The decedent\u2019s surviving spouse and children may be entitled to receive probate assets from the decedent\u2019s probate estate, even if the decedent\u2019s will gives them nothing. Florida law protects the decedent\u2019s surviving spouse and certain surviving children from total disinheritance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For example, a surviving spouse may have rights in the decedent\u2019s homestead real property. A surviving spouse may also have the right to come forward to claim an \u201celective share\u201d from the decedent\u2019s probate estate. The elective share is, generally speaking, 30 percent of all of the decedent\u2019s assets, including any assets that are non-probate assets. A surviving spouse and\/or the decedent\u2019s children may also have the right to a family allowance to provide them with funds before final distribution of the estate assets, and rights in exempt property that will be paid to them instead of to creditors in satisfaction of claims against the probate estate. It is important to note that a spouse may waive rights to an elective share, family allowance and\/or exempt property in a valid pre-marital or post-marital agreement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In addition, if the decedent married, or had children, after the date of the decedent\u2019s last will, and if the decedent neglected to provide for the new spouse or children, an omitted family member may nevertheless be entitled to a share of the decedent\u2019s probate estate.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The existence and enforcement of these statutory rights require knowledge about the applicable laws and procedures and are best handled by an attorney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The decedent\u2019s surviving spouse and children may be entitled to receive probate assets from the decedent\u2019s probate estate, even if the decedent\u2019s will gives them nothing. Florida law protects the decedent\u2019s surviving spouse and certain surviving children from total disinheritance. For example, a surviving spouse may have rights in the decedent\u2019s homestead real property. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duneganlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}