Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

June 30, 2015

Funding a trust with out of state property

A living trust, revocable trust, or asset protection trust can be a great estate planning tool that offers a number of benefits, such as allowing assets to pass to beneficiaries without going through probate and avoid the claims of creditors. Once a trust has been created, the testator must then fund the trust.

To fund the trust, the trust maker (Settlor) usually transfers assets into the trust. A trust can be funded with almost any type of asset, such as: cash, stocks, bonds, real property, or even personal property. Out of state property can also be used to fund a trust, but will require a different process. Real property (land or homes) requires a deed to be transferred into the trust.

How do you transfer assets to the trust?

June 29, 2015

New Florida Law hopes to reduce elder abuse by guardians

by David M. Goldman

A new Florida law, Florida HB5, signed into law by Governor Rick Scott in June seeks to curb elder guardianship abuse. The bill was drafted to help solve the growing problem of elder abuse in Florida’s elder guardianship system

There are a growing number of reports of abuse of court appointed guardians in Florida misappropriating funds and other abuse by exploiting the old law’s lack of transparency, poor oversight and other structural flaws. Once a person becomes incapacitated, a petition may be filed to appoint a guardian if there is no pre-approved guardian in place. An incapacitated person can lose a variety of rights to his or her guardian, including the right to manage his or her finances and health care.

Under the current system incapacitated persons become vulnerable to abuse by their guardian. The new Florida bill seeks to prevent abuse with some of its major provisions, such as the provision that provides specific criminal penalties for abuse or exploitation of a ward.

June 24, 2015

Jacksonville Guardianship: How to Transfer a Guardianship to Florida from another state

by David M. Goldman

Transferring a guardianship from another state to Florida can be more complicated than a transfer between another two states. American families are increasingly becoming more mobile, and different states have varying rules regarding the guardianship process.

Before a move can occur, a guardian will need to consider if the state he or she is moving the ward to will recognize the guardianship in their current state. To best ensure the guardianship is correctly transferred, we recommend speaking with an attorney who is familiar with both state laws.

June 23, 2015

Estate Plans for a Single Person

by David M. Goldman

Estate planning often focuses on married couples, but estate planning for a single person is equally as important. A single person often owns assets in their name individually, which means these assets must go through the probate process when the person dies. The big question then becomes whom do these assets pass to? In addition, asset protection and Medicaid issues become more important to address with a single person than a married couple.

A single person like any other person can own many assets and have a desire to see those assets distributed to certain people. Some assets, such as life insurance and retirement plans, are distrusted at death according to the beneficiary designations. If a person dies without a will, his or her possessions are passed intestate according to the intestate laws of the state. For a single person, the state law usually provides that a single person’s assets are passed to his or her closest relatives. If there are no relatives then the assets are collected by the state. So estate planning is needed if a person wants a say in how his or her assets will distributed.

What documents does a single person need?

June 16, 2015

Have my estate planning documents become out of date?

by David M. Goldman

When lawyers draft estate-planning documents they are made with current laws in mind. However, estate-planning laws have changed in some key ways over the last few decades. Here are 4 key dates that have changed estate-planning. If your documents created before these dates it may be time to update them.

HIPAA

The first date to look out for is April 14, 2003, which is when the privacy rules under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act first took effect. Although HIPAA was enacted in 1996, its privacy regulations were not enacted until several years later on April 14, 2003.

This act brought about much stricter guidelines regarding the disclosure of a person’s health information to third parties without explicit permission. Now, only a few people are allowed to receive this information, which becomes a much bigger issue if the person becomes incapacitated, such as in Terri Schiavo’s case. Now, a durable power of attorney is needed to make important health care decisions for loved ones. If your will, revocable trust, durable power of attorney or health care power of attorney was executed before this date, your executor, trustee, or agent may not be able to effectively work with your medical care providers or insurers.

