910 N. Fern Creek Avenue, Orlando, FL 32803
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Wills · Trusts · POA · Healthcare Surrogate
A well-constructed estate plan decides in advance who will manage your affairs and who will inherit, so your family is not left to guess. Our Orlando estate planning attorneys draft wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, special needs trusts, durable powers of attorney, living wills, and healthcare surrogate designations. David A. Yergey III's LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Alabama brings graduate-level tax analysis to complex estate structures.
An estate plan is not a commodity. The quality of the documents matters. The accuracy of the beneficiary designations, trust terms, and fiduciary nominations matters. And when those documents are eventually tested — by a probate court, by a successor trustee, by an IRS auditor — the judgment built into them at the drafting stage either protects your family or does not.
David A. Yergey III earned his Master of Laws in Taxation from the University of Alabama School of Law in 2018. That graduate training applies directly to estate planning decisions: estate tax exemption and portability elections, irrevocable trust structures, gift and generation-skipping transfer strategies, and special needs trust compliance. When the federal estate tax exemption changes — as it did under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and may again — you want an attorney who has studied the Internal Revenue Code at a graduate level.
Most of our estate plans are prepared for a flat fee. You leave the consultation with a plain-language summary of what we recommend and what it will cost, so the fee is settled before any drafting starts.
D3 taught estate planning law to the next generation of Florida attorneys at FAMU College of Law. That academic standard informs the precision and completeness of every estate plan we draft.
We have watched Central Florida families through every generation of Florida's trust and probate laws. We know what breaks. We know what holds. We draft accordingly.
Our attorneys also handle will contests, trust disputes, and contested probate proceedings, so they see in court where documents break down. That experience shapes the plans we draft: clause structures written with a challenge in mind, nomination language meant to reduce the risk of removal proceedings, and trust terms that do not invite litigation.
Super Lawyers Rising Stars 2022, 2023, 2024 (Thomson Reuters) and the 2021 John R. Hamilton Law Firm Award of Excellence (Legal Aid Society of the OCBA).
Every adult in Florida — regardless of wealth or age — should have at minimum a will or revocable trust, a durable power of attorney, a designation of healthcare surrogate, and a living will. Click any tab to read what each document does and why it matters. Estates at or approaching the federal exemption need a layer on top of these documents — see Florida estate tax planning and reduction.
Fla. Stat. ch. 732
Your will directs how the assets that pass through probate are distributed at death, names the personal representative who will administer your estate, and — for parents of minor children — nominates the guardian who will raise them. A Florida will must be signed in the presence of two witnesses who also sign in your presence and in each other's presence (Fla. Stat. § 732.502). A will alone does not avoid probate; it tells the probate court what to do.
Fla. Stat. ch. 736
A revocable trust is a probate-avoidance and incapacity-management instrument. Assets titled in the name of the trust pass to your beneficiaries at death without a probate proceeding, and a successor trustee can manage trust property if you become incapacitated — without a court guardianship. Trusts are also private (probate is a public court file) and offer continuity for blended families, special-needs beneficiaries, multi-state property, and tax planning.
Fla. Stat. ch. 709
Florida's Durable Power of Attorney Act lets you appoint a trusted agent to manage your financial and legal affairs if you become incapacitated. Florida law requires very specific statutory language for the document to be effective — including a separate initial next to each "superpower" (gifting, beneficiary changes, creating or amending a trust, etc.) — and forms downloaded from the internet routinely fail this test. A properly drafted durable power of attorney avoids the need for a court-appointed guardian over your property.
Fla. Stat. § 765.202
This advance directive appoints the person who will make health-care decisions for you and access your medical information when you are unable to do so yourself. Florida law allows the designation to take effect immediately on signing (so your surrogate can assist with appointments and records) or only on incapacity. Without it, your family may need to ask a court to appoint a guardian of the person before treatment decisions can be made. Read the full guide to the designation of health care surrogate.
Fla. Stat. § 765.302
Your living will tells physicians what you want done — and not done — if you are in an end-stage condition, persistent vegetative state, or terminal condition with no reasonable medical probability of recovery. It addresses life-prolonging procedures, artificial nutrition and hydration, and pain management. Because the living will speaks for you when you cannot, the language must be clear and current with Florida statute.
