Wills, Trusts, and Estates

Course Description

PLA2600 – Wills, Trusts, and Estates is a 3-credit course covering the law of inheritance and the paralegal's substantial role in estate planning and probate administration. Santa Fe College titles it Wills, Trusts and Probate Administration, which describes the practical content better.

This is among the most employable courses in a Florida paralegal curriculum, for a demographic reason: Florida has one of the largest older populations in the country, and probate and estate work is correspondingly abundant. It is also unusually document-driven, which is exactly the kind of work paralegals do.

Content covers intestate succession — who inherits when there is no will, under Florida's statutory scheme; wills — the execution formalities Florida requires, revocation, codicils, and will contests; trusts — revocable and irrevocable, the trustee's duties, and why revocable living trusts are used to avoid probate; probate administration — formal and summary administration, the personal representative's duties, notice to creditors, inventory, and distribution; non-probate transfers including joint ownership, beneficiary designations, and payable-on-death accounts; guardianship; and advance directives including durable powers of attorney, health care surrogates, and living wills.

Florida law is genuinely distinctive here, more so than in most practice areas, and the course is built around Chapters 731–736 of the Florida Statutes rather than around general principles. Florida's constitutional homestead protection in particular has no close analogue in most states and changes how estates are planned and administered.

Offered at approximately 15 Florida institutions with paralegal programs.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the Florida intestate succession scheme and determine heirs for a given family situation.
• Describe the formalities Florida requires for valid execution of a will.
• Draft a simple will and codicil under supervision.
• Describe revocation of wills and the effect of subsequent events including marriage and divorce.
• Describe grounds for will contests including capacity and undue influence.
• Distinguish revocable from irrevocable trusts and describe the uses of each.
• Describe trustee duties and the consequences of breach.
• Explain how revocable living trusts avoid probate and the limits of that avoidance.
• Distinguish formal from summary administration and determine which applies.
• Describe the personal representative's duties and the probate timeline.
• Prepare probate petitions, inventories, and accountings using Florida forms.
• Describe notice to creditors and the claims process.
• Apply Florida's constitutional homestead protection and describe its effect on devise and creditors.
• Describe the elective share and its calculation.
• Describe non-probate transfers and beneficiary designations.
• Describe advance directives: durable power of attorney, health care surrogate, and living will.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe guardianship proceedings under Chapter 744, F.S.
• Describe federal estate and gift tax basics.
• Describe ancillary administration for non-resident decedents owning Florida property.
• Describe elder law issues including Medicaid planning.
• Describe trust administration and termination.
• Describe digital assets and their disposition.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Introduction to estates — terminology, the estate planning function, and the paralegal's role.
• Intestate succession — Chapter 732, F.S.; the order of heirs and per stirpes distribution.
• Wills — capacity, execution formalities, self-proving affidavits, and holographic and oral wills (not valid in Florida).
• Will provisions — specific and residuary devises, lapse and anti-lapse, and abatement.
• Revocation and modification — codicils, revocation by act and by law.
• Will contests — capacity, undue influence, fraud, and improper execution.
• Trusts — creation, revocable and irrevocable, and the Florida Trust Code (Chapter 736, F.S.).
• Trustee duties — loyalty, prudence, accounting, and breach.
• Probate administration — formal administration, summary administration, and disposition without administration.
• The personal representative — appointment, qualification, duties, and compensation.
• Probate procedure — petitions, letters, inventory, notice to creditors, claims, accounting, and distribution.
• Homestead — Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution; devise restrictions and creditor protection.
• Spousal rights — the elective share, family allowance, and exempt property.
• Non-probate transfers — joint tenancy, beneficiary designations, and POD/TOD accounts.
• Advance directives — durable power of attorney, health care surrogate, and living will under Chapter 765, F.S.

Optional Topics

• Guardianship under Chapter 744, F.S.
• Federal estate and gift tax.
• Ancillary administration.
• Elder law and Medicaid planning.
• Trust administration and termination.
• Digital assets.

Resources & Tools

• Wills, Trusts, and Estate Administration (Herskowitz or Brown & Myers), Cengage — common national texts.
• Florida-specific practice materials — Florida probate practice guides; several programs supplement a national text because Florida differs so much.
• Chapters 731–736, Florida Statutes — the Florida Probate Code and Trust Code; freely available on Online Sunshine and the operative authority.
• Article X, Section 4, Florida Constitution — homestead protection.
• Chapter 765, Florida Statutes — health care advance directives.
• Florida Probate Rules — published by the Florida Courts.
• The Florida Bar Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section — practice resources and forms.
• Local circuit court probate forms and e-filing procedures.

Career Pathways

• Probate Paralegal (SOC 23-2011) — a high-demand specialty in Florida, and one where experienced paralegals are genuinely scarce.
• Trusts and Estates Paralegal — estate planning practices and private client groups.
• Trust Officer or Trust Administrator — banks and trust companies; a common lateral move.
• Guardianship Paralegal — substantial Florida work given the older population.
• Elder Law Paralegal — Medicaid planning and long-term care.
• Court roles — probate divisions of Florida circuit courts.

Florida's demographics make this among the most reliably employable paralegal specialties in the state, and probate and trust paralegal positions are consistently advertised across every metropolitan area.

Special Information

Florida homestead protection has no close analogue elsewhere

This is the single most important Florida-specific concept in the course, and national textbooks do not prepare students for it. Florida's constitutional homestead provision does three distinct things: it protects the homestead from most creditors, including after death; it restricts how the homestead may be devised when there is a surviving spouse or minor child, so a will attempting an improper devise simply fails as to the homestead; and it provides a property tax exemption, which is a separate matter frequently confused with the first two. An estate plan that ignores homestead produces results the client did not intend, and probate administration of a homestead follows different rules from the rest of the estate.

Florida does not recognize holographic or oral wills

A handwritten will executed without Florida's required formalities — two witnesses, all present together — is invalid in Florida even if it would be valid in the state where it was signed, with narrow exceptions. Clients moving to Florida frequently arrive with wills that do not work here, and identifying that is routine paralegal work.

Formal versus summary administration determines the whole workflow

Florida offers summary administration for smaller estates and those where the decedent died more than two years earlier, and formal administration otherwise. The two follow entirely different procedural tracks with different documents and timelines. Determining which applies is among the first things a probate paralegal does on a new matter, and getting it wrong wastes weeks.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites vary; verify locally. Santa Fe College requires PLA1003 (Introduction to Paralegal Studies), and most programs also require the legal research sequence. Note that Santa Fe offers this course spring only and several practice courses are similarly restricted — students should plan sequencing around single-term offerings.

The UPL line is tested constantly in this practice area

Clients in estate matters are often grieving, frequently elderly, and routinely ask the paralegal they have been dealing with what they should do. A paralegal may prepare documents and convey information but may not advise on estate planning choices or interpret a will's effect for a client — that is legal advice. This practice area generates more unauthorized-practice complaints than most, and the course addresses it directly.