Attorney Joe Pippen was a very much loved and respected member of the community and enjoyed serving the public by providing free legal advice on his show “Ask an Attorney”.
First Airing in 1984, Joe Pippen had been hosting the continuous call-in Radio Show for 37 years. We are deeply saddened by Joe’s passing and he will be greatly missed.
On Saturday, August 7th @ 8AM, WTBN AM Radio 570 / 910 broadcast the final specially produced airing of “Ask an Attorney” featuring a retrospective taken from previously aired shows.
You can hear the broadcast by clicking below or read the transcript of the program further below.
Joe Weaver:
Thank you for tuning in today for Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law. For almost 40 years, this program has been heard all throughout the airways of Tampa bay and extending to several other markets covering most of Florida. All that time, the program has been hosted by attorney Joe Pippen. If you haven’t been made aware, I regret to inform you now that on July 29th, our friend Joe Pippen passed away. My name is Joe Weaver and for the next hour, we would like to spend some time remembering Joe and the very large contribution he made on the radio and to the real people that he was able to help along the way. The program was always about the callers, the opportunity to receive what was essentially free legal advice about the multitude of challenges listeners were facing over the many years was well taken advantage of.
And every week Joe was there to thoroughly, patiently and carefully try to work through whatever the issue of the day happened to be. If he didn’t know the exact answer, he’d tell you that. But pretty much always had a referral for someone that probably could find it for you. If you were already being represented by legal counsel and he was made aware, then he advised you that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to be discussing the matter with you any further. However, more than anything, if you were unsure what to do, he would try to help you find the answer. And very oftentimes did so successfully. Of course, the law is a very broad and complicated universe of potential situations one might be trying to find answers about, but he gave it a shot for all who knocked on his radio door. And so, today we’re going to listen back to a variety of those exchanges, as well as other radio pieces he produced over a long career of answering your questions all about Florida law.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Hey, good morning. This is attorney Joe Pippen, and this is a special edition of Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law with attorney Joe Pippen and I’m glad to be your host this morning and the law office is open, as I like to say. A lot of my practice is in the area of estate planning, although we have other attorneys to do real estate and various other topics of law. I’ve been doing radio for a long, long time, and I’ve had many, many different types of questions. And if you have a question then regardless of what it is, I can probably at a minimum give you some direction on where to go. And most of the time I can answer the question.
Joe Weaver:
And the law office was open as he always liked to say and that clip that we just heard comes back from the mid-90s, as a lot of the material that we’re listening to today was actually extracted from cassette tapes of the radio programs that he did in the late 80s and 90s, and all the way through into the 2000s. But any of the years that the program was on the common thread is that he really could only prepare so much for each week’s program because he had no way of knowing the questions that the listeners of that program that week were going to be asking him.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Hey, you’re listening to Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law. That is the fun of doing live radio by the way, because I can’t really prepare for a show. I mean, I prepare every week by practicing law and talking to lots of people and their circumstances and giving you advice and so forth. I have plenty of practice answering questions, even on the radio and in person, but I never really know what I’m going to be asked. I can prepare generally as I practice law and prepare myself to every day learning something often, and new circumstances and how to deal with them. But you never, I can’t prepare for the show. I can’t prepare for your question. I haven’t met you and I don’t know what you’re going to ask me yet.
Joe Weaver:
And that dynamic really set the radio show apart from others that you hear on a Saturday morning, because it wasn’t just a program that was helping people, but it was also pretty entertaining to listen to for those that weren’t calling in.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Let’s go to a Dinky, is it Dinky?
Dinky:
Dinky.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, how’d you get that name?
Dinky:
Dinky.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Dinky, okay. All right. Was that your birth name or is that a nickname?
Dinky:
Nickname.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right.
Dinky:
I have a question.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Okay.
Dinky:
Yeah, because I was dying to find somebody to help me.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, what’s your question?
Dinky:
The question is, is there any way I can sue somebody? I was sick because of allergy medication and I lost my job and I’m still sick until now. I’ve been going to doctors all the time, eye doctor. And then I wonder if there’s any way I can help them reimburse my expenses. But I went to two lawyers, but they said I cannot sue the pharmaceutical company because it’s only a generic medication. I don’t know what to do. Is there any way I can-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, you can call me and I’ll give you the name of a malpractice attorney that would sue in this case and maybe get a third opinion.
Dinky:
Yeah, I’ve been to two lawyers, but they declined it because they said it’s because it’s only a generic job, generic medicine.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I don’t think that’s a valid reason.
Dinky:
Really?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah. There might be a history of this particular product causing injuries to a lot of people that have taken it. I don’t think just because it’s generic is a defense. Maybe talk to one other attorney and maybe it might be the value of the case was not worth taking, that might’ve been the real reason. But, I can get you to somebody else to at least talk to.
Dinky:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right?
Dinky:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. Thanks for calling.
Dinky:
Thank you.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right Dinky, all right you have a good one.
Dinky:
You too.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Let’s go to John in Riverview.
