Wish you could go back in time to last Friday and pick VCU to upset Kansas?  How about going back a full month and picking UConn to win the whole thing?  Well, until Peabody is able to come over and set the Wayback Machine, we are not able to go back in time and correct our mistakes.  Losing in your March Madness Bracket Tournament is nothing in comparison to the mistakes I see every day in poorly drafted, poorly executed, and poorly funded estate plans.  

Top 10 Estate Planning Mistakes

1. Leaving the Living Trust Unfunded: A living trust is merely a vehicle that allows you to pass your assets outside of probate.  However, if there are no assets in the trust, nothing has been accomplished.  You can buy the most expensive safe at the store but it wont protect your valuables unless you put the valuables into the safe. 
2. Putting Your Children’s Names on Your Deed: These property will be subject to capital gains taxes when the beneficiary attempts to sell it.
3. Leaving Assets Outright to Beneficiaries: Assets that are left outright to heirs and beneficiaries are exposed to creditors, predators and divorcing spouses. 
4. Not Having a Living Will:  A living will gives guidelines for your physician to follow in the event you are in a terminal, end-stage, and persistent vegetative state. 
5. Owning Life Insurance in Your Name: Many people are not aware that the death benefit of an insurance policy, owned by the insured is included in their taxable estate. 
6. Not Communicating with Trustees and Beneficiaries:  It is important to let the people who are named in your estate plan know what role you are asking them to play. 
7. Not Knowing Where All the Assets Are: A scattered estate plan by a secretive decedent may cause some assets to be left uncollected, undistributed and even lost.
8. Not Updating Your Estate Plan:  It is imperative that your estate plan is reviewed on an annual basis to avoid unintended results. 
9. Drafting Your Own Estate Plan:  There are so many moving parts with a trust-based estate plan that attempting to do it yourself is the equivalent of trying to take your own appendix out.  There are legal requirements in drafting, executing, funding, and updating.  If you miss any of them, it could invalidate your entire plan.  An estate planning attorney doesn’t sell you documents, they provide the service that goes into making sure that those documents are correct.
10. Thinking That You Have Plenty Of Time To Get To It:  No one has a crystal ball and tomorrow is not promised to any of us.  I have clients that have hired me to draft their estate plan and then they died prior to being able to sign it or fund it.  There are other people who die too young to even sit with the attorney.  Estate planning is necessary for everyone and you should sit with your attorney as soon in life as possible.

Failing to visit your estate planning attorney to get a comprehensive estate plan in place could lead to your family’s financial bracket being completely busted.  For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Pardo, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation. It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

As the NCAA basketball tournament takes it up a notch tonight with the first batch of Sweet 16 games, it’s important to remember another not-so-sweet number: 55. In 2013, the estate tax is scheduled to increase to 55 percent. Whether your estate is a 1-seed or just a Cinderella story, a comprehensive estate plan can assure that your beneficiares will be able to cut down the nets without the government taking half.

For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Pardo, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation. It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

Even if you were born a ramblin’ man or woman (or just happen to be a snowbird), you may have the ability to claim Florida as your state of domicile and there are many advantages to make such a claim. 

Unlike Florida, many states charge taxes on the estates of the people that have established that state as their domicile.   Florida has neither state income tax nor any state inheritance tax.  While most states tack on an addition ten (10) to fifteen (15) percent to the Federal Estate Tax, Florida permits you to die in peace knowing that your family is protected from unnecessary state taxation.  In fact, Florida even permits you some tax credits, including the Federal Estate Tax credit and the Homestead exemption which permits a property tax credit on your personal residence. 

So how can you establish domicile in Florida if you live somewhere else?

Contrary to popular belief, there is no six-months-and-a-day rule for claiming Florida as your domicile.  Domicile in Florida is defined as establishing a place of adobe, coupled with the intent to permanently remain in the state of Florida.  Although intent can be measured by a show of sentiments, courts will usually focus on the contacts an individual has with the state in order to establish domicile.  This means that you might be eligible to call Florida your home even if you were born in the backseat of a Greyhound Bus rollin’ down Highway 41.

