Sometimes known as an “enhanced life estate deed” but colloqiually these are known as lady bird deeds. What are these and how can they help you avoid Florida Probate? Is there really that much of a benefit to avoiding probate, isnt it just a necessary evil of getting an inheritance? Not quite and a proper estate plan can really make the entire probate process a lot easier, find out more to decide if these estate planning documents may be of use to you as well
- A Lady Bird deed is a nickname for an enhanced life estate deed. The name is after Lady Bird Johnson (Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife, former first lady of the USA, pictured above). Allegedly the president used this type of deed to convey property to his wife at some point.
- An enhanced life estate deed is a variation of a quit claim deed that enables an individual to retain their homestead exemption (both creditor and tax), have the home be exempt from Medicaid claims during their lifetime while at the same time enabling named persons to inherit the property on that persons death.
- This instrument is specially designed and not available in many states, Florida being one of the select few!
- In practice this works like a general life estate deed, and there should be no or little capital gains tax if the property is sold shortly after your death. Assuming valuations don’t change.
- It goes beyond a life estate deed, because not only does the life tenant get to live there for their entire life, that former owner also reserves more than just alife estate – they actually have reserved the rights to sell, commit waste, and almost everything else except to transfer the property on death.
- The property will go to the remainderman upon death of the party who gets a lady bird deed.
- To learn more about lady bird deeds, then talk to an experienced Palm Beach Probate attorney that can help you plan your estate, protect your assets and minimize probate hassles.
- This may be very important when it comes to Florida Homestead. So when planning your Palm Beach estate, consider who “gets” the Boca Raton mansion or the Jupiter, Florida house on the water. Who inherits your house?