If you live in a Jacksonville or another city in Florida where the Chief law Enforcement Officer (CLEO) will not or easily sign a Form 4, there are several solutions.
Title II Firearms (sold by Class 3 SOT dealers) include suppressors, , short barrel rifles, machine guns, and other destructive devices.
The most common solution is to create a NFA Gun trust to hold title to the firearms.
Accidental disinheritance is a growing problem. It’s a problem, in part, because there are too many death-disposition instruments now that dispositions are slipping through the cracks to the wrong people.
Paul Rabalais wrote about this on Your Louisiana Estate Planning Blog where he describes some of the more common ways people are disinherited. He mentions several life events that cause unintended consequences.
1) Failing to update your will yearly.
2) Ineffective wills 3) Divorce 4) Remarriage 5) Conflicting disposition instruments.
Often the first thing that comes to mind with Florida Estate Planning is a Florida will or Florida living trust. Although these are valuable documents they do not have any effect on the distribution of many assets.
We recommend that our Jacksonville residents make sure their beneficiary designations are updated as these control the distribution of many assets. When a Florida Living Trust is part of an estate plan, you can designate your trust to be the beneficiary of most assets. It is important to make sure that the trust is the proper beneficiary. With some assets like retirement plans, you may not want your trust to be the beneficiary as it can have adverse consequences when charities are named as beneficiaries of the trust.
Your beneficiaries need to be updated on a regular basis and in the event of a life event (birth, death, marriage, divorce…). We recommend naming contingent beneficiaries in these documents.
Starting January 1, 2008 every non-spouse designated beneficiary will have the option to rollover an inherited IRA and stretch distributions. To take advantage of this opportunity your Florida estate plan must be setup correctly to qualify for this rollover opportunity. You are not entitled to a rollover, you must prove you meet the technical legal requirements. Let’s take a look at why your family would not qualify for the new IRA rollover opportunity.
The IRS has very specific rules for how a trust can qualify as a see through trust and treated as a designated beneficiary. The top level bullet point requirements are:
The trust must be valid under state law;
There have been many revisions to Florida’s Trust Code and I have touched on some of them on this blog in the past.
There have been major changes to creditors rights. Creditors cannot compel distributions from or attach or otherwise reach a beneficiary’s interest in a third party discretionary trust whether or not:
1) The trust has a spendthrift provision;
2) The discretion is subject to a standard; or 3) The trustee has abused the discretion.
This clarifies many issues with Florida Trusts.
Next time you attend a Living trust seminar in Jacksonville Florida or where ever you live, you may want to think twice. This week Family First Advanced Estate Planning, and insurance company, and a life insurance company who targeted low cost estate planning to seniors settled with the Attorney General of California.
An article on Kristen Howe’s Blog states:
I caution everyone to remember the old saying “If something looks too good to be true it probably is.” If someone is offering to write a revocable trust and a will for you for free or for just a few hundred dollars, you have to ask yourself why. The two big lessons to be learned from this case are:
1. Do not let anyone who is not an attorney write an estate plan for you. There are just too many complexities in this area of the law to trust it to someone who is not educated.
2. Do not take investment advice from anyone who sells any kind of investment product. Period. It doesn’t matter what it is, life insurance, annuities, mutual funds.
If they make their living selling it they cannot possibly give you objective investment advice about it. If you believe you have been victimized by Family First, another trust mill or by annuity fraud, you should report the crime to the local district attorney or the Department of Insurance. You may also file a complaint with the Attorney General.
Could you imagine an Estate Planning Lawyer selling wills or estate planning documents with a disclaimer in small print that your documents may not be valid in Louisiana or some other state.
Today I found another example of when using quicken is a bad idea. Paul Rabalais the author of Estate Planning in Louisiana: A Layman’s Guide to Understanding Wills, Trust, Probate, Power of Attorney, Medicaid, Living Wills & Taxes and Your Louisiana Estate Planning Blog wrote an article about how buying Quicken can be the Worst Buy at Best Buy. Apparently there is a small print on their software which says Estate Planning documents Not Valid in Louisiana. I wonder what other states their documents are not valid in. I have examined several trusts created by quicken, and they do not address the new Florida Trust Code that was implemented in 2007.
Some other examples of Do it your self wills and bad news are covered in my articles listed below
Do it Yourself Wills? More bad news and Do it Yourself Wills? a Good Idea or Not?
A Living Trust is a tool used by Jacksonville Estate Planning Lawyers to hold assets for the benefits for one or more beneficiaries. Often the initial beneficiaries are the people who create them. In this case, a person or couple can use the assets of the trust just like they would do with their own assets. The big advantage to a Florida Living Trust is that upon the death of the creators of the trust, the assets have a predefined beneficiary.
This enables properly created trust assets to avoid the delays and costs associated with a Florida Probate. Florida’s new trust code requires that to be eligible to create a Florida Trust, you must some nexus or connection with the state of Florida.
Some additional benefits of a Florida Revocable Trust are that the way in which the assets are distributed are not public like with a will or assets that pass under the state’s intestate statutes.
A Florida Trusts are created to fulfill different needs and obligations. Today people find it necessary to protect their investments and properly allocate their resources while taking the least risks with regards to finances. A Jacksonville Trust Lawyer can help you analyze your assets and determine if a Living Trust will work for you.
Some Florida Trust are created for the purpose of privacy. The terms of a Florida trust are not public, unlike the terms of a Florida will.
Trusts are also created to protect one’s assets. There are different types of Florida Truss based on individual needs. Often a spendthrift provision is included in a Florida Trust to protect beneficiaries from creditors or assignment of the assets.. These can protect a person from his or her own lack control his or her own money.
When was the last time you sat down with someone to review your Floria trust, Florida will, Florida power of attorney, health care directive, and other documents intended to make sure that your assets will be managed and distributed according to your wishes? If it has been longer than a year, you are probably overdue for an estate planning check-up.
Changes in your assets
Acquiring different of assets or changes in the value of the assets may require Estate Planning that was not anticipated.
Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog