Your estate plan should reflect the life you have built and the people you want to care for. Spiro Verras helps you decide who should act for you, how your property should pass, and how your wishes can be put into effect. His practice focuses on estate planning, trusts, and probate, with personal attention to the family and circumstances behind each decision.
Some clients arrive with a clear objective. Others have a folder of old documents, a change in the family, or a question they have been meaning to ask. Each is a good place to begin.
Choose your foundation
A plan built around a last will and testament directs the distribution of property administered through your estate. A plan built around a revocable living trust can provide continuity during incapacity and avoid probate for assets properly held in the trust. A companion pour-over will addresses property that may remain outside the trust, although those assets may still require probate before reaching it.
Formal probate has a valuable feature: The administration takes place within a court proceeding. Before discharge, the personal representative must account for the administration and establish proper distribution, subject to the applicable procedures and permitted waivers. Interested persons also have a forum for timely objections within that case. A trust ordinarily works without continuing court supervision, while its trustee remains accountable to beneficiaries under the trust and the law.
Spiro explains the practical differences, including privacy, supervision, cost, administration, and the work of coordinating ownership. Our guide to probate and trusts explores when each approach can serve a family well.
Choose the people you trust
Planning for incapacity gives you a way to choose people to help with financial and health care decisions. A durable power of attorney, a health care surrogate designation, a living will, HIPAA authorizations, and a preneed guardian declaration may be part of that preparation. Spiro explains the authority each document provides and helps you select people who can carry out those responsibilities.
Appropriate documents, trusts, and other available support can preserve your wishes and reduce the need for a court-supervised guardianship. The right arrangements depend on the person’s needs and the authority already in place. Advance directives also give your family and health care providers guidance about your preferences.
Plan around your family
A young child may need an inheritance managed over many years. An adult beneficiary may benefit from continuing support or carefully chosen distribution terms. A supplemental needs trust, also commonly called a special needs trust, may help coordinate an inheritance with means-tested benefits. Spiro helps you consider the person who will manage the property and the guidance that person will need.
For a blended family, planning may involve providing for a spouse while preserving an inheritance for children from an earlier relationship. Florida’s spousal and homestead rights require particular attention. Business interests, homes in more than one state, and charitable wishes can also shape the plan.
A QTIP trust, a bypass trust, or another continuing trust may help carry out those intentions. Our trust planning guide explains the choices, from familiar living trusts to arrangements for insurance, retirement benefits, family wealth, and particular beneficiaries.
Coordinate your property
Account ownership and beneficiary designations are important parts of an estate plan. Many accounts and insurance benefits pass under their own terms, so we consider those arrangements alongside your will or trust. We help identify appropriate deeds, account changes, and beneficiary updates and explain who will carry out each step.
A trust, survivorship ownership, or an enhanced life estate deed, sometimes called a Lady Bird deed, may be appropriate for particular property after reviewing the relevant family, title, tax, and homestead considerations. Retirement accounts receive their own review because their distribution and income-tax rules can change the funding decision.
Look at the whole tax picture
When more advanced planning is useful, the questions become practical. Is an appreciated investment a good asset to give away, or would cash be a better choice? Who will pay the income tax? Will the trust file its own return? How much access should the family retain?
We compare potential estate-tax savings with capital gains, tax basis, cash flow, and ongoing administration. We also consider creditor protection separately: A structure designed for one tax purpose may have a very different effect on a beneficiary’s access or protection. Spiro works with your CPA and other advisers so that the legal documents and financial decisions fit together.
Our advanced estate planning guide provides a starting point for those conversations.
A relationship you can return to
Your plan will sit within a larger life. When another lawyer, financial institution, title company, or CPA needs to participate, Spiro helps coordinate the work. He can connect you with professionals whose work and judgment he respects and remain involved to the extent you find helpful.
A marriage, a new grandchild, a move, a business sale, or a change in health may bring new questions. A continuing relationship makes it easier to revisit the plan with someone who already understands what matters to you.
Begin with a conversation
Contact our office to arrange an estate planning consultation with Spiro. Your meeting lasts at least an hour. Consultations are available in Palm Harbor, in Tampa or St. Petersburg by appointment, or by Zoom or teleconference. Our usual practice is to sign Florida estate planning documents in person at our Palm Harbor office. Alternative signing arrangements are considered only in extraordinary circumstances.
The consultation fee is credited in full toward documents or other services if you engage us; existing clients ordinarily do not pay it. Document work is quoted for a flat fee in writing before it begins. You have an opportunity to review drafts and ask questions before signing. How We Work explains the preparation and signing of your documents, including permanent storage of the originals in our safe.