A will is the document most people think of as their estate plan. It is closer to a shipping label. It directs one specific category of property, it becomes a public record shortly after you die, and Florida law flatly restricts some of what people routinely try to put in it.

Most estate messes a Florida estate planning lawyer sees are not the product of a badly drafted will. They come from an ordinary will that was asked to carry things it cannot legally hold.

Here is what to take out, and where each item actually belongs.

Your will is a public court record

Start with the fact that changes everything else.

Under Fla. Stat. § 732.901, whoever has custody of your will must deposit it with the clerk of the court within 10 days after learning that you have died. The clerk retains the original in its original form for at least 20 years. Interested parties and court staff can look at it.

That single rule disqualifies a whole category of content. Social Security numbers, bank and brokerage account numbers, and passwords do not belong in a document headed for a public file. If you want to make life easier on your personal representative, keep a separate schedule of accounts and credentials stored with the will rather than inside it. It never gets filed.

Florida restricts what you can devise at all

This is the one that surprises people who moved here from somewhere else.

Under Fla. Stat. § 732.4015, homestead is not subject to devise if you are survived by a spouse or a minor child. It may be devised to your spouse only where there is no minor child. The statute also reaches through a revocable trust: an "owner" includes the grantor of a trust in existence at death, and a "devise" includes a trust disposition of what would be homestead if held in the grantor's own name.

So the familiar clause leaving the house to the three children in equal shares is, in a great many Florida estates, simply void. The Florida Constitution's descent rules take over and produce a result nobody at the kitchen table chose, frequently a life estate in the surviving spouse with a vested remainder in the descendants.

Note the distinction that trips up even sophisticated owners: Florida's constitutional homestead protection from creditors and its restriction on devise are one thing. The Florida homestead exemption on your tax bill is a separate, much smaller creature. They share a name and almost nothing else.

Assets that already have a beneficiary

Your will governs probate assets. That means property you owned solely at death, with no surviving co-owner and no beneficiary designation.

Life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, and payable-on-death or transfer-on-death accounts are not in that category. They pass by contract. Fla. Stat. § 733.808 confirms that death benefits made payable to a named trustee are not part of the estate and are not subject to the expenses of administration, unless they end up paid to the personal representative.

Naming a different taker for those assets in your will does not override the designation form. It creates a documented disagreement between two instruments, which is exactly the raw material a will contest is built from. Pull every designation from the custodian, in writing, and make them match the plan.

Pets, firearms, and tangible property

Three categories that each need their own instrument.

Pets. An animal is property under Florida law and cannot inherit. Fla. Stat. § 736.0408 authorizes a trust for the care of an animal alive during your lifetime, terminating on the death of the last surviving animal, enforceable by a person named in the trust or appointed by the court. Leaving a relative money and a request is not enforceable by anyone.

Firearms. Federal and state transfer restrictions apply, and certain items carry their own compliance path. A personal representative may not be able to satisfy those requirements on the estate's timeline. Firearms are usually better handled through a properly drafted trust or a lifetime transfer plan.

Tangible personal property. Fla. Stat. § 732.515 is one of the most useful provisions in the Florida Probate Code and one of the least used. A signed writing referred to in your will can dispose of tangible items, provided it describes the items and the devisees with reasonable certainty. You can write it before or after the will, alter it later without a codicil, and where two writings conflict the most recent one controls. It does not reach property used in a trade or business.

Fixed sums, conditions, and explanations

Three drafting habits that reliably produce litigation.

A fixed dollar bequest is paid first and in full. Leave $100,000 to a friend and the residue to your children, and if the estate turns out to be worth $120,000, the children receive almost nothing. Percentages and shares flex with the size of the estate. Dollar figures do not.

Conditional gifts require somebody to police them for years. Gifts conditioned on graduating, marrying, staying married, or maintaining a job invite disputes about whether the condition was met and whether it is enforceable at all.

Explanations for disinheritance are the most common well-intentioned error. Writing out why you excluded a child gives that child a factual assertion to attack and a grievance to litigate. The colorless version is stronger: "For reasons best known to me, I make no provision for X."

Business interests

If you hold an interest in a Florida LLC, Fla. Stat. § 605.0502 governs what your heir actually receives. A transfer of a transferable interest conveys the right to receive distributions and nothing more. No management participation. No right to inspect the company's records.

An heir who inherits through a will receives a check and no vote, alongside a sibling who runs the company. That is the arrangement that produces a lawsuit rather than prevents one. Business succession planning in Florida belongs in the operating agreement and a funded buy-sell agreement, not in a paragraph of a will.

A Florida example

An Orlando couple owns a homestead, two rental properties in a Florida land trust with the beneficial interest held by a multi-member LLC, a 401(k), a term policy, a beagle, and three adult children.

Their 2011 will leaves "all my property" equally to the children and names the 401(k) specifically. What actually happens: the 401(k) goes to whoever is on the plan form, which turns out to be a parent named in 2003. The homestead clause runs into § 732.4015 because a spouse survives. The LLC interest passes as a bare economic right under § 605.0502. The beagle is property and passes with the residue to whoever will take her.

Nothing about that will was drafted badly. It was asked to do five jobs it cannot do.

Frequently asked questions

The bottom line

A clean Florida will handles only what genuinely has to pass through probate. Everything else belongs in a trust, a beneficiary designation, a separate writing, or an operating agreement. The work is not rewriting the will. It is moving each item to the instrument built to carry it.

Next step: download The Wrong Document Test, our 15-question diagnostic on what your will is actually carrying, or call 866.725.2818 to schedule a 30-minute review with a Florida asset protection attorney.

Sources: Fla. Stat. § 732.901, § 732.4015, § 732.515, § 733.808, § 736.0408, § 605.0502. Topic prompt: Kiplinger, "10 Things You Should Leave Out of Your Will, Say Experts", Erin Bendig with Donna LeValley and Kathryn Pomroy, updated June 10, 2026.