John:
Good morning.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Good morning.
John:
I got a question about the will, but I really think I need to come in and sit down for a consultation.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, I’d be glad to do that. Probably the closest office we have for you would probably be Sun City Center. Do you have a question though?
John:
Yeah, I’ll go ahead and ask you. It may take a few minutes. But what I got is a brother that died 11 years ago and he had a girlfriend and she lived longer than him, and she just passed away. They had a piece of property with a trailer on it together. In the will, he’d owned property and he owned the trailer. He left the property to me, including the trailer. But now before she passed, she went and bought a new trailer and the new trailer’s in her name.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And what happened to the old trailer?
John:
The old trailer was junk. It went to the dump, I think.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. Must have been a very big dumpster.
John:
Trailer graveyard, I suppose.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right.
John:
But anyways, now she had four children and they’re fighting me over the trailer and not wanting it. What happened is they let somebody live there. They had to put, well I’ll have to back up.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, the trailer would have been in her name, so it would have been in her estate.
John:
I don’t know if she made a will or not, but anyway-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
It doesn’t matter. The state makes one for you if you don’t make one yourself.
John:
Okay. In the meantime, she had to be put in a nursing home. Her sons and daughters let nephews stay in that trailer and they got up on the roof and punched holes all over the roof and the inside of it is trash. And now they’re telling me I’ve got to move the trailer off of the property.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Who is they?
John:
Her children.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, their children don’t have any authority over you. So, you still own the land. What’s the land worth?
John:
The taxes on it, it’s valued at 28,000.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I would write them a certified letter that they have to remove the trailer, that it belongs to them. It was in her name. If they don’t do it fairly soon, you’ll treat it as abandoned property and have the county come remove it and the county will probably sell it at auction or something, or have it condemned. But they can’t make you do anything. Where do they want you to move it?
John:
Because it ain’t no good.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
No where? Okay, so they want to abandon it?
John:
Exactly. And I don’t know where. The only place it can go is in the dumpster, that’s how bad it is.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Okay. Well, how much would it cost you to move it?
John:
Probably around five grand, from what I’ve heard from other people. I haven’t got a price yet.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Would a scrap metal person come want it for the value of the metal or anything?
John:
Well, I did that once before 15 years ago. These trailers today are made out of vinyl and the only metal left on the trailer now is the frame that it sits on. I done talked to three of them and none of them will go get it for the metal.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I see. All right, John when you come see me, since you said you wanted to, we can sit down and we can work out a little strategy to get rid of the property.
John:
Okay. Thanks.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Thank you. Let’s go to Stan. Good morning, Stan.
Stan:
Good morning. I’m wondering about going through small claims court procedures when you had an injury by a doctor during an operation.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Is the value of the damages less than $5,000?
Stan:
Yeah, because I’ve run out of the, practically ran out of the statute of limitations. An attorney would want six months or more to prepare the case because of its complexity. And so a normal trial would not be appropriate. So, I have to go through a small claims court by myself.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, sometimes an attorney can look at it and determine whether or not you have a case. And even though it might take time to prepare the case, once they filed the case and get it started, then you don’t have a statute of limitations problem.
Stan:
Well, I guess my question is have you had any experience with small claims court procedures like this? Because if this requires a full blown trial with expert testimony and medical-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, but see if you can have a full blown … the limit in small claims courts is $5,000.
Stan:
Right.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
So, I mean, if you have a full blown trial with medical testimony and expert witnesses and all that stuff, you’re going to spend more than 5,000 to get it.
Stan:
Well that’s what I was afraid of.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah. So I mean, it really probably wouldn’t make sense.
Stan:
As far as I understand, even though you’d go through the small claims procedure, about the only difference between small claims and a normal civil suit is the fact that you don’t have a jury in the small claims situation. In other words, can you use medical records, written medical records as evidence in a small claims?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes, you can use whatever evidence you want.
Stan:
Do you have to have oral testimony of a medical expert?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
You don’t have to do anything. You do whatever you best can do to present your case. What I would do if I were you Stan, if you want to call my office tomorrow, I can refer somebody to you that can look at this and advise you of your rights. And if they think you have a case, they would probably take it. I don’t know how much time you have to file the suit, but if they have two, three, four weeks to look at it to determine whether or not, and a lot of times they can just determine it by talking to you at the first meeting. Then they take it to their committee and decide whether or not they want to pursue it.
Stan:
Yeah, that’d be helpful.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. Well just call my office tomorrow and I’ll give you a name or two.
Stan:
Very good. Thank you. Your name, sir?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Joe Pippen.
Stan:
Pippen, very good. Oh, I’ve heard of you.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Okay.
Stan:
Thank you very much.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Bye-bye. Let’s go to Vivian
Vivian:
Yeah, so good morning.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Hey, how are you?
Vivian:
Good. Thanks for receiving my call. I am calling to find out what recourse do I have? I co-signed for a coworker to get a car and the car has been repossessed and the company called me to see that 21,700 is owing on it.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Are you obligated yourself on the note to buy the car?
