Recent Blog Posts
If Your Child’s Special Needs Trust and Related Estate Planning Is Not Done Properly, It Could Spell Disaster for Your Family
If you are a parent of a disabled child, setting up a special needs trust takes very careful planning and experience from the estate planning legal team setting it up for you. The attorney(s) that you work with should know about all of the various charitable nonprofit programs – as well as local federal… Read More »
What You Absolutely Do & Do Not Need to Take Care of Your Elderly Parents or Other Loved Ones
As attorneys who focus solely on estate planning here in Florida, we regularly receive a number of questions concerning what kinds of plans should be made to care properly for elderly parents and other relatives. The best way to carefully craft a plan based on your particular circumstances is to meet with a professional… Read More »
Using Estate Planning to Protect Retirement Accounts from Creditors in Florida
We have previously (briefly) discussed how you can ensure that beneficiaries do not have to pay creditors out of their own pockets, however, what about ensuring that retirement accounts are protected from creditors? Degrees of protection differ significantly when it comes to IRAs and 401(k)s, and this is something that your estate planning attorney… Read More »
Deciding Whether to ‘Gift’ During Your Lifetime, And How Best to Do It
Giving away assets while you are alive has typically carried with it a number of benefits, one of them being helping to lower estate taxes when you pass. However, the federal estate tax exemption is currently very high: at $11.4 million per person–and increasing every year–this exemption ends up being applicable to very few… Read More »
IRA Trusts Could Soon Become an Estate Planning Nightmare
If Congress decides to eliminate the stretch IRA, estate planning could become a lot more complicated, as we discuss below. This is unfortunately a real possibility, as the House recently passed the “Secure Act,” which eliminates the stretch IRA and replaces it with a 10-year payout for most non-spouse beneficiaries, including trusts. Stretch IRAs… Read More »
Should I Consider Involving a Mediator in My Estate Planning?
There is no question that the potential for family conflict to arise during estate planning is significant, especially since those engaged in estate planning often have to discuss inheritance and related issues. During this process, it is possible for estate planning attorneys to help mitigate these disputes by acting as and/or involving mediators. In… Read More »
It’s Not Enough to Simply Form a Trust, You Also Have to Fund It
Most people who have put together an estate plan have also established a trust. Trusts are especially appealing because they allow you to bypass probate. However, in order to do so, you must title all of your assets correctly. This includes such items as bank and brokerage accounts, business shares, real estate, and more;… Read More »
Pending Legislation Could Inadvertently Make The IRA Your “Biggest Beneficiary”
A retirement bill is advancing through Congress which could have implications for retirees and their estate plans. The legislation is called the Secure Act, and does a number of things, including delaying when people would have to take required minimum distributions (to age 72), extending the age limit that allows people to place money… Read More »
Property Needs an Estate Plan Just Like Anything Else
As Orlando estate planning attorneys, we talk a lot about how to pass assets and funds onto beneficiaries. But what about land? Land that is passed down without a will can also be lost in the same way that everything else that’s part of an estate can. Specifically, when land is passed down without… Read More »
Do I Need A “Revocable Trust”?
As attorneys who focus on estate planning here in Florida, we receive a number of questions from clients as to whether there is a difference between a revocable living trust in a regular trust and whether couples should create a will or a trust or something else, etc. Note that revocable trusts – also… Read More »