Do I Have To Pay My Mother’s Bills When She Dies, If I Am On Her Bank Accounts?
Video Summary
Do I have to pay my mother’s bills when she dies if I am on her bank accounts? The answer is no, you do not. You’re entitled to the money and it’s a contract with your mother and the bank as to your ownership of the account or being a beneficiary. The bank will disperse the money to you under either scenario, and those are your monies to keep. The creditors are only entitled to file claims in a, in the heir estate if she has one. And her estate consists of only assets that were just in her name alone and does not cover assets that are jointly held. So, just because you’re a co-owner and she has outstanding bills, you do not have to use that money to pay her bills. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos, Wills
How Do I Protect My Healthcare Rights?
Video Summary
How do I protect my healthcare rights? Well, HIPPA does a pretty good job of protecting that and that your healthcare, uh, professionals are restricted to not release any of your healthcare information to anyone without your authorization. So, my advice and opinion to you is to designate a healthcare surrogate form where you designate what person or persons that you would like to be able to receive your healthcare information and also to be able to make medical decisions for you if you’re unable to do so. And this is called a healthcare surrogate form. In addition to that, you should execute a living will, which is a really, a dying declaration, which gives designates an authorized life support to be discontinued any one in any one of these three uh, circumstances. If you have a terminal condition, end stage condition, or permanent vegetative state, you can select all or any one or two of these circumstances where you would want life support to be discontinued. There’s one other form that you can execute when you sign your estate planning documents. It’s called a standby guardian file, so that if you would be adjudicated, incapacitated, that you can designate who you’d want to be your guardian in order to be able to make healthcare decisions for you. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
What Happens When You File a Claim Against a Probate Estate?
Video Summary
What happens when you filed a claim against a probate estate? Well, once you file your claim, it has to be filed within three months of the date of the notice accreditors within 30 days of the date that you received the notice if it’s past the 30day period. And the personal representative by statute has an additional month after the three-month period expires before they’re obligated to start paying these claims. A lot of the payment of the claims depends on whether or not the estate is solvent and whether or not they’ve been able to collect the bank accounts, in order to be able to have the money to pay. The claims are not all created equally. There are expenses of the estate in claims, and there’s a priority of which expenses and claims get paid first. At the top of the list of expenses is the, the attorney fees for handling the probative of the estate and the executor’s fee and handling the estate. That’s the number one. Those get paid first. Secondly, it’s the funeral bill or reimburse whoever pays for the funeral bill as the next category of claims that get paid. The third one, are medical expenses and medical bills that were incurred in the last 60 days before the decedent passed away. Credit card bills and other bills are on down the list as far as the priority of payment, but if there’s sufficient money to pay all of this, the estate administration takes anywhere from six- nine months to a year, depending on the circumstances of the estate and the look and the liquidity. If you have any questions concerning this, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
Will My Assets Be Protected From Creditor Claims, If I Place Them In a Trust?
Video Summary
Will my assets be protected from creditor’s claims if I place my assets in a trust? The answer is no. This is a myth. I often hear this, from time to time whenever I’m doing estate planning, or people call about setting up a trust and that your assets are not protected. The only exception of this, is if you set up an irrevocable trust, meaning you can’t change it and you can’t have any control of your assets, and irrevocable mean you can’t change it. So, I rarely if ever, draft an irrevocable trust, except if it had to do with a life insurance trust and those may be irrevocable. As far as insurance policies are concerned, in this vein, if you are married, you have certain protections. If you hold your assets as husband and wife, this is called tenancy by the entireties, and you can set your bank accounts up with 10 under tenancy by the entireties, or simply if you hold your assets as husband and wife, it creates tenancy by the entireties. And this gives you some asset protection so that if your spouse, if they get a judgment against your spouse and not against both of you, then they cannot attach any assets that you own jointly as husband and wife or tenancy by the entireties. This is different than joint tenants with right of survivorship. If you own it as joint tenants with right of survivorship, then each of you own a one-half interest and the asset half the asset is not protected. If they get a judgment against one of you, they can attach that asset. So, this is a myth and I don’t draft irrevocable trust. Also, as if you do set up a joint trust, as far as husband and wife is concerned, you destroy the tenancy by the entireties that you possibly had before you set it up and, and may subject your, the assets in the trust, your spouse owned or you owned to your creditor’s claim. So don’t set up a trust to try and protect your assets. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Trusts, Videos
How Do I Decide What Type of Will Is Best For Me?
Video Summary
How do I decide the best Will for me? Well, that is by discussing with your attorney, your situation, meaning, well, are you married? How many family members you have, who you want to receive your estate, whether or not they are minors, whether they have special needs. All of these things go into considering who you want to receive your assets and what type of well is best for you. Whether it be a trust, whether it be a testamentary trust, meaning a trust inside your will, or whether it’s simply designated who you want to be, your beneficiaries and what percentage they receive or specific devices as far as the amount of money or certain personal property. So that is what you need to discuss with your attorney as well as your other estate planning documents such as your power of attorney, living well and a designation of a healthcare surrogate. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos, Wills