Tampa Bay Estate Planning,
Probate, and Trust Attorney
Spiro J. Verras has practiced law since 1993 and founded Verras Law in 2003. From Palm Harbor, and by appointment in Tampa and St. Petersburg, he advises individuals, couples, families, and fiduciaries on estate planning, probate and trust administration, planning for incapacity, asset protection, and the business matters that accompany them. He is a graduate of Yale University and Tulane Law School and is admitted in Florida, Louisiana, New York, and Texas.
How We Work
Every engagement begins with a conversation of at least an hour with Spiro Verras himself. He listens to the details of your situation, answers your questions in plain terms, and makes sure you understand your options and the purpose of each document before anything is drafted. Your circumstances, relationships, and priorities shape the advice; the goal is a plan you understand and guidance you can use.
Practice Areas of Verras Law
Verras Law is a small office with one lawyer. Spiro Verras handles estate planning, probate and trust administration, elder law and Medicaid planning, asset protection, and the business matters that come with a family’s plan. The work is the same whether the estate is one home and a few accounts or a business and property in several states: find out what you own and how it is titled, decide who should act for you and who should inherit, and put it in documents that will work when they are needed.
Estate Planning
An estate plan decides who manages your affairs if you cannot and who receives your property when you die. Every adult needs one; the question is how elaborate it should be. A will-based plan is simpler and less expensive, and for a modest estate it is often the right answer. A trust-based plan avoids probate for the property placed in it, keeps the plan private, and lets a successor trustee act during incapacity, at a higher cost and with the work of retitling assets. Spiro Verras will tell you which fits, and will say so when the simpler plan serves you as well.
Probate
When a person dies owning property in their own name, that property passes through probate, a court-supervised process in which a personal representative (the officer other states call an executor) collects the assets, pays the valid claims, and distributes what remains under the will or, without one, under Florida’s intestacy statute. Florida has three procedures: formal administration; summary administration, for an estate of $150,000 or less after exempt property, or where the death occurred more than two years ago; and disposition without administration for very small estates. Spiro Verras represents personal representatives and families through each of them.
Trust Administration
Trusts are at the center of most of the plans Spiro Verras drafts. A revocable living trust gives continuity if you become incapacitated, avoids probate for the property titled in it, and keeps the plan private. It does not protect property from your creditors and does not save taxes by itself. Irrevocable trusts do particular jobs at the cost of control: a special needs trust holds an inheritance for a family member whose benefits require careful coordination; a spendthrift trust holds a share for a beneficiary who needs assistance managing money or who is living with addiction or mental health challenges; a trust for minor children keeps their inheritance out of a court-supervised guardianship; and, for the few families above the federal estate tax exclusion, certain irrevocable trusts reduce the tax. After a death, a successor trustee has work to do, and Spiro Verras represents trustees in that trust administration.
Asset Protection
Florida already protects a good deal: the homestead, property held by spouses as tenants by the entirety, retirement accounts, annuities, and life insurance. Asset protection planning starts with using what the law provides, continues with adequate insurance and the right ownership for a business or rental property, and only then turns to irrevocable trusts and entities, which cost control and are undone if used to defeat an existing creditor. A revocable trust is not an asset protection device, and no honest plan promises protection from a judgment already entered or a divorce already filed.
Incapacity Planning
A period of incapacity before death is more likely than most people expect, and it can last for years. The documents that cover it are a durable power of attorney, which in Florida must be effective when signed; a designation of health care surrogate; a living will; a HIPAA authorization; and a declaration of preneed guardian. Without them, a family’s only route to authority is a guardianship proceeding in circuit court, which is public, slow, expensive, and rarely undone. Spiro Verras does not take new guardianship cases; the incapacity planning he does is what prevents them.
Business Law
Verras Law handles the business matters that come with a family’s planning: forming the LLC or corporation that holds a business or rental property, the operating or shareholder agreement among its owners, succession when an owner dies, retires, or loses capacity, and the purchase or sale of a closely held business. The firm does not litigate and does not give tax advice; your CPA is part of those conversations from the start.
Whether your matter is a straightforward will or a complex plan, you will deal with Spiro Verras directly. Request a consultation to begin.
Palm Harbor, FL 34684
Call our office 727.493.2900
Tampa, FL 33626
Call our office 813.228.6800
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Call our office 727.892.6050