What Is A Life Estate?
Video Summary
“What is a life estate?” Usually, it has to do with real property, or when the time period in which you own something is measured by a life. So, therefore, it’s for an indefinite period of time. We usually encounter life estates when you’re dealing with real property, particularly with a homestead. (Under our Florida constitution, homestead means where you reside.) If you die married, then a life estate passes to your spouse with the remainder interest passing to your children.
So, the life estate is measured by the life of the widow, and she gets to use the property during her lifetime. And then, upon her death, the decedents’ children receive the remainder interest, and they’re called remainder men and she’s called a life tenant, and so that is whenever you usually encounter a life estate. The homestead statute has recently changed and now the widow does have an election to take a half-interest instead of a life estate. That is one of the areas where life estates are created– through our Florida constitutional homestead – when the decedent dies, survived by a spouse and children.
The other time that you see a lot of life-estate deeds is in estate planning or elder law planning. When a person owns real property and they want to see that it passes to any particular individual, (as long as they’re not married) they can deed the property to an individual and reserve a life estate. And that has been expanded upon by what we call Lady Bird Deeds or enhanced life-estate deeds, and this came about as a result of an elder law lawyer preparing these deeds so that they would not disqualify his clients from obtaining Medicaid. So, if you have a regular life-estate deed, it’s a completed gift of you convey the remainder interest.
A Lady Bird Deed, however, says that not only does the life tenant reserve the right to use the property during their lifetime, they also reserve the right to sell the property, transfer the property to anyone they would like and they don’t have to account for the remainder men for any monies that they receive from the sale of it, or if they mortgage the property. The origin of the word “Lady Bird” comes from the author naming the various deeds he had in his publication after famous persons. The Lady Bird Deed is named after Lady Bird Johnson. So, that dates how long it’s been around and the author of the Lady Bird Deed, or the enhanced life-estate deed.
So, a life estate is measured by the life of a particular person and is usually created by someone conveying property to their children and reserving a life estate, or through our constitutional homestead, where the surviving widow receives a life estate and then the balance or the remainder goes to the decedent’s children. So, if you have any other questions or would like a Lady Bird Deed or to do some estate planning to avoid probate, give me a call at 727-847-2288. Thank you.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Can I Leave Money to My Pet?
Video Summary
Can I leave my assets to my pets? This question is becoming more and more popular and Florida has passed a statute, as far as trusts are concerned, that specifically authorize a trust for your pets. It’s usually included in your will and provides you designate who you wish to care for the pet, and then you appoint someone else to supervise that the funds are applied for the pet’s use and care.
There is a specific provision for a pet trust, so if you’re interested in providing for your pet under your will, please give me a call and set up an appointment and I’ll be happy to assist you in setting up a trust provision for your pet when you’re no longer with us. My phone number is (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
How Often Should I Update My Trust?
Video Summary
How often should I change my trust? Well, the first question is whether or not you have what they call a revocable trust, meaning a trust that you can amend (because if you have an irrevocable trust that means you cannot change it). But let’s assume that you’re talking about a revocable trust. If you reserve the right to amend the trust, I suggest that you review the provisions of your trust at least once a year, particularly the provisions that provide for who receives the assets at your death, and you should change it any time your circumstances change.
In the event that you lose one of the beneficiaries, you would want to consider who you would want to receive that beneficiary’s share. If you have family problems or domestic problems, you may wish to also change your trust. So, you change your trust just like you change a will—when your circumstances change. The laws are changing now in the event of divorce. Under a will scenario, an ex-spouse is automatically taken out of your will, so even if you left him or her everything, they would not inherit once you are divorced.
I believe that they’re working on trust legislation to provide the same thing in a trust document. So, this would be another circumstance when you would want to review your estate plan. Review not only your will or trust document but other documents, such as a living will, if you may not want your ex-spouse to make a decision on a life-or-death situations (such as discontinuing life support) or being named your healthcare surrogate or possibly a power of attorney, which particularly leading up to the divorce, could be particularly dangerous.
So, if you’re going through domestic problems, you may want to set up an appointment to discuss your estate plan and what you can and cannot change while you’re going through the divorce proceeding. And certainly, after the divorce, you’ll want to review your documents. If you have some questions about this or would like to set up an appointment to review your trust and talk about any change in circumstances, we’ll be happy to do so and prepare an amendment to your trust. My phone number is (727) 847-2288.