ISO Attorney

[geofitz13]

About six months before we moved to Florida, we had our will, power of attorney, and medical proxy prepared for us in Massachusetts. Now we find that they may not be valid in Florida. Can anyone recommend a local attorney to look at this stuff?
TIA

[dewilson58]

Your Mass attorney can tell you the validity in five minutes.




Florida attorney will be glad to word process another for you.




:icon_wink:

[Aw Man]

About six months before we moved to Florida, we had our will, power of attorney, and medical proxy prepared for us in Massachusetts. Now we find that they may not be valid in Florida. Can anyone recommend a local attorney to look at this stuff?
TIA

I highly recommend Amy Pittman.
The Pittman Law Office:
352-399-6944

[vintageogauge]

We had ours completed in Ohio and everything is current with Florida law, we made sure of that before we came down.

[valuemkt]

We were told the main difference is that Florida is more picky on executors - direct blood relative / spouse or Florida resident. Would be worth a call to Amy as suggested

[Dan9871]

Jeff Skates at McLinn-Burnsed did ours. We also moved from MA to FL. Their office is in Lake Sumter.

Our MA will would not have worked in FL because of executors. Our other documents needed updating anyhow.

McLin Burnsed | Law Firm | Leesburg, FL (https://www.mclinburnsed.com/)

[villagetinker]

Second or third for Amy Pittman, very happy with her work.

[geofitz13]

Thanks for the information. I will contact Amy to have her look over what we have.

[rjm1cc]

As a general statement your documents should be valid in Fl.
If you have a trust and your home is in it make sure you are ok with the homestead laws. IE the trust does not void your homestead.
Your executor can be any blood relative (I think this means your blood relative and their spouse(?) but not your spouses (?) blood relative).
Other than above your executor must be a Fl resident.
In no case can your administrator be a felon.
I may not have the blood relative spelled out correctly so be sure to verify with an attorney. The blood relative is the problem you might have with out of state documents.

[Villageswimmer]

The problem with estate attorneys (kind of like insurance) is you never really KNOW if they did a great job until something happens.

Am I happy with my insurance company? Sure! Have I ever filed a claim? Well, no.

[kidnerkim]

Eric Millhorn 352-753-9333. We redid everything here as our Ohio attorney told us to do our trust in Ohio would not work in Florida. Florida does require some language changes

[Obrienx4]

We came from NH and needed to do it over again to meet the FL standards.

[Bridget Staunton]

Shanaway & Millikan on 441 (only 441 office) is absolutely the best. Get Sham he is a partner and we really like him

[Chatbrat]

also, if you're retired military, JAG office @ a base will do it , but your estate has to be under a certain $$ amount

[larcha]

We also used Jeff Skates, but on a different matter. He is very helpful and easy to work with.

[SacDQ]

We moved from CT to Florada earlier this year and had to have our revocable trust modified to comply with Florida rules.

[CFrance]

Our Massachusetts Attorney told us to review our Will etc with a Florida Attorney. Through word of mouth of friends we found Susan Sullivan off Rte 466, across from WalMart and behind the baseball field in the strip mall. She was very helpful with explaining what we had and what would be best. We now have a Family Trust. We thought she was very knowledgeable and was great about sitting and explaining everything to us before and after.
We used Susan Sullivan also, just recently. We are very happy with her work.

[Vickshaw1]

McLin-Burnsed
Right down town Sumter Landing

[CZN715]

Im in CT and was told by my Attorney
that the State of Florida will accept my CT Will and Revocable Trust. He said Florida will follow Connecticut Law. Now I'm wondering if that is true?

[dewilson58]

Im in CT and was told by my Attorney
that the State of Florida will accept my CT Will and Revocable Trust. He said Florida will follow Connecticut Law. Now I'm wondering if that is true?




High probability.


Most local (Florida) updates are just CYOA and not necessary.


Online documents are valid in Florida.


A lot of Florida fees are taking advantage of seniors.

[manaboutown]

Nolo is a wonderful source of general overall legal guidance. This is what they recommend. Moving to a New State? Take a Look at Your Estate Plan | Nolo (https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/moving-new-state-take-look-your-estate-plan.html)

[Dan9871]

Nolo is a wonderful source of general overall legal guidance. This is what they recommend. Moving to a New State? Take a Look at Your Estate Plan | Nolo (https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/moving-new-state-take-look-your-estate-plan.html)

So, in a nutshell, what Nolo says is that the practical thing to do when you change states is to get your wills, health docs, etc. redone in the new state.

The reason is that even though your new state may recognize the documents from the old state, the new state may not interpret them the same way the old state does. So the result is that they may not produce the results you intended.