Practice Areas
This section deals with the basic estate planning docuemnts every individual should have in order to ensure efficient management of one's property upon death or disability and efficient management of one's healthcare decision in the event of incapacity. The minimum documents required include a Last Will & Testament, a Powers of Attorney, a Healthcare Proxy, and a Living Will. Depending on a client's asset level and particular situation, a revocable trust or living trust may be appropriate.
Power of Attorney
A power of attorney is an agency docuemnt that effectivley delegates all of one's delegable legal rights in favor of another. This document does not govern healthcare decisions at all. The power of attorney specifically governs an individuals contract and property rights only. As a practical matter, it is important for a power of attorney to be recently executed, specifically include the power to create qualified income trusts, and frequent the power to make gifts. Frequently, this authority is not included in powers of attorney, especially those recieved from the internet and the popular press.
Advance Health Care Directives
(Healthcare Proxies, Living Wills & Do Not Resusitate Orders)
Advance healthcare directives are the documents neccessary to ensure your healthcare decision and end of life decision are proeprly managed in accordance with your explicit instructions.
This practice area deals with the income, estate and gift tax planning opportunities associated with deffered compensation and tax qualified retirement plans including tax deffered IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401ks, 403b plans and 412i plans.
Asset protection planning is the discipline of arranging one's assets so as to provide maximum protection from "creditors and predators". This protection can be developed for the benefit of a client or a client's inteded beneficiaries via a variety of techiniques, including bankruptcy exemption planning ( including the strategic use of annuities and life insurance), retirement benefits planning, proper homestead planning, limited liability entity planning, domestic asset protection trust planning, and offshore trust planning. Asset protection planning usually works best is it is done in advance of a known creditor issue. Failure to plan in advance may result in substantial fraudalent conveyance issues, depending ont he circumstances.
This practice area involves the use of all varieties of trust arrangements in order to achieve a client's stated estate plannign, asset protection or tax objectives. The type of trust employed may be anything from simple revocable trusts or living trusts, to sophisticated off shore self settled asset protection trusts. Other focuses of this practice areas might include special needs trusts established for the benefit of beneficiaries with developmental disabilities or other incapacity, to Medicaid Asset Protection trusts intended to protect an idividual's assets from long term healthcare costs, to Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITS) used to protect large life insurance policies from estate and gift taxes.
Real estate law encompasses the wide variety of legal issues relating to procuring, financing, establishing, managing, constructing, leasing and selling commercial and residential property.
In this practice area, Mr. Chiantella routinely advises personal representatives ( sometimes mistakenly referred to as executors in Florida) and trustees regarding the proepr adminsitration of wills upon the death of a testor and the proepr administration of trusts upon the death or incapacity of a grantor.
Elder law is the practice area specifically dealing with issues commonly facing senior citizens and their families. The most common issues facing the eldery and their families in this practice area include basic and advanced estate planning, Mediciad planning and VA benefits planning, guardiasnhip and incapacity issues, end of life care decisions, elder exploitation and elder abuse.
Probate, Trusts & Guardianship Litigation