Florida Estate Planning Checklist

Florida Estate Planning Checklist

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The new year is always a good time to take stock of your estate plans and be sure they are up to date. You’ll want to leave your affairs in the best shape possible so when the time inevitably comes (hopefully many years from now), your family will be financially protected.

Here is a quick estate planning checklist to get you started:

 

  1. Be sure you have all necessary documents, including a will, living will, healthcare power of attorney, and more. These items were discussed in my blog last new year’s, so I won’t go into detail about them here.

 

  1.  Look into buying life insurance. If you have a spouse, young children, or elderly parents you support, life insurance may be a good idea. Contact an agent or get quotes online from Esurance or other sites.

 

  1. Update your beneficiary forms. Some assets, including bank accounts and retirement plans, allow you to bypass the probate process after your death if you name a beneficiary on these accounts. The money then goes immediately to the person you have designated. You can similarly tell your broker to list a beneficiary on your stocks, bonds, or brokerage accounts.

 

  1. Consider how you want to die. Most Americans don’t give that enough thought—leaving their loved ones to figure out how you want to spend your last months and days, and what type of ceremony you want after you’re gone. That’s why, in consultation with hospice experts, my firm created the free document My Last Emotional Wishes. This form does not replace a will or living will and is not a legally binding document. But it gives your family peace of mind that they’re acting as you would want them to. Download this free form at the bottom of the home page of my website.

 

  1. Protect your business. If you are the sole proprietor of a business, be sure to make a succession plan. Even if you have partners, a buyout agreement for them to pay your heirs for your portion should be in place.

 

  1. Make your final arrangements. Purchase a burial plot or cremation package, so that expense won’t fall to your heirs.

 

  1. Store all your documents carefully. Legal documents, from wills to funeral prepayment plans, should be carefully stored in a lock box or fireproof safe in your home. Your attorney can also store your legal documents in the office vault. Either way, it’s critical that you tell your close relatives where they can find all these important papers. Never store them in your bank’s safety deposit box; your heirs will not be able to access that box without a court order.

Contact the Law Offices of Gary M. Landau for a free consultation about your probate, real estate, or estate planning matters, by calling 954-979-6566 or emailing.

How to Revoke a Revocable Trust

How to Revoke a Revocable Trust

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Maybe you set up your revocable trust as a married couple before you got divorced. Perhaps you’ve decided to change who the successor trustee will be. Or maybe you’ve decided it’s too much work to keep putting newly acquired assets into the revocable trust (also called a living trust).

Whatever your reason, if you decide to revoke the revocable trust, it is possible (which is why it’s named as it is).

To do that, first, see if inside the trust itself is a procedure for how to dissolve it. If not, you’ll need to follow these basic steps:

  1. Remove all of your assets from the revocable trust. This includes having your attorney change the title of your real estate and transferring ownership of other assets from the trust back into your name.
  2. Have your attorney draft a “dissolution document,” which must be signed and notarized and have two witnesses. As with the original trust documents when they were created, this document must be stored carefully, since in most cases it is not filed with the court.
  3. Draft a new will or create a new trust. Now that you don’t have that trust ensuring the distribution of your assets, you’ll need to draft a new will. Alternatively, if you want to create another trust with different assets or successor trustees than your former trust, that should be done right away.

Having the Law Offices of Gary M. Landau by your side during each step in a real estate or probate matter helps insure that the process goes as smoothly as possible. For more information, call 954-979-6566 or email for a free consultation.

Selling Real Estate in the Middle of a Probate

Selling Real Estate in the Middle of a Probate

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You might think that when a loved one passes away, you have to wait until the probate process is complete to sell their home, but you actually don’t. Florida law generally allows heirs to sell a home before the rest of the probate is finished.

Here are the steps involved:

The personal representative can hire a Realtor.  Once the personal representative (PR) has been named by the court, that person is legally entitled to sign a listing agreement with a Realtor.  Alternatively, if they don’t want to use a professional agent (typically not a good idea, in my opinion), they can put the property up for sale themselves.

The property should be professionally appraised. If there is more than one beneficiary, it is a good idea to have the property professionally appraised, so everyone feels comfortable that they will be getting a fair price. In some probates, the court must oversee the sale (see below). In those cases, the judge will want to see comparably priced homes provided by a Realtor or appraiser, to be sure the home is being sold at market value.

Once a buyer is found, the personal representative signs the contract. The PR is the legal representative for the sale, even if the proceeds will be split among other heirs. (If the property falls under Florida “homestead law,” all beneficiaries will need to sign the contract.)

Unlike with a traditional sale, though, once the contract is signed and the deposit tendered, in some cases, the deal is not yet complete.

The court verifies the deal. A person can stipulate in their will that the personal representative has the authority to sell the home. Although some judges still require their approval in those deals, typically the court does not need to get involved in these cases. However, if there is no stipulation, the PR, working with their attorney, submits paperwork to the court to get their okay to finalize the sale. All heirs must agree with the terms of the deal.

The proceeds are held temporarily. While the rest of the probate is ongoing, the proceeds from the sale of the property are held in escrow by the probate attorney through the creditors’ claims period (typically 90 days). Once that time has passed, the proceeds are distributed according to the will or Florida law. (Even if it’s during the 90 days, the buyer takes possession of the property with a clear title.)

Having the Law Offices of Gary M. Landau by your side during each step in a real estate or probate matter helps insure that the process goes as smoothly as possible. For more information about your real estate or probate matter in South Florida, call 954-979-6566 or email for a free consultation.

