Today, President Barack Obama kicked off the annual White House Easter Egg Roll with First Lady Michelle. Youngsters had a blast participating in the traditional egg-rolling races, obstacle courses, as well as other fun-filled sports and crafts. While egg hunts may be fun on the South Lawn, what your kids will not have fun doing is hunting for important estate planning documents once you are gone.

For those in South Florida who are not interested in playing hide and seek, it’s important to have original estate planning documents such as your will, stored in a safe and accessible place. Somewhere in your home or office that is protected from fire, floods, and South Florida hurricanes is suitable. A personal safe is commonly used; however, be sure to entrust the right person with the location of the safe and combination to the lock.

However, if you plan on using a safe deposit box, you might want to consider retitling it into the name of your Revocable Living Trust if the box is titled in your name only. This way, your successor trustee will be able to gain immediate access to your box without having to obtain a court order to open it. You can also include a trusted joint owner to the title to carry out your estate planning wishes.

Finally, your South Florida estate planning attorney should retain signed copies of all your estate planning documents. In the event your original documents are accidently destroyed, the documents can be recreated and everything can be resigned. This will destroy the presumption that you intended to destroy the documents if the originals cannot be found at the time of your death.

What might work on the South Lawn might not work in South Florida. Save your loved ones the trouble of hunting down your original legal documents and contact your South Florida estate planning attorney for more information today!

For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, 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?