Planning for Minor Children in Florida

If something happened to you tomorrow, two questions would need answers right away: who would raise your children, and who would manage the money they inherit. They are separate decisions. A plan that answers only the first leaves the second to a court, a default rule or whoever happens to be holding the checkbook.

Naming a guardian for your children

Florida lets parents name the person they want to raise their children, in a will or in a separate written designation of a preneed guardian signed before two witnesses and filed with the clerk of court. The court still makes the appointment, based on what is best for your children, but your written choice is presumed to be the right one unless that person is not qualified. Name a backup too.

The guardian and the trustee

A guardian raises your children: where they live, where they go to school, who their doctor is, what a Tuesday night looks like. A trustee manages what you leave for them: investing it, paying for what they need and following the instructions you wrote.

The same person can do both, and in many families that is the right answer. In others, the warmest, most available person to raise your children is not the person you would pick to manage a life insurance payout for fifteen years. Choosing different people is not distrust. It lets each person do what they do well. Whoever you choose, name a backup for each role.

Why money left outright to a child can end up in court

Under Florida law, parents can manage only limited amounts for a minor child without court involvement; the threshold is $15,000 in total. Above that, money left directly to a child, including life insurance and retirement account proceeds, can require a court-supervised guardianship of the property, with bond, annual accountings and court approval for spending. Then, at 18, whatever is left belongs to your child outright.

What a trust does instead

A trust is where your intentions get specific. It can direct the trustee to help with housing, health care, education and everyday support while your children are young, and it can spread distributions across later ages or keep the assets in trust with a trustee who continues to manage them as each child's needs change. There is no single right structure, and families make different choices for good reasons. A trust can sit inside a revocable living trust or be created by your will.

The part that quietly undoes good plans

Much of what your children would inherit may never pass under your will at all. Life insurance, retirement accounts and payable-on-death bank accounts go to whoever is named on the beneficiary form. If a minor child is named directly, that money can land right back in a court process, even if your will and trust are exactly right. The documents, the account titles and the beneficiary designations have to work together.

What a complete plan for parents usually includes

• A will naming a guardian and a backup, or a filed preneed guardian designation

• A trust for your children, with a trustee and a backup

• Beneficiary designations that point to the trust rather than to the children

• Durable powers of attorney and health care surrogate designations for both parents

Planning for a child with a disability raises different questions. See turning 18 with special needs and special needs trusts in Florida. For how a trust-based plan works generally, see living trusts in Florida.

Simani Law, PA helps parents in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties put these pieces in place, in person in Boca Raton or by video. Call (561) 226-3933 or book a consultation online.