For families in The Villages and the surrounding communities
In Florida, your spouse may not inherit everything
Florida homestead law works differently from the state you came from. This free guide covers the five assumptions that cost families here the most.
Written for Florida law, not general advice
Covers homestead, probate, joint accounts and incapacity
Read it in about fifteen minutes
Send me the free guide
Your information stays with our office. We never sell or share it.
Estate planning, probate and elder law | Office in Wildwood, Florida | Serving Sumter, Lake, Marion and Citrus Counties | Florida Bar, admitted 2006 | U.S. Tax Court, admitted 2008
Most people here already did something about this
Almost everyone who sits down with us already has something in place. A will in a drawer. Beneficiaries listed on a few accounts. A house titled in both names.
That is more than most people manage, and it is usually the reason nobody ever looks any closer.
But the families who get hurt in Sumter and Lake County are rarely the ones who did nothing. They are the ones who did just enough to feel safe.
A will written up north, before the move
A beneficiary form that still names a first spouse
A deed missing the exact words Florida law requires
None of it surfaces until someone dies or ends up in a hospital bed. By then it is not fixable.
The bill never lands on you
You will never see how your plan performs. The people you love will.
They are the ones who open the folder and find out the beneficiary form was never updated, or that the house has to go through probate, or that the account everyone assumed was split three ways was not. They cannot ask you what you meant. They can only read what you wrote.
And in Florida, that reading happens in public. Under the state's sunshine laws, a probate file can be opened by anyone who goes looking.
WHAT THE DEFAULT PATH COSTS
$5,000 to $10,000 in probate on a $100,000 estate
Eight to nine months before anything can be settled, and climbing
Insurance, taxes and upkeep still due the whole time, with nothing sellable
$5,000 to $10,000 more for a guardianship if incapacity came first, and considerably more when the family disagrees
The cost of doing nothing does not land on you. It lands entirely on them.
The plan is not the document
Most people think estate planning means choosing a document. A will, or a trust, and then it is handled.
That is backwards. The document is the easy part. What decides whether it holds up is your own situation, and most of the damage lives in one place: how things are titled. Titling is where good intentions quietly come apart.
So every plan we build starts with four questions, in this order.
1. What you actually own
2. How each piece is titled
3. Who you want it to go to
4. What their lives will look like when they get it
It is also why we do not hand you your neighbor's plan. Two houses on the same street with the same savings can need very different work, depending on a second marriage, property in another state, or a child with creditors.
The guide walks through all five of the assumptions that break at question two.
What is inside the guide
Five assumptions, what each one costs, and what to check in your own paperwork.
Why a surviving spouse in Florida can end up with a life estate instead of the house
The six month homestead election window that runs from the date of death, not the date probate opens
What a $100,000 estate can pay in probate, and why smaller estates are hit harder
Why filing a will is how you enter probate, not how you avoid it
What changes the day your child turns eighteen and you lose legal authority over their care
The four ways joint ownership with an adult child backfires, including the one word missing from most deeds
What a working plan actually includes: will, trust, lady bird deed, beneficiary designations, durable power of attorney, health care surrogate
5 pages plain English, about fifteen minutes to read. Delivered to your inbox as a PDF.
What happens after you download it
Downloading the guide does not put you on a call list.
1
The guide arrives
It lands in your email within a couple of minutes. Nothing to print, nothing to sign.
2
You read it
Fifteen minutes, plain English, written for Florida law rather than for a general audience.
3
You decide
Most people find one or two things they want checked. Some find nothing, which is also a real answer.
4
We look at it together
If you want a conversation, you tell us what is going on and we tell you honestly whether anything needs attention.
1
The guide arrives
It lands in your email within a couple of minutes. Nothing to print, nothing to sign.
2
You read it
Fifteen minutes, plain English, written for Florida law rather than for a general audience.
3
You decide
Most people find one or two things they want checked. Some find nothing, which is also a real answer.
4
We look at it together
If you want a conversation, you tell us what is going on and we tell you honestly whether anything needs attention.
John Marshall, Marshall Law
My office is in Wildwood, which is about as close to The Villages as you can get. Most of the families I work with live within twenty minutes of it.
Four years ago I was in a very bad car accident. The documents I draft for other people turned out to be the ones I suddenly needed myself. That changed how I talk about this work.
I am not going to tell you planning is free. It is not. But the honest comparison is not planning against nothing. It is planning against probate, and probate gets billed to the people you were trying to protect.
Estate planning, probate and elder law
Member of The Florida Bar, practicing in Florida and Ohio only
Your first conversation is confidential whether or not you ever hire the firm
Guiding you through life storms.
Questions people ask before they download
I already have a will. Is this still for me?
That is exactly who it is written for. A will does not avoid probate, a will is a probate document. And most of what goes wrong goes wrong in the titling, which sits outside the will entirely.
Is this going to put me on a call list?
No. The guide comes by email and that is the whole transaction. If you want a conversation later, you ask for one.
My plan was done by a good attorney up north. Does it still work here?
Florida homestead law is different from nearly every other state. Deeds, spousal rights and elective shares do not transfer with the moving truck. The guide covers what usually needs redoing after a move.
We do not have enough for this to matter.
Smaller estates are hit harder, not easier. A $5,000 to $10,000 probate bill barely registers on a million dollar estate. On a hundred thousand it is real money out of the family's pocket.
I am not old enough to be thinking about this.
Half of what a plan does has nothing to do with dying. It covers being alive and unable to decide. And the day your child turns eighteen, you lose the legal authority to make their medical or financial decisions.
What happens to my information?
It stays with our office. We do not sell it and we do not share it. Reading the guide does not make you a client and does not create an attorney client relationship.
Get the Florida estate planning guide
Five assumptions, what each one costs, and what to check in your own paperwork. Written for Florida law, not for a general audience.
Send me the free guide
Your information stays with our office. We never sell or share it.
Marshall Law, P.A. Estate planning, probate and elder law. 1305 Cleveland Ave S., Suite D, Wildwood, FL 34785 (352) 432-8859.
Serving The Villages, Wildwood, Lady Lake, Leesburg, Fruitland Park, Minneola, Sumter County, Lake County, Marion County and Citrus County.
Attorney advertising. The information on this page is provided for general educational purposes about Florida estate planning and is not legal advice for any individual situation.
Submitting this form, receiving the guide, or reading this page does not create an attorney client relationship. No confidential relationship is formed until Marshall Law, P.A. and you sign a written engagement agreement. Every estate is different. Please consult a licensed Florida attorney before making decisions about your own plan.
Marshall Law, P.A. is licensed to practice law in the State of Florida. John Marshall is the attorney responsible for the content of this page.
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