If I Put My Children on My Deed, Can They Force Me to Sell My House?
Video Summary
If I put my children on my deed, can they force me to sell my house? The answer is yes, because you make them a co-owner of the property, they can file an action called a partition action where they sue and asset. A third party called a special magistrate is appointed, and the special magistrate can then list and sell the property for and divide up the proceeds pursuant to the share of the party’s interest in the property. There are other problems in adding your children to the deed, such as when it’s sold, they don’t get a step up on a basis. You may lose a portion of your homestead exemption. It may be a problem also if you have to qualify for Medicaid. I suggest that if you are going to do this for the purpose of estate planning to avoid probate and to put your children on the deed, it is that you sign what they call a lady bird deed or an enhanced life estate deed, and that’s where you convey to them the property. However, you reserve all the rights of ownership during your lifetime, as well as the right to sell the property, keep all the proceeds, or even change who receives the property during your lifetime. You reserve all those rights. And so I’ve been using these type deeds for many years and they work very well, but you do not want to add your children to your homestead property or to the house, to your property because they can force the sale and has other adverse consequences for both you and them. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Real Estate – Selling, Videos
What Kind of Decisions Can a Health Care Proxy Make?
Video Summary
What Healthcare decisions can a healthcare proxy make? The ones that are drafted or eye draft called designation, this healthcare proxy as a healthcare surrogate. The healthcare surrogate can make just about any decision as far as your health is concerned, although those decisions can’t override your decisions. So, if you give written or oral instructions to the medical provider or whoever’s giving this to you, the Healthcare surrogate can’t use their discretion to override those decisions. So if there’s any restrictions you would need to review the healthcare proxy form to see that, number one, it is comprehensive, but two, if there are any restrictions in conjunction with that, I have drafted them where there are restrictions, particularly for folks of a particular religious denomination as far as blood transfusion and the administration of certain drugs as far as that’s concerned. So, if you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Trusts, Videos
What Should I Do if My Fence is on My Neighbors Property?
Video Summary
What should I do if my fence is on my neighbor’s property? Well, if your neighbor doesn’t object to it, I suggest you just leave it there. Number 2 is if your neighbor objects to it, well, then you may want to get a survey and to move your fence as far as that’s concerned. Another option that I’ve seen is if the neighbor and you and the neighbor get along fine, but they’re concerned that when they get ready to sell the property, it might be a problem entering into an agreement that everyone’s in agreement that you can leave your fence there for the time being, and then you agree to move your fence whenever they ask you to. If it’s not a problem, then they basically put it off until such time there is a problem. Many people are concerned that if you have a fence that somehow they lose that property that’s inside the fence line and you can basically, they do not, and that you’re not establishing any ownership of that property, which is also a concern, which I guess you, how you convince your neighbor that you’re not going to claim their property. The other, if you can, if the neighbor would grant you an easement, that would be another solution that says that you are allowed to maintain your fence on their property. But otherwise, if the neighbor is insistent that the fence be moved, I suggest that you move the fence. My phone number (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Real Estate, Videos
What are the Responsibilities as a Trustee of a Trust?
Video Summary
What are the responsibilities of a trustee of a trust? Well, first off, we need to talk about the usual circumstances. Whenever you set up a trust and you’re the trustee during your lifetime, and so you are talking about the duties and responsibilities of the trustee after you pass away, and then the successor trustee takes over and it is now a irrevocable trust, and so the trustee should then notify the beneficiaries that there are beneficiary under the trust. Many times this can be done by simply supplying them with a copy of the trust, although you don’t necessarily have to unless they request that you need to. The Trustee would need to file what they call a notice of trust with the clerk of the court, obtain a federal identification number as trustee of the trust so that it can file a tax return for the trust for any income it receives during their, while they’re administering it, they need to determine what creditors there are out there and see about getting the creditors paid. Another function the Trustee needs to do is to verify if there are any assets that are in the name, just in the decedent’s name and not in the decedent’s name as Trustee. If there are, there’s usually what they call a poor over will, and there would need to be a probate administration. These are usually done together and so that the Trustee is usually the executor also for a will, and it’s called a poor over will. That says that they leave all their assets to the Trustee and then the Trustee then administers the trust, pays the creditors, unless it’s a very sizable trust, there isn’t any estate taxes in Florida or to the federal government. And so then once that’s all done taken care of as far as accreditors, and then the trustee needs to make distribution and prefer an accounting for all the beneficiaries to make a distribution, the distribution pursuant to the trust, and there’s a provision on how they to do that to the trustee can be released from any liability by sending a limitation notice out to the beneficiary. So, they can’t object to how they administer the trust. The assets can be distributed in kind, meaning distribute the assets such as stock. Some beneficiaries say, well, I just want the stock, rather than you having to sell the stock and then liquidate it and divide up the money. So, these are all things that a Trustee would do and suggest that they probably need to contact an attorney for some guidance and assistance in conjunction with the matter. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.