Florida Estate Kit:
Online Estate Planning That's Actually Attorney-Reviewed

Most Florida families put off estate planning for one simple reason: the traditional process is slow, expensive, and requires taking time off work to sit across a conference table from a lawyer. Florida Estate Kit changes that. It guides you through a plain-language questionnaire, runs an automated legal review against Florida law, and delivers a complete estate planning package — all reviewed and approved by a licensed Florida attorney.

This page explains exactly how the Florida Estate Kit works, what documents it produces, how it compares to do-it-yourself platforms and traditional law firms, and who it is — and is not — the right fit for.

What Is the Florida Estate Kit?

The Florida Estate Kit is an online estate planning tool built specifically for Florida residents and Florida law. It is not a generic legal form generator. Every question is tied to a specific Florida statutory requirement, and every document produced is drafted to comply with the Florida Trust Code (F.S. Chapter 736), the Florida Probate Code (F.S. Chapters 731–735), the Florida Power of Attorney Act (F.S. Chapter 709), and the Florida Healthcare Surrogate and Advance Directive statutes (F.S. Chapter 765).

After you complete the questionnaire, an AI legal specialist reviews your answers — checking for gaps in trustee succession, missing backup agents, Medicaid planning issues, homestead complications, and recent Florida law changes. The review results show you exactly what, if anything, needs to be addressed before the attorney finalizes your plan.

The result: a complete, attorney-approved estate plan in 2 to 3 business days, at a fraction of traditional law firm pricing.

Step-by-Step: How It Works

• 1
  Choose Your Plan Type Select from individual plan, married couple plan, or special options including NFA gun trust or Medicaid asset protection trust. The questionnaire adapts based on your selection.
• 2
  Complete the Guided Questionnaire Answer plain-language questions about your family, assets, trustees, beneficiaries, agents, and healthcare wishes. Most clients finish in 25 to 45 minutes. Hover over any question for a plain-English explanation. No legal jargon required.
• 3
  AI Specialist Review After you submit, the Florida Estate Kit runs an automated legal review against Florida Statutes. It checks: trustee succession, beneficiary designations, healthcare surrogate backups, power of attorney agents, homestead property issues, and current Florida law compliance. If it finds anything to fix, it shows you exactly what to address — and takes you directly to that section to correct it.
• 4
  Attorney Review and Approval Attorney Arthur Simpson, Esq. reviews your completed plan against Florida law, your specific facts, and current legal developments. If any modification is needed, he contacts you directly. Plans are typically reviewed within 1 business day.
• 5
  Receive Your Documents Your finalized estate planning package is delivered securely. You receive clear signing instructions — the documents require proper execution (witnesses and notarization) to be legally effective under Florida law.
• 6
  Fund Your Trust A trust only works if assets are transferred into it. After signing, Cornerstone provides guidance on funding your trust: retitling bank and investment accounts, recording deeds for real property, and updating beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts.

What Documents Does the Florida Estate Kit Produce?

Every Florida Estate Kit plan includes six core documents. Each is drafted to meet specific Florida statutory requirements and is reviewed by a licensed Florida attorney before delivery.

Optional Add-On Documents

• Lady Bird Deed (Enhanced Life Estate Deed) — Transfer Florida real property to your trust beneficiaries at death while retaining full control during life and preserving Medicaid eligibility. Florida does not have a transfer-on-death deed statute, making the Lady Bird deed the primary tool for non-probate real property transfer outside a trust.
• Special Needs Trust Provisions — If a beneficiary receives government benefits (SSI, Medicaid, Section 8), direct inheritance can cause disqualification. A special needs trust sub-account within your revocable trust protects those benefits.
• Dynasty / Generation-Skipping Provisions — For larger estates, provisions to hold assets in trust across multiple generations and minimize generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exposure under I.R.C. § 2601 et seq.
• NFA Gun Trust — A separate trust for National Firearms Act items (suppressors, short-barreled rifles, machine guns) that allows multiple trustees and avoids the CLEO certification requirement for new NFA items under ATF Rule 41F.

Florida Estate Kit vs. Your Other Options

There are four ways to get an estate plan in Florida. Here is how the Florida Estate Kit compares on the factors that matter most.

Pricing

The Florida Estate Kit uses flat-fee pricing — no hourly billing, no surprise invoices. You know the exact cost before you begin.

For comparison: a traditional Florida revocable trust package at a large regional firm typically costs $2,500 to $4,500+ for an individual and $4,000 to $6,000+ for a couple. The Florida Estate Kit delivers the same legally sound, attorney-reviewed result at a fraction of the cost.

Who Is the Florida Estate Kit Right For?

Ideal Candidates

• Florida residents who own a home, have children, or have meaningful assets and no current estate plan
• Retirees and pre-retirees who want to avoid probate and protect a surviving spouse
• Snowbirds and new Florida residents who need to update plans drafted in another state
• Blended families needing to protect both a spouse and children from a prior relationship
• Small business owners who want to ensure smooth succession of their ownership interest
• Anyone who owns a home — a revocable trust is almost always the right structure for Florida homeowners

When You May Need More

• Taxable estates: If your estate exceeds the federal estate tax exemption ($13.99 million per person in 2025, though TCJA sunset provisions could reduce this to approximately $7 million in 2026), you need specialized tax planning — generation-skipping trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs), or irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs). The Florida Estate Kit attorney can refer you for that work.
• Active Medicaid planning: If you or a spouse currently needs long-term care or is approaching Medicaid eligibility, you need a Medicaid asset protection trust (MAPT) and careful planning around the 60-month lookback period under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c). Contact Cornerstone directly for Medicaid planning.
• Active litigation or creditor issues: If you are in litigation or face creditor claims, trust planning requires careful sequencing. Contact the office directly before using the Florida Estate Kit.
• Business succession with buy-sell agreements: Complex business structures with multiple owners, buy-sell agreements, or succession planning needs are handled through a separate business law engagement.

