If You Are An Innocent Party, Can The IRS Foreclose On An Interest That You Own?
Under tax law, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS) has a lien on a taxpayer’s property for unpaid taxes. The U.S. Attorney can direct a civil action to enforce the lien and the court can adjudicate all matters and can direct a sale of the property and the...
Beneficiary Designations and Divorce
As you probably know, Fla. Stat § 732.703 was created and now governs the effect of divorce, dissolution or invalidity of marriage on the disposition of certain assets with beneficiary designations, like life insurance and IRAs. A beneficiary designation made by the...
Child Support Claim Takes Precedence Over Interest in Special Needs Trust
In a recent Florida case, the court determined that, even though father is a beneficiary of a special needs trust which contains a spendthrift provision, and he is only entitled to trust assets for supplemental income while maintaining eligibility for federal...
New Nevada Supreme Court Case…Protection from Spousal and Child Support Obligations
We do not know what will happen in the future with our marriage, our children or any other facet of our lives. None of us PLAN on getting a divorce when marrying the love of our life, we do not PLAN paying child support when a child is not under our roof and certainly...
What Happens If A Beneficiary Does Not Claim Life Insurance Death Benefits? You May Be Surprised!
If you have a life insurance policy, then hopefully you have named a beneficiary. We often discuss the appropriateness of the beneficiary designation in the estate planning meeting. But what happens if your beneficiary does not claim the proceeds or does not know...
Single Family versus Multi-Family Home… Is Homestead Creditor Protection Available for Beneficiary if Owner Rented Rooms prior to his Death?
Single Family versus Multi-Family Home… Is Homestead Creditor Protection Available for Beneficiary if Owner Rented Rooms prior to his Death? In the recent case, Anderson v. Letosky, the District Court of Appeal for the Second District determined that a beneficiary...
Can You Terminate An Irrevocable Trust?
While an irrevocable trust technically means that it can not be revoked, changed or terminated prior to the terms of the trust, many changes and additions to the trust code permit a change or termination of an irrevocable trust under certain circumstances. As many...
Can You Reform an Invalidly Executed Trust?
What happens when a trust is not executed properly? Can the trust be reformed after the grantor’s death? In some cases, yes. However, in Kelly, et. al. v. Lindenau, the answer was not favorable. Ralph created a an Illinois trust in December 2006, properly executed...
An Intersection of Litigation and Probate… Do Not Crash!
A recent case indicates how litigation and probate often intersect. If you or your attorney do not understand litigation procedural rules, then you could lose valuable rights. In Sudman v. O’Brien, Theresa Z. Sudman (“Theresa”) lost her right to object to a court...
New Fiduciary Rule for Financial Professionals
Under prior law, most financial professionals were NOT considered a fiduciary under Section 4975 (c)(1)(E) and (F) of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) , which provides that a fiduciary can NOT handle income or assets of a plan or IRAs in the fiduciaries’ own...