Coconut Creek Estate Planning

Coconut Creek Estate Planning and Probate Attorney

If you own a condo here, your plan needs one extra step.

Coconut Creek has one of the largest concentrations of 55 and over communities in Broward County. Thousands of residents here own a condominium, and a condo does not pass to your family the way a single family home does.

Your association almost certainly has rules about who can take ownership of a unit. Many require an application, a background check, or board approval before a new owner moves in. Those rules do not disappear because someone passed away. Your children can inherit the unit on paper and still find themselves in front of a board.

What that looks like in real life

Say Sally leaves her condo to her son. The Will is valid and everything is in order. Her son now owns a unit he may not be permitted to live in, in a community with an age requirement, while the maintenance fees keep coming due every month. He cannot rent it out either, because many associations restrict leasing in the first year or two of ownership.

None of that is a disaster. It is just something you want to know in advance rather than discover during a hard month. Sometimes the answer is a trust. Sometimes it is a plan to sell. Sometimes it is simply telling your family what to expect so they are not blindsided.

Planning ahead for care

The other conversation that comes up constantly in this part of the county is long term care. Nursing home costs in South Florida are significant, and Medicaid looks back five years at money you gave away.

Five years is a long runway. Which is exactly why the best time to talk about it is while you are healthy and nothing is urgent. Planning done in a crisis has fewer options than planning done on a quiet Tuesday.

Where a Coconut Creek probate case goes

Coconut Creek is in Broward County, so the case is filed with the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Fort Lauderdale. We handle the filing and the court communication, and in most cases you never need to appear.