Real Estate Closing Horror Stories

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In the spirit of the Halloween season, we thought it would be fun to turn our attention to real-estate closing horror stories—for the amusement of Realtors, as well as home buyers and sellers. (They’re interesting stories, as long as they didn’t happen to you!)

Thankfully, most real estate closings occur without a glitch. Occasionally, small problems arise, but we easily work them out. Once in a blue moon, however, the deal blows up in a virtual apocalypse.

Here are some horror stories our firm has witnessed:

  • Furniture held hostage. I always advise sellers not to let buyers move anything into the home or do any work before the closing. I advised the same thing to this couple, who were the buyers, who wanted a place to store their furniture. They didn’t listen, and the seller let them take over his garage. The week before the closing, however, the buyers’ financing fell through, and they reneged on the deal. The seller was entitled to keep the deposit, but he decided to hold the furniture for ransom, too. It took months of wrangling before he let the buyers retrieve all their things.
  • No deposit was tendered. In this deal, the buyers were a lovely young couple, but they didn’t have much money. Their aunt had generously offered to pay the $5000 deposit called for in the contract. The title company never noticed that the aunt never sent the money to them. It was only at the closing table that everyone discovered the aunt had reneged. Because the couple couldn’t make up the balance, they could not close on the house, which enraged the seller. He did not have the deposit money to keep as a consequence of the breach of contract. I was brought in after all of this occurred. Ultimately, it was resolved after several drawn-out lawsuits.
  •  Dispute over medical bills. The buyer and seller agreed that the seller could stay in the property after the closing and pay rent to the new owners for several months. A little while after the closing, the seller-turned-tenant fell off a ladder while making repairs. The man had no insurance and insisted via a lawsuit that the new owners were responsible. They countersued that it was he who was liable. During the dispute, the injured man refused to move out of the house, even after the lease expired, so the new owners could not move in.
  • Walk-through surprise. This is probably the most common horror stories, as we have seen it happen more than once. The seller promised to do the substantial repairs identified in the inspection. Several times before the closing date, he told his Realtor the work had been done. But when the buyers and their real-estate agent walked through the property on the morning of the closing, not a single fix had been made. Fortunately, this situation typically doesn’t blow up the deal; instead, I, as the closing agent, escrowed enough money from the seller to cover all repairs.

Having the Law Offices of Gary M. Landau by your side during each step in a real estate deal helps insure that the process goes as smoothly as possible. For more information about your real estate contract in South Florida, call 954-979-6566 or email for a free consultation.

 

5 Reasons You Should Not Have a DIY Will

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You can download just about anything online these days: movies, games, and even a do-it-yourself will.

But, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it, and a DIY Will definitely falls in that latter category. Even if you think your estate is simple, there are often things you don’t consider.

As a longtime probate lawyer in South Florida, I’ve seen too many cases of people who thought they would save money by drafting their own will, only to leave behind complications, delays, and in many cases, extra expenses for their heirs. For a document so important to your family and friends, a will is one area where you should definitely hire a professional.

Here are 5 reasons a DIY will is a bad idea:

  1. Florida law constrains who can be your personal representative. A PR is the person you name to find all your assets and work with the courts to properly pass them to the rightful heirs. You may want to choose someone who cannot serve according to Florida law. Similarly, most people making a DIY will don’t think about what happens if the PR they name predeceases them or doesn’t want to serve. A professional takes all of that into account when drafting your will with you.
  2. Typos in DIY wills are more common than you think. According to an article in Forbes magazine advocating against drafting your own will, one person left “200.000” to his sister, inserting a period where there should have been a comma, which set off a battle among the family. Another neglected to change the “insert name here” space-filler in his downloaded will to an actual name, so no one knew who he meant to leave that money to. I have also seen wills that leave assets to someone listed only by first name rather than their full name, and a will where the sentence stipulating what was to happen to his prized possession was cut off the page.
  3. Some assets don’t get passed to heirs via a will. You may think you’re evening the score by leaving your bank account to your son and your property to your daughter, but if your bank account is a joint account in the name of you and your brother, that money automatically goes to your sibling, bypassing the probate altogether. Ditto for life insurance, many pensions, and CDs. To have these properly left to the people you want them to, you need to name them as beneficiaries in the documents themselves.
  4. You miss out on important legal counsel. I spend a lot of time walking clients through their various options. This is especially important for people on second (or third) marriages, parents estranged from children, or those with grown kids of varying income potential. What’s more, people often forget to name a guardian for their child (perhaps the most important element of a will if you have underage kids), leave assets to their pets (they cannot inherit under the law), or place illegal conditions on an heir’s inheritance.
  5. A will’s execution must be perfect. Courts will toss out a Florida will if it doesn’t exactly adhere to state law, such as having two witnesses who sign in each other’s presence. An improperly executed DIY will is the biggest heartbreak I see. Rather than having the estate divided according to the person’s wishes, the court invalidates the will and divvies up the assets based on the law for someone dying without a will, which is often markedly different.

Don’t let this happen to you or a loved one. These days, most attorneys charge a reasonable fee for a will, which should also be drafted with other important documents such as a living will and a healthcare proxy.

If you would like to speak with an experienced probate attorney in South Florida, contact the Law Office of Gary Landau for a FREE legal consultation at 954-979-6566 or by email. Attorney Gary Landau personally returns all calls and emails to him.