Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Trust after death question

Probating a Will is not difficult in Florida. Why are you concerned about it?

The guardian has nothing to do with setting up the trusts under your Will. Your personal representative will distribute assets to the trustees who will open accounts for the trusts.

I have heard that it can be costly to probate and the funds aren't accessible during that time, which can take up to 18 months. Wondering if we should create the trust now to avoid that or if that is not a real concern.

On average it takes about 3 weeks in Florida from the time we file the papers.

Probating a Will is not difficult in Florida. Why are you concerned about it?

The guardian has nothing to do with setting up the trusts under your Will. Your personal representative will distribute assets to the trustees who will open accounts for the trusts.

I have heard that it can be costly to probate and the funds aren't accessible during that time, which can take up to 18 months. Wondering if we should create the trust now to avoid that or if that is not a real concern.

I’m sure there’s blood sucking probate attorneys out there to avoid like the plague and avoiding them can feel like walking a minefield, but there’s also fair and reasonable attorneys who do probate work at an hourly fee. It’s really the fault of the public who constantly want a flat fee for something which could be super quick or take years.

While we handle estates in Florida on a time basis, there's a statutory schedule of presumed reasonable attorneys' fees for estates in Florida that's equal to the statutory schedule of personal representative's commissions (fees). There's also a statutory schedule of presumed reasonable attorneys' fees for revocable trusts in Florida, which is 75% of that for estates. It will usually be much lower on a time basis. I agree that one should avoid lawyers who charge the statutory schedule.

Probating the Will is usually a small part of the work in administering an estate in Florida, notwithstanding the legislature thinking it's 25% of the work.

Statistics: Posted by bsteiner — Mon Feb 26, 2024 4:22 pm — Replies 10 — Views 627

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