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Who owns the personal possession of a deceased person? The probate code provides that the surviving spouse is entitled to $20,000 of household, personal property furniture, furnishings things such as that,  plus, two motor vehicles. So if you have a probate proceeding that is considered exempt property,  unless the property’s been specifically devised, if there’s no surviving spouse, well, then it goes to the children of the decedent and that they’re entitled to the $20,000 of furniture and furnishings and the two motor vehicles. The usual scenario that I hear, however,  someone passes away. They don’t, the only thing that that’s available are the automobiles and, and the household furniture and furnishings. And,  even if they have a will, they’re not going to go through probate because everything else is already was jointly owned or had been transferred outside of probate with the beneficiary.
So that present the problem,  a functional family, you can get the children together and they can have the automobile transferred into their names or designate who they wish to have the automobile transferred to, on the furniture and furnishings. They can sort it out amongst themselves. When we have a dis functional family it’s problematic because it’s sort of the, I call it the U-Haul effect, whoever gets there first with the U-Haul wins because you don’t have a probate proceeding and if items are missing well, how do you prove what’s missing? What was given away beforehand? And furthermore, what’s the value and, and who took, who hauled it off. So in my career, I’ve never had a probate proceeding just for untitled personal property. So,  hopefully you can work this out if there’s no probate proceeding amongst  those files or the children. So if you have any questions about exempt property, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

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How do I close the credit card account of a deceased person? The first thing I’d suggest you do is to cut the credit card in half, and then if you have a death certificate, send a death certificate to the credit card company or possibly call and advise them that the person is deceased. Some of the other considerations, when dealing with credit cards, you need to see if there’s another user, as far as that’s concerned. And so, or, or if it’s a debit card, there’s a bigger problem where all they need to have is the, the code. And they can use that to access a bank account but any event,  you need to determine whether or not there’s another person authorized to use the account. And, also who is liable on the account who signed that. So if it’s just in the decedent’s name, well, that’s, my suggestion is to notify the credit card company, cut the card in half, and hopefully they’ll freeze the account. So no one else can use the account after his death. And also if you’re an heir or whatever, you do not have any liability for that credit card account. And if there’s no estate, the credit card company does not get paid. So if you have any questions, as far as probates concerned and credit cards will give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

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Do I have to report money to the IRS for money that I received as a beneficiary of a probate proceeding? First off, let’s talk about a state taxes. The state of Florida has done away with the state taxes. So, there was none, no estate taxes to be paid to the state of Florida. The federal government has raised the federal estate tax limit to $11.8 million. So, if the estate or the decedent’s assets are less than that amount, there are no estate taxes. As far as money that you receive from a probate proceeding, or a probate state, you should not have to pay any income tax on it other than whatever the interest is, or the income from the estate, the personal representative of the estate is required to file what they call a fiduciary tax return or 1041. And then they file that and sign to you as the beneficiary, a K1, the amount of income that you would have to report on your income tax and whether it’s ordinary income or long term capital gains, the personal representative can deduct the expenses of the estate from the income. So that would be a minimum. It could be a minimal amount, but you’ll get a K1 from the personal representative. If you just inherited a bank account, you don’t have to pay any tax on the principal amount you receive. However, if you receive the interest on a bank account as a beneficiary, you would have to report that income on your tax return. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.