If you are involved in Florida Probate  you will surely be getting some  papers in the mail and most of these are boilerplate meaning they are meant to apply to everyone, and the details can be hard to understand. If you are the Personal Representative this can be even worse. When yourcertified mail starts to pile up you may be asking yourself what is a Petition for Administration? Whats a Notice of Administration? Here is a quick reference guide for you on the documents in Florida Probate.

There are two things you cannot avoid, death and taxes. Florida Probate deals with both. If you inherit over five million dollars you may owe estate taxes and you should be cautious about making sure they are paid. A woman from the United Kingdom learned that lesson the hard way after she was jailed for two years. Are you concerned you owe estate taxes? How can you know if you owe estate taxes?

Did you sign a guarantee for a $10,000,00 loan?  Are you a guarantor of a loan?  If you are involved in Florida business litigation or Palm Beach commercial litigation, listen up. There is a brand new business litigation appeals court decision Florida which was just handed down which you may want to read about.

In 2015 people move around a lot. Lets say you have an eldery parent that   you feel requires a partial guardianship (as opposed to full guardianship) over some part of their lives, maybe medical decisions or large financial decisions etc. Well maybe Mom lives up in New York during the summer and spends her winters down here in Palm Beach or Boca. Once more she still owns that old ski house in Boulder that she takes her friends to for vacations. OK, so where do you file for guardianship. The truth is it depends because not all States have the same guardiansip laws. 

Ever heard the advice, do not start a business with friends and family?   Makes sense after all, money and emotions are both hard to balance, it can become ever more difficult to manage both. One of the problems with estates and probate is sometimes you cannot avoid financial disputes with relatives. These events can change the way relatives look at each other. One way to avoid these problems in the future is to make sure all relatives and beneficiaries undertstand your estate plan before you are gone.

Everyone takes things personally and sometimes during the long course of an adversarial probate you may get on a judge’s nerves and that can be costly. In order to disqualify a judge from a proceeding due to bias you will need to file what is called a motion for recusal and more, the judge will actually have to agree with you. Yes, you can appeal it to a higher court but your odds of success are still slim, as a case from the Alaskan Supreme Court shows. On March 6th 2015 the Alaskan Supreme Court issued its decision In Re Estate of Bavilla. Want to recuse a judge in your Florida Probate? Contact an experienced Florida Probate Attorney. 

Undue influence is one of the most common ways to challenge a will and   invalidate it.  Keep in mind its not as simple as just telling a judge about all the unfair stuff you saw in the life of a loved one proving a will contest requires you to prove to the judge that you have evidence. Probate evidence is not always easy to come by. 

Look, if Warren Buffet is doing somethig with his money usually it is going to be   a good sign that you should do the same, and that youll make some money in the process. Well his latest moves are a bit different, Buffet is quoted as saying “My family wont receive huge amounts of my net worth…. I sitll belive in the philosophy …that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.’” This is becoming a common practice, wealthy parents do not want to effect their children’s worth ethic: what are you doing with your wealth?  

The facts are somewhat grim odds are that your relatives will fight after   you are gone over your assets. A recent study by the Williams Group a California family research firm found that although about 30 trillion dollars will pass through inheritance over 70% of those funds will be disputed over.As a Palm Beach Probate Lawyer I have to say this is pretty on point, but you do not have to be a statistic. Check out these three ways to avoid contenious probate battles. 

In law school there is a famous case where a man leaves money in  trust to take care of his dog and the question becomes who pays the estate tax, the dog or the trustee? The Court held that since a dog has no tax duties and since the trustee was not making income no one had a tax liability. These seems like a wise decision I doubt that our feline and canine friends will ever get their W-2s in on time. Furthermore animals cannot own property so if you are considering leaving your pet something in your Palm Beach Estate Plan I am glad you are reading this: that gift is invalid and will not be respected! What you can do is set up a pet trust for your fine furry (or feathered) friend. Here is my quick reference guide on pet trusts complete with four things to know about Florida Pet Trusts.