Video Summary

What is a Intestate estate, an intestate estate is whenever someone dies without a will. In the state of Florida if you die without a will the Florida statutes say who receives your, who the beneficiaries are of your estate, and so that is a intestate estate. To give you a little course or a preview of that is if you have a spouse the spouse may be entitled to one half or the entire amount if you don’t have any children by any other person or don’t have any spouse outside of marriage. If you do have children by a different marriage from this spouse well then the spouse gets half and all the children get the other half. If you don’t have any children then it gets a little more complicated.

If you have any questions about an intestate estate give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Can I do Probate without a lawyer. There is a short form where there’s two types of probated that you can do without a lawyer. One is a distribution without administration, that is where the amount of the funeral bill that you paid exceeds the amount of the assets that were in the decedents name, and you can take the death certificate and if there’s a will take the will. But take the paid funeral bill to the clerks office in the probate department and tell them that you wish to have an order of distribution without administration, present them with the bank account or the asset that you wish to have transferred and that way you can do that with the clerk. It’s called a distribution without administration.

You can attempt to handle a summary administration without an attorney, however there it’s a little more complicated, and trying to understand how to file the forms and that’s whenever the decedent did not have any debts and you sign a form saying that the assets are limited and you have all the beneficiaries sign off on it. Probably is not easy to do by yourself, but it is possible that you could do that. The probate judges in each particular county have particular aspects that they ask you to do and would probably be frustrated. You do need to have a lawyer whenever you do a formal administration, which means the assets are more than $75,000 and so it is possible for certainly very small matters. You can proceed with a probate with an attorney. So if you have any questions give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Should I have to evacuate for a hurricane, what documents should I take with me?

Well, some of the obvious ones which I would suggest you try and put into Ziploc bags or some other kind of waterproof documents and also have them organized and plan ahead so that you can just grab them and go would include: A birth certificate, passports, social security cards, marriage certificates, death certificates of spouses or parents. If you have children or dependents, significant other, all of their documentation. Another document which I think would be very helpful is to take your insurance policies that cover your home or your other property as far as that’s concerned to have that with you.

If you have a lease; if you’re leasing the property, be sure to take a copy of your lease so that you know what rights you have as far as that’s concerned, particularly if there is a casualty loss. If you have unrecorded deeds that give you the right to occupy a property or to purchase property that are unrecorded, you certainly need to preserve those and take those with you. I don’t know that this is an extensive list, but certainly, those documents should go with you and I’m sure that there are others that you should take along with you but don’t come to mind.

So if you have any questions about your documents, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Can a foreclosure be delayed due to a hurricane? The answer is yes it can be. There is any number of reasons why that can happen. Number one is if you have a hearing or a foreclosure sale that is scheduled and the courthouse shuts down, well, guess what? They are not going to have a hearing, so your foreclosure can get delayed because of a hurricane and the court system shutting down. I’ve also seen if you don’t have court hearing and you have a pending foreclosure, an action that’s pending, sometimes the … and it’s a federally insured or an FHA BA type loan, they may delay, put a moratorium for a couple of months to determine whether or not you’re in a disaster area and the status of the property. That happened in a recent hurricane I saw where they put on hold I think it was like for two or three months any foreclosure proceedings. They stayed them while they evaluated whether or not the property had suffered any loss or you were unable to take care of the foreclosure or reinstate the foreclosure.

A hurricane can delay a foreclosure action particularly if there is any damage to the collateral that might be a factor, although the bank or whoever is … if their named, an additional insured would be entitled to the insurance proceeds if they completed the foreclosure. If you have any questions about foreclosure, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

If property is damaged by a hurricane during probate, who covers the repairs? The first thing that you would need to look at is, did the decedent have an insurance policy that covered the property such as their home? If so, and the premium has been paid through the time of the hurricane and they have coverage, I believe that the insurance company will probably cover that. You might look at the deductibles for hurricane, which is usually substantial. I think it’s 5% of whatever your loss are, or may be even more. And so, that’s what the deductible is, but usually the insurance companies would have it.

If there is no coverage as far as insurance coverage, well, it’s simply a casualty loss [sum 00:00:58] and you don’t have any. The estate and the beneficiaries bear the loss. This is also a problem when it comes to some of these life estate deeds. Some people have received property under a Lady Bird Deed upon the death of the primary person, well, there is no longer any coverage for the decedent and so it’s imperative that you see about getting insurance coverage as soon as the life tenant or the person who granted the Lady Bird Deed passes away.

If you have any questions, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.