Month: August 2020
Annuity Contracts May Allow The Beneficiary To Avoid Writs Of Garnishment
The Fifth District Court of Appeal of Florida recently held that beneficiaries of annuity contracts are exempt from garnishment pursuant to Florida Statute §222.14.In Connor v. Seaside Nat’l Bank, 2014 WL 1255340, a settlement in a dissolution of marriage distributed...
Your Signature Block Just Got Smaller
At the end of a lawyer’s email there is a lot of language that no one reads, no one pays attention to and no one cares about. So why do we put it there? A few years ago Treasury issued proposed regulations (known as Circular 230) which provided complicated guidelines...
Trust Code Updates Lapsing Statute
Section 732.603 of the Florida Statutes (the “antilapse statute”) is a probate default rule of construction that allow certain devises under a last will and testament to pass to the devisee’s descendants instead of the devise “lapsing” to the residuary or passing by...
Cremated Remains: An Uncomfortable Topic But Necessary To Discuss
Generally, families are in agreement over the disposition of cremated remains but in a recent 4th District Case, Wilson v. Wilson, 138 So. 3d 1176 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014), the District Court upheld a longstanding legal principle that a decedent’s cremated remains...
Beware! Your Fee Agreement May Not Be As Clear To Clients As You May Think
In West v. Chrisman, 2014 WL 4683182, a Florida District Court affirmed the Bankruptcy Court’s Order finding that West, as Co-Trustee and attorney for the trust administration, owed a non-dischargeable debt to the trust in the amount of $212,478.00, because his fee...
Why Unclaimed Property Searches Need To Be On Your Probate Checklist
In Bartsch v. Costello, 2015 WL 3759702, James Bartsch died in 2002 and was survived by a spouse and two children, one of which was from a prior marriage (“Daughter”). Bartsch’s death certificate incorrectly listed him as divorced and his wife, Agnes, did not have the...
One More Reason To Notice Those Pesky Creditors!
In Jones v. Golden, (No. SC13-2536), the Florida Supreme Court settled the circuit court split regarding when a reasonably ascertainable creditor is barred if the creditor was never served a Notice to Creditors. Harry Jones’s estate was opened in 2007 and a Notice to...
How Do You Select a Trustee?
Estate planning requires many decisions, not the least of which is whom to appoint as an agent to act under a health care surrogate and a durable power of attorney and whom to appoint as a personal representative and a trustee. How do you select these individuals?...
Prepare for Increased Taxes in 2013
As many of you know, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 2010 Health Care Act on June 28, 2012. What you may not understand is how this decision will affect your tax burden in 2013. It is more likely than not that the 3.8% surtax (the “Surtax”) on net investment income...
Who Gets the Pretty Lamp? The Biggest Fights in Estates Can Be Over the Smallest Items!
Siblings tend to be reasonable when it comes to dividing their parents’ estate, especially when divided in equal shares between the siblings. However, it is nearly impossible to equalize the tangible personal property (TPP) , i.e., the furniture, the artwork, the...