Vivian:
I don’t understand what you mean.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
There was a loan to buy the car and you co-signed on the loan?
Vivian:
Yes. So now I am wanting to know they said if they don’t get that much, I have to pay the difference.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah, well they can file a lawsuit against you for the difference. Get a judgment against you. You never hardly ever co-sign on any type of a loan for anybody.
Vivian:
I find that out now.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah. Well, it’s a lesson that maybe other people can learn from, but you definitely don’t do it because then you become responsible and they always go find a way to go against the person with the most money.
Vivian:
Okay. Oh, I thought that maybe there would be some way I could get out of that.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
No, you’ve already signed the paper and papers is a contract. Contract has obligations, responsibilities that go with it and they’re not going to release you from that. So, you have to deal with it the best way you can. Contact them, tell them the circumstances, see if you can work something out.
Vivian:
Okay. Okay, so thank you for your advice.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. Thank you.
Vivian:
Bye-bye.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
You’re listening to Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law. I’m attorney Joe Pippen. And let’s go to Paul in Clearwater.
Paul:
Thanks for taking the call. We bought a house last year. The closing went well, no problems with it. And then as a result of pulling some permits to do some work, found out that a neighbor’s wall was three inches on our yard. To us, it’s not an issue. However, everybody being an expert is, “Oh, you need to take care of this immediately. It’s a problem.” Is it a problem, or not?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, what’s the question now? You’ve got neighbors-
Paul:
A neighbor put up a cement wall.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes?
Paul:
And it’s three inches on our property. And as a result of pulling permits, we found out after it was bought. I mean, nothing was brought at the closing table. The survey had been there. Just nothing was ever mentioned, even though it was on the survey when we bought the property. So the question is, is it an issue if we were to go and sell the house five years from now, or is it not an issue?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I would say it could be an issue, for sure. I think if the fence, the concrete fence is on your property, you could have it removed. They can either buy the property from you now. I mean, you could actually sell them three inches down the line for X number of dollars. The longer it stays there, the more they could claim adverse possession and possibly claim the property at some point. I think he needed to get things resolved in writing. You either accept it the way it is. Maybe they can pay you a little bit for the money or you could possibly make them tear down the fence. It’s on your property.
Paul:
Okay. So take care of it now before it is an issue?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah, I would.
Paul:
Okay. And you just call somebody like yourself to get that going?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah. I have a real estate attorney who does nothing but real estate transactions and deals with matters like this, so I’m sure. Do you want to sell the three inches?
Paul:
It really doesn’t matter to us. We just want it to be a clear thing if we were to have to sell it someday.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah, the longer it sits there, the more that advantage is the other party.
Paul:
So we should probably just say it came as a result of pulling this, that we found out and we’d like to take care of it now?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes, I would.
Paul:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Let me ask you this. Let me back up just a few seconds. When you bought the property, the fence was already on your land, correct?
Paul:
Right. When we put in the purchase offer it wasn’t there.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
It wasn’t there.
Paul:
When we went to the closing table-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
It was there.
Paul:
… it was there. And on the survey that we had, that we looked at a couple months after buying it.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
The survey was done before or after the closing?
Paul:
The survey was done prior to the closing, but after the wall was put up. And so when we pulled some permits, we said, “Hey, it looks like the wall was on our property.” And the surveyor said, “Yep. Three inches exactly. It’s marked down there.”
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And did the survey show that?
Paul:
Yes, it did show it, but nobody-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Nobody noted or made a special issue out of it?
Paul:
Right.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, that’s interesting.
Paul:
And again, not being able to read surveys, I called the surveyor directly and just said, “Can I just ask you, is it truly on or not?” And he said, “Oh yeah, it’s on.” But he said you need to contact a lawyer.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And you represented at closing by a realtor and an attorney?
Paul:
Correct.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I see.
Paul:
I think it just got passed.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Did the attorney write the title insurance?
Paul:
I’d have to look up the title insurance.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah, there could possibly be a claim against the title company.
Paul:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Because they gave you a title policy, which is a warranty and a warranty deed.
Paul:
Right and we have that.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Guaranteed by the title policy that you have free and clear title to the whole property and you actually don’t.
Paul:
And we have the certificate, the deed, the booklet, everything all together that was put together by our real estate agent who’s been wonderful.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, you might go back to your attorney that did help you at the closing.
Paul:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And say, “Look, I paid for title insurance for free and clear title and here’s the problem with the fence on my property. It seems to me the attorney or the title company should have … I paid to help me assist to get a free and clear title on the whole property during closing. Somebody dropped the ball on this. What do you think and what should I do?” And ask the attorney that was involved in the closing to start with to help you.
Paul:
Great.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right.
Paul:
All right. Well that sounds good. Thank you so much for your help.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, no problem. Thank you.
