Recent Blog Posts
Securing a Deceased Person’s Assets Before Probate
Probate is stressful not because it differs much from the financial and administrative tasks you do on behalf of yourself and your spouse, but because you must manage a recently deceased person’s financial affairs in addition to your own. In other words, the problem is that there simply are not enough hours in a… Read More »
Strategic Divorce? What a Horrible Thought!
If you are at a social gathering of retirees and you are tired of listening to them complain about their aches and pains or about the economy, ask your companions what they think about marriage trends among the young generation, and the conversation is certain to turn lively. People will tell you, from their… Read More »
The Worst Beneficiaries for Non-Probate Assets
In general, the duties of the personal representative of the estate of a deceased person increase proportionally with the value of the estate. The estate will settle quickly if the decedent owned little property, even if the heirs do not get along with each other. By contrast, probate will take longer if the decedent… Read More »
What Happens If a Deceased Person’s Estate Has Credit Card Debt?
It is an honor when family members trust you enough to choose you to be personal representative of their estate, but no one ever said that shepherding an estate through probate was an easy task. If the decedent was wealthy, the heirs will criticize you about every decision, accusing you of being irresponsible with… Read More »
Pour Over Wills
If your only experience with wills comes from the entertainment media and from tabloid news, you might reasonably believe that your only options are to divide your estate among your family members or to show your ungrateful relatives who is boss by leaving your property to a charity that is meaningful to you but… Read More »
How Do Florida’s Laws of Intestate Succession Deal With the Stepparent Wars?
The juiciest tabloid stories about disputes over the estate of a wealthy person are the ones that involve a relatively young widow and stepchildren who are uncomfortably close in age to her. The parties may say all kinds of terrible things about each other, but most of the time, the probate court ends up… Read More »
Florida Probate for Non-Floridians
Florida is the land of introduced species. Sure, it has the largest native population of crocodilians in the United States, but for every American alligator and American crocodile, you also find an array of newcomers, from reptiles such as the green iguana and Nile monitor lizard to species that strike an entirely different type… Read More »
What do you do when an estate doesn’t have a lot of assets?
Summary Administration Summary administration of an estate is mini probate. The petitioner, who may or may not be a beneficiary of the will, files a petition for summary administration, signed by all the beneficiaries of the will, and the court distributes the estate’s assets pursuant to the will. If the decedent does not have… Read More »
Revising Your Estate Plan After a Natural Disaster
Only the most conscientious people start working on their estate plans just because they realize that they are far enough into adulthood that their lack of estate planning will cause emotional and financial stress for the people they love. Everyone else procrastinates estate planning until something happens. That something could be a health scare,… Read More »
Naming Two Personal Representatives for Your Estate Is a Bad Idea
Your will tells the probate court who will inherit your property after you die, including which heirs will inherit specific assets or which ones will inherit which fraction of your money. Of course, the way wills work is that, by the time the court is ready to follow the instructions, you are no longer… Read More »