One such example of establishing this intent is the drafting of Florida estate plans and the purchasing of Florida burial plots. No evidence establishing the intent to permanently remain in the state of Florida is stronger than the intent to make it your final resting place.  Courts have agreed that this may be enough to establish your Florida domicile for the purpose of avoiding the state estate tax.

Since Florida is a tax-friendly state, those with sufficient contacts with the state of Florida are highly advised to take the necessary steps to establish Florida as their domicile. However, it is highly advisable that you speak with your attorney to determine if domicile in Florida is beneficial in your particular situation. Each client has unique needs that need to be carefully discussed with their attorney before any decisions are taken.

For more information on successful Florida estate planning techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Pardo, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.  It’s a Wild world.  Are you protected?

All we are is dust in the wind?  Not so fast, Kansas.  Through a Florida living trust, you are able to live on long after your death by distributing your assets over a long period of time and even manage them from beyond the grave.  You can also protect your beneficiaries from creditors, bankruptcy, litigation and divorce by leaving them their inheritance in trust rather than a direct distribution from a will.  A trust will assure that your assets get to whom you want, when you want and how you want.  Using a trust to distribute your assets after your death can create a legacy that may carry on to all your wayward great great grandsons. 

www.wfplaw.com

For more information on successful Florida estate planning techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Pardo, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.  It’s a Wild world.  Are you protected?

College basketball culminates each year in a 68-team tournament to crown its champion that is chock full of upsets, Cinderella stories and buzzer beating shots.  Unlike NCAA basketball, there is no specific shot clock or game clock for our lives.  There may not be enough time in regulation to accomplish everything we need to before that final buzzer sounds.  In order to assure that we accomplish what is most important to us during our short lives, we create lists of priorities.

Some of us give greater priority to our families, others to our careers and others to traveling the world and creating new experiences every day.  No matter what your current priorities are, it’s vary important to get your estate planning taken care of when you are young and healthy rather than waiting until you are older and weak.  None of us are certain of how much time is left on the clock but we can be certain that it is incredibly irresponsible to leave our estate planning to a last-second heave before the buzzer sounds.

For more information on successful Florida estate planning techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Pardo, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.  It’s a Wild world.  Are you protected?

Most people are lucky enough to only have to deal with death a few times in their lives.  Even fewer people will be charged with the task of arranging the affairs and distributing the assets of the deceased.  When a person dies, there is a tremendous amount of emotional strain on the family and friends that are left behind.  Dealing with the stress of probate is an unnecessary ordeal that can be avoided by hiring an attorney skilled in both estate planning and probate.

Probate is the legal process by which property in an estate is transferred to the heirs or beneficiaries of the deceased person.  The process begins with a petition filed with the court that lists all of the property of the deceased and the people to whom the property is to be given.  In larger estates, there are often conflicting interests among family members and the probate process can become more contested and expensive.  Typically the probate process will take between 6 and 18 months for an estate under $1 million and may cost somewhere between 3 and 7 percent of the total estate.

Contrary to a popular misconception, probate is necessary whether or not you have a Will.  If a person dies with any property owned in his or her individual name, probate is required.  Florida has two different probate procedures depending on how large the estate of the decedent is.  For any estate over $75,000, formal probate proceedings are necessary.  However, if the estate is under $75,000 without any real estate and only a small amount of personal property, the estate may be streamlined through a summary probate administration.

In addition to the litany of forms that need to be completed for the court, all required persons need be notified and the proper probate procedures must be followed.  Florida Probate Rule 5.030 requires that a personal representative be represented by an attorney unless he or she is the sole interested party.  At least one Florida court has ruled that until three years after death, there might be other interested parties and therefore, an attorney is required.

The best way to avoid the probate process is by utilizing a living trust as the foundation of a comprehensive estate plan.  You will still need the services of an attorney for the administration of the trust but that process is much faster and much less expensive.  For any friends or family that were unable to get their estate plan situated in time, a good probate attorney can help to limit the stress and expense of the probate process.