What Is The Difference Between Formal Administration And Summary Administration?
Video Summary
What is the difference between a formal administration and a summary administration? Well first, both of those are probate proceedings and that’s probably a four-letter word to most folks in that they don’t want to spend any money on lawyers or pay the government any money. A lot of that has been blown out of proportion, I think, over the years by the Reader’s Digest where they say that the government takes half the money and the lawyers take the other half, and it takes them six years to do it. In Florida, that is not the case. First, there are no estate taxes in Florida and furthermore the attorney fees can be negotiated. The statutes suggest that an attorney fee for handling an estate is 3% of the assets that are being probated and that usually has to do with the formal administration.
Formal administration is when you have creditors and you file a notice to creditors send it to the creditor and give them a period of time, which is three months from the date you first sent out a notice of the publication of creditors, and they can file their claims in the estate. So the personal representative will pay the claims and then the administration costs. There are no taxes unless your estate is in excess of $5 million dollars and then they distribute the balance of the money to the beneficiaries.
There is a short form of administration called a summary administration and that’s available when the assets that are subject to probate are less than $75,000 and some provision has been made to pay any creditors or there are no creditors involved. Usually this is done for a flat fee rather than based upon a percentage. If there’s homestead property and it’s passing to the various children or heirs of the decedent, that’s not counted toward the $75,000. Usually those fees are in the neighborhood of about $2,000 or $2,500 in attorney fees for summary administration plus the court costs.
So a formal administration will take probably four to six months and here again the attorney fees will be in the neighborhood of 3% of the assets with certain minimums of about $3,500 plus court costs. So if you need to have an estate probated, give us a call at 727-847-2288 and we’ll be glad to discuss what the fees will be, how long it will take and what assets are subject to administration. The big thing is to do some planning ahead of time to avoid having to worry about probate, so here again, give us a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you.
What Does it Mean to Record a Satisfaction of Mortgage?
Video Summary
What is the significance of recording a satisfaction of mortgage? Well, the significance is it means you paid the thing off and so that’s just terrific! And so by recording a satisfaction, the lender signs it and you put it in the public record that shows that the mortgage is no longer a lien against your property. Many people talk about taking a name off of a deed or satisfying a mortgage, the way the official record books operate is you put documents in the official record books and you never take them out, and so then you simply file another document to show a change in the chain of title for whenever does a title search.
So by recording a satisfaction of mortgage, it shows in the public records there’s no longer a lien, and they usually state that the debt has been paid in full. Certainly if you do pay your mortgage off, you’ll want to obtain the promissory note and ask that it be paid because it is considered sometimes a negotiable instrument so that’s important to have. But the satisfaction of mortgage indicates that there’s no lien on the property and does indicate that the lender has probably been paid in full. Hopefully you have a satisfaction of mortgage that you need to record, but if you have any questions about it, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Introducing…Jaleh Piran – Vesseh!
Video Summary
Hi! I am Jaleh Piran-Vesseh and I am the newest associate at Waller & Mitchell. My primary practice involves real estate litigation, both plaintiff and defense work. I love practicing law because at the end of the day, I love helping people.
If you have a legal question or would like legal advice, please feel free to give us a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you so much.
How Can an Attorney Help Me if I’m in Danger of Losing My Home?
Video Summary
How can an attorney help me if I’m in danger of losing my property to foreclosure? Well, the first thing that an attorney can do who does foreclosure defense is to explain to you the system or what’s going to happen. Information is power, and that way, you can then make some informed decisions as to what you want to do and how you wish to deal with it and what risk you have. Many times, I listen and it bothers me when people say, “Well, I’m behind on my mortgage payments and I’m just gonna walk away from the property.”
Well, that’s probably the worst thing that anyone could do because then the property is subject to being vandalized and the value of the property goes down and nobody is a winner. So I think it’s important to understand how long the process takes, as well as what the consequences are. Also, people are concerned whether or not they’re going to have a judgment entered against them where the bank can take their assets or bank accounts and immediately want to start talking about bankruptcy.
Well, there is a lot of other options involved and some lawyers who do foreclosure defense can give you an idea of whether or not banks are even pursuing a money judgment against you. Right now, foreclosures are taking probably nine months to a year. So why would you want to move out and start paying rent if you could stay there, and if you’re not making your mortgage payments, maintain the property and then when it gets a little closer to being foreclosed out, you can – or having to move when the foreclosure process is over with go rent a piece of property. The rent’s right, just stay right there and then you can start building up a reserve in order to be able to afford another place to go.
So a lawyer primarily can give you your options and talk with you about what you want to accomplish, whether you want to stay in your home, whether you want to try and get a mortgage modification or whether you want to avoid a deficiency judgment. All of these things are what a knowledge lawyer can help you with. So if you have questions about a mortgage foreclosure or you’re in danger of your house being foreclosed upon, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you.
- Published in Real Estate - Foreclosure, Videos
What Is A Suit To Quiet Title?
Video Summary
What is a suit to quiet title? That’s a strange word, “quiet title.” But what it means is if you have a title to property and there is any question about someone else having an interest in it, you can file an action, and that’s called a suit to quiet title, to clear up any issues. The primary basis for that is under adverse possession. There are two ways to be able to obtain title to property through adverse possession. One is through returning it for taxes, and that’s a special form you file with the tax collector or property appraiser’s office, and then you pay the taxes for seven years, and then you must occupy the enclosure or cultivate the property during those seven years.
At the end of seven years, if you’ve paid the taxes, you can then file what they call a suit to quiet title to eliminate the record title owner’s interest. Another basis for adverse possession is if you have a deed to the property and you have paid the taxes for seven years. However, someone else also has the deed to the property. Well, if you’ve had the property for seven years, paid the taxes and had possession, well, then you file a suit to quiet title to eliminate any of their interest in the property.
Another example of when you file a suit to quiet title is if you buy a property at a tax sale. There’s a special statute which allows you to file a suit to quiet title by giving notice to the former owner or lenders or anyone else who had an interest in the property prior to the tax sale, and that you need to prove in the suit to quiet title they received notice of the tax sale so they had due process. If they didn’t have notice and did not pay the back taxes, well, then the court will enter a judgment saying that you have clear title, and then you’re in a position to convey marketable title to the property with a tax deed, and you don’t have to wait the seven years.
So if you have a title problem and you need to get it cleared up and you – or you need to file a suit to quiet title, give me a call at 727-847-2288. Thank you.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos