How Do You Avoid Probate For Florida Property?
Video Summary
How do you avoid probate for Florida property? Well, let’s first talk about how the property is titled first. Let’s talk about personal property, such as bank accounts, and also the relationship of the parties. If you’re married, you just put the assets and your joint names as husband and wife, that would be particularly if you want your husband or wife to receive it upon your death. So that would be the easy answer to most of it. And that would avoid probate when the first spouse passes away. And particularly if you have all the assets titled as husband and wife, if you’re by yourself then the options, as far as bank accounts are concerned, you can set those up as payable on death so that they would pass to the beneficiary, whoever you wanted to go to at your death. The same things with a brokerage account where you have stocks and bonds with Merrill Lynch or any other, ag Edwards or, Raymond James, you can have a designation that says it’s transfer on death or a TOD designation.
I don’t know what this inquiry had to do with real estate, but with real estate if you just have a few people that you wanted to go to equally, we can do what they call a Lady bBrd deed, which is called an enhanced life estate deed. And that’s where you executed deed, conveying the property, who are, you want to receive a debt, your death, but you receive all retain all the rights of ownership during your lifetime. And that way you can sell it, keep all the money. You can change the beneficiary anytime you want. And it doesn’t create a problem for Medicaid. It preserves all your rights as far as homestead property. If you’re dealing with your homestead property and it’s referred to as Lady Bird, deed, and at that’s how it appeared in a treatise, probably 25 or 30 years ago, where the author named all of his documents after famous people and it’s named after Lady Bird Johnson. So if you have any questions about needing to have a lady bird deed prepared will give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Probate, Real Estate, Videos
What Is a Geotechnical Exploration Report?
Video Summary
What is a geotechnical report. It’s a report that shows the results of test of the ground and whether or not there’s any problems. Usually it’s done in conjunction with testing for sinkholes. And so the report will show the types of soils, whether or not there’s any open spaces whereby that avoids where the limestone or infrastructure could collapse or, and also says what kind of soils, which would indicate whether or not there’s any debris involved. And usually this is, you usually have this done. If you’re buying, let’s say residential property, if there’s any indication that there’s any cracks in the house that you’re buying, or if there’s any sinkhole activity in the neighborhood, if the neighbor, or, you know, there’s six other sinkhole reported problems in the neighborhood, well, it might do well to go ahead and have this report, have this inspection done, to determine whether or not there’s any sinkhole activity underneath this house.
If it’s vacant property before you build, you may want to go out there and have these tests done and get a report to indicate whether or not there is any problems as far as the soil is concerned. And there are a couple of types of I’m familiar with.. One is a radar, which is not quite as good as whenever they do borings as far as the term, the soils, and also they have another tests where they do tamping to see whether or not the lime rock base is solid or whether it would crack. So, I’m probably not the right guy to call as far as a geo-technical reports concerned. Cause I’m not really qualified to read it. I would just have to take the opinion of whatever’s in the report. But if you, if you’re buying property and have questions about whether you should have a test or not, I’ll be glad to talk to you about it. My phone number is (727) 847-2288. Thank you.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
What Legal Documents Should Everyone Have?
Video Summary
What legal documents should everyone have? One, I think of the top of the list is you need to be sure that you have government issued identification such as a driver’s license or an ID card issued by the same as a driver’s license. I don’t know if the department of motor vehicles issues those, but have an ID because you’ll need that. No matter where you go to cash checks or any number of places as far as your estate planning documents, I think everyone should have a living will that would direct whether or not you want life support to be discontinued. If you have a terminal condition, permanent vegetative state or an end stage condition, it really is important. I think that you have a healthcare surrogate or where you designate a healthcare proxy to be able to make medical decisions for you and also have a HIPAA waiver so that they can check on you to find out how you’re doing as far as if you are hospitalized, although you may not be dying like you would be using a living will also consider particularly if you’re by yourself rather than a husband and wife situation is to giving someone that you trust, hopefully a child or a loved one that you consider, or really trust a durable power of attorney who would be able to take care of business for you. And it’s called durable sense. It would be in the event you no longer had capacity. It would also be good to have a birth certificate and if you’re have a marriage license, particularly, for the ladies or the spouses, if you change your name, I think that’s a problem. Whenever you go to have your driver’s license taken care of, if you happen to be divorced and I have a copy of your divorce decree or decrease on the appropriate marital settlement agreements that go with those, if you have any unrecorded agreements. If you’ve entered into a contract with a lease to purchase property, it’s important that you have a copy of the signed documents or the signed documents. If you have promissory notes, are any unrecorded, a legal document that has to do with your rights to collect money or you owe money or you’re purchasing property or leasing property, those would all be documents that you should have in your possession. You have any questions about that will give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, LLC's and Corporations, Real Estate, Videos
Top 3 Things to Consider When Purchasing Vacant Land?
Video Summary
What to consider when purchasing vacant property. I think the top 3 that I would suggest once you arrive at a price or whatever, you need to verify the zoning and land use and make sure that you’re able to use the property for its intended use. And so it had, and that might have to do with size of the property, the access things such as that next, it would be the availability of utilities. So if you’re getting one, a belt, a residential property, a belt, a house on a vacant lot, well, are there water and sewer available, or can you go with a well and septic tank, but anyway, check on the availability of utilities and those come with impact fees or the costs that you may be building. The third thing that you should consider whenever you’re buying vacant property as, did have a wetlands, determination, as far as that, or an environmental audit the property.
If the property is low, you wouldn’t be able to use whatever is below a jurisdictional line. So you may be buying three, four and a half acres, but maybe only a half of it, half an acre is buildable, or if it’s high and dry. Well, there may be some other problems as far as gopher turtles or other environmental endangered species and things such as that. So, you would need to consider the environmental aspects. So those were my top 3 items on my list that you need to consider when you’re buying a vacant property. If you have any questions or needing assistance, as far as selling or buying a property, we’ll give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
What is a Promissory Note in Connection to Real Estate?
Video Summary
What is a promissory note in conjunction to real estate? A promissory note is the promise to repay the amount that is borrowed in order to purchase the real property, or if you’re taking a loan out against the real property. So, you have the note, which says you promised to repay the loan and sets forth the terms, the interest rate of the loan. The note is then secured by a mortgage, which puts a lien against the real estate. Now, this the mortgage doesn’t say that you owe me any money. The note says that what the mortgage does is gives the lender at lien against the property. So, if you don’t make the payments on the promissory note, they can enforce or foreclose on the mortgage and have your property sold at foreclosure sale. If you do not pay the amount owed to them on the promissory note, if you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos