How Often Should I Update My Estate Planning?
Video Summary
How often should I update my estate planning? I have a pad answer on that is is that whenever you’re circumstances change or the law changes. I suggest that once you do your estate planning, that you put it someplace where you look at it approximately once a year just to look to see if that’s still what you want. Whether there’s been some change or circumstance such as losing a loved one or beneficiary that you’ve named in your will. You may want to make some changes far as that’s concerned.
Certainly if you have… You’re married and you lose your spouse, it is very important to come in and do your estate planning. Look at your estate planning to revise or to simplify your estate plan. With estate plans, folks usually want to know two things from the very beginning. One is are there any estate taxes, which unless you have a lot of money, there aren’t any estate taxes. If your estates less than five million dollars and that’s as far as the federal governments concern. The state of Florida’s done away with estate taxes so you have… You don’t have any estate taxes in Florida or with the federal government. However, if you have estate property outside the state of Florida, then there may be estate tax whatever state that that property is situated in.
The other issue is trying to avoid probate, which is really a… Something you can do particularly if you’re married on how to title your assets to try and avoid going through probate. Some circumstances if you’re by yourself then a trust is appropriate or if you’re married possibly 2 trusts are in order. However, most simple estates can be handled without that, but that’s another objective.
Also we need to, or I try to, keep my clients up to date as the changes in the law and the other estate planning documents beside will and a trust are your living will, which says that you don’t want your life to be prolonged unofficially or a healthcare power of attorney called a healthcare surrogate designation. That was changed just recently in the last couple of years and so I would suggest that you might wanna to contact your attorney or call me to see about getting your healthcare surrogate updated to comply with the new law. Not that the old one wouldn’t work, but this new one would be… Works a lot better.
Also your power of attorney form and that law changed three or four years ago and its been enhanced. The power of attorney would be a good idea to review and to update it and that you can have some other called superpowers. One of the things that just passed in legislature where you might want to update all your estate planning documents is your digital assets. When you pass away, you may have something of value such as owning domains, any sort of an accounts, but if you don’t… If your personal representative doesn’t have your passwords and then Google and these other folks, they’re not gonna give you access or give anybody access unless you have specific authority to be able to access their accounts. That act has just passed and so all your estate planning documents need to be revised to include the authority to access your digital assets. We saw that problem with the FBI trying to get into a cellphone and the Google, or whoever it was, would not let them in. You know because of privacy.
This has been addressed in legislation however, you do need to put that specific power in your estate planning documents. Give me a call if you’d like to update your estate planning documents and I’ll be happy to help you. My phone numbers 727-847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
What Are My Options If A Neighbor Plants A Garden Or Erects A Fence On My Property?
Video Summary
What are my options if my neighbor plants a garden or erects a fence on my property? Well, I get this question asked any number of times primarily as it relates to fences. The first thing that you would need to be very sure of is obtaining a survey, so you know precisely where your boundary line is, so there’s no question about that. Particularly as it relates to fences that shows that the fence or whatever, or garden for that matter, is in fact on your property. Once you know that it’s on your property, then I suggest that you contact your neighbor by written notice, or a nice letter, and say, “Enclosed is a copy of a survey, which shows that you have your fence on my property or your garden, and I would give you permission to relocate your fence onto your property, and to remove your garden from my property. I’d appreciate hearing from you in the next ten days.”
Sometimes I am engaged to send that letter out, particularly if there is a little bad blood between you and the neighbor, but it’s something that certainly you can do. You first try and do it by getting the neighbor to understand what the boundary line is. Now if the neighbor does not remove the fence or relocate the fence or remove the garden, then I would send the next letter is is saying that, “I haven’t heard from you about relocating the fence or relocating your garden. If it is not relocated in the next ten days, or whatever period of time you wish to give them, I am going to remove your fence from my property and lay it onto your property, and also remove your garden from my property.” You send them that letter. If that doesn’t … They don’t do anything, you can then proceed to remove any encroachments from your property.
Fences are particularly a hot point, as long as there’s no breach the peace. If someone comes out there and the neighbor starts shooting at you or comes out and confronts you or wants to fight or whatever, then probably the best thing to do is to call the police. Show the police your survey, and say, “I’ve asked this … My neighbor to relocate his fence a couple of times. He’s refused. I told him I want to relocate it. I’m not going on his property, and he’s out here giving me a bad time.” The officer will usually say, “Send everybody home.” Say, “Well, it’s a civil matter.” If it escalates to the point where you’re unable to remove the encroachment from your property, and you have to hire a Lawyer to do that, of course, it starts getting very expensive at that point. Then we could file what they call an Ejectment Action. That’s wherein you state that this is your boundary line. You own the property, and that you’re asking the neighbor, asking the Court to direct the neighbor to remove these encroachments from your property.
The answer to your question is you have a self-help remedy for these encroachments, and as long as there’s no breach the peace. Then if that doesn’t work and you do need to hire a Lawyer, well then he can file what they call an Ejectment Action. Unfortunately, those get a little bit expensive. If you have any problems, hopefully you can get it worked out with your neighbor, but the first thing to do is get you a survey. Yes, that does cost you some money that shows where these encroachments are on your property, and then see if you can’t get it worked out with your neighbor, as far as removing those encroachments without having a confrontation or having to spend a lot of money with an Attorney.