Paul:
Have a great day.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Thank you. You too. You’re listening to Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law. Let’s go to Haines City, Florida, and talk to Janet.
Janet:
My question is I was at my son’s house last week and my grandson was playing in their backyard with a few friends and the ball went into the neighbor’s yard. Now the neighbor has told them before that he doesn’t want the kids out back playing ball.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Out back in a yard that’s not his?
Janet:
That’s right. We got the ball returned by the police because he called the police on them. My question is, what recourse does he have if my grandson does play ball in the backyard and his ball does go into his yard?
Attorney Pippen:
But it didn’t do any damage.
Janet:
It didn’t do any damage. It just, it bounced off their fence and landed in his yard.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
What recourse does he have against you or the kids?
Janet:
Right.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, I don’t think he has much of anything if there’s no damage done.
Janet:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I mean, I don’t. I can’t think of a cause of action. I mean, there could be a trespass, but that’s really a stretch in the law to have a ball be a trespass violation.
Janet:
Right. The kids know not to try to go into the yard to get it.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
These are eight and nine-year-olds.
Janet:
They’re eight and nine-year-old kids.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
So they lose their ball.
Janet:
Yeah.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And he’s got a ball he doesn’t want. I mean, I don’t know. I can’t think of a cause of action the guy would have.
Janet:
Okay. Other than just calling the cops repeatedly, right?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
That’s it.
Janet:
Okay. That’s all I wanted to know.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Maybe we have some other listener out there has gone through this and there has been some cause of action of some type and they want to call in the, you can keep listening and I’d be glad to give them the microphone.
Janet:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right.
Janet:
Thank you very much.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. So we’ve got the ball in the neighbor’s yard and the mattress and the canal questions today. It’s really a hot show. You’re listening to Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law. I’m not making light of anybody’s question. I mean, these are all, when you have a question in your mind, you want an answer and that is your right here and that’s why I’m here to help you and give you peace of mind. I’m glad to do that. I’ve had some questions in the past, like what can a movie theater do to me if I take my own candy in my pocketbook or purse to the movie theater and they catch me? I’ve had questions like that. One of my all time favorite questions, I guess, in this area of questions is a man called and wanted the gold out of his mother’s teeth and the funeral director wouldn’t oblige him. He wanted to know his rights that he had after his mother died to get the gold out of her teeth. I’ve had some great questions and I really enjoy them and enjoy helping people.
Joe Weaver:
And certainly that enjoyment was easy to hear every week during the Ask An Attorney Program: All About Florida Law. If you’re just joining us here today, it’s a tribute program to the life of Joe Pippen, and we’ve been listening to various caller conversations he had over the radio program over the many years, almost 40 years that the program was on in the Tampa Bay area and all across Florida. And while often the calls were on a variety of topics, as we’ve heard so far today, the one area where there was never any ambiguity was in the field of wills, trusts and probate, his area of expertise.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
What is a living trust? The most often asked question I get every week on my radio show, is probably is what is a living trust? All a living trust is, is a fancy will. A lot of people think it’s something else, but that’s really all it is. It’s a fancy will with some special features. The first special feature of a living trust is that it avoids probate. If you have a will, it’s going to go through probate. If you have a trust, it’s not. You have chosen to avoid probate through the use of a living trust. With a will your assets take often six to 14 months to go through probate. With a trust, since you’ve avoided probate, you’ve chosen a quick, a very fast distribution process, very much unlike probate. If you have a will, you’ve only planned for death. Wills do not deal with if you become incapacitated.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
If you have a living trust, you and your attorney have designed a guardianship plan built into the document. If you have a will, it becomes a public document upon death. With a trust, it can be a private affair, so no one knows what’s going on in your estate, who gets what and so forth. A living trust has four big advantages over a will. It avoids probate. It makes easy, fast and quick distribution of the estate upon death and gives you a guardianship plan. It arranges for privacy of your estate. For more information about this and many more legal subjects join me, attorney Joe Pippen, for Ask An Attorney.
Now, if a client comes in talking about the definition of a trust, at the same time, I think you should tell them about a will. And maybe some of the disadvantages of just having a will. You tell them that the cost of probate, you tell them the time and you quote your fee. I think if a client came in and said, “Give me something in writing as to what your probate fee would be,” I think that’d be a pretty sharp client. Actually, to get to the idea and something from you in writing about what your fee is going to be to handle the estate one day. Because we all know attorney fees vary from one attorney to another, a great deal on probate.
Tell them how long it’s going to take to probate. Tell them about the 90 day period and the notice of administration and most probates take at least six months, maybe sometimes up to a year. Tell them that they need a guardianship plan. 50% of Americans become incapacitated before they die. 50% of Americans need someone with either a power of attorney or some other instrument to do things for them and tell them that they want to plan for that, or they want to leave it in the hands of the guardianship court to make decisions, or do they want to be the boss? Do they want to plan it? You need to discuss all of these things. You need to discuss the privacy feature of wills versus trust. All of these things I think are important in estate planning for the client to have a good understanding of the differences that they have, the choices that they have.
