When an individual passes away, their assets and property are typically distributed to their beneficiaries through a process known as probate. In Florida, the personal representative is the individual responsible for marshalling and managing the probate estate, paying any creditors, and distributing assets to the estate’s beneficiaries. But what happens if the personal representative is...
Estate Planning
One of the most common questions I get from people, especially the elderly, is whether they should transfer their home to their children or grandchildren now. Their thinking is that by transferring it now, it will avoid probate when they die, and also, they can avoid paying for more complicated estate planning. Of course, that’s not...
Today’s crazy estate planning story comes from the New York Times, He Left a Fortune, to No One. Roman Blum died in New York last year at 97 years old. He was a Holocaust survivor and a successful real estate developer worth over $40 million. Not only did he die intestate, which means without a...
I saw this story this morning that made me shake my head in wonder, and in a little bit of jealousy. Apparently, three money managers from Greenwich, Connecticut won $254 million in the Powerball lottery. If you don’t know, Greenwich is a New York City suburb and one of the richest in the country. Apparently,...
I was talking to someone the other day who wanted to change their Will, which was not originally drafted by me, and asked me if I would do a a codicil for them. I told them no. While I would be happy to draft a new will from scratch, I don’t do codicils to wills...
I have new clients, a same-sex couple. When interviewing them about their assets, they told me that they own their home as joint tenants with rights of survivorship (JTROS), and not as tenants-in-common (TIC). In brief, the difference between the two are as follows. If two people own property as JTROS, then upon the death...
In today’s (October 15, 2009) Wall Street Journal, there is an article entitled “Is There a Trap Lurking in the Language of your Will?” written by reporter Laura Sanders. The article correctly points out that many semi-wealthy couples may have a serious problem in their Wills. By “semi-wealthy” I mean estates worth up to $4...