If you have any problems or questions about that, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
|
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Will You Avoid Probate With A Trust?
Video Summary
Will you avoid probate with a trust? The answer is if it is properly executed and all of your assets are titled in the name of the trustee, then there will not need to be a probate proceeding and therefore you’ll be avoiding probate. If however you do not transfer or title all of the assets in the name of the trustee of the trust, then your assets would then have to be probated, which is usually under a will that says I leave everything to the trustee. That’s called a pour-over will. Then you have to probate those assets to put them into the trust.
The trust then has to be administered. Depending on the complexity of the trust or whether it’s an outright distribution or you hold the assets for a period of time and pay out income or if it’s a special needs trust, you may need to have an attorney assist you as far as the administration of the trust. Some of the things that a successor trustee would need to do would file a notice of trust with the clerk of the court.
Also there are certain tax ramifications and a that a successor trustee, meaning after the person who set up the trust dies, that’s usually a revocable trust, they need to apply for what they call a Federal Identification number so that the taxes would be reported in their fiduciary or as a trustee rather than under their individual Social Security number. They may need some guidance so it won’t have to go through probate. The biggest problem with probate is having to pay the attorneys a fee. You may need to engage the services of an attorney in order to assist you as far as the administration of a trust.
An answer to your question is is if the trust has all the assets of the decedent and the trustee can distribute everything out and there’s no income, then you can avoid probate by setting up a trust. You can also look at various alternatives doing estate planning on how to retitle assets and possibly avoid the necessity of spending quite a bit of money to establish a trust.
If you wish to do some estate planning and try and figure out how to avoid probate the most economical way, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Can A Landlord Change The Rent After A Lease Has Been Signed?
Video Summary
Can a landlord change the rent after a lease has been signed? The answer is no, you cannot, because the lease says that you’re going to pay your rent for a certain amount of time and this is what the rate is. It’s a contract between the landlord and the tenant and so the landlord cannot turn around and change the rent in mid-stream. Sometimes, I’m also asked about, by tenants many times, whether or not if the landlord, and sometimes by landlords too, if they sell the property, can they terminate your lease. The answer is no, that whoever purchases property is taking it subject to whatever rights that the tenant has.
If a tenant has a lease, they have a right to occupy the property for whatever the term of the lease is, and if the lease specifies how much rent they’re supposed to pay, as long as they pay that amount of rent, they have a right to remain in the property. Of course, there may be other terms of the lease that they must abide by, but as far as their rent’s concerned, the landlord can’t change the rent that’s set forth in a lease. Now, sometimes you get a lease, that the people have stayed in there for, let’s say a year, and the lease expires. They continue on. They keep paying the same rent. They become a month to month tenant.
Then the question becomes, “Well, can the landlord raise the rent once they become a month to month tenant?” The way that the landlord can do that is they have to send a 15-day notice that they are terminating the month to month tenancy, meaning that they’re going to terminate the tenancy. [In 00:02:09] the same notice or agreement with the tenant, they can say that, “I will continue to lease to you but it’s going to be at a higher rental amount.” That’s how a landlord raises the rent on a tenant by giving him 15 days notice that he’s terminating a month to month tenancy. Hopefully you don’t run into any problems like that.
If you have any questions, give me a call at 727 847 2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
What Are Some Signs A Loved One May Need A Guardianship?
Video Summary
What are some signs that my loved one may need a guardianship? Well first and foremost, any time you’re thinking about filing a guardianship proceeding, you have to consider whether or not there’s a lesser restrictive alternative. Well what is a lesser restrictive alternative? Well a lesser restrictive alternative in this situation would be a power of attorney. If your loved one has a valid, durable power of attorney that has an agent named, and that agent is acting on their behalf and is not abusing the power of attorney, then most courts are going to find that a guardianship is not necessary because there is already in place a lesser restrictive alternative, which is a power of attorney.
But let’s just say you’re in that situation where your loved one did not execute a power of attorney prior to incapacity. What are some of the signs that you may notice that your loved one may need a guardianship? Well one sign would be spending their resources, such as money, selling their home, doing things that don’t make sense to their financial plan.
Now we can’t stop people from making poor financial decisions, but a great example that I could give you would be if your loved one has decided to invest $30,000, within the last month, in vacuums. Well that’s not really a prudent investment, and beyond not being wise financially there may be something more going on. Possibly your loved one is being manipulated, and may not be making the financial decisions for themselves.
That’s just one example. Another example would be if you’re starting to see that your loved one cannot manage their health, cannot manage their person, and cannot manage things that are necessary to their person and to their well being. Again, if you do not have a valid power of attorney in effect, a lot of the times a guardianship proceeding will be necessary.
Those are just some of the things to look out for to see whether or not your loved one may be a viable candidate for a guardianship proceeding. If you have any other questions regarding a guardianship, please refer to give me a call here at Waller & Mitchell at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Guardianship, Videos