Estate Planning

April 19, 2016

Trust Funding

Trust funding is one of the most important aspects of an estate plan or asset protection plan. Attorneys, and clients, hear so much about trust funding, but rarely is it truly understood or implemented properly. Given how important trust funding is, it is a wonder why most estate planning lawyers leave the funding to the client. We regularly see clients who bring us copies of the parents fancy estate planning binders where the plan or many of the benefits to the plan fail because the trusts were never funded or even worse were funded improperly. That is why many of our estate plans and asset protection plans include trust funding. It is important to understand proper trust funding to ensure that the planning works the way it was intended.
The first key step in trust funding is to identify what type of estate plan the client is pursuing. Is the client looking for a traditional estate plan with revocable trusts, an asset protection plan that uses one or more irrevocable trusts, or a plan to protect assets from disability or long term care costs.
A traditional revocable living trust is an estate plan wherein the client identifies who gets to benefit from the client’s assets when the client is well, disabled, and after death. A critically important point to funding a revocable living trust is if all assets funded in the trust are still 100 percent available to creditors, predators, and long-term care costs of the grantor while alive. The assets can continue to be made available to the creditors and predators of the beneficiary after the death of the grantor without proper planning.

April 14, 2016

Sandwich Generation

by David M. Goldman

Sandwich Generation

“The Sandwich Generation” is an interesting phenomenon occurring in the estate planning world. The term was coined to refer to the group of adults in the world today that must juggle the responsibilities of caring for their own families, including children, along with the responsibility of caring for their senior parents. Many adults who are part of the Sandwich Generation have these dual responsibilities and with them come the emotional, physical, and financial strain of caring for two generations of family.

It’s no secret that people are simply living longer than they did even a few decades ago. USA Today recently reported that people born in 2012 will have an average life expectancy of 78.8 years. According to the University of California, the average life expectancy in America during the 1970s was around 68 years, and the data suggests the expectancy will only continue to rise. What this means is that “The Sandwich Generation” will soon become the norm and it will be expected for adults to provide for their senior parent when they may be unable to do themselves.

The good news is that estate planning can alleviate this pressure by providing your parents with an affordable financial and health care plan as they age.

Sandwich Generation Step 1: Start the Difficult Conversation
Continue reading

February 15, 2016

Incentive Trusts

by David M. Goldman

Incentive trusts are important to consider with estate planning.

One of the best tools in estate planning for encouraging positive behavior is through an “incentive trust.” An Incentive trust is a trust like any other, which rewards the beneficiaries when they meet certain objectives or goals in their lives.

Many of us would like to think that our children and grandchildren will become responsible adults and use their inheritance for great things. However, as many of our clients know, it can often be hard to motivate younger generations when they have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. The theory behind incentive trusts is that parents can help guide their loved ones by offering financial incentives to meet certain goals. For instance, an incentive trust could award a child $200,000 for graduating college. In many cases, our clients match the income that their children earn. This provides an incentive to be a higher wage earner. We believe incentive trusts, when used in a sensitive and careful manner, can be great tools for using wealth to help nudge children and grandchildren in the right direction.

An incentive trust is a legal entity that holds and manages funds usually for the benefit of another person known as the beneficiary. The trust is managed by a trustee, who is in charge or giving the funds to the beneficiary at his discretion or when certain objectives have been met.

January 30, 2016

Protect Your IRA

by David M. Goldman

I just finished my new book Protect your IRA : Avoid the 5 Common Mistakes!

Here is the Table of Contents

The 3 Reasons Most People Experience Confusion with Their IRAs

January 26, 2016

Non Citizens and Florida Homestead

by David M. Goldman

Florida Homestead for Non U.S. Citizens is possible for two types of Florida Homestead exemptions.

The first homestead exemption is tax based.

If you live in your home and you or your spouse or dependent child is a permanent resident of the state of Florida on January 1s you are entitled to file for a reduction in property taxes.

January 4, 2016

Asset Protection: Can an Irrevocable Trust be Revoked?

by David M. Goldman

Florida Asset Protection Trusts: Can they be changed?

In Florida, both revocable and irrevocable trusts are valuable estate planning tools that permit individuals to organize and protect their assets from creditors. The Florida Asset Protection trust is not used by many estate planning lawyers. Asset Protection is an important part of estate planning in Florida. While the name irrevocable would seem to indicate that the trust cannot be revoked, there are many ways of accomplishing the same effect as revoking a trust.

Generally when one discusses revoking a trust, they are referring to doing one of the following:

December 2, 2015

Elder Law Update 4th Quarter 2015

by David M. Goldman

News and Important information for Seniors and their Families.

In this issue, we discuss the following topics.

How to Bulletproof your estate plan

November 16, 2015

The Doctrine of Dependent Relative Revocation May Just Save your Inheritance

by David M. Goldman

The Florida District Court of Appeals recently applied a little known doctrine called the Doctrine of Dependent Relative Revocation in the case of In Re Estate of Murphy to save an estate from passing through intestacy.

The owner of the estate was Virginia Murphy. Mrs. Murphy died in 2006 and was predeceased by her parents and husband. She also died without any siblings or children. In the years before she passed, Mrs. Murphy executed a number of wills that were prepared by her longtime attorney Jack S. Carney, including the last will she executed in 1994. The 1994 will named Mr. Carey as personal representative of Mrs. Murphy’s estate; and it purported to leave the bulk of that estate to Mr. Carey, Gloria DuBois (Mr. Carey’s legal assistant), and George Tornwall (Mrs. Murphy’s accountant, who died the year before Mrs. Murphy passed away).
Continue reading

October 16, 2015

The law of charitable pledges

by David M. Goldman

One issue that occurs in estate planning is whether or not a charitable pledge can be enforced on a person’s estate after death. Wealthy individuals often make pledges to their favorite charitable organizations during their lifetime, only to die before fulfilling the pledge. Executors are then placed in the difficult situation of balancing its duty to ensure the estates assets for the decedents heirs and to pay the money owed by the estate to the charitable organization. If a court rules the pledge is enforceable, the pledge must be paid out of the estate before the rest of the estate’s assets are distributed to the beneficiaries.

Courts will often find a charitable pledge enforceable when these situations occur:

The pledge is an offer to contract that becomes binding when work obligated by the pledge has begun, or the charity relying on the pledge has otherwise incurred liability.

Donor’s pledge has induced other pledges

The charity’s acceptance of the pledge imparts a promise to apply the funds according to the donor’s wishes, and his pledge is supported by that promise.
Continue reading

September 11, 2015

Florida Estate Planning for Single Women

by David M. Goldman

Many women in today’s world stay single by choice, and for those women who are married, we know divorce rates are very high. Studies also show that women are far more likely to survive their husbands. Therefore, we advise all women to create estate plans as if they are a single person.

The first step to making an estate plan is to identify a means to pay for future long term care. A 70 year old woman is likely to live another 15-20 years, which means that estate plans must now last longer than before. We encourage all of our clients to consider long term care policies and other hybrid policies, which have retained benefit features in case a policy is dropped.

The next step a single person should take is to select an executor of a will and a power of attorney agent. A failure to name these persons means a judge will one day be in charge of selecting who will serve these pivotal roles in managing the estate. It is best to name these people ahead of time so a person can ensure his or her health and estate are managed by competent people. These roles do not have to be filled by friend or relatives, so we recommend starting a “recruiting process” to find someone qualified to fill these roles. While more expensive, there are many professionals and or financial institutions that can handle these matters.