Boca Raton Planning for Families Whose Estate Is Still Half in New York

Boca Raton is a service area for our firm rather than a staffed Florida office. We assist clients, often snowbirds with New York and Florida ties, by coordinating estate planning and probate across both states and working with appropriate local resources. During your consultation, we explain clearly how we can help and how any Florida matters will be addressed.

Ancillary probate is a secondary proceeding required when a person dies owning real property in a state other than their domicile. For example, a New York resident who owns a Boca Raton home may need ancillary probate in Florida in addition to the New York Surrogate's Court process. We coordinate both proceedings so the full estate is administered properly.

Florida provides strong homestead protections that can shield a primary residence from certain creditors and that restrict how the property may be left at death, especially when a spouse or minor child survives. These rules differ sharply from New York's and can affect your plan. We help dual-state clients account for Florida homestead so their wishes and protections are preserved.

The opposite, in one important respect. Florida homestead gives strong protection from creditors, but it also RESTRICTS how the property may be devised: where the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child, the constitution limits leaving the homestead to anyone else, and a will that ignores this does not achieve what it says. A devise that would be perfectly ordinary in New York can simply fail here, and the result is decided by law rather than by intention.

It can, in two ways. Real property physically located in New York remains subject to New York estate tax whatever the owner's residence — so a retained apartment or house keeps New York in the picture. And if the move to Florida was not completed as a matter of domicile, New York may treat the whole estate as a resident's. That is why the mechanics of changing domicile matter more than the fact of buying a house here.

Facts, arranged deliberately. Filing a Florida declaration of domicile, claiming the homestead exemption on the Florida property, registering to vote and licensing vehicles here, moving the things you would not replace, and changing where your professional advisers and doctors are. New York examines days spent and whether a permanent place of abode was kept there. The families who win this argument are the ones who assembled the record from the first year, not the ones who explain afterwards.

The main estate is administered in New York, and the Florida property generally requires an ancillary administration here so a Florida court can authorise the transfer or sale. Florida also has its own rules about who may serve as personal representative: a non-resident generally must be a close relative of the decedent, which disqualifies the family friend or professional a New York will might have named.

A will validly executed in New York is generally recognised, but a detail catches families out: Florida gives special effect to a will that is SELF-PROVED, and the New York form of attestation is not always treated as satisfying the Florida requirement. That can mean tracking down witnesses years later. Where a family has genuinely moved, re-executing the documents in Florida form is inexpensive insurance.

Both jurisdictions should be able to act on the plan without argument. In practice that means a will and trust drafted with both systems in view, health care documents in the form each state's hospitals expect, and powers of attorney that a bank in either state will accept without a fight. The cost of doing it twice is trivial next to the cost of a document refused during a hospital admission.

Yes, in the amount and in what it reaches. Both states protect a surviving spouse against disinheritance, but the percentage, the assets counted and the procedure differ, and an agreement waiving rights under one state's law may not do the job in the other. Couples who married later in life, or who have children from earlier marriages, should have any prenuptial or postnuptial agreement reviewed against the law of the state where they now actually live.