Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

November 6, 2012

Estate Tax Law Changes Worry Many Farmers & their Families

John Buchanan has an article in Central Florida’s Agri-Leader which was published on October 24th which discusses the effects of the expiration of the estate tax exemption on farmers.

Many farmers end up loosing farms because of estate taxes and the inability of their families to become liquid enough to pay the estate tax bills. Over the past few years, the estate tax exemption has been high enough that many small farmers have not had to worry about this effect, but that could all change on January 1, 2013.

I was interviewed by John Buchanan about some of the potential solutions that small farmers could use to help insulate against the huge tax changes set to take effect next year.

September 14, 2012

Childless and Aging? Time to Designate a Caregiver

by David M. Goldman

Phyllis Korkki with the NY Times wrote an article dealing with some of the problems our aging society has when they have no children or natural caregivers and ways to help deal with it. In the article, she quotes me in dealing with some ways you can use legal documents that can be prepared by an attorney to deal with giving someone legal rights to help you make decisions if and when you need it.

These documents can also help avoid a guardianship and limit the ability for some to hijack your assets and use them up with unnecessary fees.

Follow this link to the NY Time article or contact us to discuss how we can provide documents to help manage these situations for your, your friends, or your family.

September 10, 2012

Florida Court Finds that Settlor Lacked Requisit Capacity to Execute Trust Amendment

by David M. Goldman

In the Florida case of Jervis v. Tucker, 37 Fla. L. Weekly D349 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012)

Bernice J. Meikle executed a revocable trust agreement in 1991, which she subsequently amended by executing a first amendment. Her trust, as amended by the first amendment,

provided that Meikle’s power to revoke or amend the trust would be suspended upon her being “adjudicated incapacitated by a court of appropriate jurisdiction.” The trust further provided that Meikle’s powers could be restored by an order of an appropriate court having jurisdiction over Meikle, or upon the issuance and receipt by the Trustee of a written opinion from two licensed physicians after their examination of Meikle.

September 7, 2012

Refusal to follow preference for appointment of Personal Representative was an abuse of discretion

by David M. Goldman

In the case of Bowdoin v. Rinnier, 81 So. 3d 582 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012) The Decedent died intestate, leaving her husband, and a minor child as her sole heirs. Decedent’s mother, filed a petition for administration seeking her appointment as personal representative. The surviving spouse filed a counter-petition for administration seeking his appointment as personal representative. After hearing, the trial court granted Appellee’s petition notwithstanding husband’s preference in appointment under § 733.301, Fla. Stat., because the trial court determined it was in the best interest of all parties to appoint the Decedent’s mother as personal representative. On appeal, the Second District found the trial court’s decision was an abuse of discretion. The Second District reinforced the proposition that statutorily preferred individuals should be appointed unless the record shows the preferred person is unfit to serve. In this case, the Mother produced no witnesses or evidence at the hearing to show the husband was unqualified to serve. The Second District Court therefore reversed the trial court’s appointment of the mother and remanded the matter back to the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the decedent’s husband was fit to serve as personal representative.

September 7, 2012

Last Will and Embezzlement

by David M. Goldman

New movie about financial exploitation of the elderly.

September 5, 2012

Life Estate Deeds May Put Child’s Interest In Home At Risk to Creditors

by David M. Goldman

In Florida many parents create Life Estate Deeds with their children in an attempt to avoid Probate on their homes. A Florida Life Estate Deed is a document which changes the ownership of a home or other piece of real estate. Essentially it creates a present interest and a future interest. A traditional life estate would say something like this, ” I give my self and my spouse the right to live in the home as long as either of us shall live and the remainder to my child or children.”

This example would create a future interest that vests now in the child or children and a present interest or right to use the home for the parents or grantor. While there are many potential problems like loss of tax basis, penalties and interest for failure to do gift tax returns, loss of eligibility for nursing home coverage because of the gift, the issue we are concerned about here is the risk that the home could be lost to the creditor of the child or one of the children.

Here is how it works. If the child or children do no live in the parents home, it is not their homestead, even if they do live in the home, it cannot be their homestead because they do not have a present interest in the home. Remember the child or children only have a future interest in the home. A creditor can levy against that asset just like any other. There are tables that determine the value of a future interest based on the age of the parents, their life expectancy, and the current interest rates.

