Family First Firm
Wills & Trusts - Understanding The Tools To Protect Your Estate
Caring for someone with special needs requires more than love; it requires thoughtful planning to secure their benefits, stability, and quality of life.
Wills & Trusts
When it comes to estate planning, wills and trusts are among the top tools. Both are useful, depending on your goals and preferences, and can be used together to ensure assets are protected and distributed as intended.
You may think a will is all that’s necessary to protect your estate, but in reality, a will is a ticket to probate court. Though wills are simpler to create than a trust, they provide fewer benefits and require probate in Florida. It’s best to consult a will and trust attorney in order to ensure your wishes are planned correctly.
Every state has its own set of requirements to ensure a will or trust is valid and will be legally recognized. At Family First Firm, we work to ensure your estate can be settled quickly and without conflict, reducing stress on your loved ones during an already difficult time.Together, we can create a plan that protects your loved one’s future and gives you lasting peace of mind.
Protect Your Family From Probate
The primary purpose of estate planning is to ensure those closest to you will receive their intended share of your assets. If no documents are in place, or such documents are invalid, your last wishes might not be followed. Every family’s situation is different, which is why we design individualized strategies to protect your assets now and in the years ahead. To avoid mistakes in planning for your asset distribution, schedule a consultation with the team.
Our wills and trusts attorneys can discuss the following with you:
- Advance Directives
- Probate
- Asset Protection
- Estate Administration
Will vs. Trust
Many people mistakenly conflate wills and trusts as serving the same purpose in estate planning, but the best estate plans combine the power of both tools.
A last will and testament allows you to dictate how you want your assets to be distributed, including collectibles, cash, or even property. The details of a will become public information during the probate process, and essentially become a set of instructions to the probate judge overseeing the estate.
A trust, on the other hand, avoids the probate process altogether. Though more involved to set up, most trusts offer more protection to assets than a simple will. Transferring assets into the trust, known as funding the trust, is a required step to streamline those assets to a trustee or beneficiary. At Family First Firm, we include this crucial step by funding your trust for you.
What Happens If A Last Will Is Deemed Invalid?
A last will may be declared invalid for several reasons. If this happens, the distribution of the estate will be done according to intestacy laws.
In Florida, the estate of a person who dies with no valid will goes to probate, which can be a long and expensive process. Depending on the existence of a surviving spouse, surviving children, and whether each of those children is shared by both the decedent and the surviving spouse, the estate may be divided in a way that leaves surviving children out of any inheritance until the death of the surviving spouse.
Schedule a consultation to speak with an experienced lawyer for wills at Family First Firm in order to prepare valid documents that can avoid bitterness and disappointment among the people you love.
Family First Firm
- Individually-Oriented Solutions: We tailor every plan to your family’s needs, integrating Medicaid, guardianship, trusts, and estate planning.
- Support at Every Step: From applications to court filings to trust administration, we walk alongside you, handling the heavy lifting so you don’t have to.
- Recognized & Trusted: Family First Firm was recognized as one of the fastest-growing law firms in the U.S. by Law Firm 500 and one of Inc 5000’s fastest growing companies. We are also Florida’s highest-rated elder law firm.
- Accessible & Compassionate: We make planning simple and approachable. Free consultations are available, and our attorneys can meet in person or virtually.
Different Kinds Of Trusts
Florida recognizes revocable and irrevocable trusts. In general, an asset placed into an irrevocable trust cannot be easily changed but cannot be accessed by creditors. In contrast, a revocable trust allows for adjustments to assets and other changes to the trust.
There are also a variety of types of trusts with different specific purposes, such as special needs trusts, charitable trusts, and insurance trusts. To learn more, schedule a consultation with a trust attorney at the Family First Firm.
What Is A Living Will?
A living will, sometimes called an advance healthcare directive, is a document that contains a set of instructions that must be followed in case the creator of the living will becomes incapacitated and cannot make medical decisions or choose treatments.
Unlike a last will, it is not primarily concerned with a person’s assets – it is only concerned with their healthcare preferences. A living will is an important document to have prepared if you prefer not to receive life-sustaining treatments under specific circumstances. If this applies to you, contact Family First Firm to discuss your preferences for a living will.
Family First Firm
Will & Trust FAQs
If there’s no will, the process will start with probate, and intestacy laws will decide how assets will be distributed. The Florida intestacy statutes won’t let you make charitable gifts or unequal distributions to children or nonrelatives. It’s important to have a last will and testament so that your wishes can be accomplished.
Funds from your trust are meant to add to and not replace disability benefits. As a result, you can’t use your trust to fund living essentials that government benefits provide for, such as food, housing, clothing, or medical care. Doing so can reduce or eliminate your benefits. You can use it for things like education, therapy, or vacation expenses.
Yes. We draft pour-over wills that put anything that isn’t in your trust into the trust. As you go through life, you may forget to title assets, or well-meaning bank clerks can undo work towards funding your trust. For this reason, a pour-over will is a catch-all to ensure that any assets that aren’t in the trust get put into it.
We recommend reviewing your documents at least once every three years to ensure your plans are still accurate. We believe it so strongly that we have free three-year checkups with our clients. It may also be time to review your documents if you’ve been divorced, remarried, had children, grandchildren, or have received an inheritance.
A Will is the number one, bare-bones legal document everyone needs, regardless of age and estate size. A Trust works to keep the assets described in the Will out of probate court.
Our elder law and estate planning attorneys can help you or your parents establish the following:
- A Revocable Living Trust to avoid probate
- An Irrevocable Trust to protect assets against tax liability or ex-spouse claims
- A Special Needs Trust to provide for vulnerable family members while preserving their eligibility for government benefits
Most people are familiar with a Will; it is a document that outlines instructions about how an estate should be distributed after someone passes. A Will can also contain instructions for guardianship and other estate planning tools, depending on your situation.
On the other hand, a Living Will contains directives to be carried out while one is still alive but incapacitated or terminally ill. This information includes what, if any, medical treatment should be administered when a person can no longer make those decisions on their own.
These instructions can have life-or-death implications. For example, a Living Will might contain instructions to avoid resuscitation after a catastrophic injury under specified conditions. It’s crucial that both documents are created and reviewed with an experienced elder law attorney.
In general, anyone can serve as a Will executor in Florida if they:
- Are 18 or older
- Are physically and mentally capable of undertaking an executor’s duties
- Don’t have any prior felony convictions
A bank or another financial institution can also act as a Will executor, provided it is authorized to act as a fiduciary in Florida. Non-residents may serve as executors if they’re related to the decedent by marriage, blood, or adoption. An estate administration attorney can ensure that your chosen representative may serve as your will executor in Florida.