Estate planning
Estate Planning in Tampa for parents who would rather plan than worry
Good Parents Worry, Great Parents Plan. Edmund J. Gegan helps Tampa families put a Florida estate plan in place, together with the financial and insurance advisers they already trust.
Chapter 01
If you do not decide, Florida will decide for you
Most families put estate planning off because it feels like a conversation about the worst day. The cost of waiting is simple, though. When people fail to prepare an estate plan, the laws of Florida decide what happens to their assets after their death. Those rules do not know which child needs more help, which friend you trust, or which cause mattered to your mother. They are written for everyone, which means they are written for no one in particular.
Good Parents Worry, Great Parents Plan is the idea behind the estate work at Gegan Law Office. A plan turns worry into a few decisions made calmly at a table: who is in charge, who receives what, and who raises young children if both parents are gone. If you live in or around Tampa, a free initial consultation with Edmund Gegan is a low-pressure place to start. Call (813) 248-8900.
A family kitchen table with a dark green leather folio tied in cream ribbon, house keys, a child's crayon drawing, a mug and a fountain pen
A short questionnaire first, then a meeting built around your family
New clients complete a short-form questionnaire before the first consultation, so the design meeting is more productive. Edmund calls the next sit-down a design meeting because that is what it is: the two of you shaping a plan around what you actually have and actually want, rather than filling in a template and hoping it fits.
Edmund has practiced law since 1994, first in New York and in Tampa since 2009. He plans estates in cooperation with financial and insurance consultants, so the legal documents and the money side of your life are built to agree with each other. The core documents are described on the Fundamental Estate Planning page, and the trust that keeps a family out of probate is covered under Living Trusts.
Chapter 03
After a death: what administering a Florida estate involves
A plan is also a set of instructions for the people left behind. When someone dies, Florida estate and trust administration follows a sequence: contact the beneficiaries, gather and value the assets, notify the creditors, pay the debts and taxes, and then distribute what remains. Grieving relatives often do this for the first time. Gegan Law Office helps families through those steps, and a well-drafted plan makes each one easier.
Estate planning also reaches past the basic documents. Charitable planning lets you decide how a gift to a cause you care about fits with what you leave your family, and estate tax planning looks at whether a larger estate needs extra structure. The office offers a free Family Action Plan download for families who want to get organized before they sit down with an attorney. Special needs planning and probate avoidance each have their own pages as well.
“The honesty and integrity exhibited by this firm was refreshing.” Roger Hall, Google review