In addition to a biological child who was born before a parent drafted his or her will, a pretermitted child may be an adopted child. In many cases, a pretermitted adopted child’s adoption goes through after the parent drafts their will. Thus, a child unintentionally left out of their parent’s will receives a share of the estate based on the intestacy statute.

A pretermitted child is one unintentionally left out of their parent’s will. A pretermitted child is not one a parent intentionally omitted or disinherited from their will. It does not include a child the parent knew existed but chose not to include in his or her will and it does not include a child born after a parent executed his or her will.

Specifically, a pretermitted child is one that was accidentally or unintentionally omitted from a parent’s will because that parent was unaware of the child’s existence. A pretermitted child is one left out of their parent’s will because the parent never knew they existed. For example, it may be that the father wrote his will before he knew of the child’s existence. It may have been that her father never married her mother and legitimized her. To help children who were unintentionally or mistakenly left out of a parent’s will, most jurisdictions passed mandatory succession statutes allowing them to claim an inheritance regardless.

However, if the decedent was unmarried, the adopted child receives the same share as his or her siblings. Thus, if the adoptive parent leaves behind an adopted child and other biological children but no living spouse, all of the children are legally entitled to equal shares of their probate estate pursuant to Florida’s intestacy laws. If he or she dies leaving behind a surviving spouse and adopted and non-adoptive children who are not children of the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse receives half of the estate, while all of the children share equally in his or her estate.

However, an adopted child is not a lineal descendant of his or her biological parents, according to Florida law. This means that if you are an adopted child, the Florida Revised Statutes considers you a blood relative or lineal descendant of your adoptive parents. Thus, if your adoptive parents die intestate or without a will, you may inherit from them in many cases. As such, an adopted child who survives his adoptive parents can receive property according to the terms of their wills, but if they die without first creating a will or without a valid will, he or she can rely on the state’s intestacy succession laws.

Florida law does not consider an adopted child as the lineal descendant of his or her biological parents. Thus, if you were adopted, and your biological parents die intestate, you have no legal inheritance rights. However, if you were adopted and your biological parents died testate or with a valid will, you may have legal inheritance rights to inherit under the terms of the will. This is more common today with technological advances allowing adoptive children and biological parents to find one another through electronic internet databases and search groups.

In most states, a Will that does not conform to the state probate laws governing testamentary instruments fails as a valid instrument that can govern a decedent’s rights to bequeath property through his or her Will. If a court rejects a Will as invalid, the decedent is subject to his or her state’s order of succession or intestacy laws. This three-part blog series explains the inheritance rights that you have as adoptees or as parents of adopted children. It does not cover the legal inheritance rights that adopted children of same-sex or opposite-sex unmarried partners may have. An adopted child in this scenario may be the biological child of one domestic partner but an adopted child of the other. Furthermore, it will not cover the legal rights that unmarried same-sex or opposite-sex unmarried parents have to inherit from their biological or adoptive children.

The extended homestead program is available to homeowners age 65 or older who permanently reside in their homes. The program sets forth income caps, which are subject to change annually based on consumer price indexes and cost-of-living increases.

Even if your local government does not offer an expanded or additional program or you do not qualify for it, you may be able to qualify for other state tax relief programs, including the Deployed Military Exemption program. This program is available to all actively deployed military service members who own property in Florida. Eligible service members receive property tax discounts based on the length of their military deployments.

Because of the different homestead tax programs offered by local Florida governments and the Florida Department of Revenue, you may want to contact an estate planning attorney to discuss the effects of placing property in trust while benefiting from this program.

The state offers blind or disabled widowers and widows a limited exemption of up to $500 each year. Blind widows or widowers must obtain a certificate of eligibility from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Department of Education’s Division of Blind Services or through the local Social Security Administration substantiating their lack of sight.

The state also offers other residents a partial homestead exemption. The partial homestead exemption is available to any resident who owned real property in Florida as of Jan. 1 annually. All homeowners receive up to a $25,000 local tax exemption through the Florida Department of Revenue and another $25,000 exemption for local school and district taxes. Qualified veterans with disabilities affecting at least 10 percent of their bodies or vision suffered through war-related or service-related injuries may qualify for an additional monetary exemption in addition to the $50,000 exemption.

The Florida State Constitution gives local government tax agencies the legal rights to assess property taxes on local residents to subsidize local community programs and benefits. All Floridian homeowners receive annual property tax bills based on recent assessments conducted by local tax assessors. Florida’s homestead tax exemption programs offer many different types of homeowners the opportunities to reduce their annual real estate taxes.

The largest exemption available to Florida homeowners is the state’s Total Homestead Exemption Program. According to the rules of this program, qualified homeowners can receive a complete and total exemption from property taxes. The total exemption is available to honorable discharged veterans with permanent and total disabilities caused by war-related or service-related injuries. Only veterans with honorable discharge papers qualify for the total exemption.

More specifically, the total exemption is generally available to quadriplegic war veterans, regardless of income and non-quadriplegic, but totally disabled veterans who depend on wheelchairs for mobility or suffer from legal blindness. Non-quadriplegic veterans must meet annual income limits. All first-time filers must submit proof of their disabilities from two independently licensed physicians.

A living will is an instrument you create while you are still alive and well enough to make those decisions. You may want to create one in addition to drafting a document appointing your health care surrogate.

Once you create a living will, you should give a copy of it to the person that you appoint as your health care surrogate if you appointed one. The surrogate has the legal ability to make decisions on your behalf regarding any medical treatments if you become incapable of making them. If you want to designate a health care surrogate, you should do that in writing. Like a living will, you must sign your surrogate document in front of two witnesses, one of which is not a spouse or a relative. Your surrogate is not able to serve as a witness to your document.

It is your legal responsibility to notify your physicians of your living will. Once you give your physician a copy of it, he must place it in your medical file for future reference.

A legal will allows a person to decide who inherits his personal and real property. A living will or health care advance directive, on the other hand, is a written document that allows a person to make decisions regarding his own health upon physical or mental incapacity.

A valid living will must be in writing and signed by the person creating it in front of at least two witnesses. At least one of the witnesses must be unrelated to the person creating it and must not be a spouse. If the person creating a living will is physically unable to sign his document, he may direct another individual to sign it on his behalf. The third party signing a living will on the drafter’s behalf must sign it for the drafter in his physical presence. Finally, to create a living will, an individual must be mentally competent at the time he signs it.

Note that a living will created in another state is valid in Florida if it was valid in the other state. In other words, similar to a legal will, a living will created outside of Florida is enforceable in Florida if it complies with the other state’s laws.