Palm Beach estate trial attorney and trust litigator John Pankauski will speak on prudent investing next Thursday, November 6th, 2013 at the Palm Beach Yacht Club on the intracoastal in West Palm Beach, Florida. www.pankauskilawfirm.com  Pankauski will draw on his experience as a Palm Beach lawyer handling trust disputes, investment loss cases and trust administration at “Fiduciary & Fixed Income Investment in a ‘New Norm’”. 

Are you serving as a trustee of a trust?  Maybe your mom or dad or great aunt created a revocable trust, also called a living trust, which is now an irrevocable trust since death.  What do you do as trustee and how to you stay out of trouble?  Will the trust beneficiaries sue you?  Well, if guidance is what you need, hold on a little longer. 

Are you the beneficiary of a Florida trust?  It’s no big secret that many trust beneficiaries in Florida don’t like trustees.  After all, a trust beneficiary needs to ask, or request, the Florida trustee for money, which the trust beneficiary may consider his or her, or his or her family’s, money.    No one likes to ask another for money, especially when you think it’s YOUR money.  So, beneficiaries need to check this angst before getting mad at trustees for investment losses. Be reflective and carefully analyze your angst with an experienced trust litigator or trust trial attorney. 

How do I serve as a Florida trustee? Are you asking yourself this question? Being a trustee in Florida is no easy business if you are an individual. After all, you aren’t a bank or trust company with bricks and mortar, a fiduciary committee, portfolio managers, economists and a team of trust administrators.

If you are a Florida executor or personal representative of a Florida estate, who is assisting you with the Florida probate administration ? Or, if you are a beneficiary of a Florida estate, who is handling the estate administration, and, is the process going smoothly?  Are good decisions being made and do you have all the facts? I know you probably have a good Florida probate lawyer, but…….   A good accountant or CPA firm can be of great help to not only the Florida executor, but also for the benefit of those the executor ultimately serves:  the beneficiaries of the Florida estate. 

Wealthy Florida clients and those exposed to the domestic stock market, like Florida beneficiaries, have seen their wealth grow over the very recent past.  The indices for US small cap, mid cap and large cap equities are on a roar.  If we squeeze a few more points out of domestic equities during the remainder of the fourth quarter,  2013 investment returns will approach or surpass 30%.  So, as a Florida beneficiary or client or investor, how does that make you feel? 

If you are the trustee of a Florida trust, or the executor (personal representative) of a Florida estate, part of your job, some of your duties include, managing the finances of the Florida trust or estate.  So how does a Florida trustee or Florida executor deal with the surging stock market? 

Should Florida trustees invest in IPO’s?  Not UFO’s, but initial public offerings of publicly traded stock, like Facebook and the much anticipated Twitter, Inc.  Today’s Wall Street Journal feature an article on IPO’s on the front page of that financial newspaper’s “Money & Investing” section.  IPOs were all the rage in the 1990’s as tech companies soared and the market roared, and anything with a “.net” or “.com” went public.

Are you the beneficiary of a Florida trust or a trustee of a Florida trust? Maybe your rich aunt from Boca Raton, Florida set up a $1,000,000 trust to last for your lifetime and permits the trustee to distribute trust funds for your “health, education, maintenance and support.”   How does Obamacare affect the Florida trustee and Florida trust beneficiary? 

Florida estates may encounter charitable gifts or charitable devises (distributions) under a Florida will or revocable trust.   Some charitable gifts are outright (“To the Pankauski Foundation, I leave $1,000,000”).  Others are held in donor advised funds.  According to Fidelity Investment’s Fidelity Charitable Giving Report, total charitable giving in 2011 alone was close to $300 Billion !   Much of that charitable giving was in donor advised funds.