Estate Planning for Palm Beach Business Owners and High-Net-Worth Families

Building wealth in Palm Beach is one challenge. Transferring it to the next generation with control, privacy, and minimal friction is another. Our practice focuses on the people whose plans rarely fit a template: business owners with operating companies, real estate investors, and high-net-worth families whose balance sheets cross state lines and asset classes.

Florida is an exceptional jurisdiction for wealth holders. There is no Florida state estate tax and no Florida inheritance tax. Homestead receives some of the strongest creditor protection in the country under Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution. But these advantages reward careful structuring, not assumptions. A plan that worked when you were a W-2 employee elsewhere can leave a closely held business, a vacation home, or a brokerage account exposed once your circumstances grow more complex.

Who We Serve

Our clients tend to share a few traits: they own something that does not pass by simple beneficiary designation, they value privacy, and they want continuity if they become incapacitated or pass away. That includes founders of professional practices, owners of family businesses, partners in real estate ventures, executives with concentrated equity, and families relocating to Florida to take advantage of its tax and asset-protection climate.

What a Coordinated Plan Looks Like

For most high-net-worth households, a will alone is not the centerpiece. A revocable living trust under Florida Chapter 736 typically anchors the plan, keeping assets out of probate, preserving privacy, and allowing seamless management if you are incapacitated. Around that core, we coordinate durable powers of attorney (Chapter 709), advance directives, business succession documents, and titling strategies so each asset actually flows the way you intend.

The Business Succession Question

If you own a company, your estate plan and your business documents must agree. Operating agreements, buy-sell arrangements, and trust provisions need to speak to one another, or a death or disability can trigger disputes, forced sales, or a loss of control among partners and heirs. We treat succession as a core part of planning, not an afterthought.

Florida Advantages, Properly Captured

Florida’s homestead protection, the absence of state-level death taxes, and favorable trust law make the state attractive to wealth holders. Yet federal estate tax still applies above the federal exemption, the elective share (Sections 732.2065 and following) protects surviving spouses, and homestead rules can restrict how you devise your primary residence. Capturing the upside while avoiding the traps requires deliberate planning.

Explore Your Options

Use this site to understand the building blocks: wills, revocable living trusts, probate avoidance, powers of attorney and advance directives, and business succession and asset protection. Each topic is written with substantial estates in mind.

This site provides general information about Florida law and is not individualized legal advice. Estate planning is fact-specific. Please consult a licensed Florida attorney about your particular situation before acting.

For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of Florida estate planning. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles Medicaid asset protection trusts.