Now, I know people from the radio shows that I do. I know people are confused about wills and trust and probate. I had a lady not too long ago, call in and wanted to know if she could probate her own will. I went on to explain to her that probate didn’t take place until after death and she still didn’t understand the answer. People have misunderstandings about all these things. I had a lady in my office two weeks ago that said, “Well, I solved the probate problem. My will’s not going to go through probate. I tore it up.” I mean, I had people come in and say that. They’ll ask questions like that on the radio. They’ll come in and make comments about that. There’s a big misunderstanding about estate planning. And I think your choice is to tell them what a trust is, to describe how it works, to tell them the difference between having a will and having a trust, and that is basically your job. If you’re in estate planning, that’s what you need to do. That’s what I think.
All right, let’s go to Eddie in Tampa.
Eddie:
Hi there Joe?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Good morning.
Eddie:
Good morning, sir. I have a question. Can you explain the basic difference between a trust and a power of attorney, please?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Sure. A living trust is just a fancy will. A living trust or a will are going to have instructions about who’s going to take over upon death and pay the bills and make the distribution according to your instructions. Power of attorney is so someone has the power, our power of attorney right now has 106 different powers and the powers are of anything you could do. There’s the power listed for someone else to do of your choice, to be able to help you if you can’t do it. The power of attorney, unlike a will and trust, kick into effect upon death. Power of attorney kicks in to effect as soon as you sign it and it’s void upon death. The power of attorney, of course, doesn’t have any distribution language. It doesn’t have any instructions on what to do with assets upon death.
Eddie:
Got it. Got it. Okay. All right, sir. thank you very much.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right.
Eddie:
Have an awesome day.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Do you have a will or a trust? Yeah, do you have a will or a trust?
Eddie:
Actually, I have a will and I also have a power of attorney form executed. I was just wondering.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, your will take place upon death, your instructions and your power of attorney gives them, someone the power to act in your behalf while you’re living. Power of attorney should be updated, by the way, about every three or four years to keep current dates on them.
Eddie:
Really?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes, ma’am.
Eddie:
I have to update it. Oki doki sir. I appreciate your interest.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. Thanks Eddie. Thanks for calling.
Eddie:
Have a great day.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. You too. All right, let’s go to Charlie calling. Yes, Charlie, what can I do for you?
Charlie:
The question is, I have a living will with my three kids.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
You have a living trust?
Charlie:
A living will. A living trust, I’m sorry yeah. Not a living trust, no. What do you call them?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
A last will and testament?
Charlie:
A last will and testament, right. A percentage on the separation of the property. Now, somebody has advised me to register the property with the homestead state, the same way for the county.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah. You can do a lady bird deed or a life estate deed. You can do that.
Charlie:
So this way they don’t have to go to probate, am I right?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes, you can do it that way. I usually, when I’m discussing this with clients, we can discuss that if they have a question about it. I do think a living trust is a better way to plan, because with a living trust, you can, the successor trustee can deal with the property better while you’re living. Whereas, a life estate deed, nothing really happens until you pass away on the transfer. But things might need to be done while you’re living for your benefit.
Charlie:
I see. But I mean, homestead doesn’t change if I do that, right?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
No, either way. There’s no change in the homestead status.
Charlie:
Good enough. Thank you so much. Have a good week then.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, thank you Charlie. All right, let’s go to Winifred in Bradenton.
Winifred:
Hello?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes, what can I do for you?
Winifred:
Yes. I have a will, which I made probably five years ago, where my oldest daughter and my youngest daughter are both executors on the will. But my daughter, my oldest daughter died in December. I know she would, I’m leaving my estate to my children. I was wondering what is the simplest way to make her son, since he’s like a son to me, make her husband part of my will. What is the simplest way to do that?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, just to a new, either do a codicil to the will or a new will. We charge the same thing for a codicil or a new will, which is 125.
Winifred:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
So we just do a new document that names whoever you want to be as your beneficiary, if you want to name your deceased daughter’s, I’m very sorry about your daughter. But if you want to name your deceased daughter’s husband as a beneficiary, then you just have to either change the existing document or do a new document.
Winifred:
Okay.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
If you came to me, for example, during that conversation, I’d be glad to do a new will for you. But I’d also want to discuss with you the advantages you might have in considering a living trust to avoid probate.
Winifred:
I don’t know whether I would have … isn’t there a dollar amount that you have to reach to go to probate?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
No, not really because any size estate goes through a probate and the minimum probate fee is $2,500 that we charge and there’s about a six or $700 out-of-pocket cost. You’re into over $3,000 to do a probate, even on a very small estate. And you can avoid that with a trust and we have a package fee, a flat fee for a trust package is like 695. And that includes the trust, the deed, the power of attorney, the living will, healthcare surrogate living will is you get a whole new package of all the documents you need for the flat fee.
Winifred:
For the flat fee of what, 695?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes ma’am.
