As a fiduciary financial advisor in North Port, Holland Capital helps you turn savings into retirement income, coordinate the accounts behind your new Florida estate plan and manage the investments to a written policy. The financial pieces of the move become one plan.
The move is finished. The financial move may not be.
Your house is here. Your retirement accounts may still be at the firms you used before you moved. The paycheck has stopped, or soon will. You may have a new Florida attorney drawing up a revocable trust and other documents.
Now somebody has to connect those pieces.
How much can you spend from the portfolio? Which account should the money come from? Do the titles and beneficiary forms on the accounts actually match the estate plan you are putting in place?
A new address does not reorganize the accounts, titles and beneficiary forms that came along with it.
Turning Savings Into Income
While you were working, the question was how much to save. Now it is how much can come out, from which account, starting when.
The answer begins with numbers you already know. What you spend in a normal month. What Social Security will pay each of you and at what age you claim it. Whether there is a pension. Whatever those sources do not cover has to come from savings.
Each account pays you differently. IRA withdrawals are taxed as income. A brokerage account is taxed on the gain, not on the whole withdrawal. A Roth account is usually tax-free.
Florida has no state income tax, which helps. It does not change how the federal government taxes each withdrawal, and it does not tell you how much you can safely take.
Our guide to retirement income planning explains how that number is built.
We build the income plan year by year, showing which account pays, how much tax it creates and when Social Security takes over part of the load. That is where our retirement planning starts.
The Trust Is Signed. Now What?
The attorney drafts the revocable trust. You sign it.
The financial work is making sure the accounts and property line up with what the documents say.
A revocable trust controls only what it owns or what is directed to it. The house has to be deeded to it if that is part of the plan. Bank and brokerage accounts have to be retitled in the trust’s name, or given a payable-on-death or transfer-on-death beneficiary that points to it. An account left in your own name, with no beneficiary, can still end up in probate.
Retirement accounts work differently. An IRA or a 401(k) stays in your name, and the beneficiary form decides who receives it. Whether that form names your spouse, your children or the trust has tax consequences for whoever inherits it, and the right answer depends on who they are.
Then there are the loose ends from the move. An account opened years ago in another state. A certificate of deposit at a bank back home. A life insurance policy with an old beneficiary designation.
We build the financial list: every account and property, how it is titled, who is named on it and whether that matches what the trust intends. Your attorney handles the legal changes. We make sure the financial side follows through.
Our guide to estate distribution planning goes further.
Giving the Investments Their Instructions
Once the income plan and the trust are in place, the investments get their instructions in writing.
An investment policy statement spells out the withdrawals the portfolio must support, the level of risk the plan can live with and the tax treatment of every account.
Each account we manage follows it. The aim is to keep the most after tax within that level of risk, with each holding placed in the IRA, Roth or taxable account where it makes the most sense.
Nothing is sold simply because it came from your old firm. A holding that fits stays. If one does not, the benefit of changing it is weighed against the tax cost of selling it.
Our investment management exists to carry out the plan, not to replace it.
Working with Holland Capital
Holland Capital Management is an independent registered investment adviser and a fiduciary. M. Chad Holland, CFA, CFP® works directly with clients and is responsible for the planning and advice.
In the first meeting, we go through what you have, where it is, what it needs to provide and what is still unfinished from the move. If your estate attorney is already drafting documents, we work alongside them.
The first conversation is free. If there is work worth doing after that, we will define the scope and cost before you decide whether to move forward.
Our offices are in Charlotte, North Carolina and Winter Park, Florida. We work with clients in North Port primarily by video or phone. When an in-person meeting makes sense, we meet by appointment at the Regus center at 6901 Professional Parkway East in Lakewood Ranch, about 40 to 45 minutes north.
For clients whose investments we manage, accounts are held directly at Charles Schwab in the client’s own name. Holland Capital manages the investments but does not take custody of client assets. If a client ever needs in-person assistance from Schwab, the closest branch is in Sarasota at 100 University Town Center Drive.
We work with clients throughout Florida. You can see the other Florida communities we serve here.
Our what we do page explains how a planning engagement works.
RETIREMENT ENGINEERING™
The Order Matters
Five retirement decisions and why timing matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should Our IRAs Be Put Into the Trust?
No. An IRA cannot be retitled to a trust while you are alive; changing the owner would be treated as withdrawing the whole account. The IRA stays in your name, and its beneficiary form decides where it goes.
Naming the trust as that beneficiary is sometimes right, for example, when an heir should not receive the money outright. It also changes how quickly the account must be emptied and taxed after your death. We review each beneficiary form against the plan with you and your attorney.
Does the House Keep Its Homestead Exemption If It Goes Into a Revocable Trust?
Generally, yes. Florida allows the homestead exemption on a home held in a revocable trust when the trust gives you the right to live there. The trust and the deed have to be drafted with that in mind, so your attorney and the Sarasota County Property Appraiser are the ones to confirm it for your home.
What Does a Fiduciary Financial Advisor Do That Our Estate Attorney Does Not?
Your attorney writes the documents and gives legal advice. Holland Capital acts as a fiduciary when providing financial planning and investment advice: the income plan, the taxes on each withdrawal, the beneficiary choices and the portfolio behind all of it.
Where a recommendation would also raise what we are paid, such as moving an account from your old firm to one we manage, we tell you before you decide.
Does It Matter That Holland Capital Has No Office in North Port?
No. Most of the planning happens by video or phone. When sitting down together helps, we can meet by appointment at the Regus center at 6901 Professional Parkway East in Lakewood Ranch.
Photo: Ebyabe / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
