Estate Planning Law FAQs

Estate Planning with our office is a two part process. First, it is the process of deciding who gets your assets after your death and signing documents to make your wishes legally binding. Second, is the pre-death planning for who can make certain decisions for you and you making some specific decisions about your own health care so that your loved ones know what you want to if those specific things happen to you.

Revocable Trust (If needed), Last Will and Testament, Power of Attorney, Healthcare Surrogate, Healthcare Directives and the Final Disposition.

One of the main differences is that a Will requires a probate for the terms of the Will to be carried out, a Trust does not. Another big difference is that a trust can hold assets for a long time for the benefit of the beneficiaries if necessary, whereas a Will cannot.

I recommend that people review their estate plan every couple of years and upon any major life change (i.e. Divorce, Marriage, Births, Deaths, Adoptions, etc).

Your assets will be transferred to the beneficiaries as stated by Florida Statutes in Chapter 732, which differs based on the family situation, whether there is a surviving spouse, children of the marriage between you and the surviving spouse and/or children with a prior partner, etc. The statute describes who the beneficiaries will be depending on the family structure. So, instead of you getting to choose who your beneficiaries are through your estate planning documents, the Florida Statutes decide for you.

Yes, yes, yes! This is one of the main reasons to meet with me. My goal is that the family of my estate planning clients will not have to file a probate administration. Sometimes, you can avoid a probate with a deed and beneficiary designations, other times, we need a trust to avoid probate.

There are many possible benefits of a living trust, but the one that is used the most is to avoid probate. If you have the type of assets or beneficiaries that would require a probate after your death, then a trust can be created so that the assets can be transferred by the trust after death instead of having to go through the court system.

A power of attorney is the document in which you appoint someone to be able to handle all of your financial affairs on your behalf. This is an incredibly powerful document that should be handled with care. In Florida, the power of attorney becomes effective when you sign it, not just after you become incapacitated, which is what most people believe. A power of attorney is important because having it can avoid the necessity of having to file for guardianship if you are ever incapacitated.

Definitely not. Choosing who is going to have control over decisions for you if that becomes necessary, deciding to whom your assets go, and how it is going to get to them is something that everyone should do.

Yes, and please do. If a minor child inherits over a certain amount (at the time I am writing this, it is $15,000.00), then the surviving parent or guardian has to open a guardianship of a minor to be able to receive the asset(s) and/or funds and then manage them with Court supervision until the minor is 18 years old. With a proper estate plan, this can be avoided.

I do not need you to bring anything to the consultation. I will ask you about your assets, so I just need you to have a general idea of what you own.

An estate plan with a Will and preplanning documents, I can generally get done in three appointments: the consultation, the review, and then the signing. I space out the review and the signing appointments about a week so that you have time to take home the documents and look them over after we review them. An estate plan with a trust, I can generally get done in four appointments: the consultation, two review appointments and a signing. Each review and the signing appointment are a week apart. So depending on what type of plan we are doing, the plan can be completed within 1-3 weeks from when we schedule the first review appointment.

Yes, you need some kind of estate planning documents. You may not need anything complicated, but yes, you do need something. If you do not have your own Will, then the laws of the State of Florida will decide what happens after you die. Those statutes may not leave your property to the people who you would choose if you got to make the choice yourself. The process may also end up being much more costly for them to handle due to the lack of planning. It can also leave to arguments among the surviving family members that can damage their relationships far into the future. If you have minor children, then being able to designate the guardian of the children instead of letting the survivors fight it out is also a very important decision that you can put in your planning documents.

I have literally never had a self-written Last Will & Testament come in to be probated, where there was not a problem with it. This includes wills that are printed out from the internet. Please do not do this. It is bad news and ends up costing your loved ones more for the lawyers to fix after death than if the person had just gone to a see a lawyer to make sure everything was drafted and executed correctly.

Capacity is the ability to make the decisions that are made when doing estate planning. Capacity can generally be shown when the person knows who their family/loved ones are and what their assets and debts are.

Maybe. It depends on your circumstances. There are many different kinds of trusts, but the one that is most often discussed is a Revocable Living Trust. There are many reasons why you may need a living trust. For example, if you own real property outside of the state of Florida, then I will strongly recommend that you have a Trust. Other scenarios where I advise having a Trust include, but are not limited to, the following:

- When it would be better to avoid the probate process because the assets that you own would require an expensive and time-consuming probate administration for your survivors;
- When there are blended families and the spouses want to ensure that their children from a previous relationship do not get disinherited if they were to die before their spouse; and,
- When you have an amount of money and/or assets that you don’t want your young children and/or certain beneficiaries with special circumstances to have free and total access to upon your death.

It is also more costly and time consuming to set up a trust, so you may decide that you do not want a trust even if I recommend one. It is a very personal decision on what kind of planning you decide to do and each person deserves to choose what fits them best.

17 years

I handle estate planning, probate and criminal matters.

Yes.

Yes.

I meet with the clients to find out what who their beneficiaries are, what their assets consist of, and what their wishes are for distribution. Then, we discuss the options and I advise what I think makes the most sense considering their situation. Once we decide on what we want to do, then we have review appointments to go over the documents and finally a signing appointment. After signing, We create the Estate Planning Portfolio for the clients to pick up.

Flat fee, which varies depending on the services provided.

I charge $250 for estate planning consultations. That consultation fee is then wrapped into the estate plan's price if you decide to hire me.

Absolutely, and as long as they have capacity to do their estate planning, then we will get it done quickly and bring everything to them. However, if after meeting with them I do not believe that they have capacity, then I will not do their planning.

Any Age! My youngest estate planning client was 18 years old, and my oldest was in their 90s. Deciding where you want your assets to go and how they get there along with who you want to be making your decisions in emergency situations should be done sooner than later, but it's also better done late than never.

NO. This is a myth and often one that people make the mistake of doing in a self-written will. Especially problematic when the person being left the dollar has been out of contact for years and no one knows where to find them.