Estate Planning
5 easy steps to begin your estate plan
Your decision to make an estate plan may have come following the death of a loved one or after hearing someone talk about the frustration of dealing with a parent’s estate with no will left behind. Along with the grief of losing a loved one, family members are often...
Is it possible to minimize the impact of estate taxes?
When planning your estate, you probably have questions about how best to provide for your family. Can you limit the time and costs of the probate process? How can you limit the impact that taxes have on your estate? Florida, unlike many other states, does not charge...
Estate Planning Issues for the Family Lawyer
Every family lawyer must have some knowledge of estate planning issues as you are advising your clients through dissolution of a marriage. Even something as simple as documenting in your file that you have advised the clients that they should consult an estate...
Views From a Former Member of a Grievance Committee: Hot Buttons For the Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Attorney
I have had the great opportunity to be on three Grievance Committees (the “Committee”) for a total of nine years. I would like to say my participation on the Committee has been purely altruistic but my experience has taught me I am not often “purely altruistic”. I...
Beware Of The Use Of Preprinted Wills!
The Florida Supreme Court held in Aldrich v. Basile, 2014 WL 1240073, that, absent a residuary clause or proper devise of an asset, any after acquired property of a decedent shall pass according to Florida’s intestacy laws. Ms. Aldrich drafted her will using an “E-Z...
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?...
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...
Is It Tenants By The Entireties Ownership (“TBE”)?
Tenants By the Entireties ownership (“TBE”) is a form of joint tenancy ownership in real or personal property between a husband and wife. Four “unities of title” are required for joint tenancy ownership: (1) unity of interest (each joint tenant must have an equal...
Do You Know What Happens to Your Assets if a Beneficiary Dies Before You?
In Doreen’s Last Will and Testament she devises “$10,000 to my daughter, Sally”. What happens to the devise if Sally dies before Doreen? The devise “lapses” and is distributed pursuant to Sally’s residuary clause in her Last Will and Testament, perhaps in a way that...
So Maybe Your Son-In-Law or Daughter-In-Law Aren’t What You Expected…How Do You Make Sure They Don’t Receive Your Assets?
I have had many clients who love their children but aren’t so enamored by their children’s choice of spouse (to be fair MANY clients love their childrens’ spouses but this blog discussion does not address those situations). If a parent, at their death, provides for...