Winifred:
Yeah, that sounds like that’s a better way to go.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, that’s what most of my clients do. Maybe not everybody, but that’s what most of my clients do. It’s just a fancy will that avoids probate.
Winifred:
Okay. Okay. Well, that sounds very good. Do you have offices here in Bradington?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I have offices in Sun City Center, which most of my Bradington clients come there. We have a office also in Lakewood Ranch, but I don’t go to that office, but I do have another, a very experienced attorney that goes to that office.
Winifred:
Okay and their fees are the same?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes.
Winifred:
Bye now.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Let’s go to Rick calling from Florida. Hey Rick.
Rick:
Hey Joe. Good morning.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Rick, what city are you calling from?
Rick:
I actually live in Stuart, Florida.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. What can we do for you?
Rick:
Well, I wanted to lady bird deed my primary residence to my son, who’s my only heir, and to basically remove the asset from my name and avoid probate when I expire. My only question is in doing so, am I able to change that or say, if I wanted to five years from now roll it back into my name or put it into a trust?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah. I had a conversation with a client exactly along these lines yesterday. And here’s what I told the client. Yes, you can do a lady bird deed. Yes, you can name your son as a beneficiary of your property on the deed. Yes, you can change the deed at any time. You could cancel that deed or change that deed and name someone else. You can do whatever you want to do. You could sell the property before you die. You can do whatever you want to do with the lady bird deed and the lady bird deed does avoid probate.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Is there perhaps an alternative and a better way to do this? And my answer is yes. I would prefer, me, I would not do a lady bird deed. I would do a living trust, put the property into a living trust. You can always amend or change the trust. The trust has a beneficiary. The better part to me is that if I have a stroke or become incapacitated, that the successor trustee that I choose can now come in and take over and manage that property and do whatever’s needed to be done with it while I’m living. A lady bird deed, nothing really happens until you die.
Rick:
Question.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yes?
Rick:
As far as say, when I get older and I want to qualify for government benefits, if I put it in the living trust, is that considered an asset in my name?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
The homestead in Florida is a non-accountable asset. The homestead does not count as an asset at all and it’s protected from creditors. The homestead has really no impact on qualifying for Medicaid. If all you had was a homestead, you would qualify for Medicaid, the house could still be left to your son, free from the claim, so the nursing home or medical.
Rick:
What about, Joe, I’m sorry. What about a second home, like if I had a investment property?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
A second home can also be treated as exempt if it’s a rental home or perhaps it’s in another state and you put the home up for sale. There’s a way that we can orchestrate around also protecting the second home in Medicaid planning. I have a full-time Medicaid attorney on staff. That’s all he does is Medicaid. He probably works 50, 60 hours a week, helping people reposition assets, qualify for Medicaid. We can usually qualify a person for Medicaid in maybe 60 days and protect, move assets around. The power of attorneys that we do authorize the movement into non-accountable exempt categories. And also he and I have written a little book on asset protection and Medicaid. If anyone wants that, it’s $20 and they can send in for it and I’ll give out my contact information several times during the show.
Rick:
Great. Can I ask one more question?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Sure.
Rick:
Okay. This whole idea came about because of divorce and my wife and the simplest way to quiet claimed properties into my name was my doing the lady bird deed on both the primary homesteaded property and income property.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
So your wife signed a deed to you?
Rick:
Correct.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
But it’s a lady bird deed?
Rick:
Right, yeah. Correct. I want to have her sign a lady bird deed into quit claim and-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
It would just be a quick, yeah it would just be a quit claim deed from her to you though.
Rick:
Correct.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
A lady bird deed doesn’t really come into that transfer during the divorce usually.
Rick:
Well, it would be, I would probably quit claim it and then lady bird it.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Or consider putting it in a trust. I would suggest you at least consider that and have a conversation with an attorney about that.
Rick:
There you go. Thank you Joe, for your time.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. Thank you.
Joe Weaver:
And indeed, Joe Pippen was always so generous with his time as we’ve heard here this morning. Some of the, I mean a small sample of the many caller interactions he had over an almost 40 year radio career. As today, we pay tribute to the life of Joe Pippen on the radio. And this next piece was actually a special presentation that was done all the way back in 2006. It was a deviation from the regular format that we’ve been hearing so far today, which is the callers bringing the questions to him and then him being able to answer their questions, either directly, particularly in the area of wills, trust, probate, but outside of that as well. But this episode was special in the sense that instead of answering the questions over the phone, this was answering questions that people had emailed him and joining him on his broadcast was his wife Beverly. And so here’s a sample of what that program sounded like.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Hello everyone, it’s Ask An Attorney: All About Florida Law. I’m attorney Joe Pippen. Welcome to the show. This is a special show today. For the first time in 22 years, I have my wife in as a cohost and she said that if Dr Phil’s wife can come in and help him that she’s going to come help me once. So welcome to the show, Beverly.
