If your wealth is built from a career at the University of Florida, a medical practice, or generations of Alachua County land, a Gainesville high net worth estate planning lawyer helps you protect and transfer it with intention. We work with faculty, physicians, business owners, and landowning families across North Central Florida on the advanced strategies a simple will cannot address. The assets that build an academic or agricultural estate often need more than a basic plan.
Call our Gainesville office at 352-389-3755 to schedule a confidential consultation.
How Do Academic and Professional Estates Get Complicated?
University and medical careers produce a distinct mix of assets that a standard plan can mishandle. Retired faculty and UF Health physicians often hold State University System retirement plans, deferred compensation, TIAA accounts, and, in some cases, intellectual property royalties from research or publications.
Many of these transfer by beneficiary designation rather than through a will, and they pass outside probate only if the designations are current and coordinated. A single outdated form after a divorce or a spouse’s death can send an account into the estate unexpectedly.
We map every asset and how it transfers before building the plan around it.
| Asset Type | How It Usually Transfers | Planning Concern |
| TIAA / retirement accounts | Beneficiary designation | Keeping designations current and coordinated |
| Intellectual property royalties | Will or trust | Valuing and directing an ongoing income stream |
| Deferred compensation | Plan terms and designation | Timing and tax treatment |
| Family farmland | Deed and will or trust | Appreciated value and homestead rules |
How Do You Pass Down Family Farmland Without a Heavy Tax Hit?
Appreciated Alachua County land is one of the trickiest assets in a high net worth estate. Farmland and rural acreage held for decades can carry a value far above what the family paid, which raises both estate tax and capital gains questions.
Planning tools can keep the land in the family while managing the tax exposure, including trusts, gifting strategies, and entities that hold and transfer the property over time. Florida’s homestead and property rules also affect how land passes to the next generation.
We structure land transfers so a family legacy does not become a tax burden.
Do You Still Need Advanced Planning With the Higher Exemption?
Yes. As of January 1, 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per person, or $30 million for a married couple, made permanent under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Estates above those amounts are still taxed at a top federal rate of 40 percent.
Appreciating land, retirement accounts, and professional assets can push an estate over the threshold over time. The current estate and gift tax thresholds are adjusted over time, so a plan built around today’s numbers needs periodic review. We build plans that stay effective as asset values and the law change.
What Advanced Strategies Do High Net Worth Plans Use?
High net worth planning coordinates tax planning, asset protection, and wealth transfer into a single structure that goes well beyond a will.
Strategies we implement include:
- Revocable living trusts to avoid probate and maintain privacy
- Irrevocable trusts to remove appreciating assets from the taxable estate
- Dynasty trusts to keep land and wealth in the family across generations
- Irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) to provide estate liquidity
- Lifetime gifting strategies using the annual exclusion
- Charitable remainder trusts, which can be well suited to appreciated land
The right combination depends on your assets, your family, and your goals. We design the structure around your specific holdings rather than applying a template.
Call 352-389-3755 or contact us online to discuss your estate planning goals.
Do Not Overlook Portability
Portability lets a surviving spouse use the deceased spouse’s unused federal exemption, preserving up to $30 million in combined shelter. It is one of the most valuable and most frequently missed opportunities in estate planning.
The catch is that portability is not automatic. The executor must file a federal estate tax return (Form 706) within the required window after the first spouse’s death, even when no tax is owed. Missing that filing can forfeit millions in future shelter, and we make sure it is handled.
Who Handles High Net Worth Estate Planning at Our Gainesville Office
Adam S. Towers
Adam S. Towers is a shareholder and the founding attorney of our Gainesville office, which he established in 2007. He has practiced law since 2001 and focuses on estate planning, trust administration, probate, and real estate, including the title and land issues that affect farmland and rural property. He is a graduate of Leadership Gainesville and a longtime community leader in Alachua County.
Justin M. Brick is a wills, trusts, and probate attorney at Bogin Munns & Munns known for the precision and thoroughness of his legal documents. He founded his own estate-planning-focused firm before joining larger firms, and he believes that taking the time to word documents correctly, especially in the wills and trusts arena, pays dividends for families down the line.
Our Gainesville office is at 4411 NW 8th Avenue, Suite B. Consultations are confidential.
This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Estate and tax planning depend on individual circumstances and current law. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
Ready to Talk to a Gainesville High Net Worth Estate Planning Attorney?
For faculty, physicians, and landowning families, the planning you do now determines whether your wealth and your land pass intact to the next generation. These tools work best when put in place early and reviewed as your assets and the law change.
We work with high net worth individuals and families across Alachua County and North Central Florida from our Gainesville office at 4411 NW 8th Avenue, Suite B.
Bogin Munns & Munns also handles probate, real estate, civil litigation, and business law, giving affluent clients coordinated counsel under one roof.
Call 352-389-3755 or contact our Gainesville office online to schedule a confidential consultation.
