The recent derailment of an Amtrak train left at least eight casualties and many more injured.  Nobody who boarded the train that fateful day was expecting this to happen, rather they were just going about their day as they would any other.  Death is a difficult topic to approach, because nobody likes to think that someday it will happen.  It is important however, because you want to make sure that you are ready for when it happens and because, unfortunately, it can happen at any time.

Waiting too long to draft an estate plan can be troublesome as well.  When a person dies, there may be reasons to question the mental capacity of the individual at the time he or she prepared an estate plan. Undue influence or fraud from third parties, who take advantage of a close relationship with the decedent for personal gain, can be reason to challenge a legal document after death.  Another reason that can be grounds to challenge a legal document is whether it was properly executed and with all the formalities required.

Powers of attorney, for example, are powerful documents that grant another individual broad discretion over medical and financial decisions. Such an important power should involve careful planning. Standard legal forms found online, software programs with legal templates, and other self-help documents, are attractive to many individuals due to the ease of access and low cost. However, template powers of attorney are not always the equivalent of a proper Florida power of attorney drafted by a lawyer.

Many states, like Florida, have strict requirements regarding execution of valid powers of attorney or advance directives.  In order to make it easy for your loved ones to say goodbye, you should consult an estate planning attorney who can recognize potential pitfalls and how to avoid them.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?SM

For more information on successful Florida estate planning and asset protection techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 to schedule your free consultation.

In Florida, a person who owns and resides on real property and makes it his or her permanent residence is eligible to receive a homestead exemption up to $50,000.

In order to qualify your Florida homestead, you and your home must meet three criteria:

• You must have legal or beneficial title to the home on January 1 of the current year.
• You must reside at the home as your permanent residence.
• You must apply for the homestead exemption in person at the property appraiser’s office in the county where your home is located between January 1 and March 1 of the year in which you are seeking the homestead exemption.

While in many other states, a persons homestead is not protected from creditors and can be lost to claims for Medicaid reimbursement, this is not the case in Florida. Some of the multiple benefits of the homestead exemption are protection from creditors, reduction of property taxes and protection to the surviving spouse or minor child.

Less well understood are the homestead protections from the claims of creditors and the restrictions on transfers of homestead property at death. WFP Law can help explain these Florida homestead concepts at a free consultation.

Michael D. Wild is a Florida attorney specializing in the areas of estate planning, asset protection and probate administration. To learn more about estate planning, please contact the South Florida law firm of WFP Law at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation. It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine… Not always true.

Probate is the legal process used in Florida by which property and assets are transferred to the heirs or intended beneficiaries of the deceased person. The concept of probate does not exist in French law, property and assets pass automatically upon death to the heirs. Whatever your Last Will and Testament might say, it can be overturned by your protected heirs. In the majority of cases these will be your children. So you cannot cut your children out of your Will under French law.

Under American law anyone making a Will has “testamentary freedom” which means that you can choose whoever you want to inherit your property and assets and in whatever proportions as long as this is set out in a valid Will.

Another important fact is that in France the inheritance tax is paid by each beneficiary on the shares that they receive whereas in Florida there is no inheritance tax for amounts below $5.43 million per person.

Michael D. Wild is a Florida attorney specializing in the areas of estate planning, asset protection and probate administration. To learn more about probate administration, please contact the South Florida law firm of WFP Law at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation. It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

Probate is a legal process that takes place after someone dies. This includes:

1. Proving to the Court that the Will is valid
2. Identifying and recording the deceased’s personal items
3. Appraising the property
4. Paying remaining taxes and debts
5. Providing remaining property to heirs

Just five simple steps, right? Wrong.

By reading the aforementioned process, you must believe probate goes something like this…

Grandma dies, grandma’s will is read by the court, grandma pays her taxes, then grandma gives her prized mahjong set to her favorite son. The family then skips off into sunset and lives happily ever after.

In an ideal world, we would all be eating milk and cookies while listening to the final requests of Bubbe. But the truth is, probate is a long, arduous, stressful process that does not include milk and cookies. In fact, by the time you are done with probate, you might feel like you are on the verge of death yourself.

Like your mother-in-law, probate is something you might want to avoid. But unlike your mother-in-law, probate is something you can avoid by visiting with an estate planning attorney and setting up a revocable trust.

It would behoove you to work with the estate-planning attorneys at Wild Felice & Partners and avoid the hell on earth called probate.

Here are three ways to avoid probate:

1. Living Trust: Living trusts were invented to avoid probate. Any asset held as part of a trust will avoid probate. This is so important so we will repeat that, any property within a trust will avoid probate. After the death of your loved one, the trustee can easily and quickly transfer the trust property to the family or friends it was designated to, without probate.

