Here at the Law Office of David M. Goldman, we come across many estate-planning problems that can be avoided by careful planning and forethought. With higher estate tax exemptions most individuals don’t have to consider avoiding estate taxes, so we often recommend a person’s estate planning goal be to leave…
Congress will soon vote on passing the Special Needs Trust, Fairness Act of 2015, a bill designed to make it easier for people with special needs to create their own Special Needs Trust. A Special Needs Trust is used to enable a disabled individual to hold assets in a trust…
Are you concerned about your father, another family member or close friend’s ability to continue taking care of his or her own health and property without help? Are you afraid they cannot remember to properly take their medications or go to their own doctor appointments? If a Power of…
Elder fraud is becoming a growing concern as the baby boomers are beginning to retire and are not well versed in the latest technology. Recent studies show that senior citizens are being defrauded through Internet and telephone scams. As an estate planner and elder law specialist, I thought I would…
With the recent Supreme Court ruling making headlines for allowing same-sex couples to get married, the unnoticed effect of this monumental ruling is how it will affect the estate planning for couples that can now tie the knot. Same-sex married couples now have the same estate planning and tax…
While irrevocable trusts were once thought to be untouchable this may no longer be true as the practice of “decanting” a trust becomes more commonly used. Decanting lets a trustee, or the manager of the trust, change certain terms by figuratively pouring the assets from an old trust into a…
A GRAT is a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust and is a special type of irrevocable trust that allows the settlor, or trust maker, to transfer assets to this trust and receive an annual annuity payment for a certain amount of years. When the term of the GRAT ends, the assets…
If a tenant does not pay rent in Florida, a landlord can evict the tenant if he or she follows the correct procedures as defined in the Florida statutes. Florida law no longer allows “self-help” evictions, which few states continue to recognize, such as changing the locks or shutting off…
A living trust, revocable trust, or asset protection trust can be a great estate planning tool that offers a number of benefits, such as allowing assets to pass to beneficiaries without going through probate and avoid the claims of creditors. Once a trust has been created, the testator…
A new Florida law, Florida HB5, signed into law by Governor Rick Scott in June seeks to curb elder guardianship abuse. The bill was drafted to help solve the growing problem of elder abuse in Florida’s elder guardianship system There are a growing number of reports of abuse of court…