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
How Does President Biden’s “American Families Plan” Effect Your Estate Plan?
Video Summary
How does President Biden’s American family’s plan affect your estate plan? It does not because the American family plan if passed will make the child dependency tax credit permanent. It is a tax credit and therefore will not affect your estate plan. It affects your income taxes. You can call me, although I’m not, don’t give out tax advice. My phone number is (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
Are There Any Tax Implications When an Estate Is Settled?
Video Summary
Are there any tax implications when an estate is settled? The number one, is Florida has done away with estate taxes, and the federal government has raised the federal estate tax limitation in 2024 to above $13 million. So, there’s no estate tax implications in most estates in Florida. The personal representative is charged with filing a tax return for the estate for any income that it received. And so, the tax implications are, is that you deduct the administration costs from the income of the estate, and if there’s any income that’s been distributed out to the beneficiaries, they’ll receive K one and must pay income tax on it. One of the big benefits of inheriting property, however, is you get what they call a step up in basis and the property. If you inherit property or stock, and that you take the asset at the date of death value. And so, if the date of death value is a hundred thousand dollars and you later sell it for a hundred thousand dollars, you don’t have to recognize any gain. You don’t have to go back and determine how much the decedent paid for the property. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Taxes, Videos