Estate Planning Series Part 1: Do I need an Estate Plan?

Foreign. Welcome everybody to the three part series of estate planning. What you need to know with yours truly, Mark Kohler and the Macing co host, Matt Sorenson.

Yes, I like to call it a trilogy. Some may call it a three part series. Us in Hollywood, those of us in Hollywood, we call it a trilogy.

Oh, what do you call Fast and the Furious Trainer.

That's a. That's an Infinity elegy.

The Never ending Story. Wasn't that a movie in the 80s? The never was.

That was a good one. Little sci fi fantasy.

I love Willow. I was a fan of Willow. Okay, Will. Oh,

oh, guys, hey. Don't turn this podcast off, everyone. We are going to talk about really important stuff, I promise.

Yeah. Yes. And welcome all of you. They're like these guys for real. So we are real tax lawyers, estate planning, asset protection lawyers. We have a real firm with real lawyers. We have a staff of 15 different

lawyers and team of over 70 helping clients across the country.

Yeah. And we'll do estate plans in all states. That really flies in the face of little local estate planning attorneys that get mad that, well, you've got to come meet me in my office and do an estate plan. No, you don't. Estate plans can be done by a law firm around the country. We only have offices in four different states, but we can jump on zoom. We can send out incredible estate planning documents. It can be affordable. We're going to talk about pricing, why you need a trust as part of an estate plan. What are the pieces and parts, folks, you're going to love it. We hope to dispel a lot of myths of people that say it has to be done a certain way. Bull crap. We're going to break it down. It's going to be good.

Yeah. And estate planning is really important. I mean, there's a lot of seriousness to this. And so we're going to get into the seriousness of it. The documents involved, decisions you need to make, how you operate it, how you change it, how does it work in your life? Is it you know? But the first thing that we want to talk about is this matters and you need it. Oh, I have news for everyone listening. You will die one day. And I know nobody likes that. And everyone's like, you're right, I need an estate plan. I need one. Yet majority of Americans don't even have one. Not even a will.

Yeah. I thought you said the first thing was we're going to have fun. But I appreciate that.

Can't promise that. Yeah, we'll have fun. I don't know about you.

I'm sorry, I've got to say, an Arrested Development pilot, you know, episode one. What's most. What have I always said is most important? And Michael said. George Michael. You remember what he said? Yes, yes.

He says breakfast. No, family.

Oh, yeah. I thought you.

Yeah, family. Family.

Family. Yeah. Not breakfast.

Okay. So.

No, but we, I actually have loved doing this podcast with Matt over the years because we actually believe what's most important is that you have an enjoyable experience, really. And learn something on this podcast. And it's so hard to make tax and legal interesting and fun. So we're going to do our best. So please forgive us as we ham things up. And it is a sens talking about death, but who cares? We're going to talk about it. We're all going to die. So deal with it. So, yeah,

yeah. Just get a plan in place. And the one. This is, this is another way to think about it. This is for the people you love. Your stay plan is not for you. I mean, there's some things there that help you during your life, but the majority of what you're doing is about creating a legacy for your family. How you want your assets to be disposed of, what you want to carry on. And if you think more about it as how do I have this legacy? Go on after I pass, I think you can get a little more excited about it and you're going to create a lot less headache and fighting from their loved ones. You may leave on who are going to be confused and who are going to have different opinions about. You want if you didn't specify it.

Yeah. Okay, I'm in. Okay, so here's our three part series that you guys will come to love and know. These are ultimately going to be posted on our website for the law firm under our estate planning section. So some of you may be seeing this for the first time there. They'll be in a YouTube video format on the website. But part one is why you need a trust. We want to make sure you kind of go in with your eyes wide open as to what a trust is about. Or we say trust because the revocable living trust is the backbone of an estate plan. But I think, Matt, we should start with what are the parts of an estate plan Here in a moment. Yeah, Part two is going to be critical provisions, unique provisions drafting it. What should you be thinking about? What's our title going to be for this? Our title for part two. This is really ambitious of us.

Part two is making decisions for your estate plan.

Okay.

Making the decisions to complete your estate plan.

That's boring. Better. Okay, I got it, I got it.

What you need to do, bring out

the narcissist in you and control your family from the grave.

Okay. Wasn't loving that one. Okay.