The AI Legal Review: What It Checks

Before your plan reaches the attorney for final review, the Florida Estate Kit's built-in AI specialist examines your answers against a comprehensive Florida estate planning checklist. Here is what it looks for:

• Trustee succession chain — Is there a primary trustee, successor trustee, and backup successor? A single point of failure in the succession chain can require court intervention to name a replacement trustee.
• Healthcare surrogate backup — Florida law allows naming a primary and alternate surrogate. If the primary is unavailable, a named backup prevents the need for emergency guardianship proceedings.
• Power of attorney "super-powers" — Under F.S. Chapter 709, certain powers (creating trusts, making gifts, changing beneficiary designations) must be expressly granted and initialed. The review verifies these are correctly included.
• Beneficiary designation conflicts — If your trust is named as a beneficiary on an IRA or 401(k), IRS rules under the SECURE Act 2.0 (Div. T of P.L. 117-328) require specific trust provisions (conduit or accumulation trust language) to preserve the 10-year distribution rule for non-eligible designated beneficiaries.
• Florida homestead spousal rights — If you are married and own homestead property, your spouse has constitutional rights that limit how you can devise it. The review flags any potential conflict.
• Medicaid eligibility considerations — For clients over 60 or with chronic health conditions, the review flags trust structures that could affect Medicaid eligibility and suggests consulting the Medicaid planning practice.
• Recent Florida law changes — The review is updated to reflect current Florida Statutes and flags any pending legislation or recent law changes that may affect your plan.

Trust Funding: The Step Everyone Forgets

A revocable living trust only avoids probate for assets that have been transferred into the trust — or that name the trust as beneficiary. An unfunded trust is essentially a worthless document. Many people who use generic online platforms sign a trust and then never fund it, meaning their estate still goes through probate.

The Florida Estate Kit includes trust funding guidance specific to common Florida asset types:

• Florida real property: Requires a new deed transferring the property from you individually to yourself as trustee. The deed must be recorded in the county where the property is located. A Lady Bird deed can be used for homestead property to maintain Medicaid flexibility.
• Bank and investment accounts: Contact the financial institution and request a title change to your name as trustee (e.g., "Jane Smith, as Trustee of the Jane Smith Revocable Trust dated [Date]").
• IRAs and 401(k)s: Generally should not be retitled into a trust during your lifetime — this triggers taxable distribution. Instead, name the trust as a beneficiary using the correct beneficiary designation form, and ensure the trust has proper conduit or accumulation language per SECURE Act 2.0 rules.
• Life insurance: Update your beneficiary designation to the trust for coordinated distribution, or to specific individuals if that is preferable for your plan.
• Business interests: Assignment of LLC membership interest or partnership interest to the trust, with attention to any operating agreement restrictions on transfer.

How the Florida Estate Kit Handles Florida-Specific Issues

The Florida Elective Share

Under F.S. § 732.2065, a surviving spouse is entitled to 30% of the "elective estate" — which includes not just probate assets but also trust assets, joint tenancy property, and certain transfers made within a year of death. The Florida Estate Kit's attorney review specifically considers whether your plan could result in an elective share dispute and structures distributions accordingly for married clients.

Homestead Descent and Devise Restrictions

Florida's constitutional homestead protections (Art. X, § 4 Fla. Const.) restrict how you can leave your primary residence. If you are survived by a spouse or minor child, you generally cannot devise homestead property freely — there are mandatory descent rules. The Florida Estate Kit addresses this by identifying homestead property and structuring the trust and deed strategy to respect these constitutional constraints.

Lady Bird Deeds for Real Property

Florida does not have a statutory transfer-on-death (TOD) deed like many other states. The primary tool for transferring real property outside probate without fully funding it into a trust is the enhanced life estate deed — commonly called a Lady Bird deed. It allows you to retain full control of the property (including the right to sell or mortgage it) while naming a remainder beneficiary who inherits automatically at death. The Florida Estate Kit can generate a Lady Bird deed as an add-on or as part of a Medicaid planning strategy.

SECURE Act 2.0 and Retirement Accounts

The SECURE Act 2.0 (enacted December 2022, Div. T of P.L. 117-328) significantly changed how trusts can be named as IRA beneficiaries. The 10-year rule for non-eligible designated beneficiaries applies differently to conduit trusts and accumulation trusts. The Florida Estate Kit attorney review flags whether your trust includes the correct language for the IRA beneficiary designation you intend — a critical issue for clients with significant retirement account assets.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Articles

• Trust vs. Will in Florida: Which Do You Need?
• Florida Probate Costs — and How to Avoid Them
• What Is a Lady Bird Deed in Florida?
• How Much Does Estate Planning Cost in Florida?
• Florida Medicaid Planning and the 5-Year Lookback
• Florida Estate Planning for Snowbirds and New Residents
• What Happens If You Die Without a Will in Florida?