Trust Attorney in Boca Raton, Florida

The trusts most Boca Raton clients actually use

The right instrument depends on the problem being solved. Most plans use one revocable trust; some add a targeted second structure.

• Revocable living trust — you keep full control during life, avoid probate at death, and your successor trustee can step in during incapacity.
• Testamentary trust created inside a will — a practical way to hold a minor's or young adult's share without a separate lifetime trust.
• Marital and family trusts — support a surviving spouse while preserving the remainder for children from a prior marriage.
• Special needs trust — supplements a disabled beneficiary's quality of life without disqualifying them from means-tested benefits.
• Spendthrift and staged-distribution trusts — protect an inheritance from a beneficiary's creditors, divorce or inexperience.
• Irrevocable trusts, including life insurance trusts, when asset protection or estate tax exposure justifies giving up control.

Funding: the step that determines whether it works

Funding means retitling assets so the trust actually owns them. For Florida real property that requires a properly drafted and recorded deed — prepared in this office, since real estate work is part of the practice.

Bank and brokerage accounts are retitled to the trust or given payable-on-death instructions consistent with the plan. Retirement accounts are generally left with individual beneficiary designations, coordinated with the trust rather than assigned into it, because tax treatment depends on who inherits.

Florida homestead deserves particular care. Transferring a residence into a trust must be done without jeopardizing the homestead tax exemption or creditor protection, and the trust language must permit the exemption to continue. This is precisely where do-it-yourself funding causes lasting damage.

Trust versus will: the honest comparison

A will is simpler and less expensive up front, and for a modest Florida estate with a straightforward family it can be the correct answer. Mr. Harris says so when it is.

A trust costs more to establish and requires the discipline of funding, and it earns that cost by avoiding probate delay and expense, keeping details private, handling incapacity, controlling distributions and consolidating multi-state property. Nearly every trust plan still includes a pour-over will as a backstop for anything left outside the trust.

Trusts also need maintenance. New accounts, a refinance, a property purchase or a change in your family should trigger a review so the trust still holds what it is supposed to hold.