All right. Yeah. Really screw up your family after you die. That's. I like that one. So unique provisions, number three, part three of our.

But I want to say, even though you know it's not the number two is not just about unique decisions or stuff that control. It's just about like the decisions you need to make. Like when you make. When you want to do an estate plan, what do you need to think about and know what are the decisions that are going to happen in that process? Do you have kids? Who's going to raise your kids if you pass away and they're minors? Okay. Do you like what assets do you have and how those getting disposed of? You share assets with anyone, like who should be trustee of your estate. What does that mean? So we want to walk through those things that are like decision making, that a lot of people when they start an estate plan get stalled out because they're like, well, I need some help on this. I don't know what the heck that means.

All right, I like it. I like it.

I was thinking for two.

Okay. And then step three or sorry, part three of this series is funding your trust.

Also episode three. Episode three, Episode.

Okay. You know, the trilogy lives on. Okay. So we will call it funding your trust and beyond. Like what do you do to maintain this dumb thing? You're going to love it. There's no tax returns. It's doesn't need a tax ID number. You're going to love it. You can change it while you're alive and well. So we'll get there too. So that's part three. All right, so part one, for those of you that want to read a little bit of this stuff and find that to be a better medium. I just published a blog article yesterday. You can find it@markjkuller.com it also auto feeds into our law firm website, kkoslawyers.com it is titled why a living trust what you need to know. So I'm going to maybe pull a little bit of that. I don't have it up in front of me. I'm going to pull from memory. Matt, I want you to. This is live and this is.

I have it in front of me so I'll be cheating. But let's hit the. Maybe the components. I thought maybe there's Five pieces to your estate plan. Oh, I know. You mentioned the workhorse. Okay. If I just rattle off the first five?

Yeah. I think it could be, you know, there's maybe we go with the Core 5. I think there could be a lot.

Yeah. Core 5. Yeah, I like that. Thank you.

Let's do it. Okay. Estate plan.

Yeah. As an attorney would say, these are the five parts of your estate plan, including but not limited to a little lawyer. Lawyer talk for you like that.

It depends. It depends.

It depends also. It's a good one. All right. Okay. Mark said the workhorse, the revocable living trust. We're going to come back to each one of these. I just want to lay them out on the table. Next one is your will. A lot of people hear will, but when you have a revocable living trust, the will's kind of not the workhorse so much. It's kind of the catch all. Now it does a couple things in a band.

Since we played in a band this last weekend. What would you call the will? It's kind of like the rhythm guitar. It's part of the band.

Yeah. Maybe like it could be. Guy on rhythm guitar.

Yeah. You know what it is? Yeah. It's the cowbell.

It's the cowbell. It is.

We need more.

Sometimes you do need more cowbells. Sometimes it's, you know. You know, so you got a will. All right. And then the third part is your living will or sometimes called an advanced health care directive. This is the pull the plug if you're in a vegetative state document.

Yeah, we'll come back to that and talk about who's going to pull that plug. Yeah, it's.

And then we got your health care power of attorney. Now this is a power of attorney. If you're in an incapacitated state and somebody needs to make a medical decision for you, not about pulling the plug, but just. Just about. Just a basic medical decision.

Yeah, we don't want him to get over anxious.

Yeah. This doesn't give them full authority.

This is like, slow down, tiger. You know, let's see if we can save me here.

And then the last one, I save the core five. You know, this is the five piece band you can have. There's a symphony sometimes or seven piece band.

All right.

Number five would be financial power of attorney. This is a power of attorney that sometimes springs into action, sometimes called a springing. Financial power of attorney if someone needs to make financial decisions for you. Again, if you're in a state where you can make Those decisions for you that can spring into effect. You could also make the power of attorney effective now if you want it. Those are. These are different ways to do it. But your financial power of attorney, so someone could sign off on your bank account or do things for you if you're in a state where you couldn't do that for yourself.

I'm loving this now, before some of you have decided this is a completely boring subject and you don't want to deal with it. Hold on. We're going to. I want to bring this full circle, but let's get through these parts real quick. And I want to give you one of the biggest takeaways here that I think is important to have at the outset of this whole conversation. But finishing up parts, I think some of the symphony, some of the, you know, band player, you know, band members out there on stage. We are going to include funeral and burial instructions. So you may want to make decisions regarding cremation, where you want to be buried, blah, blah, blah. Also, organ donation documents are going to be part of that time.

