High-earning professionals and physicians in the Miami area carry a particular kind of estate planning burden. You have built equity in a practice, accumulated retirement and brokerage accounts, signed personal guarantees, and may face liability exposure that most families never think about. Florida law gives you powerful tools to protect what you have built, but those tools only work when they are assembled correctly and kept current. Our North Miami practice focuses on estate planning for doctors, attorneys, executives, business owners, and other professionals whose balance sheets and risk profiles demand more than a fill-in-the-blank will.
Why Professional Estates Need a Different Approach
A surgeon with a partnership interest, a dentist who owns a building, or a litigator with personal-guaranteed debt each faces issues that a standard plan ignores. Florida is favorable for residents who plan deliberately: the state has no income tax and no estate tax, the constitutional homestead protection (Article X, Section 4) shields your primary residence from most creditors, and statutory protections exist for qualifying retirement accounts, annuities, and life insurance. We coordinate these protections so that one document does not undermine another, and so that your professional liability exposure is considered alongside your transfer goals.
Core Documents We Build
Every plan starts with a Florida will executed under Section 732.502, which requires your signature at the end and two witnesses signing in your presence. From there we layer in a revocable living trust under Chapter 736 to manage assets and avoid probate, a durable power of attorney under Chapter 709 so a trusted agent can act if you are incapacitated, a designation of health care surrogate, and a living will. For physicians, we pay special attention to practice succession and to keeping liability-exposed and protected assets in their proper lanes.
Probate Avoidance and Florida Homestead
Florida probate is governed by Chapters 731 through 735 of the Florida Statutes. Formal administration is the default for larger estates, while summary administration is available when the probate estate is under $75,000 or the decedent has been deceased more than two years. A funded revocable trust and proper beneficiary designations can keep most assets out of probate entirely. Homestead, meanwhile, passes outside the probate estate and carries constitutional restrictions on how it may be devised when you have a spouse or minor child, so it must be planned with care rather than assumed.
Protecting the Surviving Spouse
Florida grants a surviving spouse an elective share equal to 30% of the elective estate under Section 732.2065. The elective estate reaches beyond the probate estate to include certain trusts, joint accounts, and transfers, which means casual planning can produce unintended results for blended families and second marriages common among established professionals. We model these interactions so your documents reflect your actual wishes.
Speak With a Florida Estate Planning Attorney
This page is general information, not legal advice. Estate planning turns on the specific facts of your assets, family, and practice, and Florida law changes over time. Before acting, consult a licensed Florida attorney who can review your full situation. Contact our North Miami office to schedule a confidential consultation built around the realities of a professional estate.
For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of estate planning in Boca Raton. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles special needs planning in New York.