About Us

Law Offices of TIM A. SHANE P A
Established in Florida in 1983; serving Broward and Palm Beach County, Florida.

Our areas of practice are as follows:

Estate planing deals with two problems that all of us have. First, who will make decisions for us in the event of our illness or incapacity. These decisions are financial and medical. Some of our clients will select the same person to make both financial and medical decisions for us, and some of us will want one person to make the medical and another to make the financial. If you do not create a legal document to handle this, then the Court will in fact select a person for you, such as an independent guardian or curator. Second, who do you want to receive your assets in the event of your death. Again, if you do not have a valid Will, then the State of Florida has created a Will for you and someone other than who you would have selected may wind up with your assets following your death.

Probate Administration is the legal court process of distributing your assets in the event of your death or setting up a guardianship for you in the event of your illness. It is required for everyone that dies or becomes incapacitated, unless you have created a legal plan to avoid the probate administration.

Trust Administration is the administration of the instructions that you created if you have created a Trust. This is the best way to avoid the court process of probate administration. Most of our clients have created a trust to avoid the costs and delays of probate. Other documents that our clients create are Durable Powers of Attorney, Health Care Surrogate and Living Will. When you create a trust and name yourself as your trustee then you avoiding probate, protecting yourself and your family, and staying in complete control of your assets. The Federal

Estate Tax:There is a Federal Estate Tax for all residents of our county, which is a very large and burdensome tax. Most everyone has already paid income taxes during the years of accumulation of our assets, and the Federal Estate tax is actually a double tax, as the assets that you own are being taxed again at death. The tax is on all of a persons assets; home, investments, automobiles, personal property. There are marital deductions, charitable deductions, and credits available to offset or totally eliminate this tax. Effective January 1, 2011, there is brand new law affecting everyone in regards to estate tax planning, and regardless of when you last did any estate tax planning, your documents need to be reviewed now to have them updated to the new law.

Personal Planning Protection Station: When we do an estate plan for our clients, we are always drafting documents that allow your selection of who you want to make decisions for you if and when you are not able to make these for yourself, whether on a temporary basis if you become sick, a more permanent basis if you become incompetent, and of course following your death. These decisions are both financial and medical. You can select a responsible person or persons to make these decisions for you, which may be a family member, close friend, or professional advisor, a bank or trust company. The creation of the legal documents is the first important step. When the time comes, however, for the person or persons that you selected to assist you when you have a health or other emergency befall you, there generally is an immediate panic by that person. The panic is because they are concerned for you, of course, but then the person selected realizes that he or she may not have the proper information at their finger tips to really assist you. They are not sure where there is a copy of your legal papers, who your attorney is, who your doctors are, what prescriptions you are taking. Of course they will eventually get this information to assist you, but this can take some time to gather it. Under the Personal Planning Protection Portfolio, we assist you in getting organized, setting up your file of information, and providing permission based access to this information immediately, over the internet, in a secure format. Now the important information is available for your family andlor selected individuals to answer many of the questions that they have. A true protection for you, set onto a station that can be accessed from anywhere by anyone with permission, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Asset Review and Planning: We also need to review your assets, checking any beneficiary designations that you may have that would affect your estate plan. All to often, people purchase an insurance policy, or annuity, or set up an IRA or other investment account with a pay on death or beneficiary designation. Sometimes~ the person named is no longer alive~ or no longer listed as your beneficiary in your estate plan. Unfortunately this is a major flaw in the estate plan created for you as the legal documents say that you want certain beneficiaries to inherit your assets but another investment account or insurance product names some one that is different than your current estate plan. The insurance company or brokerage company or bank will follow the account instructions that you made with them, regardless of the fact that your current estate plan no longer wants the person so named in the investment account or policies. We have a Asset Review and Planning division within our firm that will safeguard against that happening for you.

Insurance division: We have an insurance division within our law firm manned by Florida licensed insurance agents. All too often, your insurance needs change as you grow older. The policies that you presently have need to be reviewe~ as the reasons why you bought the insurance may no longer be applicable and some of the policies may no longer be needed, or need to be changed. How the insurance policies are titled or owned also affects the potential Estate Tax that will be levied on these policies, so we need to review the ownership aspects of the insurance policies to prevent unnecessary taxation. Many of our clients have questions about long term care and Medicare Supplements, which are insurance agents can answer for you and assist your needs in that area.

2. Real Estate matters. Our firm has handled a broad range of Real Estate matters: Commercial transactions, Residential homes, Sale of Assets in a Business. We are affiliated with Sterling Title and Trust, which is a long standing and reputable title insurance company. We also are affiliated with Meridian Realty, which is a long standing and reputable real estate brokerage company with offices in Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and Lake Worth. Our real estate group has transacted thousands of real estate transactions, and we have advised and represented many Florida homeowners in short sales and foreclosures. We have closed over Two Billion Dollars in Real Estate Transactions .

3. Creditor Issues. We have listened to our clients, and too many of our clients are hurting financially. Their mortgages are greater than the present value of their homes. They are burdened with credit card and other debt, and this debt keeps increasing daily with the interest rates, creditor collection fees and creditor attorney fees being added to what was due.
We have created what we call the "Client Fresh Start" division of our practice. We are guiding and assisting our clients in the Short Sale process, Loan Modification, and Debt Settlements. We are representing our clients in Foreclosure defense as well as dealing directly with our clients creditors so our clients can focus on making a living without being hassled by their creditors. We are also working with reputable credit repair companies to assist our clients to repair their now damaged credit ratings. To properly assist our Fresh Start clients, we need to work together in creating a plan that truly gives them a Fresh Start. This plan has to be realistic, saleable to the creditors, and totally affordable to the client. We start with working out a realistic financial budget plan and preparing this budget plan professionally to be able to show a true financial picture to the creditors. This plan is prepared by either the clients existing accountant or by an accountant that we recommend. We also prepare a professional report by one of our Realtors showing the real present value of the property. These two reports, along with a budget established and agreed to by our client to resolve the creditor issues are the keys to success for a fresh start. We then implement the plan by establishing a separate bank account for the client which the client has full viewing of the transactions in this account via the internet. Every dime put into this account is tracked and accounted for. Normally, our clients require between 24-36 months to create, implement and complete the plan; with the goal of allowing them to have a true fresh start financially after the completion of the plan.

Our fees are also paid over the 24-36 month period of time and we bundle the required services so the client that signs on for the Fresh Start program gets the complete package of services required to truly assist them