That's in your health care directive or your living wills, depending on the state.

Yep, depending on the state. And there's sometimes these are separate documents in your estate plan. Some of them are included in your trust. But you might have a gun trust, something that we're doing more of, where clients will add a specific trust that kind of is a companion to your estate plan. A gun trust. We might have pet provisions or pet trust, a spendthrift trust for a child that's special needs. You might have a special needs trust. It's kind of an ancillary section. What we also like in our estate plan is it's a binder that's going to include maybe your keys to your cryptocurrency. It might include deeds for real estate. You might have a section for your gosh, marriage license, Social Security numbers, important documents. It's nice to put this estate plan in a spot, in a, in a safe, a fireproof safe in the house. Maybe it is a safe deposit box. But the estate plan is a great opportunity to get organized. So all these other little documents you can throw in there. And. But the core five. I'm with you, Matt. Like those main five. Okay. All right.

Okay. That's our starting lineup. Our, you know, I don't know, you know, how many analogies are we going to throw out here?

All right, I have. Can I say one big takeaway. Okay, here's my big takeaway, everybody. This doesn't have to be a Miserable process. It can be a really exciting process to think about the legacy you want to leave. Maybe you are single, old, young, married, unmarried, whatever, you know, are you going to leave money to charity? Are going to have a charity created in the process Also it can be very affordable where I think you should be able to do an estate plan in America for fifteen hundred dollars on average. Some of you're going to have to spend a little bit more, you got more moving parts, some you can get away with a little less. We, we are doing a special every year in May and June. That's right now for those that are catching this live. You're going to see this over the next three or four weeks on our feeds and social media and on the website newsletter. But we do a special where you can get into your estate plan for $1300 and done is something with an attorney.

Like with an attorney you're not like on some software online guessing no one to talk to or help you that's actually done an estate plan before.

Now a real lawyer preparing all the pieces and parts tailored to what you want to talk about. It's not just a canned docum and I know there's estate planning attorneys out there that charge three times that they poo poo us as well, whatever. So I don't want to get into that name calling per se. But I think we do a great job with just enough attorney time. And if you need more attorney time, it can cost more, you know, you just kind of figure it out. But it's something that's going to last the rest of your life. You can amend it, you can change it, your life changes. You get divorced, married, kids pass away, you, you know, whatever go you go through in life, you can modify it, you can update it. So it's something that will evolve with you. And in our next two parts of this series we're going to vet that. But I don't know, I just think people get intimidated with it. They stall out, as you said earlier.

Yeah, yeah. And one thing I want to note too is if you don't have an estate plan you chose for yourself, you have an estate plan the government picked for you. I don't know if you know that what's going to happen to your stuff is what's in the law and there's going to be a judge and your family's going to go fight over it and they're going to argue about who gets what and what you really wanted. And there's some laws that kind of dictate in general, who gets what. And it's a mess. And in so many instances, it is not what you want. Yeah. And so to, to just solve this, the pain and heartache of your family and also to be able to do it the way you want it, on your terms. Like Frank Sinatra said, I did it my way. You know, do it your way. All right, you. Yeah, well, Sinatra, my favorite Sinatra song. My way.

Yeah. Is there a hamburger thing to have it your way is that.

That's. I think that's Burger King. Come on. A little more classier. Frank Sinatra quote there. We even the Mark Kohler, like, you know, totally ruin it with.

Yeah, I could have brought in Waffle House. I could have brought in Waffle House. I thought I was.

Okay, all right, you know, so, but there. So that, but that's the problem is when you don't plan. Or maybe you're thinking of your parents. Some of you might be thinking, man, I need to get this done for myself. But my parents haven't even done this, you know, And I remember my own parents, they were going on a mission for their church and they'd never done an estate plan. And their church was like, hey, you can't go on this if you don't have an estate plan done. And they call me and they're like, oh, good thing we got a son that's a lawyer. Can you help us with your estate plan? With our estate plan? I'm like, absolutely.

But like, you charged them?

Of course. Yeah, I'm sure they got, I'm sure they got a discount. They got a good deal.

