If an individual dies intestate, it means that they passed away without having created a Will or estate plan. When someone dies without a Will or estate plan, their property passes into “intestate succession”. This means that state law determines who will get the assets of that person’s estate, as there is no Will to decide what should go to whom. In Florida, if you have children but no spouse, your children will inherit everything. If, on the other hand, you have a spouse but do not have children, your spouse will inherit everything. If you have both a spouse and children by that spouse and your spouse has no other descendants, your spouse will inherit everything. If you have a spouse and descendants from you and that spouse, but the spouse has descendants from another relationship, your spouse will inherit half of your intestate property and your children will inherit the other half. If you have a spouse and descendants from you and someone other than that spouse, the same principle applies and your spouse will inherit half of your intestate property while your descendants will inherit the other half. If you die without a spouse or descendants, your parents inherit everything. If you die with siblings but no spouse, descendants or parents, your siblings inherit everything. If you do not leave a Will or estate plan, then your estate will become property of the state only if you do not have a spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, siblings, nieces or nephews, aunts or uncles, cousins, or great aunts or uncles at the time of your death.
It can be difficult to make decisions regarding where your senior loved one should reside once they start needing extra assistance with daily activities. Senior Living Advisors are individuals who can help you and your loved one transition seamlessly into senior care and help with difficult decisions such as whether your loved one should live in an independent living facility, assisted living facility, nursing facility or receive healthcare services at home. Many senior living advisor services are free and are designed to help families decide the scope of care their senior loved one needs, as well as how and where this care should be provided. The Senior Living Advisor appointed to your loved one will be able to assess what they need in their home or at a medical facility. These advisors will research possible senior care facilities in your area and assess the different aspects of each so that they can give the most comprehensive advice possible. They can even accompany your loved one on tours of facilities that are possible candidates and will talk through any problems or concerns that they may have.
A health care surrogate is someone appointed to make healthcare decisions for you should you become incapacitated or unable to make them for yourself. When you appoint someone as your health care surrogate, be sure to inform them of this designation and make them aware of the responsibilities they may be faced with.
Any decision to give, withhold, or withdraw informed consent to any type of healthcare may become a responsibility for your health care surrogate if you become incapacitated. These include, but are not limited to:
- Medical and surgical treatments
- Life-prolonging interventions
- Organ donation
- Deciding where medical treatment will be received
- Psychiatric treatment
- Making decisions regarding end-of- life procedures
- Approving release of medical records
- Communicating with other loved ones or family members about your medical treatment
For inquiries in regard to this matter, please contact our office at: 941-906-1231 to schedule an appointment with one of our attorneys.
With technology constantly advancing, there are now smartphone applications that can be used for almost anything and caregiving is no exception. Technology can be very helpful when it comes to caring for an elderly loved one, especially if you are informed about all the elder care applications available. On that note, here’s a list of some caregiving and elder care applications on the market.
- Caring Village : Caring village is a free app designed specifically for family caregivers that allows you to easily keep track of and coordinate your loved one’s care. This app includes personalized to do lists, customizable care plans, a centralized calendar, a medication list, space for document storage, a wellness journal, secure messaging and a preparedness checklist. Each “village” created through this app focuses on a specific individual that needs care and anyone involved in this individual’s care can be invited to join their village. All the members that are approved to join someone’s village can get access to care plans, scheduling and other features of the app. Caring Village is a way to connect individuals who are involved in the care of a loved one and to keep them all informed regarding an individual’s care.
- Elder 911 and Elder 411: Elder 911 and Elder 411 are actually two different apps that were developed by the same company. Elder 911 provides information regarding what to do in an emergency situation involving an elderly person. This app includes a “crisis timeline” that you can use to navigate the different stages of a medical emergency involving an elderly loved one. It also includes tips regarding how to react to medical emergencies, interactive checklists to keep you on track and audio introductions to help prepare you for each crisis stage. Elder 411, on the other hand, provides over 500 pieces of advice organized into 11 eldercare topics to give you solutions to an array of caregiving problems. This app is fully searchable and includes written and audio tips as well as video lectures.
- eCare 21: ECare21 is a remote patient monitoring app that allows you to monitor an elderly individual through a variety of non-intrusive wireless devices. This app has the ability to monitor and track glucose levels, physical activity, heart rate, weight, calorie intake, medication adherence and sleep, among other things. This helps to reduce the risk of hospitalization and emergency care in elderly individuals. In addition to its monitoring services, eCare 21 also offers a care plan that can be managed through the app, medication reminders and even a competitive feature where you can compare your health to those of your friends who also use the app. This app can help bring peace of mind to caregivers and their patients or loved ones, while also tracking an individual’s health and wellness.
- iPharmacy Pro: iPharmacy Pro provides information regarding prescription medications. It has a pill identifier tool that you can use to accurately identify any medication that your loved one may be taking. Once the medication is identified, iPharmacy Pro will provide a detailed description of the drug, a drug picture and any images in their Drug Database. This app can also be used to search for drug side effects, and can give information regarding a drug’s potential interactions with other medications. This app may be useful to a caregiver that assists an individual who has to take a multitude of medications or often changes the types of medications they take.
Typically, adopted children have the same legal right to inherit assets from their adoptive parents as biological children do. When a child is adopted, their legal ties to their biological parents are severed. This means that they have inheritance rights with their adoptive parents, but not with their birth parents.
