Quick Summary:   Many Florida residents assume listing a "Transfer on Death" (TOD) or "Payable on Death" (POD) beneficiary protects their accounts from probate. However, if your financial institution merges or transfers your account to a new company, the original beneficiary paperwork can get lost. Without written confirmation from the new institution, your heirs may be forced into probate even if your monthly statements list them as beneficiaries. We are noticing an alarming

A caller recently asked us this exact question: “My brother is sick. Mom just gave each of us kids $113,000. He’s not married but has a girlfriend he’s been with for over 12 years. She has no money. If he passes, does she get the money in his bank account?” Here is the exact answer based only on what we explained in that call: While Your Brother Is Still Alive If the bank account is in his name only , the girlfriend has no access  at all. She can only get money if he personal

One of the questions we're asked almost every week by new clients is: “Do I really need a living trust, or is it fine to just put my kids (or whoever) as beneficiaries/POD on my bank and retirement accounts?” It sounds like a simple shortcut. After all, both methods avoid probate. But in practice, relying only on beneficiary designations (also called TOD for stocks or POD for bank accounts) is one of the most common and costly estate-planning mistakes I see. Here’s the plain-

Have you ever played a card game where you thought you had the winning hand… until someone slams down a trump card and takes the entire pot? That’s exactly what happens in estate planning more often than you realize — and most people never see it coming. In estate planning , a “trump card”  is any designation on an asset that automatically overrides everything else you’ve written in your will or trust. No matter how carefully you drafted your will, no matter how many hours yo