Taxation & Estate Planning

The Cutler En Banc Opinion: Is the Third DCA Eroding the Protection Afforded to Heirs Who Are to Receive Devises of Florida Homestead?

By Juan C. Antúnez

The Winter 2009 edition of ActionLine contains a short article entitled The Cutler En Banc Opinion: Is the Third DCA Eroding the Protection Afforded to Heirs Who Are to Receive Devises of Florida Homestead? by Melbourne probate attorney Charlie Nash. Charlie's article does a good job of dissecting the 3d DCA's opinion in the Cutler case, which addressed the interplay between the creditor protections applicable to otherwise freely-devisable homestead property in Florida. I previously wrote about the Cutler opinion here.

Lesson learned?

Just because you're dealing with "freely devisable" homestead property doesn't mean you're home free. As made clear by the Cutler decision and Charlie's article, as well as other recent appellate decisions I've written about involving freely-devisable homestead property [click here, here, here], the unintended consequences can blow up even the most carefully crafted estate plan.

Full post as published by Florida Probate Litigation Blog on January 29, 2009 (boomark / email).