Copyright berkshireeagle
My estate documents, including a trust, will, power of attorney, living will and health care proxy, were drafted in Massachusetts. I now live in Florida. Will their provisions be binding here in Florida or do I need all new documents? Yes, and yes. Your documents are binding in Florida, but you should probably get new documents, at least your durable power of attorney and health care directive. The full faith and credit clause of the United State Constitution requires all states to honor the laws of the other states. This means that they must also honor the legal documents that are authorized by the laws of other states. However, law and practice can be different, especially in the case of durable powers of attorney and health care directives. Financial institutions and medical providers are familiar with the forms of documents used in their states and, as a result, are much more likely to honor them than they are those that come from other states. So, update those two documents. Your Massachusetts will will definitely be honored by a Florida probate court when the time comes. And being a more formal document, you’re unlikely to run into a problem with your trust being accepted by Florida banks or other financial institutions, many of which are national in any case. But I would still recommend having these reviewed by a Florida estate planning attorney to make sure they don’t run afoul of some law in Florida or fail to take advantage of some benefit of which an out-of-state lawyer would be unaware.
