Living will or advance healthcare directive

A living will or advance healthcare directive can help the estate planner plan for incapacity by including which types of medical care and treatment they want to receive and the types of medical care and treatment they do not want to receive. A living will or advance healthcare directive can provide guidance related to resuscitation and life-saving care for the estate planner.

Power of attorney for healthcare

A power of attorney for healthcare can designate a trusted individual to direct the estate planner’s medical care and treatment if they are unable to do so for themselves. This can include directing healthcare that is not addressed in the estate planner’s living will or advance healthcare directive.

Power of attorney for financial affairs

A power of attorney for financial affairs can designate a trusted individual to direct the estate planner’s financial affairs for them if they are unable to do so for themselves.

Estate planning includes many important elements such as the estate planner’s wishes for the distribution of their property and assets but it also includes planning for incapacity. The importance of planning for incapacity should not be ignored and for that reason, estate planners should be familiar with the estate planning tools and resources that can help them do that.

An executor of a will is a person who manages the affairs of a deceased person’s estate. They collect and oversee the distribution of assets during probate, file estate tax returns when necessary and close the estate. But estates can be complex, and the probate process can last for months or even years in extreme cases.

Before you take on the executor’s role, it’s essential to understand the issues that can arise on the job. Here are three surprising challenges of estate planning you should consider before agreeing to be an executor of a will:

1. It eats up a lot of time

As mentioned above, acting as an executor can be time-consuming – especially if the estate is large and complicated. Even if everything goes smoothly, there is still a great deal of time contacting various government agencies, securing all assets and distributing them.

Fortunately, you don’t always have to take on executor duties alone. You may consider enlisting the help of an attorney or CPA to help you navigate the process more efficiently.

2. It could lead to conflicts with heirs

An executor is essentially a messenger for the deceased. Your role is only to secure assets and divide them according to the wishes of the will, but unfortunately, heirs don’t always make this process easy. Death can bring out the worst in families, especially when items of high monetary or sentimental value are involved.

To avoid conflict, try to quickly secure all property and assets and inform the heirs of the deceased that it is the law. Try to be as transparent as possible about the will-writer’s wishes and let heirs know what they can expect.

3. There may be out-of-pocket expenses

While the executor is usually permitted a commission for performing their duties, the amount of the commission is typically determined by the size of the estate. In many cases, you may be asked to waive any commission for your work, especially with smaller estates.

Consider paying any costs associated with the estate from an estate checking account and keep track of any out-of-pocket expenses you make as an executor. The estate may be able to reimburse some of these costs.

Acting as executor is an important job, but it isn’t without challenges. Before you agree to the responsibility, be sure you understand what your duties will entail.

If the deceased person put a detailed estate plan in place, that helps a lot. Whether they did or not, it’s a good idea to seek professional guidance. Their estate planning attorney can help you. You may want to bring in financial, tax and real estate pros as well.

There are things you’ll need to do right away, like notify the post office, financial institutions and any places they were receiving benefits from, like Social Security and Medicare. You need to be aware of any bills that have to be paid while the estate is being settled, and you’ll have to submit a final tax return.

You’ll need to secure their home and belongings until they can be disbursed among heirs and beneficiaries as they directed. If they wanted their home to be sold and the proceeds to go to the estate for distribution, that will be one of your biggest jobs. Again, though, you should seek legal as well as real estate advice.

If the deceased person wanted their belongings left to family, friends and/or charitable organizations, you’ll want to clear those out and make sure that they’re safeguarded until they can be given to the appropriate beneficiaries. Sometimes, people will ask that their furniture and other household items be sold at an estate auction and the proceeds put back in the estate.

When it’s time to get the home ready for sale, your realtor can help you determine whether it’s best to fix it up or to sell it as-is. Sometimes a few thousand dollars spent on renovations and updates can yield significantly more money when you put it on the market.

