• 30
  • June
    2010

A Florida estate planning lawyer can tell you how best to plan your estate so that it can be distributed according to your wishes. If you do not have a will or any other method of disposing of your estate, Florida state law decides how your assets are distributed after you die.

Ever wondered how it breaks down? Who gets what if you have no plan in place and die intestate? It is basically as follows:

  1.  Spouse. A surviving spouse is first in line. If there are no lineal descendants (see entry #2 below), the spouse gets everything. If there are lineal descendants, the spouse gets the first $60,000 and half the remainder if the spouse is related to the lineal descendants. If the spouse is not related to the lineal descendants, the spouse only gets half.

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2.  Lineal descendants. Children and grandchildren. Includes adopted persons, but not stepchildren. The lineal descendants get everything if there is no spouse.

3.  Parents. If there are no descendants and no spouse, parents share the estate equally.

4.  Brothers and sisters or their descendants. If there is no spouse, and there are no descendants and no surviving parents, everything goes to the brothers and sisters of the deceased, or the brothers and sisters' descendants if the brothers and sisters are not living.

5.  1/2 to paternal kindred and 1/2 to maternal kindred. If there is no one inheriting so far, 1/2 goes to the paternal grandparents and 1/2 to the maternal grandparents. If there are no surviving grandparents, the estate will trickle down the grandparents' descendants (decedent's aunts and uncles, then cousins) until a surviving family member is found.

6.  Kindred of the last deceased spouse. If there are no members of the decedent's family living, then the decedent's last deceased spouse's kindred are sought in the same order as above.

7.  Escheat. If there is no one who qualifies as set out above, the estate will "escheat" to the state. The money from escheated estates goes to the state's school fund.

Source: Florida Statutes Annotated, section 732.103 et sec.; also NBI Florida Estate Planning materials, 2008                                                      aar