision that conditions the gift on the beneficiary being lawfully able to possess it, directs the personal representative to verify before delivery, and names an alternate taker or a directed sale if they are not.

Pets

The complete answer is a pet trust under § 736.0408. Florida permits a trust for the care of an animal alive during your lifetime; it terminates when the last covered animal dies, and it may be enforced by a person named in the trust or appointed by the court. Note the limit built into subsection (3): a court may cut back a trust it finds exceeds “the amount required for the intended use,” so overfunding invites a petition from the residuary beneficiaries.

The architecture that works: the pet trust for the money and the enforcement, the separate writing (or a will clause) to convey the animal, and — most importantly — a named temporary caretaker with immediate access to cash, because no trust funds itself and no list gets read in seventy-two hours.

Cryptocurrency and Digital Files

Leaving your hardware wallet to your son leaves him the device. It does not leave him the bitcoin. The coins are separate property and, absent a specific disposition, follow the residuary — while your son holds the only means of access. The same logic applies to a safe: a gift of the container is not a gift of what is inside it.

Two further points on Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act:

• An online tool beats your will. Under § 740.003, if a platform lets you name a legacy contact or inactive-account manager and change it at any time, that direction overrides a contrary direction in your will, trust or power of attorney. Audit the online tools first; the estate plan is the fallback, not the control.
• Never write a password or seed phrase in the memorandum. The list may end up circulated to beneficiaries, and contents of a safe-deposit box are inventoried and filed with the court.

Dividing Belongings Without a Fight

• In kind is the default. Section 733.810(1) requires assets to be distributed in kind unless the will confers a general power of sale, the will says otherwise, or the code directs otherwise. Conferring a power of sale in the will flips that default — a deliberate choice, not boilerplate.
• Non-pro rata allocation is permitted. Section 733.810(5) lets the personal representative distribute assets non-pro rata among beneficiaries, subject to the duty of impartiality. This is the workhorse: value the items, give whole objects to whole people, equalise with cash.
• The representative can sell without a court order. Section 733.612(21) authorises the sale of any personal property of the estate, acting reasonably for the benefit of the interested persons. Real property is carved out; chattels are not.
• Possession. Under § 733.607(1), the personal representative has the right to take possession of estate property, and a request for delivery is conclusive evidence that possession is necessary for administration. That is the answer to the relative who has already moved the furniture out.

Methods That Actually Work

Because the statutes are silent, the useful answers are drafting answers. Any of these can be written into the will:

1. Rotating selection. Beneficiaries choose in order, the order reversing each round, until the items are gone. Simple, transparent, and it survives contact with a grieving family.
2. Appraise and equalise. An independent appraisal, whole items allocated, differences balanced with cash from the residue.
3. Sticker method. Each beneficiary marks their choices; contested items go to a tie-break method chosen in advance.
4. Deadline and sale. A clause directing the personal representative to sell any item on which the beneficiaries cannot agree within sixty or ninety days, with the proceeds divided.
5. A binding decision-maker. A clause making the personal representative’s allocation final absent bad faith. This is the one that most reliably prevents litigation, and the one clients hesitate over.

Where the Jewellery Actually Is: the Safe-Deposit Box

Each person present must verify the contents by signing an inventory under penalties of perjury. The representative must then file that inventory with the court within ten days — together with the box entry record covering the six months before the death. That entry-record requirement is the anti-self-help provision: it shows exactly who visited the box while the decedent was still alive, and it is filed in the court file.

Separately, before any personal representative exists, § 655.935 lets a spouse, parent, adult descendant or the person named as personal representative examine the box in an officer’s presence — but only three things may be removed: the will, which goes to the clerk of court; burial instructions; and a life insurance policy on the decedent, which goes to the named beneficiary. Nothing else leaves the room.

Memorandum, Codicil, or Letter of Instruction?

Use a codicil, not the list, when you are: adding or removing a beneficiary; changing your personal representative, trustee or guardian; changing how the residue is divided; giving away money or real estate; or altering anything a court might have to construe.

Use the list when you are: deciding who gets the ring, the desk, the tools, the paintings, the china, the cameras or the record collection.

Write a letter of instruction as well. It binds nobody, which is precisely why it is useful — it can carry the things law should not: where the safe key is, which neighbour has the spare car key, why the ugly vase matters, what you want said at the service.

Common Misunderstandings

A handwritten list on its own is enough.

Only if your will refers to a separate writing. Without that reference, the list has no effect — and it cannot be salvaged as a codicil, because Florida does not accept unwitnessed handwritten wills.

The memorandum has to be notarized.

It does not. Section 732.515 requires your signature and nothing more.

I have to redo the list every time I change my will.

The opposite. The whole point is that the two are independent — you can revise the list without touching the will, and the will without touching the list.

I can leave someone $5,000 in the memorandum.

No. A dollar amount is not an item of tangible personal property. Cash belongs in the will.

My gold coins can go in the list.

Collectible coins, yes. Investment bullion, no — not for deaths on or after 1 July 2026, since Florida made it legal tender and removed it from the definition of tangible personal property.

My revocable trust can use one too.

Section 732.515 operates only through a will. Section 736.0403(2)(b) requires will formalities for the testamentary aspects of a revocable trust, and a list you signed alone does not have them.

