When your child turns 18, you lose automatic legal authority over their medical care, financial decisions, and academic records, even when you’re paying tuition and they’re on your insurance. The College Readiness Package puts the right protections in place in a single session, for families across Florida.
When your child turns 18, you lose automatic access to their medical information, financial matters, and academic records, even if you’re paying the bills. The College Readiness Package restores those protections with four essential legal documents that allow you to step in when needed.
Authorizes you to manage your student's financial and legal matters if they're unable to. This covers everything from a lost debit card to handling time-sensitive paperwork during a hospital stay. Without it, banks and institutions are not required to discuss the account with you, even if you opened it together.
Designates you as your student's healthcare proxy and records their own wishes for medical treatment. If they're incapacitated by an accident or illness, you have the legal authority to make decisions and direct their care.
Permits doctors, hospitals, and insurers to share protected health information with you. Without this signed authorization, the medical team that's treating your child is legally prohibited from telling you what's happening, even on the phone, even in an emergency.
Authorizes the college to share grades, financial aid information, and disciplinary records with you. This is the document most parents don't realize they need until a struggling semester or an unexpected academic issue surfaces.
No hourly billing, no surprises. Choose the complete package or the specific documents your family needs.
A 15-minute call to confirm which documents make sense for your family and answer any questions before you commit.
A single appointment, in person or virtual, where the documents are drafted, reviewed, witnessed, and notarized. Most families complete the entire package in 45 to 60 minutes.
Your student leaves with originals in a branded portfolio. You leave with digital copies and the peace of mind that comes from having the right protections in place.
Yes. The student is the one signing the documents, which is what makes them legally enforceable. Both in-person and virtual appointments are available, and we can accommodate students who are already away at school.
Documents can be completed remotely with proper notarization. Many of our families have students at schools across the country, and the package is drafted to maximize portability across state lines.
The documents are drafted to be recognized as broadly as possible. For students attending school in another state, we can advise on whether additional state-specific documentation would be helpful and what that typically costs.
Yes. These documents are entirely under your student’s control. They can be revoked or updated at any time, which is one of the reasons we walk both parent and student through the documents together.
You would likely need to petition a Florida court for emergency guardianship, which is a slow, expensive, and public process. The College Readiness Package exists specifically to prevent that scenario.
No. The package is designed for any 18-year-old preparing to leave home, whether for college, a gap year, military service, vocational training, or work.
With offices in Sarasota, Venice, Lakewood Ranch, Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Bonita Springs, Berlin Patten Ebling has spent more than two decades guiding Florida families through life’s biggest occasions. Our estate planning attorneys built the College Readiness Package because we kept hearing the same conversation from clients whose 18-year-olds were heading off to school. We designed it to be straightforward, affordable, and complete.
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation. We’ll answer your questions and help you decide what’s right for your family.
Simple Submission: Using Payload, you can send your EMD funds. The platform is designed to ensure your transaction is both secure and hassle-free.
Transparent Fee Structure: A nominal processing fee of $12.00 will be applied to your transaction. This fee is disclosed during the submission process.
Instant Confirmation: Once your transaction is completed, you’ll receive an immediate confirmation email from Payload. Our accounting team will also be promptly notified, usually within minutes of the transfer.
Specifically for EMD: Payload is exclusively for submitting your Earnest Money Deposit ONLY. It is not to be used for final closing proceeds or any other payments.
Deposit Limit: To maintain the integrity of our process, we have set a maximum deposit amount of $100,000.00 for EMD submissions.