If I Purchase Property And Put My Childs Name On It Will It Count As Gifted?
Video Summary
If I purchase a house or property and put my child’s name on it, will this be counted as a gift?
Well, the answer is yes, you’re gifting them an interest in property. So when do you need to worry about gifting property to your children is if you would decide to apply for Medicaid. That may disqualify you for the amount of the gift if it happens within five years that you apply for Medicaid. Sometimes, people call me or want to do this in order to avoid probate, and they want to add their child’s name to a deed as joint tenants with right of survivorship. I did not suggest doing this. There’s life estate deeds or ladybird deeds that can take care of avoiding probate whenever you hold title jointly with your children. The problem is, they now own a half-interest in the property, subject to any creditors’ claims that your children may have. So it’s somewhat problematic, even worse if your children are minors. Then you won’t be able to sell it unless you have a guardianship, possibly. So it’s not a particularly good idea. So, the idea is to say what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you trying to avoid probate by doing this? What is the purpose?
So if you have a question about that before you add your child’s name to a deed or purchase property in their name, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Medicaid Planning, Videos
Lunch With A Lawyer – July 11, 2017
Video Summary
Hi, I’m Chip Waller. Welcome to Lunch With A Lawyer. I’m trying to keep track, I think this our 13th addition, so we’ve been doing this for over a year and trying to come up with general topics or topics of interest. However, the biggest thing that we’d like to do is know what questions you have and try and answer those with Lunch With A Lawyer. We realize people tune in and tune out as far as the Lunch With Lawyer’s concern on what are a particular topic.
Again, my phone number if you want to talk to me. I can’t do that while I’m talking now, but later on if you have any questions about anything, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288. By the way it does need to do with Florida law if you happen to be out of state, I can’t answer questions about any matters out of the state. The name of our firm is Waller & Mitchell. My phone number is 727-847-2288.
I’d really appreciate also if you would like and share, that way we can have a little broader reach with our Lunch With A Lawyer and maybe some of your friends would be able to enjoy or appreciate what we try and put out on the air or if they have any questions. If you would send us your suggestions at video_suggestions@rdwaller.com, and we will certain answer those. If we don’t answer them on this show, well, next month we will go ahead and answer them at that time.
So, today’s topic I thought I’d kick things off and talk about it just a little bit is, what is a quitclaim deed? I get questions all the time about, well, I want to use a quitclaim to do this, I want to do quitclaim for that. And it seems to be an answer to any kind of a legal or title problem, or anything doing with real estate. Well, a quitclaim deed says that, “I convey you whatever interest I have in the property.” That’s not saying that you own any portion of the property or any interest in the property, you’re saying, “Whatever I own, I’m conveying to you or transferring to you.” Quitclaim deeds are usually used to clear up any questions about title or correct any problems that may have appeared in the chain of title, rather than to facilitate or see that property is transferred to another party.
Many people want to see about using a quitclaim deed whenever someone’s passed away to clear up the title of the decedent. Well, a quitclaim deed won’t do that, you have to go through a probate proceeding to clean that up. Or, if there’s any sort of controversy, they’d like to have the person execute a quitclaim deed. As far as that’s concerned, well, you need to be very careful about using those and that you, I would suggest that you possibly use some other kind of deed attorney as far what you’re trying to accomplish rather than, just saying, “Well, I want a quitclaim deed to cure whatever ill they maybe out there.” Some people call them a quick deeds, some of them call them quit deeds. But anyway, quitclaim deeds are basically deeds that are out there that you use and it’s a transfer or a deed, which transfers whatever interest you may have.
- Published in Videos
Do Proceeds of “Payable On Death” Bank Account Have To Go Through Probate?
Video Summary
If a bank account has an individual [inaudible 00:00:09] as payable on death, do the proceeds of the bank account have to go through the probate prior to being given to the POD? The answer is no and that the bank account will not be probated. The account should be payable to whoever is designated as the POD by the person or the payee, the payable on death recipient, by delivering a death certificate to the particular lending institution. My clients have experienced in the past where the banks sometimes require a 30 day waiting period before they will disperse the money, but it does not have to go through probate. That is controlled by the bank account contract, the contract with the bank that says that they are to pay it to person designated as POD.
If you have any other questions about your assets or your accounts, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
How Does A Guardianship End?
Video Summary
How does a guardianship end? Well, there are several scenarios as far as a guardianship is involved. Let’s first talk about what is a guardianship. That’s whenever you have someone appointed to take care of the ward, and the ward does not have all of their rights, as far as that’s concerned. It could be a minor who cannot have the right to contract till they reach of majority, and so you could have a guardianship for a minor who doesn’t have a right to contract. Then you have the incapacitated person who does not, is mentally not capable of executing their documents or they’re found to be incapacitated and therefore someone’s been appointed as their guardian.
Let’s start with how do you end a guardianship for a minor. Well, that’s fairly easy. Once they reach the age of 18, well then you can terminate the guardianship and you turnover whatever the assets are to the ward. That’s how that would end. Then you go to the guardianship where you have an incapacitated person and it can end if the person who’s incapacitated or the ward, if they petition the court and have their competency or competency hearing to show the court that they have their competency, that would terminate the guardianship. That rarely happens, but that is another way to terminate a guardianship.
The most common way, particularly when you have incapacitated person’s, is whenever they pass away, that would end the guardianship. Then the money would then pass to their state or probate proceedings as far as that is concerned. If you have a guardianship or would like some advice, you can contact our office. We have Erica Muns has joined our firm and has some experience with guardianship’s and would be pleased to meet with you and talk to you about the expense, and whether or not it can be terminated. Guardianship’s are court supervised proceedings. They’re closely monitored by the court, particularly the money involved. If you have any questions, give us a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Guardianship, Videos
Can I Sell Property Which I’ve Obtained Through a Tax Deed?
Video Summary
Can I sell property which I obtained by a tax deed? The answer is yes you can. However, there is practical problem as far as selling property that you obtain through a tax deed in that you cannot usually have titled insurance issued to ensure marketable title if you have a tax deed unless you own the property or if the tax deed is four years old. In that case well then you usually sell the property that you’ve attained through a tax deed.
The other way of doing it is if you want to sell the property and have title insurance issued is to have a suit quiet title, that’s a lawsuit which wherein you contact all the interested parties to make sure that they receive notice of the tax deed sale, and that way make sure that they had notice and therefore they have no further interest in the property. That’s called a suit to quiet title. It usually takes about six or seven, eight months. You’re probably budgeting in the neighborhood of $2,500 as far as costs and attorney fees or whatever. Remember, that’s a budget, not a firm number to do a suit to quiet title.
You do own the property under tax deed and if you cut a deal with someone and they want to buy the property and they understand they’re not going to get title insurance or they get title insurance subject to them doing a suit to quiet title which may impact the value of it, you can sell the property to them as long as they’re not requiring you to give titled insurance simply by giving a deed to the property.
If you would like to sell your property that’s subject to a tax deed or you obtain the property through a tax deed, well you give me a call. I’ll be glad to chat with you about it and talk about what you can do as far as that’s concerned, but you do have title under tax deed and so I’ll be glad to talk to you about it. My phone number’s 727-847-2288.
- Published in Videos