The furniture goes to my spouse no matter what my will says.

Not if you specifically devised it. Section 732.402(5) takes specifically devised property out of exempt property entirely.

My belongings will be sold first to pay my debts.

Last. Specific devises are at the bottom of the abatement ladder under § 733.805, and other beneficiaries have to contribute if a specifically devised item is sold.

A no-contest clause will stop the family fighting over this.

Florida makes no-contest clauses unenforceable in both wills and trusts. Only clear drafting prevents the fight.

Questions We Are Asked Most

Is a personal property memorandum legally binding in Florida?

Yes, if your will refers to it. A separate writing that satisfies § 732.515 is admissible as evidence of your intended disposition and the personal representative must give effect to it. A list your will never mentions is not binding on anyone.

Does a separate writing need witnesses in Florida?

No. Section 732.515 requires only that the writing be signed by the testator and describe the items and the devisees with reasonable certainty. There is no witness or notary requirement — unlike a will, which needs two attesting witnesses under § 732.502.

Can the list be handwritten?

Yes. Section 732.515 imposes no form requirement beyond your signature, so a signed handwritten list is valid — even though Florida does not recognise a handwritten will that lacks two witnesses. It does have to be written; oral instructions do not qualify.

Can I write the list after I sign my will?

Yes. The statute expressly provides that the writing “may be prepared before or after the execution of the will” and “may be altered by the testator after its preparation.” This is what distinguishes § 732.515 from incorporation by reference under § 732.512.

Does my will have to mention the list?

Yes, and this is not negotiable. Section 732.515 reaches only “a written statement or list referred to in the decedent’s will.” Florida courts have treated the will’s reference as essential; without it, the writing cannot be given effect.

What if I leave two lists that contradict each other?

The most recent writing controls, item by item. Section 732.515 provides that “the provisions of the most recent writing revoke the inconsistent provisions of each prior writing” — so a later list supersedes only the conflicting entries, not the whole earlier document. Date every list, or “most recent” becomes a question for a judge.

What cannot go in a Florida personal property memorandum?

The statute excludes property used in trade or business. Beyond that, anything that is not an item of tangible personal property is out: real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, stocks and bonds, promissory notes, life insurance, cryptocurrency and digital accounts, and — for deaths on or after 1 July 2026 — gold and silver bullion.

Can I leave cash in a personal property memorandum?

You should not. Florida deleted the word “money” from § 732.515 in 2001, so the current statute does not exclude it by name — but a sum of money is still not an item of tangible personal property. Florida’s Fourth District refused to give effect to a monetary devise made this way in Baldwin v. Estate of Winters, though it was construing the earlier version of the statute, so the point is not finally settled. Put cash in the will.

Can I leave gold or silver in a separate writing?

It depends on the form, and the answer changed on 1 July 2026. Bullion, bars, ingots and rounds meeting the § 215.986 purity and marking requirements are now legal tender, and § 731.1065 provides that legal-tender gold and silver is not tangible personal property. Collectible and numismatic coins, and gold jewellery, remain tangible personal property and can still be listed. Note the knock-on effect: a will clause giving “all my tangible personal property” no longer captures the bullion either.

What happens if I sold the item before I died?

The gift usually fails — that is ademption. Florida’s nonademption statute, § 732.606, rescues it in defined situations: a sale by a guardian of the property, an unpaid balance of the purchase price, an unpaid condemnation award, or insurance proceeds unpaid at death. Florida courts will also consider extrinsic evidence of your intent where the property can be traced.

What if my power of attorney sold it?

That is the gap. Section 732.606 protects the beneficiary when a guardian of the property sold the item; Florida has not extended the same protection to a sale by an agent under a durable power of attorney. If a valuable item is specifically devised and long-term care is foreseeable, the will should address it directly.

What if the person I named dies before I do?

Section 732.603 creates a substitute gift in that person’s surviving descendants, per stirpes — but only if the person was your grandparent or a descendant of your grandparent. A friend, in-law, stepchild or charity is not covered, and the gift lapses into the residuary. Put any survivorship condition in the will, not on the list.

Can I use a personal property memorandum with my Florida revocable trust?

Almost certainly not, and no Florida court has held otherwise. Section 732.515 operates only through a will, and § 736.0403(2)(b) makes the testamentary aspects of a revocable trust invalid unless executed with will formalities — which a list signed by you alone does not have. The safe structure is to keep tangible property out of the trust and put the reference in the pour-over will.

Does a specific bequest defeat my spouse’s exempt property claim?

Yes, and most people assume the reverse. Section 732.402(5) provides that property specifically or demonstratively devised is not included in exempt property. Specifically devising the household furniture and the two cars removes them from the § 732.402 entitlement — which is useful if that is what you intend, and a problem if it is not.

What happens to belongings I never listed anywhere?

They fall into your residuary estate and are divided with everything else, or sold and the proceeds divided. A closing sentence in the will saying exactly that removes any argument about it.

Can someone challenge the list?

Yes. Because it needs no witnesses and can be written at any time, a separate writing is the easiest part of an estate plan to attack on undue influence or capacity grounds. Where the family is fragile, sign it in front of witnesses even though the statute does not require them.

Talk to a Florida Estate Planning Attorney

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