What is the Difference Between a Will and a Living Will?
Video Summary
What’s the difference between a will and a living will? A will says that I devise and leave everything that I own to my beloved spouse or names a beneficiary and deals with the leaving behind of your property, leaving your property to whoever you would like whenever you pass away. A living will is a dying declaration that says that you do not want your life prolonged artificially.
Florida statutes have set forth three areas, three time periods in which you can direct and authorize life support to be discontinued: one is if you have an end-stage condition, which is really when you’re in the dying process; two is if you have a terminal condition; and three is if you have a permanent vegetative state. All of these circumstances are whenever you’re unconscious. And therefore you have to leave directions behind and the medical community must make the determination that you have any one of these three conditions. And then they turn to whoever you designate in your living will to make the decision to terminate life support. And then you’re on your own and usually when you remove the ventilators, well then you pass away without any assistance.
So the will leaves behind your property to whoever you designate. A living will is whenever you’re in the twilight time of your life and you’re authorizing that the plug be disconnected or that you do not want life-saving or mechanical ventilators to sustain your life mechanically. I think it’s ‘artificially’ continue your life.
So if you have any questions about a will or a living will, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288. Thank you.
What Does Eminent Domain Mean?
Video Summary
Hi. What does eminent domain mean? Eminent domain is usually in conjunction with a government entity such as the Florida Department of Transportation or a county building a road, although it can be used by utilities to obtain easements. The government must compensate private property owners if they take their property and the process is called eminent domain and is a lawsuit that is filed to take someone’s property for public use.
The process usually starts by the governmental entity or utility contacting a property owner and asking them to donate the property. And usually the answer, it may be yes or no depending on if they need to road to go by their property or through their property. They don’t have to give the property to the governmental agency and the governmental agency or utility will then get an appraisal and tell them that they will pay them this certain amount of money.
The property owner does not have to take the amount that’s offered. If they don’t, they can negotiate with the county but usually the county will proceed with what they call a quick take program or lawsuit, which is an eminent domain proceeding whereby they deposit the money that they’ve offered to the property owner in the registry at the court and the court will then let the county take the property.
Then if you hire a lawyer and you negotiate further with the county then the price can go up once the property owner gets his own appraisals. If they can’t ever agree on or settle on an amount for the property, it then goes to a trial by jury and in Florida there’s only two times that you get twelve people in a jury box: one is a first-degree murder case and the other is an eminent domain proceeding. And then the jury of your peers are the ones that would determine how much money you would receive for your property in an eminent domain proceeding. One other nice thing about Florida’s eminent domain proceeding is the government entity is responsible for paying your attorney fees, which is a percentage of the increase between the amount that you receive and the amount that’s offered by the government or utility that’s taking your property.
So if you have any questions about eminent domain or if you get a letter in the mail that they’re gonna be taking your property, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Can I Remove An Easement From My Property?
Video Summary
Can I remove an easement from my property? Well, that’s really a good question, and easement law is a complicated area of law. An easement, first let’s define what that is. It means that someone owns the property, and then someone else has the right to use it for a particular purpose. So you have the burdened property, which is the person who owns it, and then you have the benefited property or a benefited person who has a right to use your property for particular purposes. If they’re private easements such as utility easements, things such as that, or usually you have ingress and egress easements, meaning a way to get in and out of property, those cannot be eliminated from your title unless you own both the burdened property, where the easement is situated, as well as the benefited property. So an easement going from Parcel A to Parcel B, you can’t eliminate that private easement. However, if you own both A and B, well, then you can extinguish the easement, or the easement goes away since it’s no longer needed since you own both parcels.
Now, if you’re talking about an easement or a road right of way that the public – that’s shown on a plat or something like that with the county, you can petition the county to vacate a road right of way if – that’s really not an easement. It’s usually a road right of way, and the county can issue a – if they decide to do so, can issue an order or a – well, whatever the Board of County Commissioners issues to vacate the road right of way. And then the road is then – one half of it goes to each property owner on each side of the road. But that takes a petition, and be sure that you don’t have anybody else out there that could object to it. So it’s difficult to get rid of private easements.
Road right of ways can be vacated if they’re basically abandoned or have never been used, such as an old plat. So if you’ve got an easement across your property, well, you need to see who it’s benefiting and possibly be able to get rid of it that way, but that’s most difficult to do.
Anybody have any other question about easements, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
How Do I Protect My Assets From Lawsuits?
Video Summary
How do I protect my assets from lawsuits? Well, your biggest exposure for liability and being sued is with your automobile. So whatever automobile you drive, you should be shown as the owner, and don’t hold the title in your joint names because the automobile is a dangerous instrumentality, and if it’s involved in an automobile accident, the owner or owners as well as the operator or driver of the vehicle who caused the accident has liability. So if you have more than one automobile in your family, have each spouse put the automobile which they drive in their name so that they’re the owner and operator, and that way if either of you are involved in an accident, well, then they can only sue one spouse.
I also suggest that you talk to your insurance agent about getting what they call an umbrella policy. Umbrella policy offers you protection for liability that exceeds your insurance limits. Hopefully you have $100,000.00 limits, and if you’re concerned about exposure over $100,000.00, you can get what they call a $1 million umbrella, or $2 million, and that way the umbrella policy covers any damages above the $100,000.00 limit. So depending on how much security you want is how much you should cover as far as a liability policy. And it covers not only liability for automobile accidents, but anything you would be sued upon, or most things you would be sued upon.
Be sure to include that as uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. In these recessionary times, you have any number of people out there driving, and they may not have any insurance. And if they cause an accident and you’re injured, well, you don’t have anyone to turn to, and if you don’t have underinsured motorist, well, then you don’t have anyone to recover your damages from, whereas if you do have underinsured motorist on an umbrella policy, well, you’re covered for the extent of your insurance coverage.
As far as a title to your assets, I suggest that you place them if you’re married in your name as husband and wife for tenancy by the entirety, and that way, if there is a judgment as a result of an automobile accident, they cannot reach any of your assets that you have titled as husband and wife or tenancy by the entireties.
So if you want to do some asset protection and discuss your estate plan, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos