Managing Member John Pankauski has continued his involvement with the Fiduciary Litigation, Ethics and Malpractice Committee of the Real Property, Trust & Estate Division of he American Bar Association. He is attending the 2013 Joint meeting of that Division and the Taxation Section this weekend in San Francisco. Pankauski is just one of a handful of Florida probate attorneys, and the only Florida probate litigator, to be actively involved.

Florida probate attorney John Pankauski literally wrote the book on being a trustee. He and his publishing house are working feverishly to make it available for publication this December 1st.  It will be available in soft back and e-book version. Pankauski’s book is tentatively, and simply, titled The Trustee Book, and is a plain English, straightforward guide for individuals who may be a trustee.

Has the Trust been paying its federal and state income taxes? The individual serving as trustee may have personal liability for unpaid taxes.

May a Florida estate obtain photos, Tweets, social media posts and Facebook pages of a deceased person? The answer is not as clear or as simple as one might initially believe.

$12 Trillion in privately-held business interests is expected to pass from one generation to another over the next two decades.

When an appellate court reviews a ruling of a trial court, it looks for a number of things. One important issue is whether the trial court considered, or did not, consider, certain evidence, testimony, documents, etc. We call that competent substantial evidence. If the appellate court is unsure what the trial court based its ruling on, it will send the case back down to the trial court. So, at the trial court, take the time to prepare a ruling that sets forth findings of fact and conclusions of law, and explains what the trial court relied on. Otherwise, clients am be spending extra time and money.

In Florida, what happens if you want to change the beneficiary of, say, a life insurance policy, and you die just after you complete the paperwork?  Let’s say that you complete the paperwork and US Mail it in to the company on a Monday and you die on a Tuesday?  Or, consider that you make a gift of privately held shares of stock, say, in a family business…… You sign the transfer documents and they are scanned and emailed to the secretary of the company. But before the company makes the changes on the company’s books, you die.  

Bank account litigation in Florida has become almost a sub-specialty within the practice of law.  People litigate about what type of account was created: was it a joint account with a right of survivorship?  Was it a convenience account that “goes” to the estate of the Florida bank account owner?  Was it opened in the name of a Florida trust which means that it doesn’t become part of the estate of the owner when the Florida owner dies, but rather it is part of the Florida trust property.  And what about all those names on the bank account statement? The ones that appear on the first page next the name of the person who opened or created the Florida bank account…… What property rights do those individuals have to the Florida bank account, if any? 

Florida has a number of retirees, and its elder community is large.  As we live longer as a society, there is a great likelihood that we will become incapacitated, or incompetent, before we pass away.  When that happens, documents like powers of attorney, living wills, health care proxies, and other “health care” documents which designate someone to make medical or health care decisions can become very important. When those documents are not present, it may be necessary to have a guardianship.  (Admittedly, even when you do have POAs and health care docs, families “fight” over who will make personal and financial decisions for someone.) 

When there is a lawsuit involving a will, a trust or an estate, you are dealing with a fiduciary, such as a trustee.   In Florida, we have a statute that protects communications between clients and their lawyers:  the attorney client privilege statute.  In the context of a trustee, Florida also has two statutes which address this issue: they say that the attorney client privilege protects communications between a trustee and the trustee’s attorney (in other words, the beneficiaries, whose trust funds are paying for that trustee’s attorney, can’t see or discover those communications.)