How to Write a Will in Florida: Legal Requirements

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws vary by state and individual circumstances differ — consult a licensed Florida attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

Under Florida Statutes §732.502, a valid will must satisfy four core requirements. The testator — the person making the will — must be at least 18 years old (or a legally emancipated minor). The will must be in writing. The testator must sign it at the end. And two witnesses must sign in the testator's presence and in each other's presence.

That last point is where most homemade wills collapse. "In each other's presence" is not casual language. Florida courts have interpreted this strictly. If Witness A steps out of the room while Witness B signs, the will can be challenged. Every time I've seen this go wrong, it's because someone treated the witness signatures as an afterthought — something to collect later, at separate times, in separate rooms.

Florida does not recognize holographic wills — handwritten wills without witnesses. That's a significant departure from many other states. If you write out your wishes by hand and sign it but skip the witnesses, it is not a valid will in Florida. Period.

• Testator must be 18 or older (or legally emancipated)
• Will must be in writing — typed or printed is standard
• Testator signs at the end of the document
• Two witnesses sign in the testator's presence and in each other's presence
• Witnesses must be competent adults — they don't need to know what's in the will
• Holographic (handwritten, unwitnessed) wills are NOT valid in Florida

Florida law allows almost any competent adult to serve as a witness. But here's what most articles don't tell you: a witness who is also a beneficiary under the will doesn't automatically invalidate the will — but it creates a "interested witness" situation that can complicate or reduce that person's inheritance depending on circumstances.

The safest practice is simple. Use two witnesses who receive nothing under the will. A neighbor, a coworker, a friend who isn't named as a beneficiary — these are your cleanest options. Avoid using your spouse if your spouse is inheriting, and avoid using your adult children if they're beneficiaries.

One underappreciated move: have the will notarized after the witness signatures. Florida law doesn't require notarization for a will to be valid. But a notarized self-proving affidavit — where the witnesses swear before a notary that they watched the signing — means the probate court can accept the will without tracking down those witnesses years later to testify. It saves your family real time and real money. The notarization costs almost nothing extra if you're already working with an attorney.

A single person with straightforward assets — bank accounts, a car, some personal property — has the simplest path. A basic will naming an executor and distributing those assets is legally manageable, and a DIY template from a reputable source might technically work. But "technically works" and "holds up under challenge" are different standards.

Married couples in Florida face a specific wrinkle. Florida's elective share statute (§732.2065) gives a surviving spouse the right to claim 30% of the elective estate regardless of what the will says. You can't fully disinherit a spouse in Florida without a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Many people write wills assuming they can — and their estate ends up in litigation.

Blended families are where I've personally seen the most chaos. A man in his 60s wrote his own will leaving everything to his adult children from a first marriage, explicitly cutting out his second wife. His attorney — consulted only after the fact — had to explain that the elective share would apply anyway, and that the will as written would trigger a court fight that cost his estate more than $40,000 in legal fees before a settlement was reached. The will was technically valid. It just didn't accomplish what he wanted.

Parents with minor children have one non-negotiable: naming a guardian in the will. Florida courts aren't bound by that designation, but they give it serious weight. If you have children under 18 and no will naming a guardian, the court decides who raises them — and two branches of the family may both petition, creating a fight your children live inside of.

• Single adults with simple estates: DIY may be workable, but witness ceremony must be perfect
• Married couples: Florida's elective share cannot be waived by will alone
• Blended families: competing interests between spouse and children from prior relationships require careful drafting
• Parents of minor children: guardian designation is critical — omitting it leaves the decision to a judge
• Business owners: a will alone may not be sufficient — operating agreements and buy-sell agreements govern business succession
• Property owners with out-of-state real estate: the will may need to comply with the other state's law for that property

Here's the honest breakdown. A DIY will using an online platform runs $30–$200. A simple will drafted by a Florida estate planning attorney typically costs $300–$800 for a single person and $500–$1,500 for a couple's basic estate plan. Complex estates — business interests, multiple properties, significant assets — can run $2,500–$10,000+ depending on the instruments involved.

Those prices reflect drafting only. If you also want a durable power of attorney, a healthcare surrogate designation, and a living will — which most Florida estate planning attorneys bundle as a package — expect to add $500–$1,200 to the total.

Timeline is fast if you engage an attorney. A basic will can be drafted, reviewed, and executed in one to three weeks. The execution ceremony itself takes 20 minutes. What takes time is gathering the information — asset lists, beneficiary names, guardian designations — and making decisions about distribution before you sit down with anyone.

Florida has some estate law features that differ meaningfully from most states. Knowing them before you draft anything saves expensive amendments later.

Homestead property is the big one. Florida's homestead laws restrict how you can leave your primary residence in a will. If you have a surviving spouse or minor children, you generally cannot devise the homestead freely — the spouse gets a life estate or fee simple depending on circumstances, and minor children's interests are protected. Trying to leave your house to a sibling while your spouse is alive? That clause in your will may simply be unenforceable.

Florida also has a pretermitted spouse rule (§732.301) and a pretermitted child rule (§732.302). If you write a will, then marry or have a child afterward without updating the will, the new spouse or child may be entitled to an intestate share automatically. The will doesn't necessarily get thrown out — but it gets modified by statute in ways you didn't intend.

Worth knowing: Florida does allow oral trusts in limited circumstances, but not oral wills. The distinction matters if someone tries to argue that a verbal promise about inheritance carries legal weight. It generally doesn't.

Honestly, not every will needs an attorney. A 35-year-old with a bank account, a car, no real estate, no children, and one clear beneficiary can probably execute a clean will using a reputable DIY platform — provided the witness ceremony is done correctly.

But "probably" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

The moment any of these factors appear, professional drafting isn't optional — it's the cheaper choice in the long run: you own Florida real property, you have minor children, you're in a second marriage, you have significant retirement accounts or life insurance with complex beneficiary designations, you want to disinherit someone, or you're running a business. Each of these triggers statutory rules that a generic template won't account for.

Per USA.gov's estate planning guidance, wills that are successfully challenged or improperly executed push estates into intestate succession — meaning the state's default rules distribute your assets, not your wishes. In Florida, that means assets pass in a specific statutory order: spouse, then descendants, then parents, then siblings. If that's not what you wanted, the cost of fixing it after death is borne entirely by your family.