Boca Raton draws property owners from across the globe. Many of our clients hold a condo on the Intracoastal, a family home west of I-95, or an investment property they visit a few weeks each year, yet they are not U.S. citizens and may not even be U.S. residents. If that describes you, your Florida estate plan cannot be copied from a neighbor who was born here. The rules that govern how your assets pass at death, and how much tax is owed, change dramatically based on citizenship, residency, and where you are in the immigration process. Getting this right requires coordinating two separate areas of law at the same time.
Citizenship Quietly Reshapes the Marital Deduction
Most married U.S. citizens rely on the unlimited marital deduction, which lets one spouse leave any amount to the other free of federal estate tax. That deduction is not available when the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen, even if that spouse is a lawful permanent resident living full-time in Boca Raton. Congress was concerned that a non-citizen spouse might inherit and then leave the country beyond the reach of U.S. estate tax.
The standard solution is a Qualified Domestic Trust, or QDOT. Property passes into the QDOT rather than outright to the non-citizen spouse, a U.S. trustee controls distributions, and the deferred estate tax is collected later. A QDOT can be built into a will or, more commonly, into a revocable trust under Florida’s Trust Code (Chapter 736, Florida Statutes). If your spouse later naturalizes, the planning can be adjusted. This is exactly the kind of provision an off-the-shelf form will miss.
Non-Resident Aliens Face a Much Smaller Exemption
If you are a non-resident alien, meaning you are neither a citizen nor domiciled in the United States, your exposure to federal estate tax is different again. U.S.-situated assets, which include Florida real estate and certain U.S. securities, are subject to estate tax, but the exemption available to non-resident aliens is a small fraction of the generous exemption a U.S. citizen or domiciliary receives. A waterfront unit in Boca Raton can easily exceed that threshold. Strategies such as holding property through the right entity, using debt, or applying a relevant estate-tax treaty can reduce the bite, but they must be designed in advance with both a tax-aware estate attorney and, where relevant, your home-country advisor.
Homestead, Wills, and Trusts Under Florida Law
Florida’s homestead protections and its rules on inheritance apply regardless of citizenship, and they can surprise newcomers. Florida’s constitution restricts how homestead property may be devised when there is a surviving spouse or minor child, and a will that ignores those limits can be partly overridden by operation of law. To be valid, a Florida will must meet the execution formalities of section 732.502, Florida Statutes, including signature in the presence of two witnesses. A revocable trust under Chapter 736 is often used to avoid probate and to keep ownership private, which matters for clients who split time between countries and cannot easily appear in a Palm Beach County courtroom.
Immigration Status Touches Beneficiaries and Guardians
Your plan should also account for the immigration status of the people you love. If you name a beneficiary who lives abroad, or a minor child whose own status is tied to a pending petition, distributions and guardianship choices need extra thought. Florida lets parents nominate a preneed guardian for minor children, and immigrant families should pair that nomination with practical instructions in case a caregiver is overseas. Because the legal and immigration questions overlap here, we coordinate with immigration counsel; for the immigration side we regularly recommend Fitenko Law and their USCIS case strategy team, since our firm focuses on estate planning and does not handle immigration matters.
Travel, Pending Cases, and the Power of Attorney
Clients frequently leave the country for consular interviews, biometrics rescheduling, or to care for family during a green-card process. A durable power of attorney and a designation of health care surrogate let a trusted person handle your Florida affairs while you are abroad, so a closing or a tax deadline does not stall. If your estate plan and your immigration case are moving at once, they should be sequenced together. A change in status can alter your marital deduction, your exemption, and even which trust structure makes sense. Couples pursuing marriage-based green cards in particular benefit from aligning the petition timeline with QDOT and beneficiary decisions.
Newcomers Need Both, Not One
An estate plan without immigration awareness can create avoidable tax and a will that Florida courts will not fully honor. An immigration case without estate planning can leave a family exposed if something happens before the process concludes. If you own property in Boca Raton and you are not yet a U.S. citizen, build your plan with an estate attorney who understands these intersections and an immigration attorney working in parallel. We are glad to handle the Florida estate side and to coordinate with your immigration counsel so the two plans fit together.
For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of probate and estate administration in Florida. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles how a will is contested in New York.
