Category Archives: Estate Planning
How Blended Families Should Approach Estate Planning in Florida
Blending two families through marriage brings new traditions, new relationships, and new questions about how your assets should pass when you are gone. If you have children from a previous relationship, a new spouse, or stepchildren you consider your own, your estate plan needs more than a standard will. Without careful planning, Florida law… Read More »
How the Florida Do Not Resuscitate Order Differs from an Advance Directive
If you have started planning for your future medical care, you have probably come across two terms that get confused often: the Do Not Resuscitate order and the advance directive. Are they the same thing? Not quite, and the difference matters a great deal if you ever end up in a medical emergency. Understanding… Read More »
Lady Bird Deeds: A Rare but Beautiful Floridian Species
Did you know that you can designate your house as a non-probate asset without all the legal maneuverings of setting up a trust and transferring possession of your house to it? You can keep your house out of probate by executing a life estate deed. It is not quite as simple as designating a… Read More »
What Should a Young Woman’s Will Look Like?
A growing number of voices in the media are encouraging women not to fear aging. During the pandemic lockdown, celebrities posted images of themselves on social media, letting their hair grow in gray instead of gloating that they could afford to have their masked hair dressers come to their houses to touch up the… Read More »
Long-Term Care Insurance Just Got More Affordable
Many factors that affect your financial situation in retirement took root early in your life and are outside your control. For example, it is outside your control that, in your adult life, house prices have consistently been higher than they were a generation ago, and employers have been less generous with benefits like retirement… Read More »
What If Social Security Is Your Only Retirement Income?
For as long as you have been old enough to read the news, there have been news reports about how Social Security will be gone by the time you retire. If you read enough of these, you can make yourself feel relieved that there are any Social Security payments at all. You are fooling… Read More »
The Plight of the Open-Faced Sandwich Generation
If you believe the hype, being a grandparent is a stress-free gig. You get to spoil your grandchildren, and if their parents disagree with each other about matters related to parenting, you as a grandparent get to cast the deciding vote. The reality is usually less glamorous. If the child’s parents and grandparents are… Read More »
Can You Declutter Your Way to One of Life’s Most Challenging Estate Planning Decisions?
There is a reason that, when you first meet with an estate planning lawyer, the conversation focuses on the fun stuff. Do you want to spend the entire year in Florida, or would you prefer to be in Florida only in the winter, while spending the summer in more temperate climes? Do you want… Read More »
Estate Planning for People Who Are Too Scared to Tell Their Spouses the Whole Truth About Their Finances
If you have been married to your spouse for decades, you might think that the two of you know everything about each other. The middle-aged awkwardness, where your kids have grown up and you realize that you no longer know your spouse or yourself, is long in the past; by the time you retire,… Read More »
The Rich Can Get Richer at Age 73
Retirement sounds exhilarating when you think about how much control you will have over your time. You can get up early and watch the early birds at your bird feeder if you are so inclined, or you can sleep late without an alarm clock waking you up, if you have been blessed to have… Read More »
