IN RE ESTATE OF SIDNEY I. FIELDS, APPELLANT,
v.
SANDRA R. FIELDS, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The court held that bearer bonds purchased with joint funds and kept in a joint safe deposit box passed to the surviving spouse as a tenancy by the entirety, not to the decedent's estate.
The personal representative appealed a probate court order adding $125,000 in bearer bonds to the estate inventory to satisfy a bequest. The bonds wer…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Gift Inter Vivos cases and more on FLexlaw
BASKIN, Judge.
Ronnie Fields, as personal representative of the Estate of Sidney I. Fields, appeals a final judgment of the probate court requiring that $125,000 in municipal bearer bonds be added to the inventory of the estate. We reverse.
In his will Sidney Fields bequeathed $100,000 to his daughter, Sandra Fields. Sandra Fields filed a motion to compel the personal representative to add the bearer bonds to the inventory of the estate to satisfy her bequest. Sandra Fields argued that the bearer bonds, purchased through a brokerage account opened in her father’s name prior to the marriage, were her father’s assets and part of his estate. The personal representative asserted that the bearer bonds should not be added to the estate’s inventory because they were purchased with monies deposited by Sidney Fields and his wife in a joint savings account opened after their marriage and were kept in the couple’s joint safe deposit box. Each spouse had signed the lease to the safe deposit box, had a key, and had complete access to the box. The court granted Sandra Field's motion. The personal representative appealed.
The trial court erred in determining that the bearer bonds were owned solely by Sidney Fields and therefore went into his estate upon his death. The bearer bonds, purchased with joint funds and maintained in the couple’s joint safe deposit box, passed to the wife upon the husband’s death. The bearer bonds were held by the spouses as tenants by the entirety; ownership vested in the wife as the survivor. Winterton v. Kaufmann, 504 So. 2d 439 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, 515 So. 2d 231 (Fla.1987). Even if the tenancy by the entirety did not exist, the bonds passed to the wife, along with the contents of the safe deposit box, as a gift inter vivos. Winterton.
Reversed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Bret Berlin v. Pecora, 968 So. 2d 47 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007)…r example, in Winterton v. Kaufmann, 504 So. 2d 439 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), the court found that after the husband died, the wife owned bonds that were purchased with joint funds and kept in a joint safe deposit box. See also Estate of Fields v. Fields, 581 So. 2d 1387, 1388 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991) (“The bearer bonds, purchased with joint funds and maintained in the couple’s joint safe deposit box, passed to the wife upon the husband’s death. The bearer bonds were held by the spouses as tenants by the entirety; ownersh…
Authorities Cited
- State v. Beatty, 504 So. 2d 439 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987)
- Winterton v. Roma Kaufmann, 504 So. 2d 439 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)