PROPERTY LAW
Travels through Property Law by Tom Brodersen, Esq.
DO IT YOURSELF transactions. The County Clerk of Court lets you see a list of all court cases a person or company has been involved in, from traffic tickets, divorces and lawsuits to criminal felonies. It’s great to know who you’re dealing with. You can also find records of all licensed service providers, at MyFloridaLicense.com, including their disciplinary history. Who wouldn’t want to know about that?
Many people want to save time and money by helpful, cheerful self-service! It’s quite the modern trend, and for good reason. There is so much information on the internet these days that a person willing to take the time should be able to save money by doing so many things for themselves. BUT there are also things you don’t want to do yourself. You don’t want to draft your own will, or draft deeds for real estate. The small amount of money you save by not paying an estate planning or real estate attorney to help may leave you in one of two situations: first, losing sleep at night worrying that the instrument doesn’t accomplish what you needed it to do, or, perhaps worse, not losing sleep because it didn’t occur to you to wonder about it, and therefore, not learning the deed or will is defective until it’s much too late to fix it. We see so many situations where the only person who can fix the situation has passed away, or no longer has their legal capacity. But there are many things you CAN do for yourself.
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JUNE-JULY 2021 | ParadiseNewsFL.com
You can incorporate your business or form a Limited Liability Company (LLC). You don’t even need to pay Legal Zoom or any other service for assistance – you can just go on the Florida Sunbiz website, and do it there. You can file generic Articles of Incorporation (or Articles of Organization for an LLC), which are entirely sufficient for most purposes. After that, you’ll need to get an Employer Identification Number (FEIN), that is, a federal tax ID, and then file an IRS form 2553 (Small Business Election) to be taxed as an S Corp (that is, like a partnership rather than a standard C Corp, to avoid double taxation). You can also get information on people you deal with in business, real estate, and other
If you’re doing anything with real estate, go to the Property Appraiser’s website. This includes property features, real estate taxes (how much, and have they been paid or not), a PDF of the last deed recorded, building permits, and other highly useful information. Once you have read what’s available online, you can sometimes go forward on your own, just getting a question or two answered by an attorney, accountant or other professional. ANDERSON & BRODERSEN, P.A., 350 Corey Avenue, St. Pete Beach, FL 33706 (727) 363-6100 • www.PropertyLawGroup.com
