Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorneys in Sarasota
Sarasota Attorney Focused On Wills, Trusts, Probate & Elder Law
At the Wills, Trusts, Probate and Elder Law Firm, PLLC, we are dedicated to doing everything legally possible to help our clients protect their assets and provide for their heirs in the exact way they choose. Our estate planning attorneys in Sarasota, Florida prepare the appropriate documents depending on individual needs. If you become our client, we help you include provisions so that your heirs avoid or minimize taxes and work with you for ways to transfer some of your assets outside of probate.
We handle almost all aspects of Retirement and Estate Planning in Sarasota. Our lawyers also assist you with planning for Medicaid qualification so that you can obtain payment for assisted living or long-term nursing care without depleting your assets. We create all types of trusts depending on the nature of your property and your plans for it. We draft documents that provide for end-of-life care to be exactly according to your wishes. Florida law is complex and there are specific rules and regulations we carefully follow to be sure your estate planning documents are all in legal compliance.
Gregory A. Kaiser, our founder and managing partner, has more than two decades of experience working to provide excellent service to his Sarasota clients. As a seasoned attorney, he not only limits his practice to wills, trusts, estate planning, and elder care law, he teaches others. He has conducted more than 300 seminars on estate planning topics and is committed to fulfilling the special needs of his senior clients. Call us for a 30-minute free consultation. We will review your assets and discuss with you how we can help meet your specific needs.
What Our Clients Are Saying
Gregory A. Kaiser Answers Common Questions
Also known by other names, such as a “Living Trust,” this is a document you create that determines how your assets are managed during your lifetime and provides a way for transferring them to your heirs after your death in a way that avoids them having to pay federal taxes.
A Power of Attorney is a document where you give someone you trust the authority to act on your behalf when you cannot act for yourself. It is up to you to determine how much authority you want to give someone and for how long you want them to be able to act for you. We help you determine the type of power attorney that you need and draft it for you.
A Health Care Surrogate is a document where you name someone you trust to make health care decisions on your behalf when you are unable to make them yourself.
A living will gives you the opportunity to articulate exactly what end-of-life care you want to have provided. You can specifically outline whether or not you want life-prolonging measures to be taken when there is not a medical probability that you will survive.
In Florida, the probate court oversees the distribution of a decedent’s assets and payment of his or her debts. If there is a will, the court makes certain the personal representative distributes assets according to the wishes of the decedent. If there is no will, the court will pass the assets to heirs according to Florida statutes. Our firm works with executors to identify probate assets and provide efficient probate administration in order to ensure compliance with requirements of the Florida Probate Code.
There are many types of trusts. The one most people are familiar with is the Revocable Trust also known as a “Living Trust”; Revocable Living Trust”; or, an “Inter-Vivos Trust”. These trusts are governed by Chapter 736 of the Florida Statutes, also called the “Florida Trust Code”. Upon the death of the Trust Maker, Trustees have duties to perform including filing a Notice of Trust with the court in the county where the decedent died and decedent’s trust assets may be used to pay creditors, federal estate taxes and the costs of probate administration. At our Wills, Trusts, Probate and Elder Law Firm, PLLC in Sarasota, Florida, we provide Trust Administration services to assist personal representatives in their duties to inform creditors of trust assets and for the proper distribution of trust assets.
