Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

January 22, 2015

2015 Gift Tax: Can I Give My Kids $14,000 a Year?

The amount you can give anyone without having to file a gift tax return in 2015 remains the same as 2014 at $14,000.

Remember that you can give your children, their spouses, your grandkids $14,000 each. In addition, if you are married, your spouse can also gift $14,000 to each person.

Generally, families use gifting to reduce the size of their estate do not need Medicaid long-term care coverage, but if you or your spouse need care and you have gifted money in the past, it may affect your ability to obtain coverage.

December 11, 2014

Why Not to Name Kids as a Beneficiary of your IRA

by David M. Goldman

If you have been told, don’t worry about your IRA it is protected because Florida has statutory protections for IRAs, you may have misunderstood or been mislead. While Florida does have statutory protection for inherited IRA’s, this protection only applies if your beneficiaries are residents of Florida at the time of your death.

Why take a chance with naming individuals as a beneficiary of your IRA. A properly designed trust should be the beneficiary of your IRA to protect the proceeds from the creditors of your beneficiaries at the time of your death.

In June of this year, the US Supreme Court in Clark V Rameker stated that children or other “non-spouse” individuals who inherit are at risk of loss to their creditors. This was not a close call, it was a 9-0 decision and clarifies that an inherited IRA is not protected from the creditors of its owners.

November 17, 2014

Estate Planning and Florida Homestead Protections

by David M. Goldman

In Florida, the primary residence is often protected by the Florida constitutional homestead protections.

While in many other states, a persons homestead is not protected from creditors and can be lost to claims for Medicaid reimbursement, this is not the case in Florida. The only creditors that can make a claim against the home are those that do something with the home. These may include a roofer or the bank which financed the home.

If you or a spouse needs nursing home case, selling the home can place that asset or the money received from the sale at risk to creditors as well as Medicaid eligibility. There are several methods of avoiding probate on your homestead. Choosing the right method is not an easy decision without knowing your facts and circumstances.

November 12, 2014

What is the iPug™ Trust Your Family’s New Best Friend

by David M. Goldman

We often get asked about the iPug™ Trust and how it can be so different than a traditional revocable trust or a standard irrevocable trust. The iPug™ takes the best parts of an irrevocable trust and mixes them with the best parts of a revocable trust to create a new type of irrevocable trust where you are in control and can make changes to the beneficiaries and management of the trust just like you can with a revocable trust.

Why Do People Love iPug™?

Because iPug™ Protects You and Your Family From:

Lawsuits
Nursing Homes
Those that want to take away what you worked hard for.
Children’s indiscretions, their spouses and divorce.

November 10, 2014

Estate Planning for Out-of-State Property

by David M. Goldman

If you live in Florida and own property in another state an ancillary administration will be necessary upon the death of the owner(s) of that property. This special probate administration will be in addition to the administration you have where you lived. This is required because real estate or real property is treated differently than personal property.

There are several ways to avoid the additional administration:

The real estate could be owned in a business entity. This converts the ownership from one of the real estate to one of a personal property interest in the stock or membership of the business entity.

October 29, 2014

Revocable Trusts and Asset Protection

by David M. Goldman

Many times we get questions from clients asking if their revocable trust provides asset protection from creditors. The answer to this is the typical legal answer “It Depends”. That is it depends on who owes the money. In Florida a revocable trust can provide some limited protection against the creditors of your beneficiaries through a spendthrift clause, but it will not provide protection from the creditors of the person who creates the trust. Upon your death, the assets in your revocable trust are available to your creditors.

There is a new type of irrevocable trust that is similar to a revocable trust in terms of management, control, and no negative tax effects. This special irrevocable trust is called an IPUG and can be structured to provide asset protection for the items placed in the trust.

An IPUG can be designed to protect an entire asset, the principal, or the income from the asset. The most common design is to protect the entire assets. If you are concerned about protecting your assets from future creditors and the creditors of your children, an IPUG may be the right choice for you.

October 28, 2014

Florida Probate Intake form

by David M. Goldman

Many of our clients have asked us to put our Florida Probate Intake form online so that they can easily download it. You can download the Florida Probate Intake form with the following link: Probate Intake Form.pdf

September 30, 2014

4th DCA and Charging Order Protection for Florida LLC

by David M. Goldman

In Florida, a multi member LLC, has asset protection characteristics. Prior to 2011, Florida law was not clear on whether a charging order was the exclusive remedy for a creditor of a member of a multi member LLC. Assets in a Florida multi member LLC are protected from the reach of the member’s creditors so that the debts of one member do not cause harm to the other members. Once a creditor receives a judgement, they can apply for a charging order and stand in line to receive distributions that are made to that member. Sometimes, it is difficult to find a lawyer who will take a case on a contingency basis against a multi member LLC. Even if a creditor is successful, the potential downside of not being able to collect on the judgement can be painful.

In Young v. Levy, the 4th DCA ruled that the trial court erred in entering a writ of garnishment upon the member’s interest in a multi member limited liability company because as of 2011 the charging order is the exclusive remedy that a creditor of a member of a Florida multi member LLC can obtain as per Florida Statute 605.433(5).

A Florida multi member LLC is not real asset protection like is available with some of our Florida Asset Protection Trusts, but the LLC can, in the right circumstances, give you the ability to wait out your creditors and make it expensive for them to try. This, in turn, can give you a great ability to negotiate a favorable settlement.

September 29, 2014

If a person dies intestate what proof must their children show the court to prove they are the heirs to the estate?

by David M. Goldman

Most Florida probate courts simply accept the information contained in the pleadings that are filed with the court. These pleadings are usually signed “under penalties of perjury”.

Some courts (such as Citrus Count and Miami-Dade County) often require an Affidavit of Heirs.pdf to be filed along with the pleadings. There really is no other independent evidence that is required to prove who the beneficiaries are.

When a rightful heir has been omitted from the pleadings, it is important to act timely. Sometimes, there are people who are included that should not receive a portion of the estate.

August 25, 2014

Estate Planning: Dealing with your digital death instead of before

by David M. Goldman

Portland company WebCease is making waves in the probate and estate-planning community by helping attorneys and grieving families locate the deceased’s digital accounts.

CEO Glenn Williamson aims to be the first to provide this service to the growing market of families and attorneys trying to track down digital accounts. Williamson is banking on the need for this service to continue to grow as people continue to use digital accounts for shopping, social media and traveling.

WebCease searches across different vendors to determine if the deceased person had an account. WebCease then generates a report that outlines the location of the deceased’s accounts and includes instructions on how to transfer the account or shut it down. The company will not take any action to use the account, or attempt to login to the account.