Video Summary

How do I designate where my retirement accounts and investment go upon my death? Well, whenever you’re dealing with individual retirement accounts or your retirement accounts through your employer, you have a beneficiary designation form. If it’s with a 401k, you must designate your spouse as the beneficiary unless the spouse agrees to waive that. In an IRA that’s not necessary. However, you do fill out a form where you designate the beneficiary when you set up your individual retirement account.

I suggest you also designate a successor beneficiary of the account in the event the primary predeceases you. It’s also helpful to remember to check that from time to time, particularly if your state plan changes. As far as your investment accounts are concerned, that would be controlled under your will or under your trust and you would need to designate the account under your trust.

There is something that I recommend and many of my clients, rather than having to set up a trust, is put a TOD designation on the trust, which is Transfer on Death. And that way you can designate who would receive the account upon your death or upon the death of both you and your significant other or spouse. So if you have any questions about designations, your retirement accounts, or your brokerage accounts, well give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

Video Summary

Can a parent change their power of attorney if their agent is not cooperating and following their instructions? Well, the simple answer is first is that yes, they may. They can change or revoke their power of attorney at any time, but let’s go back to what do we mean by agent. Whenever you execute a power of attorney or designating someone to act in your behalf and under the new power of attorney statute, that’s called referred to as your agent. Your agent can act in your behalf. That does not mean that you’re giving up any of your rights and you can still operate or you can still operate, but the agent is the one who can also act in your behalf.

The question that was posed is can you change who your power of attorney and the answer is absolutely, you can revoke it, advise your agent whoever you pointed that you no longer wish for them to act in your behalf. Give them notice. Usually I record the revocation in the public records and that way, you can then designate someone else to be your agent to act for you. Powers of attorney are usually referred to as durable powers of attorney. The reason why they’re durable is because you placed language in the power of attorney itself, the document that says that your appointment survives even if you’re incapacitated, so that parties do not have to determine whether you have your competency whenever the agent is executing documents for you which really may save a guardianship as far as that’s concern if for some reason you would become disabled, either physically or mentally.

Also powers of attorney are used just to simplify matters whenever folks want their child or their agent to be able to act on their behalf for whatever reason, but they are usually durable and can be changed or revoked at any time by the person who is giving the power of attorney to the agent. The new power of attorney statute, you can provide many powers in there even as to changing beneficiaries to comply within a state plan, empowering your agent to do Medicaid planning by setting up a Miller Trust, be able to deal with your 401ks, your IRAs and there’s many, many powers that you can give your agent. All of these powers need to be enumerated and they also need to be initialed by the person granting those.

You can also give your power of attorney to more than one person and designate that either of the parties who you designate can act in your behalf. If you have any questions or need to have a durable power of attorney setup, well give me a call at 727-847-2288.

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.

Video Summary

“Why is it important to do estate planning if I have more liabilities than assets?” This is a question that I am commonly asked by perspective clients. A lot of times people have the misconception that, “If I don’t really have very many assets, or no assets at all, or if I owe more than what I’m worth, why would I need to go see an estate planning attorney?” Well, the answer is very simple, because estate planning involves much more than just a last will and testament, which will dispose of your assets that you own at the time of your death. There are many documents which are utilized to assist you during your lifetime to help with things such as incapacity, whether it be due to a motor vehicle accident or whether it be due to the aging process. Incapacity happens much more frequent than people realize. This is why it’s very important to come see an estate planning attorney to talk about those different options.

As stated previously, the last will and testament, in my professional opinion, is the least important estate planning document, because it only comes into play after you’ve passed away, whereas other documents, such as a durable power of attorney, or a healthcare surrogate, or actually a living will, are the most important documents, because they deal with decisions that need to be made while you’re alive. With that being said, I would love for you come see me here at the Law Offices of Waller & Mitchell so that we can discuss all of your estate planning needs and which documents may be appropriate for your specific individuized situation. Please give me a call at 727-847-2288.