If your loved one or friend didn’t leave much direction or have a current estate planning attorney, it’s advisable to find an attorney in the area who can advise you as you undertake this job. Too many executors make innocent mistakes that land them in trouble with the law. You can avoid that by getting good legal guidance.

It’s likely to take more time to probate a Florida case the more heirs there are to the estate. The reason that this is the case is because each heir has to be notified to sign certain documents. It can delay the probate process if they live far apart.

If a decedent owned property or other assets in more than one state, then this may delay how long the probate process takes as the executor may have to open up a case in each jurisdiction.

Any instance in which the Miami executor has to file an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 706, or a federal estate tax return, may result in additional delays. If the personal representative has to file a state-level estate tax return or pay an inheritance tax, then this can also cause more delays.

Estates that are composed of unusual assets such as patents, mineral rights or rare collections may have to be subjected to further scrutiny before any assets can be disbursed from them. If assets belonging to the estate aren’t easily liquidated, then the executor may have to delay distributing property until once they’re sold or the heirs might have to take ownership of them as they are.

If heirs contest a will or the executor of the estate mishandles things, then these factors can also cause delays. A case may be indefinitely left open until all of a testator’s debts are paid and all legal battles are resolved.

The probate process begins the moment in which an executor locates and files a decedent’s will with the probate court. The administration of their estate is often a long, complicated process. It’s common for heirs to have many questions during this process. An experienced attorney here in Miami can provide the answers to help you better understand what is happening so that it proceeds more swiftly.

Along with the advance directive, you should designate someone to act as your health care representative. Here in Florida, that person is called a health care surrogate. They will have the right to get information about your condition and to talk with your doctors. You can also give them the right to make decisions, like whether to move you to a care facility or home.

You may give your surrogate the authority to make treatment decisions on your behalf. However, it’s typically best if you provide information in your advance directive that will let them know what you would prefer — particularly if you’re never going to recover enough to be the same person you once were.

So what kind of things should you address in your health care directive? Typically, these documents would include provisions about what kind of machines you want used to keep you alive and under what circumstances. For example, if you were in a coma with no chance of regaining any cognitive ability, would you want your life to be prolonged by machines?

These are not pleasant things to think about, but doing gives you the opportunity to ponder what “quality of life” really means. That’s different for everyone. Some people wouldn’t want to regain consciousness if it meant they would be completely paralyzed, for example, while others would.

By having an advance directive and designating a health care surrogate (and perhaps an alternate) to oversee your care, you help ensure that your wishes are known and carried out and help prevent family battles over the “right” thing to do.

An experienced estate planning attorney can guide you through the drafting of the necessary documents and help ensure that they reflect your wishes.

Individuals die without having ever drafted a will here in Miami every day. The assets left in their estate end up getting passed on to their loved ones per Florida intestate succession laws.

If an individual has both a spouse and direct descendants at the time of their death, then their assets will generally end up getting passed on just to their husband or wife when they die. This is generally what happens when a decedent in Florida dies without a will in place.

Only 50% of the assets that are left in a married decedent’s estate will generally be allowed to go to their surviving spouse. The remaining 50% of the assets will generally go to the decedent’s other nonspouse descendants.

Individuals who don’t have any surviving spouse when they pass away may end up with 100% of their estate going to their descendants with the closest relatives getting first dibs.

Any decedent who doesn’t have any descendants will generally have their estate’s assets go to their parents. Each one generally inherits equal shares of the estate. If the decedent only had one surviving parent at the time of their death, then that mom or dad can inherit 100% of the estate.

If a decedent has neither a will nor any surviving parents or descendants at the time of their death, then 100% of their estate will go to their siblings or their kids.

Individuals who die without any children, parents, siblings or nieces and nephews here in Florida may have 50% of their estate go to both their paternal and maternal families.

As you can see, dying without a will or details about your final wishes leaves behind a complicated scenario that only the legal system can hash out. An attorney can help you draft a will to keep this from happening. Your lawyer can also aid you in sorting out things if you’re an executor for someone who died without a will.

