Living Trust / Revocable Trust

May 5, 2009

Efforts to Avoid Probate Can Cause Problems

In Florida all sorts of clerks, customer service people, insurance sales people, brokers, account managers, and other employees of financial institutions give customers advice about how to title accounts and name beneficiaries. In an effort to avoid probate, these seemingly harmless changes can cause many problems with estate plans.

Most new account forms at financial institutions ask you to name a beneficiary. This does not have to be completed and sometimes you are better off to leave it blank than to fill in a name or attempt to name a proper beneficiary.

Often when filling out beneficiary designations people do not understand how a share of the assets will be treated if that person predeceases them. Will the share go to their descendants or to other named beneficiaries and is that what was intended.

April 14, 2009

Digital Assets and Estate Planning

by David M. Goldman

Back in 2006 and 2007 I wrote several articles on Digital Assets and Estate Planning. Now that we are in 2009, there is even more need for Digital Asset protection in your Florida Estate Planning Documents.

Digital assets are those that expire upon your death and are often associated with Email and website accounts. Most of these accounts are not actual property. They are licenses and these licenses generally expire upon your death. A new company Legacy Locker is attempting to solve this problem through a web based tool that stores account login and passwords and purports to transfer this information to the designated beneficiary upon your death or incapacity.

While their software is a good idea it has some issues in that it does not resolve the fact that the license expires upon the death of the person who creates it. One solution to this problem is to create the accounts in the name of a trust of business so that when you die, the entity that owns the license is still in existence. There are other companies that do similar things such as DeathSwitch.com

April 3, 2009

Estate Planning and Fraudulent Seminars – Updated

by David M. Goldman

It seems like ever few months we hear about another company who provides living trust seminars to the public and scares them into purchasing unnecessary trusts.

Another “Trust Mill” has been found guilty of practicing law without a license by masquerading as qualified financial advisers, estate planners, lawyers, and paralegals to exploit and prey upon senior citizens with the creation and selling of unnecessary and often useless living trusts.

In this case The Estate Plan, a company operating in Texas and Arkansas, was hit with a $16 Million default judgment for fraud, unauthorized practice of law, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and conspiracy.

March 27, 2009

How to Transfer a horse to a Florida Revocable Living Trust

by David M. Goldman

Often each state will have an association that keeps track of horses and their owners. For example in TN there is the Walking Horse Owners’ Association. Thoroughbreds are kept track of in the Jockey Club.
The transfer of ownership for all registered Thoroughbreds may be reported to The Jockey Club by completing a Transfer of Ownership Form or through Interactive Registration at http://registry.jockeyclub.com.

For Florida bread horses, they are kept track of through the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ & Owners’ Association

March 6, 2009

Divorce and effect on Revocable Trust under Florida Law

by David M. Goldman

Often a Florida Revocable Trust is not modified promptly upon a divorce. If the trust is subject to Florida law, Florida Statutes 736.1105 can amend the trust when the prior spouse is named as a beneficiary and the other spouse creates the trust.

736.1105 Dissolution of marriage; effect on revocable trust.–Unless the trust instrument or the judgment for dissolution of marriage or divorce expressly provides otherwise, if a revocable trust is executed by a husband or wife as settlor prior to annulment of the marriage or entry of a judgment for dissolution of marriage or divorce of the settlor from the settlor’s spouse, any provision of the trust that affects the settlor’s spouse will become void upon annulment of the marriage or entry of the judgment of dissolution of marriage or divorce and any such trust shall be administered and construed as if the settlor’s spouse had died on the date of the annulment or on entry of the judgment for dissolution of marriage or divorce.

If you have a joint trust that was not addressed in a divorce decree or anulent or have recently been divorced, you should Contact a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer to review your trust to make sure that your ex-spouse is treated as per your intentions and not what your documents state.

December 10, 2008

What is the Difference betweeen a Revocable Living Trust and an Irrevocable Trust

by David M. Goldman

a Florida Revocable Trust is a trust created during the life of an individual which can be modified, amended, or revoked at anytime during their life. Often they are used to:

1. avoid Florida Probate;

2. Keep your assets and decisions private;

3. Simplify after death distributions;

December 3, 2008

Myth: A Revocable Trust Avoids Probate

by David M. Goldman

While a Florida Revocable Trust can avoid the necessity for a Florida Probate to be filed, there are often circumstances that require a Probate. A Florida Revocable Trust only eliminates the need for a probate when it is funded and to the extent that your assets are inside the trust prior to death.

One of the most common problems is that people create trusts but never fund them or do not fund them completely. One of the most common assets, the Florida Homestead, must be dealt with or a probate will be required to transfer marketable title to the beneficiaries. Even though, the home, in most cases, will transfer automatically upon death under the Florida Constitution, it is necessary to open a Florida Probate to transfer the home with Marketable title. The title companies require the probate court to establish the home as a homestead, notify potential creditors, and have the title transferred in the probate to insure the home against future claims from creditors who claim they were not notified. For more information on this and other issues with avoiding probate, Julie Garger wrote an article why a Florida Revocable Trust may not avoid probate.

To discuss how you can reduce your risk of a probate in Florida Contact a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer

November 25, 2008

FDIC Insurance $250,000 is only Temporary

by David M. Goldman

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 temporarily raises the basic limit on federal deposit insurance coverage (FDIC) from $100,000 to $250,000 per depositor. WARNING the basic deposit insurance limit will return to $100,000 after December 31, 2009.

The rise in insurance coverage applies to most trust accounts with no more than five beneficiaries.

Some benefits of establishing a Florida Revocable Trust include of avoiding probate, transfer upon death of property,reduced taxes, and privacy.

November 24, 2008

2009 Annual Gift Tax Exclusion $13000

by David M. Goldman

The 2009 IRS annual gift tax exclusion is increasing form $12,000 to $13,000 for 2009.

This increase means that more money can be given away for estate tax planning purposes. For example, a married couple with two married children will be able to give away up to $104,000 in 2009 with no gift tax implications.

To discuss other ways of moving funds to your family or friends in order to reduce the effects of estate taxes, Contact a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer

November 3, 2008

Florida Trust mills and Michigan trust mills

by David M. Goldman

Florida has the same problems that have been identified by Christopher Berry, An Estate Planning Attorney in Michigan who writes the Estate Planning in Michigan Blog. Christopher recently wrote an article on The Problem with Michigan Trust Mills where he describes an occurrence that happens all over the country. I have previously written about this topic on several occasions in an updated piece entitled Living Trust Mills Winding Up In Some States UPDATED. In that article, I started a list of other articles dealing with Living Trust Mills:

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

4. Michael Bonasera wrote an article titledLiving Trust Scams/Trust Mills/Elderlaw Planning Seminars – STAY AWAY! where he Ohio’s history with Trust Mills and cites a case Ohio Trust Mill Case of Cleveland Bar v Sharp Estate Services, Inc. which seems to have ended Trust Mills in Ohio.