Substantial wealth invites substantial scrutiny: creditor claims, divorce, litigation, business risk, and the federal estate tax all converge on the same balance sheet. Our Miami estate planning practice is built for high-net-worth individuals, business owners, and families who need their planning to do two jobs at once preserve wealth across generations and shield it from predictable threats. Everything we draft is grounded in Florida law, including the Florida Probate Code (Chapters 731 through 735), the Florida Trust Code (Chapter 736), the durable power of attorney statute (Chapter 709), and Florida’s constitutional homestead and elective share protections.
Why Affluent Florida Families Plan Differently
A modest estate can often be handled with a simple will and a beneficiary designation. A high-net-worth estate cannot. When the assets include closely held companies, commercial real estate, brokerage accounts, art, and out-of-state holdings, the planning has to address liquidity for taxes, governance of family enterprises, and insulation of personal assets from business creditors. Florida is unusually favorable terrain for this work: it imposes no state estate tax, no state income tax, and offers some of the strongest debtor protections in the country. The challenge is using those advantages correctly rather than assuming they apply automatically.
Florida’s Built-In Protections
Florida’s Constitution protects homestead property from most creditors and restricts how it can be devised when the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child. Florida statutes also protect the cash value of life insurance, annuity proceeds, and qualified retirement accounts from creditors of the owner. These protections are powerful but technical a homestead can lose its protected character if titled into the wrong trust, and an improperly devised homestead can be redirected by operation of law. We design plans that respect these rules instead of tripping over them.
Our Core Services
We focus on the documents and structures that matter most to affluent Florida households:
- Revocable living trusts to avoid probate, maintain privacy, and centralize management of a complex estate.
- Asset protection planning using Florida exemptions, multi-member LLCs, and irrevocable trusts to separate personal wealth from liability.
- Last wills and testaments executed to the standard of Florida Statutes section 732.502, with attention to the spousal elective share under section 732.2065.
- Durable powers of attorney under Chapter 709 to keep businesses and investments running during incapacity.
- Probate and trust administration guidance, including summary versus formal administration under Chapter 735 and Chapter 733.
A Coordinated, Long-Term Relationship
Wealth preservation is not a one-time transaction. Tax law changes, families grow, businesses are sold, and assets move between states. We treat estate planning as an ongoing relationship, reviewing structures as circumstances evolve so the plan continues to match the balance sheet it was designed to protect.
Consult a Florida Attorney
This page is general information, not legal advice. Estate planning and asset protection involve fact-specific decisions and timing rules. Before acting, consult a licensed Florida attorney who can review your circumstances and design a plan that complies with current Florida law.
For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of Florida estate planning. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles how a will is contested in New York.