Practice Areas - Millhorn and Shanawany Law Firm

Probate In Florida

Probate is a court-supervised process for identifying and gathering the assets ...

Lady Bird Deed in Florida

Upon the property owner’s death, the property is transferred to ...

Trusts

A Trust is a creature of the law in which one party ‑ the Trustee ‑ has legal ownership ...

Wills

A Will is a written direction controlling the disposition of property at death ...

MORE FACTS ABOUT WILLS AND PROBATE

A child born after a Will is made receives a share equal to what he/she would have received if the Testator had died without a Will (i.e., intestate) unless: It appears that the omission was intentional, OR the Testator already did have one or more children and left substantially all to the surviving parent of the omitted child.

Florida law does not allow you to automatically exclude anyone who challenges the Will in court.

Marriage does not revoke a person’s Will automatically, but the surviving spouse will receive a share of the estate as if the Testator had died intestate. A divorce and final property settlement bar all claims of the divorced survivor to the estate of the ex‑spouse, if the couple was married when the Will was executed.

The “joint” bank accounts most people speak of are owned as “Joint Tenants with Right of Survivorship” (JTWROS). Therefore, they do not have to wait for distribution through probate court.