What Is a Life Insurance Trust?
Video Summary
What is a Life Insurance Trust? A Life Insurance Trust usually means it’s an irrevocable trust when a life insurance policy is purchased by the person who’s doing their estate planning. My experience, they’ve been primarily used whenever you have a taxable estate and you wish to get a life insurance policy in order to be able to pay the estate taxes so that all the assets would pass through to the beneficiaries. The Life Insurance Trust is an irrevocable trust and that way by having the insurance policy not held in your name when you die, is not included in your estate for tax purposes. And the trustee then distributes them, uses the money pursuant to the provisions of the trust document to pay the taxes and also to pay the money out to the beneficiaries. But you have no control over the irrevocable life insurance trust after you purchase the policy. Of course, there’s an exception if you’re doing a term policy and you make the payments every month or every year. And so if you want to terminate the trust, well you quit making the term life insurance premiums and there’s nothing in the trust. There are some tax estate tax question or inclusion depending on when the life insurance policy is taken out and how much it is and what you need to do to avoid that. So if you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
If I Leave Someone Money in My Will Can It Be Paid From a Joint Account?
Video Summary
If I leave someone money in my Will, can it be paid from a joint account? The answer is no. It cannot be paid from a joint account. A joint account has a signature card which says who owns the account upon whenever someone passes away the Florida law is the joint accounts will automatically go to the co-owner of the account or both parties on the account. So know that you can only request that and your will that someone pay that money out of a joint account, but that’s not legally binding and know the executor has no control over a joint account. An executor, in order to pay out devices can only pay those from assets or title in the decedent’s name alone. They’re in a probate proceeding. If there are no assets in a probate proceeding and they’re all jointly held, there is no probate, there’s no executor and all the assets passed without probate to whoever the join owner is or the designated beneficiary of the various accounts. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
If a Contract Is Breached, Who Pays the Fees If We Go to Court?
Video Summary
If a contract is breached, who pays the attorney fees? Well, first off, you have to look at the contract, and if it’s the standard real estate contract it provides in there, if suit is filed, then the prevailing party, whoever wins, is the one that is entitled to get an award of attorney fees. Now, receiving an award of attorney fees and being paid, your attorney fees are two different things because number one, if it’s a judgment and you receive an award of attorney fees because you’re the prevailing party along with whatever other monies you recover from the other party, well then you still have to go about collecting it. So being paid and being entitled to them are two different things, and that it’s difficult to collect money here in Florida since people’s houses are protected from judgment creditors. And also, if you’re going to be talking to an attorney, you’re going to have to advance the fees to the attorney to bring the lawsuit. So you’re going to be out the money and then he will see about getting you your fees included in your judgment, and then you need to see about collecting them. So getting paid and being entitled to those attorney fees are two different things. But hopefully that answered your question. And if you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Real Estate, Videos
What CANNOT Be Held in Trust?
Video Summary
What cannot be held in trust? Well, I think just about everything can be held in trust, particularly all titled assets. If you’re dealing with a lender, a trust company, or a bank that serves as a trustee, or for that matter, any professional trustee or trustee, they may have some reservations about holding real estate, particularly vacant real estate in trust, having it in the trust since if there’s an environmental problem, there may be some question about whether the trustee then becomes liable for the environmental cleanup. So that’s always a question. Some of the other assets that are problematic, I don’t know that if you have cryptocurrency, they don’t title those. That’s simply numeric, and that’s all done through a wallet. So that would be another asset that I don’t know that you would be able to put in the trust. And so the other assets, which are problematic would be if you have gold, they can’t be specifically identified. And now how does the trustee do that as far as, I guess they could hold it, but would probably want to liquidate it to make it more accountable as far as that’s concerned, rather than having to safeguard it. So, there’s a few examples on items that are assets that may not be able to be held in trust, but certainly just about all titled assets can be titled in the name of the trustee for a particular trust, and of course, be governed by the provisions of the trust documents. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.