Tag: real-estate
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Transferring Real Property into Limited Liability Companies in Florida: Benefits and Considerations
Transferring real property into an LLC in Florida can protect your personal assets if there’s a problem with the property. This means that only the assets owned by the LLC, and not your personal assets, are at risk. However, there are some things you need to consider before making this transfer. If an LLC has…
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Senate Bill 4-D and the Champlain Towers South Disaster: A Problem in Response to a Problem
A building in Surfside collapsed, killing 98 people. A task force of experts looked into the cause and recommended changes to the law. Lawmakers introduced new bills, but none passed until a special session, where a new bill was passed quickly. This new law requires regular inspections and studies for condo buildings. People are worried…
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Understanding the New Florida Community Property Trust, Part I
The Florida Community Property Trust Act provides benefits to married couples by allowing them to have joint ownership of assets in a special trust. This can bring tax advantages when one spouse passes away. Before this act, joint ownership in Florida was more limited. In community property states, assets acquired during marriage are generally considered…
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Protectors and Directors and Advisers: Oh My! The New Florida Uniform Directed Trust Act
In 2021, Florida passed a new law called the Florida Uniform Directed Trust Act, which deals with trusts where someone other than the trustee has power over parts of the trust. This is becoming more common, so it was necessary to create new laws to govern how these types of trusts work. In the past,…
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Alimony for the Heiress? Imputing Income to Assets
The increase in late-in-life divorces among baby boomers in the U.S. has led to questions about how to divide assets and determine alimony. The court must consider all the assets and income of both parties, including property acquired before and during the marriage, as well as inherited or gifted assets. This can be complicated when…
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A Brave New Frontier: The Equitable Distribution 2008 Legislative Changes
On July 1, 2008, Florida changed its law about how property and assets are divided when a marriage ends. They got rid of the special equity rule and made it easier for one person to prove they deserve more of the property. They also made it so that gifts between spouses are assumed to be…
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Florida’s Homestead Realty: Is it Exempt from Imposition of an Equitable Lien for Nonpayment of Alimony and Child Support?
Just tell me the important stuff in easy words, and leave out the fancy stuff and names of the legal stuff. When a parent or ex-spouse falls behind on alimony or child support, there are ways to collect the money they owe. This can include taking their income, revoking their driver’s license, and even putting…
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Family Limited Partnerships: The Year in Review
The author wrote two articles in 2005 and 2006 about family limited partnerships (FLPs) and recent court cases. Since then, there have been three cases where the IRS won because of “bad facts” like transferring most assets to the partnership and using partnership funds for personal expenses. The article discusses these cases and also a…
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Partitioning Real Property in Dissolution of Marriage Actions and Suits Between Unmarried Cotenants: Credits, Setoffs, Ouster, Division, and Sale
When people own property together and can’t agree on what to do with it, they might have to go to court to figure it out. This can happen to married couples, unmarried couples, or business partners who own property together. They might have to go through a legal process called “partition” to divide the property…
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Nonmarital Real Estate: Is the Appreciation Marital, Nonmarital, or a Combination of Both?
In Florida, when a spouse owns property before marriage or inherits it during marriage and keeps it in their name, the property is considered nonmarital. Any increase in value during the marriage is considered marital property and may be subject to distribution in a divorce. However, if the property increases in value without the use…
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Underwater Treasure: Equitable Distribution of the Save Our Homes Limitation
Florida homeowners now have a new asset to consider in divorce proceedings: the homestead tax assessment limitation, which is now portable. This means that when a home is sold, a portion of the tax savings from the homestead exemption can be transferred to a new home. This could have a big impact on the division…
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The Bursting Bubble Dealing with the Marital Home During a Real Estate Recession
Back in the day, divorcing couples could easily sell their house and split the money. But now, with the housing market in bad shape, it’s harder to sell a house for a good price. People are stuck with houses they can’t sell or afford to buy out their ex-spouse. So, one person often has to…
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CERCLA Investor Liability: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Won’t Work
In 1980, the government passed a law called CERCLA, which made people responsible for cleaning up hazardous substances on their property, even if they didn’t cause the contamination. This law has made investing in real estate much riskier because now people can be held responsible for cleaning up hazardous substances on their property, even if…
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Concurrency and Moratoria
In Florida, there’s a rule that new development can only happen if there’s enough infrastructure in place to support it. This rule, called “concurrency,” was made in the 1980s. During a real estate recession, not much development happened, so the rule wasn’t really tested. There hasn’t been a case in Florida where a court decided…
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Estate Planning Issues in a Divorce Situation II: An Update and Standing Orders
In 2012, Ms. Brunner wrote an article in a journal about the rights of married couples in the process of getting a divorce and after the divorce is finalized. The article discusses how automatic orders in divorce cases may give more rights to the spouse who files for divorce than to the spouse in a…
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We Thought We Were Safe: Federal Court Holds RCRA Preempts State Petroleum Cleanup Bar Statute
In the case of Boyes v. Shell Oil Products Company, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that citizens have the right to sue for the cleanup of petroleum contamination sites if there is a violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) or if there is a threat to public…
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1999 Update on the Bert J. Harris Private Property Rights Protection
The Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights Protection Act in Florida was created in 1995 to help protect property owners from unfair government actions that restrict their property rights. It allows property owners to file a claim if they can show that the government’s actions have unreasonably limited their ability to use their property.…
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Slipsliding Away: Landowners Continue to Lose Substantive Rights under Local Planning Case Law
This article is about how laws can have unintended consequences. It talks about a court case that added to a confusing body of growth management laws. The court gave more rights to third parties trying to reverse zoning approvals than to landowners trying to reverse zoning denials. The article looks at how these laws have…
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1997 Update on the Bert Harris Private Property Protection Act
The Bert J. Harris, Jr. Private Property Rights Protection Act allows property owners to sue the government if they feel that the government’s actions have unfairly restricted the use of their property. Before suing, the property owner must submit a written claim and get an appraisal of the property’s value. Within six months, the government…
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All Appropriate Inquiries in Commercial Real Estate Due Diligence: What Inquiring Minds Need to Know
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a rule in 2006 called âAll Appropriate Inquiriesâ (AAI), which sets rules for checking for environmental issues when buying or selling commercial property. This rule is important to protect buyers and sellers from being responsible for cleaning up hazardous substances on a property. It’s important to follow these…
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The Latest in Green Development: Advising Your Client on the New Standard for Real Estate Projects
Green building rating systems are used to measure the environmental performance of buildings, focusing on energy efficiency. The most well-known system is LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is a voluntary certification system created by the U.S. Green Building Council. To get LEED certified, a developer submits their project for…
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House Bill 7203: Growth Management Reform Fixing the Glitches, Pipelining, Streamlining, and Other Evolutional Changes
Florida’s growth management program has been in place since 1985 and has been updated several times, most recently in 2007. The changes were made to address issues with infrastructure and to adapt to the struggling real estate market. The new law, H.B. 7203, makes several changes to the program, including fixing problems with the previous…
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Claims of Exploitation of the Elderly in the Sale of Financial Products
There’s a new trend of lawsuits against companies selling financial products to older people. These products, called annuities, come in two main types: fixed annuities and variable annuities. Fixed annuities earn a guaranteed interest rate for a certain time, like a CD from a bank. There’s also a type called equity indexed annuities, which is…
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Poor on Paper: An Overview of the Ethics and Morality of Medicaid Planning
Judy and Anne are both retired school teachers who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In the US, only Anne, who spent all her money throughout her life, will be able to receive long-term care at a nursing facility subsidized by Medicaid because she is poor. Judy, who saved her money her whole life, will…