Tonight the neighborhood kids will knock on your door looking for candy. Fine. What I worry about is who knocks on that same door after you're gone, holding a deed and a confused look.
Your house is probably your biggest asset, and Florida has some very spooky rules about it. If you're married or have a minor child, Florida limits who you can leave your homestead to in your Will. Plenty of people "leave the house to the kids" in a Will, never knowing the law may simply ignore that sentence. The result? Your spouse and your children can end up as co-owners of the same house, whether they get along or not. That's not a haunted house. That's a horror movie.
The good news: there are ways to plan around it, but only if you do it while you're still around to sign.
Action plan
- Find your deed and look at exactly how the house is titled. Just you? You and your spouse? A trust?
- If you've remarried, have kids from a prior relationship, or wrote "the house goes to…" in your Will, call me. This is the #1 homestead surprise I see in probate.
- Book a free planning call