What blood sucking lawyer doesn't charge their parents for an estate. Yeah, you know, but you need, you

need to have one and it's going to come up in your life. I have clients call me when they're like, oh, I'm having a surgery. And the doctor's like, where's your living will? Or advanced healthcare director? We're putting you under for this. We need that on file. Like, ah, can you just do that? Not my full estate plan. And, and so this is, it's important to have like your financial planner is going to bug you about it if you have one. You know, your insurance agent might bug you about it, your accountant or your lawyer. I mean, we will. You need one. You're not invincible.

Okay, now let's. I love it. I love it. So those are kind of our initial state of the union addresses there. The topic. Now I'm going to give you some. Here's my arguments for this in the article. That many of you can peruse. If you want to check that out, maybe probably make sure it's a link here in the description on YouTube. I come out in the first sentence and say everybody, you need a revocable living trust. And I say, pretty bold statement, but let me give you my reasons. One, if you own any real estate at all, even a primary residence in almost every state in America, you're going to have a probate problem unless you take some active action with a unique type of trust or I should say titling vesting strategy. Some states allow you to record some sort of pay upon death or transfer upon death document, but it's just, it's clunky, it's scary. A revocable living trust is going to avoid, help you avoid probate. Number two, if any of you have kids, young or old, they can handle money they can't. You're going to need a revocable interest revocable living trust to deal with that. Third, if you own a business, if you have any sort of business, you're going to want to trust so someone can step in and transfer money, pay bills, cash checks and sell assets. Just kind of wind down the affairs of the business. And those three alone are just the starting point. I think a lot of people forget and think they have to be rich, they have to be old. No, you have real estate, kids or a business, you're going to save a lot of your assets getting sucked into some lawsuit or with lawyers or the courts or the state, what are some of yours? It's just a no breaker.

Yeah, just even of course, your retirement accounts. I mean that's again a huge pot of money a lot of people have. It's where they're saving and might pass away before that money is used or before you even get a touch it sometimes, unfortunately we see that. But who gets those? And are your, does your spouse get that? If you have one? If you know, did your children get it? What age do they get it? I mean, what if they're still minors? I mean, same with life insurance. I mean life insurance, it's. Sure, it's a great planning tool and, and you know, if you have debts and other things, you may need that as part of your plan for your life and your state plan. Sometimes that's somewhat of a component to think about. But you have minor kids. Do you have kids who shouldn't be getting, you know, half a million bucks or whatever share of the life insurance proceeds if you pass away would go to them. So be aware of those Things. And the trust can solve all those problems. You can say how that's going to get distributed. Upon your passing, the trust receives it. And then, and then there's mechanisms in there about when it gets distributed to them, what conditions, what if they have a drug or alcohol addiction. Drug or alcohol addiction. All these little things that help pass on this legacy and all this work and all this stuff you've done to accumulate assets, use it for good, for your family and for the future.

I love it. Well, I'm glad you kept talking there and explaining things. When you were talking about minors, I didn't know you were talking about minor children. I thought you're talking about crypto miners. And I was thinking, yeah, those are different. Different. Okay. Now, some of these other documents of why you might need a trust or an estate plan. See, again, the trust is just a piece of the equation and it is the backbone of your estate plan. But the will is still important. Let me say, why do I need this will? Well, the will is actually going to appoint guardians for children. It's going to say who you are, who your family is, and it's going to say all this other little crap that I might have that's not titled in the name of my trust, put it in my trust, treat it as. Distribute it according to the terms of my trust. So the will is kind of the glue of all these other things going on in your portfolio, if you will. And some things have to be specifically designated or owned by the trust. And we're going to come to that in part three of our series, funding the trust. But the will is an important piece to kind of throw a little net over all the other things, personal property, cars, boats, whatever.

Yeah. And in a lot of states, like your car and stuff like this, again, this is even, you know, client calls, hey, I'm buying a new car. Do I put that in the trust or where does that go? You know, and. And some of that stuff, a lot of most states, your car, for example, is something that can pass based on a death certificate. And even with the will, the trust, the executor of the will or trustee, they can just handle it without it going through court. But there's other assets, like real estate. And we'll get to this in part three. You gotta have this in the trust. I think you're gonna have to go to court, get a judge to sign off on that and put in an action and give notice to everybody involved. You don't want to. But the will, I think one of the biggest Things about the will, though, is guardianship designation. And so for those of you that have minor children or adult children with special needs, designating a guardian for them is such a huge thing. Right. I mean, that's like probably the one item people think about the most and frankly stall out on their estate plan. We'll talk about that in part two. But who is going to raise your kids upon your passing? And maybe you have their parent or spouse. If that's your spouse, you know, how are you going to make that decision? Who's going to raise them up on your passing?

