Lighthouse Point Estate Planning

Lighthouse Point Estate Planning and Probate Attorney

We are not the firm down in Fort Lauderdale.

Our office is in Lighthouse Point. That means when you come in to sign your documents, you are driving a few minutes, not sitting on Federal Highway wondering if you will make your own appointment. It also means we know this city. We know that a home on a canal here is often worth more than everything else a family owns put together.

Waterfront property makes an estate plan more complicated

A house on the water usually comes with things a standard Will never mentions. There is the dock. There is often a boat, and a boat has its own title and its own rules. There may be a seawall the next owner inherits along with the view.

Here is what I see go wrong. A family puts the house into a trust and feels finished. Then someone passes away, and the boat is still titled in that person name alone. The house transfers smoothly, and the boat goes to probate. It is an avoidable headache, and it happens constantly.

So when we plan for a Lighthouse Point family, we ask about all of it. The house, the dock rights, the vessel, the golf cart, the second property up north. Every asset needs to know where it is going.

Homestead protection, and the trap inside it

Florida homestead protection is one of the strongest in the country. It shields your primary residence from most creditors, and it limits who you are allowed to leave that home to if you are married or have a minor child.

That last part surprises people. You cannot simply will your homestead to whomever you like. Florida law has opinions about it, and those opinions override what your document says. If you have remarried, or if you have children from an earlier marriage, this is worth a conversation before you sign anything.

Where a Lighthouse Point probate case goes

Lighthouse Point sits in Broward County, so probate is filed with the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Fort Lauderdale. We handle that filing and the court communication, and in most cases you never need to appear.