45 C.F.R. § 164.508
A separate HIPAA authorization permits named individuals — adult children, a fiancée, a clergy member, a non-spouse partner — to receive your medical information from providers. Without it, providers will often refuse to release information even to immediate family. We routinely draft this alongside the healthcare surrogate designation.
Fla. Stat. § 744.3045
If a court ever does need to appoint a guardian over you (because no advance directive covered the situation, or because the directives were challenged), Florida law lets you name in advance the person you want the court to appoint. This is a backstop — not a substitute for a complete plan — but it carries significant weight if a guardianship petition is ever filed.
Fla. Stat. ch. 736 · I.R.C. §§ 2010, 2503, 2632
For families with a beneficiary who receives or may need means-tested public benefits (SSI, Medicaid waiver), a properly drafted Special Needs Trust preserves benefits while supplementing the beneficiary's quality of life. For estates approaching the federal estate tax exemption, irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), credit-shelter / bypass trusts, generation-skipping trusts, and lifetime gifting strategies may be appropriate. David A. Yergey III's LL.M. in Taxation supports these structures directly.
Our office is at 910 N. Fern Creek Avenue in Orlando, and our firm has prepared estate plans for Central Florida families since 1928. We serve clients in Orlando, Winter Park, and throughout Orange County, as well as Seminole and Osceola counties.
Most of our estate plans are prepared for a flat fee, quoted at the consultation before any drafting begins. Consultations are held at our Orlando office, by phone, or by video, and evening meetings are available on request.
A generation-skipping trust holds assets for grandchildren and later generations. Federal law imposes a generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax, separate from the estate and gift taxes, on transfers that skip a generation, at the maximum federal estate tax rate — currently 40 percent (26 U.S.C. § 2641). Each person has a GST exemption equal to the estate tax basic exclusion amount (26 U.S.C. § 2631(c)), which is $15 million for 2026.
The exemption shelters a trust only to the extent it is allocated to that trust. Under 26 U.S.C. § 2632, exemption may be allocated at any time on or before the due date of the estate tax return, and some lifetime transfers receive an automatic allocation unless the donor elects out. A trust whose inclusion ratio is zero owes no GST tax on its later distributions or terminations.
For how generation-skipping planning fits with lifetime gifting, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and portability, see Florida estate tax planning.
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Each document above has its own dedicated page covering the Florida-specific rules in depth. Click any tab for a short summary, then read the full page for the statutory detail.
Fla. Stat. Ch. 732
What a Florida will legally does, the execution formalities that make or break its validity, and what a will cannot override — beneficiary designations, the elective share, and the homestead devise restrictions. Read the full guide to Florida wills.
Fla. Stat. Ch. 736
How the instrument itself works — required elements, successor trustee provisions, amendment and revocation, and the certification of trust banks rely on. Read the full guide to the revocable living trust.
§ 736.0401; § 733.707(3)
A signed but unfunded trust still requires probate. What funding actually means, what commonly gets missed, and why the pour-over will is a backstop, not a substitute. Read the full guide to funding a trust.
§§ 736.0411, 736.0412, 736.04117
Why families deliberately give up control — tax removal, asset protection, and benefits preservation — and how modification, decanting, and nonjudicial settlement agreements provide flexibility later. Read the full guide to irrevocable trusts.
§ 736.0813; 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(4)(A), (d)(4)(C)
First-party versus third-party special needs trusts, the Medicaid payback rules, and how to protect SSI and Medicaid eligibility for a beneficiary with a disability. Read the full guide to special needs trusts.
Ch. 709
Agent authority under the 2011 Power of Attorney Act, the specific 'superpowers' that require separate initialing, and why banks must accept a properly executed power of attorney. Read the full guide to the durable power of attorney.
§§ 765.202, 765.302, 765.401
How a health care surrogate differs from a living will and from Florida's statutory default proxy, and how to choose and authorize your own decision-maker. Surrogate vs. living will vs. proxy: read the full comparison.
Art. X, § 4(c), Fla. Const.
Florida's constitution limits how the homestead can be left if you are survived by a spouse or minor child — and how a waiver, election, or trust structure can plan around it. Read the full guide to homestead devise restrictions.
Fla. Stat. §§ 732.201, 732.401, 732.703
A second marriage with children from a first triggers the elective share, the homestead descent rules, and the divorce-revocation statutes all at once. The trust structures that provide for the spouse and still preserve the children's inheritance. Read the full guide to blended family estate planning in Orlando.