And you think, do I need an estate plan? If you don't choose who's going to raise those little kiddos, the court's going to figure it out for you and they're going to have to listen to the two sides complain and argue and fight.

And I've been in those. I've had that. I've had to help people in that situation where parent passes away. His child was seven years old. Grandma. Did grandma want to take care of him? Did aunt and uncle want to take care of him? It was complicated. And there was no designation from the parent about the mom, dad was long gone, about what she wanted, you know, and so. And a lot of times there's a lot of comfort to the grandmother in this scenario, which who ended up taking over guardianship to know, oh, I was chosen for this role. They wanted me for this. And aunt and uncle, you may want to come over here and try to take guardianship, but there's already chosen. It'd be me. And that solved. Could have solved so much heartache and court, fight and battle.

Yeah. Now, I think if you have teenagers, I think this is a great opportunity to really stick it to someone in your family. You could say, I'm going to leave you my three teenagers. Can you take them across the finish line? And they're going to go, hell no. How much are you giving me in the trust? Oh, there's no extra money in here. I'm out. So believe it or not, we will talk about money for guardians. Now, I have another article coming out tomorrow on pet estate planning. And in your will, you would also name the guardian, true term here, the guardian of your pets. Who's going to raise a little furry friend of yours? Over 60% of Americans now, American households have a pet, whether it's a cat or a cat or a dog. And euthanasia happens a lot where animals are dropped off at the city pound or the shelter because of a deceased owner. And if they don't get adopted. They're going to run up to the owner at the pearly gates. So we want to make sure you're thinking of who's going to take care of your farm animals, your pets, and your children. And it was another interesting survey, Matt. When I looked into it, 95% of pet owners, 95% said that the pet was a member of the family equivalent to a child. Like, ow.

I remember a family equivalent to child. If I'm the kid, I'm like, okay, those are teenagers.

And I'm like, really? You think you own your cat? You cat owners. Snowball.

Over there is cash.

Yeah, I think that's a very. The stretch, you know, cats. But that's a topic for another podcast. So now I think another major piece of why you need this estate plan is getting away from the vocal trust for a moment is the health care stuff. Are you going to have a. Are you going to donate organs? Do you want your. The plug pulled? Do you. Who's going to be there at the hospital to make decisions regarding surgery and which hospital, which doctor? And of course, any of you that go in for major surgery, they make you fill this stuff out.

Yeah. Do you have one of these? And you're like, no, you need to have one. Geez. Like, we don't want to have to make this decision for you or be chasing down to decide the stuff.

Now I have a story about this man. I know some of my stories can be a little, you know, inappropriate. Yeah. We're finishing each other's sandwich. Sandwiches. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So Mark Kohler's interval, which we did,

by the way, I don't know who. I don't know if you finished my Cuban sandwich or I finished yours in Miami at the crypto tax summit, but that was a delicious sandwich to finish.

It was definitely a good Cuban sandwich. In Miami.

Yeats. When in Miami.

In Miami, it's like going to Hawaii. You got to get, you know, some pork and rice plate with some Mac salad. Okay, so here's a story, and this is, you know, all kidding aside, it happened literally in the same year. It was really kind of a life experience that really shaped me as in regards to estate planning. I had a client that I had a frantic call where a woman was in a coma and her husband was at the hospital. And he called me up saying, hey, we need to get this living will finished, and my wife's in a coma and it doesn't look like she's going to pull through. And he was very, very emotional. He had Been a client with a business we'd helped, helped. And so he calls us up and says, what can we do? And I had to tell him there was nothing we could do. At that point. She was already incapacitated. If you don't make the decision while you're alive and well and know what you're signing, you can't. No one can do that for you. So he had to make the very, very hard decision to tell the doctor, yeah, it's. It's time. Pull the plug. And it was, gosh, heart wrenching. Right. It was just so difficult because he felt like he was terminated, terminating his wife's life and his wife's life. And so it was just really, really hard to be a part of that process and see what a lack of planning had done because it put all this burden on his shoulders.

