Estate Planning Glossary

A

Ancillary Administration
A second probate opened in Florida when someone died in another state but owned real estate here. Runs alongside the main probate in their home state. Usually avoidable with planning.

Advance Directive
An umbrella term for documents stating your medical wishes in advance — in Florida, primarily the healthcare surrogate designation and the living will.

Agent
The person you name in a power of attorney to act on your behalf. Sometimes called an attorney-in-fact, which confusingly does not mean lawyer.

Assets
Everything you own — real estate, accounts, vehicles, business interests, personal property.

B

Beneficiary
Anyone who receives something from your estate, trust, or an account with a beneficiary designation.

Beneficiary Designation
The instruction on a retirement account, life insurance policy, or bank account naming who receives it at your death. These override your will, which surprises people constantly.

Buy-Sell Agreement
An agreement among business owners setting out what happens when one dies, retires, or wants out — who buys their share, at what price, on what terms.

C

Capacity
The mental ability to understand what you’re signing and what it does. Required to execute any estate planning document.

Codicil
An amendment to an existing will. Valid in Florida, though these days it’s often cleaner to sign a new will.

Curtesy / Dower
Old common-law spousal property rights. Abolished in Florida — replaced by the elective share.

D

Decedent
The person who died. You’ll see this word constantly in probate paperwork.

Devise
A gift of real property under a will. As a verb, to leave property by will.

Durable Power of Attorney
A power of attorney that stays valid if you become incapacitated. In Florida it takes effect immediately upon signing — springing powers were eliminated in 2011.

E

Elective Share
A surviving spouse’s right to claim a percentage of the deceased spouse’s estate regardless of what the will says. In Florida it’s 30%. This is why you generally can’t disinherit a spouse.

Enhanced Life Estate Deed
The formal name for a Lady Bird deed.

Estate
Everything a person owned at death. “Probate estate” means only the portion that passes through court.

Executor
The person who administers a will. Florida calls this role the personal representative.

F

Fiduciary
Anyone legally required to act in someone else’s interest rather than their own — trustees, personal representatives, agents under a power of attorney.

Formal Administration
The standard Florida probate process, used for most estates. Typically six to nine months.

Funding
Actually transferring assets into a trust. An unfunded trust does nothing at all, and this is where most trusts fail.

G

Grantor
The person who creates a trust. Also called the settlor or trustor. Also, on a deed, the person transferring property.

Guardianship
A court proceeding appointing someone to manage the affairs of a person who can’t manage their own. Expensive, slow, and almost entirely avoidable with a power of attorney and a healthcare surrogate signed in advance.

H

Healthcare Surrogate
The person you designate to make medical decisions if you can’t. Separate from your financial power of attorney — one cannot do the other’s job.

Heir
Someone entitled to inherit under state law when there’s no will. Not the same as a beneficiary named in a document.

HIPAA Authorization
The document permitting your surrogate to access your medical records. Without it, they’re making decisions without information.

Homestead
Florida’s protection for a primary residence. It affects property taxes, shields the home from most creditors, and restricts how you can leave it if you have a spouse or minor children. Those restrictions override your will. This is the single most important Florida concept for most families.

I

Incapacity
The inability to manage your own affairs or make your own decisions, usually determined by a physician.

Intestate
Dying without a valid will. Florida’s intestacy statutes then decide who inherits.

Inventory
A filed list of estate assets and their values, required in formal administration.

Irrevocable Trust
A trust that generally can’t be changed once created. You give up control, which is exactly what allows it to protect assets from creditors or Medicaid spend-down.

L

Lady Bird Deed
A deed transferring property at your death while you keep complete control during life — including the right to sell or revoke. Avoids probate on the property. Florida is one of a handful of states that allow them.

Letters of Administration
The court document giving the personal representative authority to act for the estate. Until these are issued, nobody can do anything.

Life Estate
An interest in property lasting for someone’s lifetime. An ordinary life estate limits what you can do with the property; the enhanced version — the Lady Bird deed — doesn’t.

Living Will
A document stating what treatment you want in terminal, end-stage, or persistent vegetative conditions. Not the same as a living trust, despite the name.

M

Medicaid Lookback
The five-year period Medicaid reviews for asset transfers when determining long-term care eligibility. A Lady Bird deed generally doesn’t trigger it; giving property away does.

N

Notice to Creditors
Published notice during probate telling creditors they have three months to file claims. In Franklin County this runs in the Apalachicola Times.

P

Per Stirpes
A distribution method where a deceased beneficiary’s share passes to their children. If you leave everything to your three children per stirpes and one dies before you, that child’s share goes to their kids rather than being split among the surviving siblings.

Personal Representative
Florida’s term for the person administering an estate. Called an executor in most other states.

Pour-Over Will
A backup will directing anything left outside your trust into it at your death. Every trust plan should include one.

Power of Attorney
A document naming someone to handle financial and legal matters for you.

Probate
The court process transferring what someone owned to whoever is entitled to it.

R

Remainderman
The person who receives property when a life estate ends. On a Lady Bird deed, this is your named beneficiary.

Residuary Estate
Whatever’s left after specific gifts, debts, and expenses are paid. Your will should always say who gets the residue.

Revocable Living Trust
A trust you can change or cancel anytime. Avoids probate on assets properly transferred into it, stays private, and handles incapacity without a guardianship.

S

Save Our Homes
Florida’s cap limiting how much the assessed value of homestead property can increase each year. Preserved by a properly drafted Lady Bird deed or revocable trust.

Self-Proving Affidavit
Notarized language added to a will confirming it was properly executed. Makes admitting the will to probate far simpler. Every will should have one.

Settlor
Another word for the person who creates a trust.

Special Needs Trust
A trust providing for a beneficiary with disabilities without disqualifying them from Medicaid or SSI.

Stepped-Up Basis
The reset of an asset’s tax value to its fair market value at your death. It’s why inherited property often carries little or no capital gains tax — and why adding a child to your deed during life can cost them dearly.

Successor Trustee
Whoever takes over managing a trust when the original trustee dies or can’t serve.

Summary Administration
A shortened Florida probate available when non-exempt assets are under $75,000 or death occurred more than two years ago. Faster and considerably cheaper than formal administration.

T

Testate
Dying with a valid will. The opposite of intestate.

Testator
The person who makes a will.

Trustee
Whoever manages a trust. With a revocable trust, usually you, during your lifetime.

W

Will
A document directing where your property goes after death, naming who administers your estate, and — critically — naming guardians for minor children. It goes through probate and becomes a public record.