Beverly:
Thank you, Joe.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right. We’ve been married for 37 years and have a couple of kids and she’s really helped me a lot in my legal career. It’s really great to have her here today. And Beverly what’s the first question?
Beverly:
All right. It’s from Henry, from Haines City. He is asking, “Why does my will have to go through probate? It already leaves everything to my son.”
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, a lot of people ask me that question and I’d like to give a little example in my answer to that question. The answer is that when you die with a will and you die with something in your name, the asset’s in the name of a deceased person. And if the asset is in the name of the deceased person, the only way you can get it out is with a court order. That whole process is called probate. The example I like to give, and I had this question just the other day, also, when I was speaking at a seminar. And I said, “Listen, if you die and your son takes your will to the bank, and there’s a bank account in your name, and now you’re deceased and your son takes it to the bank and says here’s my dad’s will. Here’s the death certificate. Here’s my ID. You can see the will leaves everything to me, give me the money. Is the bank going to do that?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And the man says, “Well, yeah.” I was speaking at a group of about 300 people and I said, “Okay, well, let me ask you this. How many people in the room of the 300 people think the bank’s going to give them money?” And nobody raised their hand. This man was just very headstrong in the fact that the bank should give him the money because his dad left it to him in a will and it says that. So I said, “Listen, sir, I said you could come to my office today to make a will. And you could leave everything to your son. You could come to my office next week and make another will that leaves everything to your girlfriend.”
I made a mistake because the man was sitting next to his wife, but his question was could his son, if he left everything to his son. I played with that a little bit and had some fun with it. But, he realized that his son could not get the money from the bank and they wouldn’t release it. Just because you leave everything in a will, your will upon death goes through probate. the reason why is because it’s in the name of a deceased person.
Beverly:
Okay. Susan from Largo wants to know, “I want to omit one of my children from receiving anything. Can she contest my will?”
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, unfortunately, anybody can sue anybody and anybody can contest anything. A child has a right to contest the will and they might say they were forgotten. Usually in a will, I’ll put language that I’ve omitted so-and-so for personal reasons. It’s hard to contest that. A lot of people come in and they want to actually name a reason. I’m going to have a reason I’m omitting my daughter because I already gave her money, or they have some reason they have and that reason can be contested. I just say usually, yes, you can omit people. You just say I’ve omitted them for personal reasons, so they have the right to contest, yes. The most common reasons to contest a will, number one is undue influence. Number two is incompetence.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Undue influence is a big issue people don’t think about. Probably not a week goes by that people don’t come to my office and they bring in mother or father with them. Mother or father might be slightly incapacitated, incompetent, early stages of Alzheimer’s or something. A lot of times the child will start talking and the child will try to dictate the terms of what the parent’s trying to do. And if it favors that child at all, then I just stop the proceeding. Say, “Look, parent has to come back by themselves. You can’t be here. This favors you. I don’t want to hear anymore. This wouldn’t work in court. Somebody can contest this and when it’s undue influence.” You can do it, but I’d be very careful. And when you go to the attorney’s office, you don’t go with an interested party that’s going to benefit more. That’s the answer.
Beverly:
Okay, good. This is from Joe, from Sun City Center. “My wife is going into a nursing home and the bill is $6,000 a month. What assets will I be able to keep?”
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, that’s a common question we get all the time is what can we do to get government benefits? And when you’re paying six, seven, $8,000 a month, we see sometimes it doesn’t take long for the estate to disappear very quickly. So there are several ways to look at this situation. One is can an attorney rearrange assets, get them all set up in proper columns so that the assets are all exempt. Therefore, the spouse in this case could qualify for Medicaid. Well, one of my attorneys does that all, that’s what he’s chosen to do is help people get government benefits. What he does is he knows the state of Florida is created by statute, many exempt categories and exempt assets. And what he does is just help people rearrange their assets to get them all in those exempt categories, so they qualify for Medicaid.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
For example, a spouse that’s in the community, we’ll call that person the community spouse. In this case, the husband, his home is exempt regardless of the value. He also can keep $99,000 plus a car and plus prepaid funeral expenses and a few other small things like that. He can keep they’re non-accountable. The rest of the assets are accountable and would normally disqualify the wife. What we do is to take all those assets that are accountable, that would disqualify the spouse, and we put them in either a special category. One special category is a Medicaid annuity. One is a personal service contract. So, there are various things that we can do. We could pay down the home so that the cash in the mortgage account that’s accountable, otherwise would be non-accountable. We can prepay things. We can do funeral accounts. We can create special needs contracts. We can do lots of different things, so the spouse can automatically qualify for Medicaid, thereby preserving the estate for the community spouse and other family members.
Beverly:
Okay. Judy from Lakeland wants to know, “My children are spendthrifts and wasteful with money. What can I do to prevent them from spending inheritance too quickly?”
