Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have deployed digital tech to change the way we live, eat, and shop. And they’ve aggressively moved into crucial professional services industries like healthcare and finance. But the practice of law is one slice …
Is Florida’s post-divorce automatic revocation statute for life insurance policies constitutional?
Most of us would agree that most divorced spouses don’t want their ex’s to hit the jackpot after one of them’s died because someone forgot to update his or her estate planning documents. You’d be surprised how often this happens.…
2016 legislative news: Florida real estate = Florida law; elective share claims (they’re floors, not ceilings); attorney’s fees in breach of trust cases
In terms of legislation, the big news for 2016 was Florida’s adoption of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which I wrote about here. But that’s not all that happened in 2016. There was also …
2016 legislative news: A person’s ashes are not assets of his probate estate
In 2014 the 4th DCA grappled with a tragic case I wrote about here involving a dispute between two divorced parents over the disposition of their deceased son’s cremated remains. The father hoped to split his son’s ashes 50/50 with …
2016 legislative news: The Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act
A new law is making it easier for Florida personal representatives to access digital data—such as email, photos and social-media postings—after the account holder dies. It’s called the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, and it’s modeled on …
2015 legislative news: Florida overhauls its elder guardianship system
Most of the 2015 legislative changes to our Probate and Trust Codes were rolled into House Bill 343, which I reported on here. This blog post is all about this year’s overhaul of our adult guardianship system, which …
2015 Florida trust and estate legislative roundup
This was another busy year on the legislative front. Most of the changes to our Probate and Trust Codes were rolled into House Bill 343, which I report on below. In this subsequent blog post I’ll report on House …
Florida Family Trust Companies: Tax and Nontax Considerations
As reported here by the WSJ, the über wealthy are increasingly setting up their own privately-held family trust companies or “FTCs” to administer their trusts. Here’s an excerpt:
It isn’t enough to have a trust fund any more. The next …
2014 Florida trust and estate legislative roundup
Driven partly by inter-state competition for a bigger slice of the lucrative family trust business, and partly by developments in our own courts, 2014 was a busy legislative season on the trusts and estates front. Here’s my summary:
1. New …
Effective October 1, 2013, if a lawyer improperly writes himself into his client’s will, the bequest is automatically void as a matter of law under new F.S. 732.806
Effective October 1, 2013, we now have F.S. 732.806, a new statute effectively codifying existing ethics Rule 4-1.8(c) as part of our probate code, and making a violation of this ethics rule an automatic basis for voiding any part …