How to avoid probate on your Florida vacation home or rental property
Atty. Tom Olsen: Chris, here's a text and the text says, "I'm thinking about adding my son's name to the deed to my home. Is that a good idea?" Well, we'll answer that for you, okay? The answer is no, it's not a good idea. Once you do that is written in stone. You have lost control over your piece of property. Number two, if you pass away, it may or may not avoid probate and you may lose your home set exemption on it as well.
There's some very good reasons not to do it, especially since we have a really, a great tool for avoiding probate on our home. I'm assuming that's what the texter was asking about is how to avoid probate on my home for that. We have a great tool here in the state of Florida called A Lady Bird Deed. It's a deed that we would prepare. It states that as long as mom is alive, it is her home to do with as she pleases, but upon mom's death, the home will automatically go to her child or children, no headaches, no hassles, no probate. It's called a Lady Bird Deed. We have a free booker on that as well, how to avoid probate on your home. It talks about the Lady Bird Deed. Chrissy, we've been doing a Lady Bird Deed for years.
Atty. Chris Merrill: A long time.
Atty. Tom Olsen: Sometimes I go back in the history of recorded deeds and I look how many years I've been doing Lady Bird Deeds.
Atty. Chris Merrill: A long time.
Atty. Tom Olsen: What's really surprising about it is how many people now have learned that term and they come to us and say, "Tom, we need to do a Lady Bird Deed."
Atty. Chris Merrill: I know.
Atty. Tom Olsen: Back in the day, nobody knew about it. These days, more and more people know about the Lady Bird Deed as a tool to avoid probate on real estate.
Atty. Chris Merrill: For us, that's very exciting, because it means that more and more people are being educated. Of course, we know we are educating, which is why we are, first and foremost, trying to educate people through the radio show just like this. It is wonderful, because we want others to be educating. We want people to be aware. That's why, Tom, you're right. It is great to me when all of us now have clients coming in and they're asking us about it versus us telling them.
Atty. Tom Olsen: Exactly. Just so the listeners fully understand. This Lady Bird Deed is a tool to avoid probate on real estate and maintain complete control over your piece of property.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Exactly.
Atty. Tom Olsen: If we do one for you today, it's six months from now, you can change your mind as to who gets it or sell it or refinance it without the knowledge signature, or consent of the kids. Just so you know, we can use this for your home. We can use this for your beach condo, we can use this for your rental property, we can use this on a vacant lot, a commercial property, and we can use a Lady Bird Deed even if there's a mortgage on your home.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Correct.
Atty. Tom Olsen: It's available to any piece of property here in the state of Florida, and we can just love to assist it. Now, there's Chrissy, there's some listeners out there that say, Tom, "We're snowbirds. We live in another state up in the Northeast, but we have a condo down here in Florida. Should I be using a Lady Bird Deed?" The answer is, yes.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Absolutely.
Atty. Tom Olsen: We can't help you with avoiding probate in your home state up north.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Correct.
Atty. Tom Olsen: We can help you to avoid probate on your condo down here in Florida.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Absolutely. Let's take it a step further. We have many snowbirds from all other states. We also have many people that own homes here from other countries. From Canada and all around the world. What does that mean? It means that, what you just said, Tom, no, you need to take care of certain, obviously, the legal documents and appropriate things in your state or your country. However, any real estate here in Florida.
If you own that condo here in Florida, or you own a home here in Florida, and you are from another state, or you're from another country, we can help you here. We are able to again, do the Lady Bird Deed. That is independent of, or in a good way, it's a compliment to any documents that you are doing in your other state or your other country.
Atty. Tom Olsen: Here at the Olsen Law Group, we're all about helping people to avoid probate here in the state of Florida. We can help clients throughout the state of Florida and when people say, "Hey, Tom, I own a home in Orlando, Florida, and I own a home up in North Carolina." Well, by the way, people want to avoid probate, because it's expensive and it takes a long time. If you own a property in two states, say Florida and North Carolina, if you were to pass away, guess what? You're going to have to do probate in both states.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Exactly.
Atty. Tom Olsen: You want to make sure that you wanna avoid probate in both states. As far as the Florida's real estate is concerned, we would be using a Lady Bird Deed as far as avoiding probate in North Carolina, you'd have to talk to a North Carolina attorney about what tool they would use to avoid probate.
Atty. Chris Merrill: Correct. Also on that note, Tom, it really has well, has been really wonderful for us too, that when we started doing Lady Bird Deeds, there were only a few states in the country now, way more than half of the states in the country offer the Lady Bird Deed or that type of concept. Once again, as we were talking about more and more radio show listeners and others being educated, it is not just here in Florida. It's actually all around the country. Again, we're happy about that. The more people that are more educated, more informed, and in using the tool, the better.
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