Adopted children have the right to be included in general references to “my children” in a Will. They may also have the right to receive property if they are accidentally or unintentionally left out of a Will. For example, if a Will had not been updates since before the adoption of a child, then that adopted child still has rights to a certain portion of the estate. An adopted child also has the right to receive property in intestate succession, meaning that, if a child’s adoptive parents die without a Will, then the child has the same right to receive a certain portion of the adoptive parents’ property as a biological child would.
Just like with a biological child, you can disinherit an adopted child from your Will, but if you choose to do so you should state this explicitly.
To learn more about this matter, contact our office at 941-906-1231 to schedule an appointment with one of our attorneys.
April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. Parkinson’s is a chronic and progressive movement disorder that affects the nervous system and causes tremors. Nearly one million people in the United States are living with Parkinson’s today. Currently, the cause of Parkinson’s is unknown, as is the cure. However, there are treatment options available, including medication and surgery, to manage its symptoms.
Symptoms of Parkinson’s include the following:
- Tremors (these usually begin in a limb, most often the hands or fingers)
- Slowed Movement (ex: steps getting shorter, dragging of one’s feet, difficulty getting up)
- Muscle Rigidity
- Impaired Posture and Balance
- Loss of Automatic Movements (decreased ability to perform movements such as smiling or blinking)
- Speech Impairment (ex: speaking softly, slurring words, lacking inflection)
- Writing Changes
Generally, Parkinson’s symptoms develop gradually, and may even go unnoticed at first. If you start to realize that yourself or a loved one is experiencing any of these symptoms, visit a physician immediately so that you can explore treatments options.
An incentive trust is a trust designed to encourage or discourage the occurrence of certain behaviors in the trust’s beneficiaries by using the distributions of the trust as an incentive. An incentive trusts holds and manages assets for the benefit of the beneficiaries of the trust, but it is different than any other type of trust in that it uses the trust’s assets to award beneficiaries for achieving desired goals. This type of trust is often used by parents or grandparents to pass on wealth to their children or grandchildren while dually encouraging them to be personally responsible and reach important milestones in their lives. This type of trust can also lay-out specific instructions regarding how the money within the trust can be distributed and can employ certain techniques that help ensure the beneficiaries of the trust will have financial independence beyond what the trust has given them. Advantages of incentive trusts include implementing age restrictions regarding when the beneficiaries can receive the assets within the trust, encouraging educational achievement, discouraging illegal or destructive behaviors and motivating positive behaviors.
If you have any further inquiries regarding this matter, please contact our office at: 941-906-1231 to schedule an appointment with one of our attorneys.
In some cases, individuals are able to complete a process referred to as Disposition of Personal Property Without Administration. You can refer to the 2017 Florida Statute (Statute 735.301) that addresses Disposition Without Administration to determine eligibility for this process. This statute states that:
1) No administration shall be required or formal proceedings instituted upon the estate of a decedent leaving only personal property exempt under the provisions of s. 732.402, personal property exempt from the claims of creditors under the Constitution of Florida, and nonexempt personal property the value of which does not exceed the sum of the amount of preferred funeral expenses and reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last 60 days of the last illness.
2) Upon informal application by affidavit, letter, or otherwise by any interested party, and if the court is satisfied that subsection (1) is applicable, the court, by letter or other writing under the seal of the court, may authorize the payment, transfer, or disposition of the personal property, tangible or intangible, belonging to the decedent to those persons entitled.
3) Any person, firm, or corporation paying, delivering, or transferring property under the authorization shall be forever discharged from liability thereon.
To obtain a Disposition of Personal Property Without Administration, completion of the following forms is required:
- Disposition without Administration Petition (3 pages, notarized)
- A certified copy of the death certificate
- Copies of medical and hospital bills for the last 60 days of illness
- Copy of paid funeral bill
- Copy or copies of documents that show the asset you are attempting to transfer to you (ex: bank statements, stock certificates, insurance policies, etc.)
- Signed and notarized consent from all heirs
- Original Last Will and Testament of the decedent (provided one exists)If you qualify for this process or would like more information, the Sarasota County Clerk’s website has directions regarding how to apply and provides the necessary forms.
A strong doctor-patient relationship is one built on honesty and communication. Being able to talk openly with your doctor is one of the best ways to ensure that your health care needs are met in the most effective manner possible. When you go to a doctor’s appointment, be sure to share any symptoms you may be experiencing, give your doctor information about your medications, talk openly about your diet as well as your lifestyle choices, and voice any other concerns that you believe are important. Additionally, if anything your doctor says does not make sense or if you need further clarification on a topic, ask them to explain it to you again. It is important to have a clear understanding of what your doctor is saying to you and to give them a clear understanding of what you are trying to communicate to them. Do not feel uncomfortable talking about any sensitive issues with your doctor, as they are trained in these matters and should do everything they can to help you alleviate any problems you are facing as the result of a medical condition.
A trust is an entity created by an individual (the settlor) to hold assets for the benefit of the trust’s beneficiaries, while a trustee is appointed to manage the trust. Decanting a trust is the act of distributing assets from an old trust to a new trust that has more amicable terms. It gets its name from the process of decanting wine from its original bottle to a new one in order to eliminate any sediment residue; decanting a trust allows you to pour the assets from one trust into another while getting rid of any terms that aren’t amenable. Decanting is a powerful tool, as it allows the trustee of an irrevocable trust (one that cannot be modified or terminated after it has been signed) to essentially re-write an irrevocable trust without having to go to court, so long as the trustee complies with the motive and consent requirements of the Florida Trust Code.