September 4, 2012

Who Ownes your Itunes Account? and Bruce Willis

by David M. Goldman

Last week there were several articles which brought light to many that our online identities are just licenses which will expire upon out death. While this concept is new to some, most lawyers understand this. Unfortunately there appear to be some who do not understand that we are dealing with licenses which expire upon death, because they are recommending that their clients deal with these assets using a traditional will. While they understand that a will only deals with assets that exist after death, they probably do not understand that your iTunes , Amazon , Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter accounts are licenses, which if owned individually, will not survive the death of the creator.

A Trust or Business entity can survive death! They are fictitious entities which are created by state statutes which do not have to dissolve upon death. A trust generally has provisions for beneficiaries unlike a business entity.

Last weekend the Wall Street Journal and several other publications ran articles on Who inherits your iTunes account?

August 29, 2012

Trusts and Florida Homestead Property

by David M. Goldman

Florida is a rather unique state in rights associated with homestead exemptions from forced sale. In a nutshell, it is nearly impossible for creditors to force the sale of a homestead (a situation famously highlighted by OJ Simpson, who purchased a large estate in Florida in part to avoid creditors).

Florida’s homestead exemption also protects spouses and children of decedents: a spouse cannot transfer the property by will if survived by a spouse or minor child. While this rule often plays a positive role for families of decedents, certain cases show potential perils. Those cases primarily involve “blended families”; i.e., situations where a person late in life remarries. Florida’s homestead exemption seems to presume that the surviving spouse will also be a biological parent of the surviving children, but that is not always the case. Blended families can be a lightening rod of litigation, as highlighted by the case of Aronson-v-Aronson.pdf.

This case is the third time the parties have been in the appellate court. These parties have been fighting for over a decade. Here’s the story: a Mr. Aronson died after creating a revocable trust. Under the terms of the trust, his wife Doreen would take a life estate in the Key Biscayne condo the two of them shared. After that, the condo would go to Mr. Aronson’s sons. However, in the time between creating the trust and dying, Mr. Aronson deeded the same condo directly to Doreen.

August 28, 2012

Filing a Will Caveat

by David M. Goldman

Will caveats: one more reason why hiring an attorney is a good idea for estate planning. Will caveats are, basically, objections to a will. For example, let’s say Father dies, leaving his entire estate to his niece. That is awfully nice of him, but it probably won’t make his two children happy. Taking it a step further, let’s say Father had dementia when he died. Niece had moved in with him claiming she was going to take care of him, but the circumstances suggest she was just trying to dig for a little bit of gold from his estate. Now that Father has died, it looks like Niece’s plan has worked. What are Father’s children’s options?

They can bring a will caveat action, effectively putting the will’s probate on hold until the issues are resolved. Essentially, a caveat allows the interested party the ability to present evidence that something about the will makes it legally inoperable, and once a caveat is filed, the interested party must be allowed to present the evidence.

This was highlighted in a recent case, Rocca v. Boyansky, in which the court held that a party who made several late filings in court was nevertheless entitled to an evidentiary hearing before the will went to probate.

August 27, 2012

The Benefits of being a “Reasonably Ascertainable” Creditor

by David M. Goldman

Serving as a personal representative to an estate comes with many rights and obligations (see Chapter 733 of the Florida Statutes). One of those duties, for example, involves contacting creditors of the deceased person and letting those creditors know of the death. Those creditors then have a period of time to file a claim to be paid. Whether or not they are ever paid depends upon a variety of factors, largely dependent upon the estate actually having money to pay them.

The personal representative’s job can be somewhat difficult in notifying the creditors. Credit card loans and mortgage debts, for example, are pretty obvious: the bills probably come directly to the deceased person’s home. The personal representative generally would not have a difficult time in figuring out whom to contact to let the lender know of the death.

Some lenders, however, are not so easy to find. This is an important distinction. If a lender is relatively easy to find, it is considered a “reasonably ascertainable” creditor and has two years after the estate’s “notice of creditors” is published in order to file its claim. But, if the creditor is not “reasonably ascertainable,” it has only three months to file its claim. In other words, if you’re a creditor, you have some interest in being dubbed not “reasonably ascertainable,” as it gives you more time to file your claim.