State estate taxes Continue reading

June 11, 2015

How to protect your assets from your teenage drivers

by David M. Goldman

Getting your first driver’s license can be one of the biggest milestones in a young person’s life. However, what was once a cherished rite of passage has now turned into a potential liability for parents. Under Florida law, a parent can be held legally responsible for the negligent actions of a child driving the parent’s car. Florida law also requires a parent or guardian to sign the driver’s license for a driver under 18, and this person who signs will also be held liable for the driver’s negligent driving.

A parent’s liability may not even end once the child turns 18. This state also recognizes the “dangerous instrumentality doctrine,” which states the owner of a vehicle is liable for its negligent operation. This means the owner can be liable even if the driver is an adult and unrelated to the owner.

Further, parents are at risk from creditors when a child is involved in a car wreck even if the car is tilted in one spouse’s name. In Florida when two people are married, creditors cannot normally reach the other spouse’s assets unless both spouses jointly own the property. However, both spouses can be liable to creditors if, for example, one spouse owns the car and the other spouse signed the child’s driver’s license. This can create a nightmare scenario where creditors go after assets a parent once thought was protected from creditors.

June 10, 2015

Can a Bank Reject a Power of Attorney in Florida?

by David M. Goldman

In 2011, Florida passed the Power of Attorney Act that has had a significant impact on the then existing law in an attempt to achieve greater consistency and uniformity throughout Florida. One big change the act brought about was the codification of laws regarding a third party’s ability to reject a durable power of attorney.

Now the law states that once a power of attorney is presented to a third party, the third party is required to accept or reject the power of attorney within four business days and to provide a written explanation for rejection unless the third person is not otherwise required to engage in a transaction with the principal.

Third parties in these cases are usually banks and other businesses. The issue arises when a third party questions the power of attorney or the authority of the agent, and then refuse to honor a power of attorney. First, it is important to note that banks are offered a number of protections that encourage a bank to accept the validity of a durable power of authority. Florida law provides that if a business accepts a power of attorney that appears to be valid on its face, the bank will not be liable for accepting the power of attorney. The bank will only be liable if it knows the power of attorney has been revoked and still accepts the power of attorney.

June 9, 2015

How to modify an irrevocable trust in Florida

by David M. Goldman

In Florida, courts are now permitted to judicially modify an irrevocable trust even when a trust is unambiguous.

Historically, courts held the belief that the intent of the settlor, the person who creates a trust, should only be determined from the actual language of the trust document. This belief led courts to only modify a trust when the trust’s purpose, or provisions within the trust, were found to be ambiguous. If no ambiguity was found the court was unable to consider any other evidence of the settlor’s intent, and the beneficiaries were stuck with whatever the trust says on its face. In Florida, this changed when Florida adopted the Florida Trust code in 2007.

Florida’s Trust code is modeled on the Uniform Trust Code (UTC). The UTC deals with modifications in a number of sections that Florida has mostly adopted. For instance, UTC § 412 allows a court to modify or terminate a trust when the following circumstances occur:

June 8, 2015

Common law marriage in Florida

by David M. Goldman

In Florida, estate planning is used to ensure that a person’s estate is left to his or her loved ones in the way they intended through a will or trust. However, if a person dies without a will, his or her estate will be passed according to intestate succession, which means the estate will be passed out in certain percentages to the spouse and children and other ascertainable beneficiaries according to the rules of the court.

An issue can arise when a spouse is married through common-law marriage. If there is no will or trust a spouse can be left out of the will if he or she was not legally married to the deceased.

How to prove common-law marriage?

June 5, 2015

Jury rules against Wells Fargo and awards beneficiary $77 million

by David M. Goldman

In St. Louis County, a jury awarded Barbara Morriss $77 million for mismanaging her family’s trust. The court agreed the bank breached its fiduciary duty, the duty to act in the beneficiary’s best interest, by failing to fully disclose significant financial transactions that allowed the trusts to lose millions of dollars

Barbara Morriss first learned of her trust’s lost assets when her credit card was declined at a local department store in 2011. Her son is a venture capitalist named B. Douglas Morriss, and was recently sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion in 2013. Through his companies and others, B. Douglas Morriss and partners raised millions before the companies filed for bankruptcy with more than $35 million in debt. Continue reading