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
How Do You Know If Someone Is Considered Legally Incompetent?
Video Summary
How do you know if someone is considered legally incompetent?
Well, I’m gonna take the easy road first, as far as that’s concerned. If you’re under the age of eighteen in the state of Florida, you’re not an adult, and so legally you’re not competent to contract. And so you’re not legally competent. And when this comes in to play is whenever you’re to receive a great deal of money, then it may require a guardianship. If the minor is to receive, let’s say from an estate, an inheritance and the amount of money is less than $15,000, then the natural parents can accept this inheritance in behalf of the minor child, or the minor who is legally incompetent.
Also, when it comes to contracting, you can contract with a minor, however it’s not legally binding on the minor. After he turns – any time before age eighteen, he can disavow the contract. After he turns eighteen, he has a reasonable time in which to disavow the contract, or he can ratify the contract after he turns age eighteen.
Now as far as people, other people who are considered legally incompetent, that usually comes with an incapacity hearing; and it’s related to a guardianship proceeding, wherein the judge has a hearing and has a panel of three professional – mental health professionals. I believe it’s a psychiatrist and some other people serve on a panel, and they have a recommendation after they interview the alleged incapacitated person. In a guardianship proceeding, they appoint a lawyer to represent this person, and as a result of being incapacitated, the person loses all of their rights. And so it’s a trial and in order for the judge to consider that, since it’s a drastic measure, many times the judge will not declare somebody totally incapacitated, may still give them the right to do certain things such as vote and other matters. But you tell whether or not someone is legally incapacitated or incompetent by an order, which the judge enters finding that they’re incompetent.
So if you have any questions about capacity, incompetency, give my firm a call. It’s 727-847-2288. My associate, Jaleh Piran-Vesseh is one who handles elder law and guardianships
- Published in Guardianship, Videos
Do You Have To Be Married To Be Entitled To A Partner’s Estate?
Video Summary
Do you have to be married in order to be entitled to a partner’s estate?
The answer is yes. The law does not, at this time provide that if you have cohabitated or are in relationship with someone, and you are not married to them, the law does not protect you when they pass away. They treat you as if you are a stranger and therefore you are entitled to no benefits. If you’re married, the law does provide that you’re entitled to certain rights. One is called an elective share; or if there’s no will, you’re entitled to certain benefits, depending on whether or not there’s any children or not. If there’s no children of the decedent, and you’re married to them, then you’re entitled to the entire estate.
Also, this has an effect on your real estate. If it’s your homestead property, as to whether you’re married or not, if you are married you have certain rights in the homestead. If the property is titled in the decedent. If you’re not married, you have no standing, or what we call standing, or right to make any claims against your partner’s estate. So if you – my suggestion is is that you need to set up a will conference or an estate planning conference to address the situation; and that I’ve seen this in the past, where someone’s been together for many years and they’ve lived as husband as wife, and then one of them passes away and they get nothing even though they’ve lived together.
Florida does not recognize common law marriages and that, unless they were established I think before 1964 or ’68. So rarely do you see a common law – I’ve never seen a common law marriage recognized in Florida.
So if you have any questions or like to do some estate planning, that’s the best way to handle it. My phone number is 727-847-2288.