First, I believe you've made an excellent choice in selecting a trust package for yourself and your loved ones and I congratulate you on your decision.
In general, trust planning is far superior to relying upon a basic last will because, if used correctly, it does a few key things in the event of death or disability, the most notable of which are:
1. It changes how your estate will be managed, away from a court supervised process, and toward a private, and yes confidential, process based upon a contract which is your trust.
2. It limits hurdles that your appointees inevitably have to jump through if there is no trust, such as hassling with financial companies to get powers of attorney accepted or pursuing expensive and time consuming guardianship or probate proceedings.
3. It offers much more flexibility if changes to assets need to be made due to numerous factors.
For example, the following benefits of a Florida living trust are well recognized:
1. The ability to avoid Florida probate of assets by titling all of the estate assets in the living trust; and
2. Flexibility for disability and pre-Medicaid planning given the amount of the discretion that your successor trustee; and
3. Options for special needs planning for the trust beneficiaries (i.e. this can be ideal for parents of adult children who are on need based (SSI) disability assistance and would otherwise be disqualified.
4. Options for providing protection for children of previous marriages in blended families.
Also, remember when I mentioned the following:
Second, there are circumstances that the Virtual Florida Estate Planning 5 Step Program may need to customized after some conversations such as:
1, multiple marriages with blended families
2. families with special needs situations
3. aging adult medical care concerns
4. high net worth "taxable" estates
5. non "U.S. Citizen" planning
Third, this is typically a FLORIDA ESTATE PLANNING PACKAGE and may not be ideal IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER STATE OF RESIDENCY, with the possible exception of avoiding probate for Florida investment property or a second home. If that is the case, contact our office prior to signing up at
info@gibbslawfl.com.
While I do hope to offer packages for other states in the future in partnership with other licensed attorneys, I am specifically licensed to provide attorney prepared documents in Florida and California.
If any of the above concerns are present in your situation, we are available to help you move forward with confidence in selecting the trust package that makes the most sense to you.
Even if you were to select a package isn't quite a fit, rest assured that after you complete work on the Factfinding Step of your 5 Step Process, we'll have our video conference during the Collaboration Step, during which we will discuss your estate concerns in detail and may make final recommendations accordingly. If this requires an upgrade or additional services, we may recommend altering your package accordingly.
So our shared goal is to prepare an amazing Florida estate plan that is the right one and there is absolutely no risk to getting started.
If you do have questions of any nature prior to moving forward you can e-mail our legal team directly at info@gibbslawfl.com.