How Is a Home Calculated for a Divorce?
Video Summary
How is a home calculated in a divorce proceeding? Well, I don’t handle divorces and so it’s my understanding that whenever the parties have filed an action for divorce, the judge takes into consideration that each party’s circumstances how the home is titled whether or not there’s any children, and then they make a decision as to whether or not the mother or the father, whoever has custody of the children or the primary custody, can remain in the house until the children reach a particular age and then direct the property to be sold. They can also direct the property be sold if there’s no other consideration. They take in consideration the other assets and based upon all of that, the judge then makes the decision as to whom receives the marital home or whether or not they simply each own a half interest and they’re then in a position to sell the property or provide special equity or so much to one spouse once the house is sold. But that’s falls within the jurisdiction and the decisions of the divorce attorney. So you don’t need to call me, but I’ll give you my phone number. You need to talk to your divorce lawyer in order for them to explain how this is going to work in your individual circumstance. Give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Real Estate, Videos
Who Executes My Estate Plan?
Video Summary
Who executes my estate plan? Well, you must execute all the documents to your estate plan since those are all personal decisions that you must make as far as that’s concerned, and you cannot delegate that to someone else. However, if you do have a particular power of attorney that allows them to make some modifications to your estate plan as far as accounts are concerned, well that is an exception to that. But usually your estate plan or simple estate plan consists of a Will where you designate to whom you want your assets to be distributed to secondly, what they call a living Will or a dying declaration that says that you don’t want to be kept on life support under three conditions. And another document is called a healthcare surrogate, which is really, I think, very important. This is where you are signing a document that is a HIPAA waiver that allows the hospital or doctors to release your medical information to a designated person, which is called your healthcare surrogate. And then also, I recommend that you execute a durable power of attorney to someone that you trust explicitly that can act as your agent, particularly in the event you become disabled. It is effective immediately, and some clients are reluctant to have it signed, particularly if they’re in good health as far as that’s concerned, and that they’ve seen the abuses of powers of attorney. I’ve found that they’re very useful in many circumstances whenever it’s an elderly person and they need to be able to pay their bills or transact business for them. So if you have any questions about estate planning ,give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
What is Advanced Care Planning?
Video Summary
What is advanced healthcare planning? That is whenever someone is concerned about their particularly going into a nursing home and how are they going to have it paid for. So when do your planning, one of the tools that you could use is to check to see what the cost is as far as nursing, home insurance. And the cost of nursing homes is like $8,000 to $10,000 a month. And so you would need to see about planning ahead. So if you needed to go in a nursing home, how it would be paid if you don’t have that money and basically wouldn’t be able to afford it. The other thing is, is to plan to have what they call Medicaid pay for your healthcare planning. And there you would need to talk to an elder law lawyer who then could assist you as far as setting your estate up so that, and plan for that on how to title your assets under the Medicaid guidelines. And so that way that if you would have to go into skilled nursing care, you could preserve some of your assets for whoever you leave behind, particularly your homestead. So the healthcare planning also includes, well, who do you want to leave in charge of doing this? I usually prepare in conjunction with estate plans as far as healthcare planning, is to prepare a living will, which designates someone to be able to disconnect life support, also prepare what they call a healthcare surrogate for someone to be able to make healthcare decisions in the future. Also a durable power of attorney and hopefully that would avoid having to go through a guardianship. And you can also designate what they call a standby guardian to designate who you’d want to be your guardian in the event that you would become incapacitated and need a guardian appointed. If you have any questions concerning this, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
If a Contract Is Breached, Who Pays the Fees If We Go to Court?
Video Summary
If a contract is breached, who pays the attorney fees? Well, first off, you have to look at the contract, and if it’s the standard real estate contract it provides in there, if suit is filed, then the prevailing party, whoever wins, is the one that is entitled to get an award of attorney fees. Now, receiving an award of attorney fees and being paid, your attorney fees are two different things because number one, if it’s a judgment and you receive an award of attorney fees because you’re the prevailing party along with whatever other monies you recover from the other party, well then you still have to go about collecting it. So being paid and being entitled to them are two different things, and that it’s difficult to collect money here in Florida since people’s houses are protected from judgment creditors. And also, if you’re going to be talking to an attorney, you’re going to have to advance the fees to the attorney to bring the lawsuit. So you’re going to be out the money and then he will see about getting you your fees included in your judgment, and then you need to see about collecting them. So getting paid and being entitled to those attorney fees are two different things. But hopefully that answered your question. And if you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Real Estate, Videos
Can I Help Control My Children From Spending Their Entire Inheritance at 18?
Video Summary:
Can I help control my children from spending their inheritance at age 18? If you are preparing estate planning documents or a Will or a Trust, that’s how you control your children being able to spend their inheritance. You can say that you leave your estate to a trustee and direct the trustee to hold the money for your children until they reach a certain age and use the money until they reach that age for their health, education and maintenance. After a certain age, you can direct it all, or a portion of it is then distributed to the child. I usually use a formula of you give ’em a third at age 25. The half of what’s left at age 30 and the balance is age 35. That’s based upon my recollection of me growing up and me being smarter at age 21 or 18, than I’ve ever been in my life, that I had all my answers to all the questions, and I knew everything and probably wouldn’t make wise decisions with the money. So the way you do that is by giving the property left to a trustee. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos, Wills