Video Summary

Can I dispose of my property any way I wish? I assume that you’re speaking of putting … Whenever you pass away, putting it on a will or a trust. The answer to the question is, is if you, yes you may, except if you’re married and then there are some limitations. As far as like your homestead, you cannot leave it to anyone you wish if it’s your homestead property, real property. You have to provide for your spouse. Or if you have minor children, you cannot dispose of it.

Any other assets, maybe you can leave it to anyone you’d like under the terms of your will. If you’re married and exclude your spouse, they have a right to what they call an elective share wherein they can claim a 30% interest in any and all assets that you owned prior to your death.

The answer is a qualified yes, except as far as your homestead property. Of course, and if you have property that you own as husband and wife, you cannot convey that or leave that to anyone, or property you own as joint tenants with right of survivorship in a will or trust.

So, if you’d like to do some estate planning and discuss these matters, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Can I appoint a Guardian for my children in my Will? The answer is: Yes you may. In fact, that is where you usually do designate your Guardian since as long as you’re alive you will serve as a natural guarding of your child. Because you designate someone to be the Guardian does not necessarily mean that they will be appointed because they will do what is in the best interest of the child.

There are two types of guardian. One, the Guardian of the Person who you appoint to take care raising the child and basically serving as their surrogate parent. And then the Guardian of the Property. These can be two different people. That’s the person who takes care of the money for the Minor. At age 18, they receive the money from the guardianship. So, if you’d like to set up a guardianship or provide for a guard in your will, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Morning, welcome to Lunch With A Lawyer. Today’s topic is: What is a lady bird deed? A lady bird deed is a deed whereby a person conveys their property to a third party whom they wish to receive it after their death. The person who’s conveying it reserves the right to control the property during their lifetime, and also the right to sell it, retain all the proceeds. They’re not responsible to the person who they conveyed it to for any damage or insurance proceeds, or anything such as that. It is a deed designed to avoid probate as far as conveying real property, much like a payable on death bank account is concerned.

The word lady bird, this document was developed by an author and put into an elder law practice manual. He then gave these names to the various documents after famous people. This deed was named after Lady Bird Johnson, and is now widely known as a lady bird deed. This lawyer or any number of lawyers will call it an enhanced life estate deed, which is a little hard to explain exactly what that is. In essence, this deed is designed to leave the person who is signing the deed in complete control of their property during their lifetime. However, if they still own the property at their death, the property would automatically pass to whomever they designated under the will, which is an estate planning tool that I use readily for estate planning purposes to plan estates so that there is no probate proceeding involved.

If you have any questions about that, you can email me at q@rdwaller.com. That’s q@rdwaller.com, or on social media, #wallerlegal. I’ll be pleased to any inquiry. Or you can give me a call at 727-847-2288.

To bring you up to date on where we are with Lunch With A Lawyer, the idea is to make ourselves available and let people know that we would be pleased to answer their questions about topics as far as probate, estate planning, and real estate so they could call and I could try and answer them over the phone, or, if they needed a lawyer, that they would engage my services as far as that’s concerned. The new format that we’re going to do to accomplish that is with these videos, if you have any question, rather than having to watch this video either now or later, you can simply send your questions to q@rdwaller.com. You can email it to q@rdwaller.com. Or, for social media, #wallerlegal. That’s #wallerlegal for social media about any of the videos or Lunch With A Lawyer topics. I look forward to receiving your questions. I’m always available if you give me a call at 727-847-2288. Thanks.

Video Summary

Are there any alternatives to foreclosure? The answer is yes. You can sell the property and pay off the mortgage, which is if the mortgage is more than what the property is worth, that’s called a short sale. Another method of doing this is to give a deed back to the lender. This is called a deed in lieu of foreclosure. These are primary ways of avoiding a foreclosure, alternative to foreclosures, and it’s recommended by if you’re a lender, a private lender, and you wish to take back the property is to try and work out something with the borrower wherein they would convey the property back to you with the deed in lieu of foreclosure.

If you have any questions, email me at Q@RDWaller.com about this topic or any topic. On social media, it’s #WallerLegal. Or give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Foreclosure. Foreclosure is the legal process or the lawsuit that is filed to enforce a mortgage or lien by the lender or the person holding the lien who is owed money. It is an action to take away or to repossess the property upon which the lien is against. This results in what they call a judicial sale, which means that the property can be sold. If you have a lien or a note and mortgage which the person has failed to pay you, and that you would like to have it foreclosed, you can give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Also, if you have any questions that you would like to pose, if you go to q@rdwaller.com, send me any questions and we’ll be glad to respond to them. On Facebook, if you go to #wallerlegal, those posts, they will be responded to. We would be delighted to provide you more information about foreclosure. Again, give me a call at 727-847-2288.