When someone dies, a case goes into probate. The probate process varies by state and can sometimes take months or even years. During that time, the beneficiary of the Florida estate may die in the process.

The beneficiary who died might not have had a will, thus, the rules of intestate succession apply. Their inheritance may be divided up among that beneficiary’s heirs according to state law. In some cases, however, a will may have a survivorship period in which the beneficiary needed to have survived for a certain period beyond the original decedent’s death for their benefits to pass on to their heirs.

If there are other heirs to the original decedent’s estate, then they may be entitled to a greater share of the estate based on how much was originally left to the beneficiary who died during the survivorship period.

When the beneficiary dies before the original decedent or passes away during the survivorship period, then their portion of the estate stays with the estate and is divided amongst the other surviving heirs according to the terms of the decedent’s last will and testament.

It doesn’t matter if you currently find yourself in the process of writing your will and you’re trying to cover all your bases or you’re serving an executor of an estate where a beneficiary has died during the probate administration process. It may be helpful for you to explore the added level of complexity that a beneficiary’s death can add to an already-complex process here in Florida with an attorney.

Two siblings, the executors, made a list of 742 items. This included their mother’s car, a piano, games, cutlery, rugs and more. The list was sent to the other siblings, who all circled the items they wanted. Any unwanted items were set aside to be sold. The siblings then received a list of items they wanted that another sibling did as well. They were all given 500 imaginary poker chips to bargain with, and they were allowed to discuss with one another what they really wanted. In some cases, siblings bid for similar items but only wanted one.

Once the bids were in and everyone got their items, the executors then added up the monetary value to make sure everything was fair. The piano, car and rugs were the most valuable, so those recipients paid money to the others. All felt the process was fair and brought them closer together.

The process of estate administration can be a complex one, and settling an estate does not always proceed with as little conflict as this one did. If a will does not specify how some assets should be distributed, family members may disagree on how to divide them. An attorney may be able to help an individual with probate and estate settlement. In addition to locating assets and distributing them to beneficiaries, an executor must file taxes, notify creditors and complete a number of documents.

Other strategies can also help protect assets from being seized or from estate tax. While the current estate tax exemption is about $11 million, that is due to sunset in 2026. It could drop much lower, so even people who currently think they do not have to worry about estate tax may need to revise their plan in the future. A spousal lifetime access trust removes the assets in it from the taxable estate but still leaves control with the couple. For greater protection, an asset protection trust places control with an outside trustee.

Families might also want to consider a dynasty trust. This can offer protection from gift and estate taxes for generations, and free of these taxes, the wealth in them can grow significantly. Failing to plan appropriately can be costly. Poor estate planning choices on the part of actor James Gandolfini cost his family $44 million of his $70 million estate, and this could have been avoided.

A successor trustee or executor of a will may want to seek legal assistance after a person’s death. An attorney may be able to assist in estate administration and probate. This could include notifying the necessary entities, finding and securing assets, filing tax returns and closing the estate. An attorney may also be useful if any element of the estate plan is challenged by a family member.

People who want to ensure their children receive their inheritance should communicate openly with their spouse and their kids about the fact that they have a will or trust and where the documents can be located. Without clear communication, people may have no idea where to find these important documents and begin the process of putting a loved one’s final wishes into practice. Because wills can be changed by the creator at any time, some people may leave behind multiple documents that lead to a will contest in court.

Other types of property often transfer outside of a will, such as jointly held real estate, bank accounts or life insurance and retirement funds, which typically go to a named beneficiary. People who want to ensure their children are protected may want to think about how their beneficiaries are named with these companies or carve out a specific percentage to go to their grown children.

A lack of knowledge about estate planning can even lead to serious conflict after a death, especially if a relative believes that another family member is trying to hoard or steal the assets of the deceased. An estate planning attorney may help people to execute key documents and develop a plan to help protect their loved ones in the future.