2. Joint Ownership of Property: By adding someone else to take title on your property, the papers show ownership. Therefore, when the owner dies, the property goes to the other joint-owner – no probate involved. However, you should NEVER own something with someone you aren’t married to. There are asset protection and tax consequences to doing to.

3. Gifts/Beneficiary Designations: Giving away property while you’re alive helps you avoid probate for a very simple reason: If you don’t own it when you die, it doesn’t have to go through probate. That lowers probate costs because, as a general rule, the higher the monetary value of the assets that go through probate, the higher the expense. However, be prepared to pay gift tax for any gift over $14,000 in a given year. Gifting at the time of death, via Trust or beneficiary designation, is much more affordable.

Losing a loved one is already a stressful and arduous experience. Why would you chose to allow your family to suffer through probate during their time of mourning? It is recommended to contact an estate-planning attorney to ensure your assets are all protected, including the mahjong set.

As if the bar exam isn’t stressful enough for test takers, hopeful future lawyers across the country found themselves unable to upload their first day exams after the ExamSoft servers were apparently unable to handle the massive traffic. While the issue appears to be on its way to resolution, test takers were still subjected to a tremendous amount of stress before the second part of the test. ExamSoft had years to prepare for this level of traffic and yet the system was not ready and many students suffered unnecessary stress. This situation mirrors what your loved ones will go through if you do not have a proper estate plan in place at your death, especially if your estate has to go through probate.

Probate is the mandatory process in Florida of validating a will (if there is one) and distributing the assets to the beneficiaries. This process usually lasts at least six months and can take substantially longer depending on the size of the estate or complexity of the assets. While the probate is going on, the estate assets are frozen while they are marshaled and prepared for distribution. Creditors are also paid off out of the estate before distribution. During this time, the presumed beneficiaries do not have access to the estate property. This can lead to financial hardship and liquidity issues for the surviving family members. Furthermore, probating an estate is costly, which continues to decrease the inheritance the beneficiaries will receive.

Whether you die with a will or not, you will still have to probate your estate if your probatable estate exceeds $75,000 (Florida’s probate limit.) A will alone is not a sufficient device for avoiding probate. The benefit of having a will is that you can decide who gets what from your estate, and you can also name a guardian, but a will does not avoid probate. To effectively avoid probate, a trust based estate plan should be used. A trust based plan avoids probate by transferring ownership from you as an individual to your living trust. You will be able to use all your assets in the exact same way, but when you die, your estate will pass to your beneficiaries without going through probate. In addition to the benefit of avoiding probate, a trust based plan also gives you as grantor increased control over who gets the assets down the road and creditor protection for your beneficiaries.

For more information on successful Florida estate planning and asset protection techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected? SM

This weekend, fourteen Venice Beach patrons were injured, with one fatality, when lightning struck near the pier. This was a rare occurrence and was not something the beachgoers were prepared for. Lightning strikes can be a lot like a probate hitting your family. Not only will they be dealing with the passing of a loved, they will have to deal with the long and complex process of probate.

In Florida, probate is the mandatory process of validating a will and distributing estate assets to the beneficiaries. During this time, accounts are frozen while the personal representative marshals the assets and prepares to distribute. Probate usually lasts at least six months and can last considerably longer depending on the size an complexity of the estate. Probate can lead to periods of illiquidity for beneficiaries as they wait for accounts to be unfrozen and distributions to be made, putting in dire financial situations.

The best way to avoid the hassles of probate is to use a trust based estate plan. With a trust based estate plan, a living trust is formed in your name and is funded using an assignment of property. Essentially, all of your property becomes property of the trust. While this might sound scary at first, it really isn’t. Because you are the grantor, trustee, and beneficiary of the living trust, you retain complete control over all your property and can do with it everything you could as an individual.

In addition to passing your property outside of probate, trusts provide creditor protection for your beneficiaries and give you as grantor an increased level of control from beyond the grave. Once you pass, your living trust will create individual irrevocable trusts for all of your beneficiaries. As grantor, you can name the trustee of each of these trusts and the contingent beneficiaries. If you have a child who is not fiscally responsible, you can name a trustee other than them who will manage the trust for the benefit of your child while making sure that your child doesn’t waste the money. If you have a child who is married to a spouse you don’t trust, you can make sure that the trust money passes to your grandchildren and not the spouse. Because the inheritance will be held in a trust, creditors will not be able to reach the money either.

Under a trust plan, a will is still used, but it is used as a funding document, rather than a distribution document. This type of will is referred to as a “pour-over will.” Pour-over wills act as a safety net, or a funnel, and makes sure that any property that you forgot to put in the trust (if you had just moved homes and not retitled for example) ends up in your trust. This property would still have to be probated, but only this property would have to be; all the property in your trust would pass outside probate as originally intended. After the probate, the pour-over will gives the property to the trust and it will receive all the benefits of all your other trust property.

For more information on successful Florida estate planning and asset protection techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected? SM