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, a lot of people have that concern, unfortunately, and a lot of … it takes some children longer to grow up than others. what we do is we talk about that to see how old the children are. And again, I’m at a little bit of a disadvantage because I can’t ask her how old the children are. What I would do with the minor child most often is suggest, when you have a 10 or a 12-year-old, for example, you don’t know how they’re going to turn out, how responsible they’re going to be, what type of jobs they’re going to have, what type of citizens they’re going to be in the community. How wise they are with money. None of those things do you know, really at 10 or 12. You might have a clue, but you don’t really know for sure.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Normally with a 10 or 12-year-old, what we would do is to suggest something like give them income, starting at 21. Give them a third of the principal at 25. Give them the other half of the principal at 35 and the balance of the principal at 45. You give the trustee tremendous discretion during that time period, to be able to spend money for college education, maintenance, wellbeing, cost of living, just normal living things. You give the trustee discretion to pay for all of those. So, you have a good plan and then if they’re at 10 or 12 now, and you can take a look every three or four years, and you can modify the time periods as much as you want.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
If you have adult children that are 25, 30, 35, and you see that they’re wasteful, not productive, not earning money, and the money they do get they’re wasteful and don’t use it wisely. And you don’t want your inheritance to go along those same lines, then what you can do is to just spread it out, like in an early example I gave with a spendthrift. You could say, you could pick a time period depending on the size of your estate. And the time period could be, I want to give it over 20 years. Give them 1/20th, 1/19th, 1/18th, 1/17th, 1/16th and just spread out their distribution over a 20 year period.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Some people give them income only on the larger estates until they get to be 60, and then start the 20 year period at 60 on the principal. It really just depends on the circumstances on this case. And if this person was in my office, I would ask them a series of questions and we could probably nail down the perfect plan for them. Yeah, but right now it’s just too many unknowns, then to give the general information that I just gave. I hope that was helpful.
Joe Weaver:
And being helpful has been the hallmark of the Ask An Attorney Program. There, we just had a chance to hear some excerpts from the email show that he did with his wife, Beverly, all the way back in 2006. And it would be impossible to play every interaction he had and every call or answer over the course of almost 40 years on the radio. And as we close out this tribute program, one more caller with a unique set of challenges that Joe handled in his usual patient matter.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Let’s go to a LInd in Clearwater.
LInd:
Hello? Good morning, sir.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Hey, how are you?
LInd:
Oh, I’m fine. Thank you for taking the call. Here’s the thing, if you have somebody in your home that you’re living with, but really not living with, they’re just a boarder. And they are taken to court for something their dog did, their dog bit another dog, and then they have your name on the suit to come to small claims court, but you’re not really living with this person, they’re just really a boarder. Are you responsible under the Florida statutes for their liabilities and expenses? It’s probably a bit muddy that, but-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
If you didn’t own the dog.
LInd:
No, it’s not my dog. It’s nothing to do with me, but the dog was living in my house with this person and really separate bedrooms. Wasn’t really living with the person, just more or less a boarder. But the thing is the court, the thing that’s come from court has my name on it, as well as the other person’s.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, actually, if you’ve been served papers, you’re going to have to go to court and defend yourself.
LInd:
Right.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Your defense would be that it’s not your dog.
LInd:
Right.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
And I think an attorney would probably have to see how the lawsuit, what the lawsuit-
LInd:
It’s a small claims court.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Yeah, but you were served papers and there’s words in that petition against you. So an attorney would have to review what that petition says to see what your defense would be.
LInd:
I see.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I mean, the petition might even state that it’s your dog. I don’t know.
LInd:
Yeah, but it’s not.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
I know. I know. Right, so you would go defend yourself and prove that it’s not your dog. And then if that’s all the petition states that was your dog and that dog did damage to another dog and you defend yourself simply by saying it’s not your dog, which then the petition’s not true. So you could easily prove that.
LInd:
Yes. Now, if there was some liability against the person, would I be responsible for that, because they were living in my home?
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Again, an attorney is going to have to review the petition to see what you’re charged with.
LInd:
I see, yeah.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
It’s all based on what the petition says.
LInd:
Yeah, well, it’s a small claims court. They lady’s a very old lady and she said, this dog bit her dog and it was in a dog park where it says you enter at your own risk. That’s the sign on the dog park. It says enter dogs enter-
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, so the injury didn’t even happen on your property?
LInd:
No, no.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Okay. Well, if you didn’t own the dog and the injury didn’t happen on your property, I can’t see really where you’d have any liability. But again, an attorney would have to see what the petition says.
LInd:
I see. Okay, thank you very much sir.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
All right, thank you.
LInd:
I love your program.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Well, thank you very much.
LInd:
Okay, cheerio.
Attorney Joe Pippen:
Cheerio.
Joe Weaver:
Again, we thank you for joining us today for this tribute to a great friend who we’ll dearly miss, Brother Joe Pippen. If you’d like to learn more about his life or hear some audio archives of his many programs over the years, go to the website, attypip.com. Again, that’s attypip.com. Have a wonderful day.
Announcer 1:
The preceding is sponsored by the law offices of Joe Pippen. Learn more by visiting www.attypip.com.