Everything a Palm Beach Estate Beneficiary Needs to Know About Florida Condos and Parking Spaces
So, you purchase that beautiful Boca Raton condo and pay a premium — $50,000 for an extra parking space. Then you die. Now you have a Palm Beach estate that has to deal with the Boca property. The Boca Raton personal representative of your estate goes to sell the condo and wants a premium for the parking space. Only the condo board says the parking space doesn’t belong to the Boca Raton estate. The Boca probate lawyer for the estate tells the board that the condo was held in the decedent’s Boca Raton revocable trust, which is now an irrevocable Florida trust. And the Boca Raton estate’s personal representative is also the sole trustee of the Boca Raton trust. The condo board doesn’t care. The lawyer for the condo board tells the estate’s probate lawyer and the trust’s attorney that the decedent never bought a parking space. He didn’t even lease it, nor did he have an easement. The decedent had a license. To understand the difference, have your Boca probate lawyer read the recent case of Keane v. The President Condo. Assoc., Inc, handed down by Florida’s 3rd District Court of Appeal on February 19, 2014. This recent case was not in Boca. Why does this even matter for Palm Beach estate beneficiaries or Palm Beach personal representatives ? Many condos are held in Palm Beach revocable living trusts which Palm Beach trustees need to deal with . A lot of condos are also held in Palm Beach estates. The Florida trustee or Palm Beach personal representative has a fiduciary duty when handling the Palm Beach probate to value the assets of the Florida estate properly. You need to know what you have.