The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a story today about the coming battle over local radio personality Neil Rogers’s estate. According to the story, there are two competing wills filed in the probate case, and there are questions whether or not Rogers had testamentary capacity when he signed the second one. This case is just beginning,… Read More
Why I Don’t Like Codicils
I was talking to someone the other day who wanted to change their Will, which was not originally drafted by me, and asked me if I would do a a codicil for them. I told them no. While I would be happy to draft a new will from scratch, I don’t do codicils to wills… Read More
An In Depth Review of Michael Jackson’s Trust – Part 1
I don’t want people to think that I’m obsessed with Michael Jackson. I’m not. However, I am very interested in proper estate planning, and I think that others should be too. The Michael Jackson case is useful because it can show “ordinary” people what to do and what not to do with regards to their… Read More
2009 Legislative Changes to the Florida Probate Code (Part 2)
In my previous post, I discussed some of the minor changes to the Florida Probate Code enacted by the Legislature this year. In this post, I will discuss one of the major changes, and that is to the Elective Share rules. The Elective Share rules are based upon the old English common law rules of… Read More
2009 Legislative Changes to the Florida Probate Code (Part 1)
The Florida Legislature has made a number of tweaks, some major, mostly minor, to the Florida Probate Code in 2009. My summary of the minor revisions are below. The statute went into effect on July 1, 2009. First, the minor changes. In Section 731.201, the term “Incompetent” has been changed to “Incapacitated” (and the definition… Read More
Some Articles From Other Blogs
Below are some articles from other blogs that I read. All of these blogs are in my RSS Reader and I find them essential in keeping up with the world of probate, tax, and estate planning. Note that these are not all of the blogs that I read. Just some of them that had posts over… Read More
Place your out of state timeshare in your revocable trust to avoid ancillary probate
I came across an article written by Christopher Yugo in the Times of Indiana. According to the article, Mr. Yugo is a member of the Indiana Bar and a vice president and senior trust officer for First National Bank’s Trust Department. The following question and answer (reposted here in part, see the original for the… Read More
From the Pet Trust Blog: What Is An “In Terrorem” Clause In A Will? (And Why They Aren’t Valid in Florida)
I recently discovered a new (to me) blog entitled the Pet Trust Law Blog, written by attorney Danny E. Meek. As you can tell from the title, Danny’s blog is dedicated to the issues of estate planning for people with pets — especially those who want to ensure that their pets are taken care of… Read More
Be Careful of Store Bought “Fill in the Blank” Wills and Software
This post concerns what I see are the dangers of people buying fill in the blank Wills in stores, over the internet, or using consumer software. And I am going to admit right up front that I have a personal and financial bias. My job is to provide estate planning services, which may include wills,… Read More