Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

January 29, 2008

Amending Life Insurance Trusts in Florida

Can I amend my life insurance trust?

A Florida Life Insurance Trust is an irrevocable trust and can generally not be amended. Although Florida’s new trust code does allow for easier amendments of trusts when the primary purpose of the trust will not be accomplished by the current form. An example of this might be when the trust’s beneficiary dies. This type of judicial modification is not certain and would depend on the circumstances and the court’s willingness to agree.

One other way to modify a life insurance trust (ILIT) is to let the policy expire and create a new life insurance trust. Sometimes this is not practical because of a change in the health or age of the individual.

January 28, 2008

Florida Unrecorded deeds and Estate Planning

by David M. Goldman

Normally a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer would advise against signing a deed conveying a home or other property without recording the deed.

What happens if a Florida deed or Florida Enhanced Life Estate Deed is signed but unrecorded?

Is the deed valid?

January 27, 2008

Overriding your will by mistake

by David M. Goldman

When reviewing your Florida Estate Plan be sure that your will does not conflict with other actions you have taken to avoid probate.

Assets that have joint ownership, payable on death designations or beneficiaries will not pass to the beneficiaries names in your Florida Estate Planning Documents. Often a person’s will leave assets split equally among their heirs. When a bank account, IRA, CD, or life insurance policy names someone else as the owner, the asset is not counted as part of the estate and the asset will not be split how the will designates.

This can reduce the amount of assets that other beneficiaries receive compared to the person who is the joint owner or beneficiary of the bank account, IRA, CD, or life insurance policy.

January 23, 2008

IRA Beneficiaries – Know the Rules

by David M. Goldman

As Baby boomers retire and move to Florida or other states, one of the jobs of an Estate Planning Lawyer is to review the Beneficiaries on IRA and other types of accounts. Denice Glerach a lawyer in Naperville wrote an article discussing this problem and suggesting some solutions for IRA’s suggesting that most people do not realize that the money in a traditional IRA account or employee benefit accounts are subject to income taxes by the recipient as well as estate taxes upon the death of the IRA owner.

Several options are mentioned Leaving the IRA to a charity – Should eliminate the income tax and estate tax.

Leaving the account to a trust to defer income tax and protect it from creditors.

January 22, 2008

Florida Firearm Legislation Has Been Filed

by David M. Goldman

Below is some information I on proposed Florida gun legislation.

The following bills have been filed to protect your constitutional and statutory right to have a firearm stored in your vehicle in a parking lot for self-defense and other lawful purposes.

House Bill 503 by Greg Evers (R) (CO-SPONSORS) Mitch Needelman (R)

January 22, 2008

Beware of Trust Mills

by David M. Goldman

Randall Armour of the Santa Clarita Valley Signal wrote an article discussing Trust Mills and gives some advice on how to spot a trust mill and several problems associated with them.

1. Trust mills often prepare documents after the client has filled out a simple check-the-box-type questionnaire. Little or no counseling or advice is given to the client and the client may meet with a “paralegal,” CPA or financial adviser, but not with an attorney.

2. The cost of the documents is a good indicator of whether or not you are dealing with a trust mill. Trust mills usually charge from $300 to $700 for their documents. Just remember, you get what you pay for — in this case, not very much!

3. Trust mills often provide documents for limited purposes such as avoiding probate or estate taxes.

January 22, 2008

Living Trust Mills Winding Up In Some States

by David M. Goldman

Although there are no current verdicts against Florida Companies, many states have taken action against living Trust Scams / Trust Mills / and Elder Law Planning Seminars. Michael Bonasera of Buckingham Doolittle & Burroughs, LLP and author of the The Ohio Trust & Estate Blog wrote an article titled Living Trust Scams/Trust Mills/Elderlaw Planning Seminars – STAY AWAY! where he mentions a previous posting on this Blog, Florida Estate Planning Lawyers Blog, on a similar topic dealing with a Texarkana Arkansas class action suit.

I thought I would start a list of Living Trust Scam Articles and resources on my blog.

1. Texarkana Arkansas Living Trust Seminar Class Action suit

2. California Living Trust Mill Judgment 3.Texas Bar story reported by Professor Beyer of Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog- Living trust Scams and Senior Consumer

January 19, 2008

Gun Licensing and The Supreme Court

by David M. Goldman

Many gun owners are concerned about how the Supreme Court may rule in a case that is before them. A client of mine sent me a video link that shows what has happened in the UK and Australia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkS2BRoCd2I We have seen a substantial increase in the number of people looking to establish NFA Gun trusts in the past few months. Many are concerned with who the next president is and all seem concerned with the outcome of the case before the Supreme Court where a states ability to limit gun ownership is at issue.

January 17, 2008

Supreme Court Limits Deductions on Trusts

by David M. Goldman

The Supreme Court upheld the limits on income tax deductions for a trustsor estate. The Court ruled against the Knight family (they created Pepperidge Farm).

The Court said trusts ordinarily may not deduct the full cost of investment advice on their income tax returns. These expenses are only deductible when they exceed 2 percent of adjusted gross income of the entity. These are the same as with individuals.

The case dealt with a small dispute and involved the Trusts income tax return.

January 17, 2008

Death of Employee and Final Paycheck

by David M. Goldman

Florida Paycheck Lawyer Attorney A paycheck of a decedent belongs to the Decedents estate. Florida Employers should not cancel nor refuse to issue paychecks for employees who die. Florida Employers should follow their normal procedures. If no one checks on the status of the paycheck, it would be a good idea to send notice to their address that the check is being held for their estate. This gets more complicated with direct deposit where the funds could go to the wrong person. The decedent could have a joint account with someone who was not the same person who would take under the will.

If you have questions about receiving or what to do with the earned but unpaid income of a decedent in Florida you should contact a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer who is familiar with Florida Business Law.