Yeah.

In turn, back to that other couple that had come and did some planning. It was that same year, it was just so ironic. The husband had a stroke, and of course, he was in the hospital again, incapacitated with a stroke, and his brain activity was gone. And the wife called and said, hey, let me tell you what's happened. It's really terrible. I don't know what to do. And the doctors are asking me this and that, and I know we signed some medical documents. What did we sign? And da, da, da. And I said, well, he already signed this. It's done. He signed an advanced directive. And she's like, what do you mean, no? He said that if I'm a vegetable by the two doctors, I want that plug pulled. And she goes. And she was like, well, you know, and I could just see the weight. I could just feel it just come right off her shoulders where she's like, oh, this was his decision.

Yeah.

Hey. And there was so much relief on her part because she didn't. She didn't feel like it was her decision.

Yeah.

So, yeah, anyway.

And you know what? Even with assets, it's the same. It's not as in the hospital dramatic plug being pulled moment, which is so, you know, emotional. But it's all the little assets, too, that you say what you want in your trust and who gets them, and maybe multiple people get them. Like, what happens to the family cabin? What happens to the important items that are, you know, whether it's the jewelry or the piano or the guns or the. The whatever. The jewelry, the artwork, the favorite car, the. The boat, whatever things that are. Have, like, special value in your family, who gets those things? Not to mention the stuff that has significant Dollar value and can make a big impact on people's lives that you're wanting to carry this on and the legacy and everything you worked for. The fact that what you say is what's happening is such a comfort to everyone involved that they know this is just how, you know, mom, dad, friend, aunt, uncle, whoever's on the other end here, giving these things wanted. It makes them feel good. When they get it, they know what was for them. And it also halts all the bickering because trust me, even if you love your siblings or whoever may be involved in here, parents pass away without an estate plan, you will not love them as much after this process, I promise you. I've seen it, yeah. So many times.

So many times. And we hear stories, of course, of family members just going in and cleaning out the house. And all of a sudden things are missing. Favorite heirlooms and just.

Or it's even innocent stuff. It's like, well, mom told me. I got that. Really? I never knew that. Well, you know, and how. Who's anyone to check? You know, I mean.

Yeah. Okay, back to our list on the. One of those.

Can I hit a couple points?

Yeah.

I don't know what list we're on at this point, but financial power of

attorney, you know, like, what are the core pieces and why.

I was going to say on these documents, and this is the trust is one. Sometimes so confusing is these aren't filed anywhere. Okay, so many of you who are business owners or own real estate, you know, you have your llc, your corporations, those get filed with the state, and they're all official legal documents. But your trust, your will, these powers of attorney and advance directive, this isn't filed anywhere. This isn't recorded anywhere. This is kept in your records. You know, your attorney, you did it with us. We're going to keep a copy here electronically. So these are something you can update. It's not filed anywhere. You're not paying a state fee or having to wait for it to get approved. It's effective upon signing as long as it's done right. You know, some things have to be notarized and stuff. Of course, if you're working with us, we'll be clear on that. So I just want to note that because a lot of people get confused. Well, does this get filed anywhere? Yeah.

Great comment. And again, and I think part two of the series will get into who should have a copy of your estate plan and how do I update it on a regular basis. We just went and bought a new piano. Where do I Note that in the trust, and there's a schedule that you can make little updates from time to time. You go on a trip to Europe and you buy a piece of art, and you're like, oh, I really want this kid or this friend or my brother to have this gun and. Or my sister to have this wedding dress, you know, of mom said, you know, I need it to stay in our family or this or that. So there's little sections that are easy to modify, and without hiring an internal every time, they're easy to maintain. You're going to find this so easy. A caveman could do it, but I don't want to go.

You know, they need to bring those back. Those are. Those are great commercials.

Yeah, well, you know, they went. You know, one of the big stories. They went with the little lizard because it was created.

Little celebrity status for the caveman.

Yeah, the caveman. Oh, boy. He wanted to get paid more. And they're like, ooh, we didn't mean to make you a star. You know, that was kind of got out of control. Luckily, you know, progressive's been able to. Been able to keep flow.

