The Florida Legislature modified the statutory Rule Against Perpetuities by increasing the maximum permissible period from 90 years to 360 years (P.L. 2000-245, amending §689.225). This law, as well as the companion provision allowing both judicial and nonjudicial reformation of trusts (§§737.4031 and 737.4032), will become effective on December 31, 2000 (and will only apply to trusts created after that date). These changes will be reflected in a later update.
The legislature has made some relatively minor changes (in P.L. 2000-295) to Chapter 765 dealing with medical and end of life issues (such as Designations of Health Care Surrogates and Living Wills). A new section, 765.1103, provides some guidelines for pain management and palliative care for patients. These provisions became law as of June 15, 2000, and will be reflected in the next update.
In response to your requests, we have added the ability to treat children differently when making distributions to the client's children. New options include providing for unequal shares, some children receiving outright and some in trust, and different trust terms for particular children. Questions 392-400.
In response to your requests, you can now make distributions or alternate distributions of the balance of the client's estate or the Family Trust to one or more named charities in combination with one or more named persons. Questions 294, 295, 304-313.
In response to your requests, if drafting a stand-alone Will or revocable trust, you can now create a Family Trust for the sole purpose of receiving any amounts disclaimed by the spouse. This option was formerly only available for the "Disclaimer Will." Question 247.
You can now choose to have the client's remaining tangible personal property go to his or her residuary estate. Question 173.
An option has been added to make the names of the client, the spouse, and the children bold and/or all caps. We plan to expand this option in the future to include trustees, personal representatives, and other named persons. Question 74.
In response to your requests, separate questions have been created for footers for the Will and for the trust. Formerly, a single question governed both documents. Questions 868-869.
In response to your requests, the Designation of Preneed Guardian no longer requires you to name alternate guardians. Question 928.
We have added new "How To" topics titled "Treat children differently" and "Print client questionnaire." To view any "How To" topic, select "How To" on the opening menu, select a topic, and click the QHelp button. Press Enter with the topic selected to send that topic to your word processor. Question 10.
Several questions have been reworded or given new or changed choices. Consequently, when you open an existing answer file or Exemplar, you may have to answer additional questions before sending your document to your word processor even though you had previously answered all questions. See "Up_Jul00.flg." "Up_Jul00" is a flag file which flags all new questions and any questions with changed choices or commentary. You can load "Up_ Jul00" onto any new or saved answer session or Exemplar (click "Open Flags" on the Flags menu, then click "Florida Wills & Trusts" and "OK," then "Up_ Jul00" and "OK") to see which questions were impacted by this update. ("Up_ Jul00" cannot indicate deleted questions.)
Please continue to send us your suggestions on existing or new products. Contact our Technical Support Department at 1-800-9-LAWGIC (952-9442) or e-mail us at support@lawgic.com.
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This information is not intended to constitute legal advice.
This summary should not be relied upon independent of consulting the Lawgic software.