Search Results: revocable trust

There are a lot of Florida Trust Lawsuits !  What is a fiduciary duty? A fiduciary duty is the obligation to place someone else’s interests completely above one’s own interests. Usually, the fiduciary carries out this duty by faithfully and diligently managing or handling another person’s affairs. Is the trustee of a Florida trust , or the personal representative of a Palm Beach estate, subject to a fiduciary duty in favor of the beneficiaries? Yes! To read a FREE BLOG on Trust Contests, CLICK HERE.  If you are involved in trust litigation, you may want to read Turkish v. Brody.

Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal ruled October 26, 2016, that a remainder beneficiary of a Florida trust has no right to a trust accounting, when requested post-death, for the time period of the grantor’s life, absent breach of trust allegations. This was a revocable trust which became irrevocable upon the death of the grantor/settlor.

Your rights as a trust beneficiary in Florida are many, and they are very valuable. You have a right to a complete copy of the trust agreement including any amendments. You have a right to relevant information about the trust. That means the trustee has to tell you where the money is, who the trustee is, how to contact the trustee, and what all the trust assets are and their value. The third thing that’s most important is that you are entitled to annual trust accountings telling you everything about the trust and whatever trust money was spent on. A beneficiary has all these rights but WHEN? Is a beneficiary entitled to a pre-death accounting?

For trusts which are administered according to Florida law, trust beneficiaries have a LOT, I mean, a LOT, of rights. Most trust beneficiaries realize that you are entitled to trust accountings, but that’s just the tip of the legal/beneficiary rights iceberg. Although our trust litigation law firm in Florida has a robust defense practice of assisting trustees with the administration of trusts, we also are hired by a number of beneficiaries who need help getting information from their trustee. Many times, a trustee simply won’t tell the beneficiary where the money is, how the trust property is being handled, or what the money is being spent on. The Florida trust beneficiary is in the dark. And when trustees act like that, they can get into a lot of trouble.

What is life insurance? Should I create an irrevocable life insurance trust in Florida? How can a life insurance trust help my West Palm Beach estate avoid estate tax when I die? In Palm Beach and Broward Counties, do life insurance payouts to beneficiaries get taxed as income? Why would Bill and Hillary Clinton include life insurance trusts in their estate planning?

So, you have heard me talk many times about my American Bar Association article on the overlap between divorce lawyers and trust or probate litigators.  I wrote “When Worlds Collide” because our probate litigation law firm in West Palm Beach was getting called into big cases by Florida’s top family law lawyers when a trust was involved.  I’m proud to say that we still work on a number of family law or divorce issues with Palm Beach’s top divorce attorneys, including trials and hearings on trusts this very year.  So, if you are in the middle of a divorce, and your soon to be former husband or wife has one or more trusts, ask your divorce lawyer if you can get money from the trust.  And read the two Casselberry cases from Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal.

What happens if two people interpret a Florida trust differently? What if the language in a marital agreement or Florida willis unclear? How do the Florida probate courts determine what the true meaning of a provision should be? A May 4,2016 Fourth DCA case , Feliciano v. Feliciano, explains how the courts interpret documents.

West Palm Beach, Florida trust lawyer John Pankauski has been cited in a book on trusts published by the Florida Bar.  Pankauski runs the Pankauski Law Firm PLLC,  a Palm Beach County litigation law firm which limits its practice to trials & appeals on wills, trusts, estates, guardianships (what Florida estate attorneys refer to as “probate litigation“) and related business litigation. 

West Palm Beach, Florida probate lawyer, John Pankauski, is honored to be cited in one of the country’s top legal writing on trusts. The Restatement (Third) of Trusts is a legal treatise or authority and commentary on trust law, which is used by appellate courts, academics and Florida trust lawyers. Being referred to in the Restatement of Trusts is an honor and a recognition of the accomplishment of this Florida trust litigation lawyer.

Everyone knows that Prince died unexpectedly and without a will. Therefore, intestacy laws will govern who inherits his estate. But why is a trust company being appointed by a probate judge in Minnesota to oversee his estate? When should you hire a Florida probate lawyer or trust company to handle your Florida trust or estate?