Jacksonville Probate Lawyer, David Goldman has put together a Florida Probate Handbook that is being offered free to readers and visitors of his websites. If you would like a copy, visit the Free Florida Probate Handbook web page, fill out the form, and one will be sent to you within 24 hours by email.
In the handbook, you will:
•Learn about four types of Florida Probate.
•Learn about what is involved in opening a Florida Probate.
Florida Estate Planning Documents can be lost during a hurricane or tropical storm. Just when a Florida Will, Power of Attorney, or Florida Living Will, Designation of Health care Surrogate & HIPAA release.
You should protect your original signed documents by keeping them in with in waterproof container and if possible off the floor or at a bank in a safety deposit box A scanned copy of these documents should be keep with your and made available at an off site storage facility like Google or any free document storage provider.
If you home is damaged and is inside a Florida Revocable Trust you may have to provide an original copy of the trust to the insurance company.
Florida Estate Planning for professional athletes is very different than with a traditional client. Most clients accumulate wealth over a long period and have advisers in place to manage their wealth. Financial advisers are typically managing their wealth in an effort to protect it from substantial loss and the lawyers deal with methods of distributing the assets upon incapacity or death.
Most athletes accumulate their wealth in just a few years and need to have it last their entire life. They may not have the control or discipline to use a traditional revocable trust and in some cases irrevocable trusts may provide for stability and security that would be at risk otherwise.
If you are a professional athlete and looking at ways of doing Florida Estate Planning and would like to speak with a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer about methods of providing for the many years after your professional career Contact Us for a free consultation regarding Florida Estate Planning and Florida Asset Protection.
In Florida, A personal representative shall be entitled to a commission payable from the estate assets without court order as compensation for ordinary services. The commission shall be based on the compensable value of the estate, which is the inventory value of the probate estate assets and the income earned by the estate during administration.
(a) At the rate of 3 percent for the first $1 million.
(b) At the rate of 2.5 percent for all above $1 million and not exceeding $5 million.
If you own a car, then you know it requires regular servicing in order to perform well and be reliable. More than likely, your car came with a recommended schedule for service, based on how many miles it has been driven. After a certain number of miles, you need to change the oil, replace the brake pads, rotate the tires, and so on.
If you have a newer car, you probably have an irritating dash light that comes on when it’s time for service and stays on until the mechanic resets it. Either way, whether you pay attention to the odometer or rely on that dash light, it’s pretty easy to know when it’s time to service your car. And if you keep driving it without servicing it, it’s a sure bet your car will let you down.
Like your car, your estate plan needs “servicing” if it is going to perform the way you want when you need it. Your estate plan is a snapshot of you, your family, your assets and the tax laws in effect at the time it was created. All of these change over time, and so should your plan. It is unreasonable to expect the simple will written when you were a newlywed to be effective now that you have a growing family, or now that you are divorced from your spouse, or now that you are retired and have an ever-increasing swarm of grandchildren! Over the course of your lifetime, your estate plan will need check-ups, maintenance, tweaking, maybe even replacing.
So, how do you know when it’s time to give your estate plan a check-up? Well, instead of having mileage checkpoints, your estate plan has event checkpoints. Generally, any change in your personal, family, financial or health situation, or a change in the tax laws, could prompt a change in your estate plan. Use the list at the end of this newsletter to guide you.
It’s a good idea to review your estate plan every year. Set aside a specific time every year (your birthday, anniversary, family gathering) to review it. Keep these events in mind each time you read through your documents. If you think a change may be in order, don’t write on your actual document; contact your attorney. Most changes can be handled by a simple amendment that is attached to your current will or trust.
Planning Tip: Like your car, your estate plan needs regular “servicing.” Set aside a specific time every year (your birthday, anniversary, family gathering) to review it. Become familiar with it. Keep it current so it will perform the way you want when you need it.
What Do You Do with Your Estate Plan?
Think for a few moments about what would happen if you became incapacitated or died today. Would your spouse, family and successor trustees know what to do?
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Is a Florida Probate required if the decedent had a living trust?
Most people do not transfer all of their assets into a Florida Revocable Trust prior to their death. If their home, or other personal property was not transferred into the trust prior to their death, a Florida Probate may still be required to properly dispose of the remaining assets. Often bank accounts, IRA’s, land, business interests, or other assets are not transferred property.
The probate will typically take the remaining assets and follow the instructions of the Florida Will to distribute them. If the will directs the assets to a trust it is called a Pour-over will.
Forbes.com has an article on 10 issues dealing with Estate planning and items you should check within your own plan.. Forbes even includes a calculator that will tell you where your assets will go if you die without a will.
Matthew Gardner an Estate Planning Lawyer who writes the Iowa Estate Plan Blog has an article on a child conceived after death and how his state and Social Security treats this child as not being an heir of the decedent. The Iowa Probate Code and many states specify that in order to qualify as an “heir” under Iowa law, you must have been conceived prior to the death of the biological parent. You can see with recent medical advancements, this with become more of an issue as time goes on.
If you have a potential for future heirs after your death, you may consider the jurisdiction of your trust or estate to avoid or permit additional children to share in your estate.
Update:
Attorney Kevin W Davidson of the Green Bay Wills, Trusts & Estate Planning Blog wrote an article on the pitfalls of Do it yourself asset protection where he talks about some of the problems with trying to protect your own assets.
Over the last 6 months the number of inquiries for asset protection have significantly increased. Unfortunately most of these people did not take action when they had significant assets without potential liabilities, but are only now beginning to consider it as the liabilities become a certainty. While there are things that can be done at this stage to protect, reduce the risk of loss, or increase the ability to negotiate one’s debts, it is always best to address these issues prior to problems arising.
If you would like to discuss Florida Asset Protection you should Contact a Florida Asset Protection Lawyer.
A few months ago the IRS announced a voluntary disclosure program for undeclared foreign accounts. This six months program closes on September 23, 2009. For qualifying taxpayers who come forward and report their undisclosed foreign bank accounts and pay back taxes for six years plus interest and some penalty, the IRS agrees not to bring criminal charges or assess the 75% fraud penalty. What most are not resporting is that the IRS will require disclosure of all who had knowledge of the program and are likily to require you to be a witness in cases against those professionals who had knowledge or helped in the tax avoidance schemas.
On June 30, 2008 a federal court authorized the IRS to serve a “John Doe” civil summons on UBS, demanding the names of approximately U.S. clients who hold off-shore bank accounts. On February 18, 2009, UBS entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the Department of Justice and agreed to pay $780 million to the U.S. and to disclose the names of between 250-300 of its U.S. clients who had maintained secret accounts at UBS. Now the IRS has sued to enforce the earlier John Doe summons seeking the disclosures of the owners of about 52,000 UBS Swiss accounts. It is estimated that these accounts hold some $17.9 billion in assets. The 52,000 accounts are just at one bank in one country. No one knows how many other accounts in other jurisdictions and financial institutions are unreported.
In addition, UBS has notified many of its U.S. clients that their secret bank accounts will be terminated. Closing the accounts is going to put the account holders in a tight spot. They have two choices: 1) transfer the money to banks in other “bank secrecy” jurisdictions which would create a paper trail discoverable by the IRS, or 2) repatriate the funds to the U.S and come clean with the IRS.
Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog