Opinion
No. 4D00-3079.
Opinion filed March 28, 2001. Rehearing Denied May 25, 2001
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Indian River County; Scott M. Kenney, Judge; L.T. Case No. 99-622-CA-17.
Robert Jackson of Jackson Barkett, Vero Beach, and Joseph C. Mellichamp, III, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Tallahassee, for appellants.
Troy B. Hafner and Brian J. Connelly of Gould, Cooksey, Fennell, O'Neill, Marine, Carter Hafner, P.A., Vero Beach, for appellees.
The trial court granted final summary judgment in favor of appellee Rita M. White, who claimed a homestead exemption in property that she conveyed to a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT) and in which she retained a right to reside for a term of eight years. The Property Appraiser of Indian River County and the Director of the State of Florida Department of Revenue appealed, arguing that Mrs. White does not have sufficient equitable title to claim homestead exemption because she does not hold a life estate in the property. We affirm, adopting the rationale in Robbins v. Welbaum, 664 So.2d 1 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (taxpayers were entitled to homestead exemption even though the qualified personal residence trust limited taxpayers' use of their residence to earlier of ten years from trust's creation or one of taxpayer's death).
A Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT) is an estate planning device whereby the settlor creates "an irrevocable trust funded by the transfer of a personal residence to the trustee while retaining in the transferor a right to reside on the property for a term of years." Jeffrey A. Baskies, Understanding Estate Planning with Qualified Personal Residence Trusts, 73 Fla. B. J. 72 (1999).
Farmer, Taylor, JJ., and May, Melanie G., Associate Judge, Concur.