Yeah. And all. Is it Allstate who has mayhem? Mayhem, too. Allstate. Yeah, they've been able to keep him. You know, he's pretty kind of cool, too.

Yeah, he was. He was a player on Law and Order for a while. He was good SVU unit. Okay, now here's the financial power of attorney, and one other quick story on that, I think, to put it into perspective, that affected me this morning, believe it or not. So the other piece is this financial power of attorney with the power of attorney for finances. This is one that can really play out while you're still living. And it's one where you might need to give power to someone to make some financial moves for you that are very, very important. So I had a call from a banker today regarding a property with my mom. And my mom has not been doing well with dementia and Alzheimer's and all

that,

so I handle her financial affairs. And the banker was asking, we need your mom's signature. And I'm like, I don't really want her signature on something that important right now. She's just not doing well. And he goes, do you have power of attorney? And I go, yes, I do. And so, as her backup trustee and with power of attorney, I was able to step right in, sign those things, and we're done. And that was what the purpose of the trust was, too. Some of you are going to live a long and wonderful life. But you're going to kind of lose steam at the end. And so who's going to be that trustee to kind of take you across the finish line and handle your affair?

It's important. And when Mark says trustee, though, I mean, that's going to occur when you pass. Right. The act of your backup trustee or your, you know, usually you're your own trustee during your life, but for the financial decisions, it would be the person you designated on that financial power of attorney. So that's what the banker's going to want a copy of is this copy of the financial power of attorney that showed Mark had the power on behalf of his mother to sign for her because she's in a. In a state where she can't. And I say state, I don't mean physically, I mean, you know, a medical state where she can't make decisions for herself or is unable to. And so. But you're right. How many people get into that at the end of life? And there's that window of time, sometimes it's years, I mean, decades of when they need someone to help make those decisions for them. And you're going to get stuck if you don't have that ahead of time. And let's say Mark didn't have that. You're going to court, you're going to have to get a conservatorship appointed by a judge that's going to have to get medical records, make a determination, you're going to have a hearing, there's going to be notices. So I'll be prevented by them making a decision ahead of time before they're in that condition.

And it's all part of the plan. This twelve to fifteen to eighteen hundred dollar range of getting an estate. It's all there. It's all included. And so I was able to make the move financially. It was wonderful. I was able to cut out my brother and sister entirely. They don't know that yet. Luckily, this is not recorded or broadcast anywhere.

So

it really turned out well. I was really happy with the result. So. Yeah, see, and I told you, for you. Yeah, yeah. I told you people, we're going to keep this light. Even with my own mother. I can do that because I love her. She's had a great life. She's wonderful doing things, you know, that's what life's about. It's a. Yeah, it's a circle life. Matt, have you seen the show Lion King? If you have.

I mean, who has not seen Lion King? Come on now.

Okay, little Phil Collins oh, is that.

That was Phil Collins song. That's okay. I hear him in it.

Oh, no, no, no. Well, was Phil. Phil Collins was. Was. It could be Jungle One.

He was.

What was he? Tarzan. Phil Collins was Tarzan. I'm gonna have to Google this while we're hanging out. Yeah.

Circle life. Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Now, any other reasons you would want to. Really.

Let me say this. Something that's important is when you pass away and you're. You have heirs, and a lot of time it's going to be your kids, you know, so if you've got kids, many times, you know, you got a survive spouse that survives you, and the surviving spouse passes, the kids are going to get the estate. That's a very common way to do it. Well, not all your kids are the same. And some of your kids might have financial problems. Some of your kids might have a drug or alcohol addiction. Some of your kids may just not be ready to get this, or they might need some conditions and incentives on it. And so in the trust, you can outline these things. If one of my heirs has a drug or alcohol addiction, they don't get anything until they clear that up. If one of my heirs has judgments and creditors and credit card companies chasing them down, they don't get anything because that money is going to get zapped away until they clean that up. You know, if one of my heirs just isn't ready for it and needs some things they got to get straight in their life, throw conditions in to say if they've cleaned this up in their life, then they can get this share of the estate over a certain period of time. So you get to control these things and also have protections in it so that your money doesn't go to waste or to your heirs that might be in situations where the money could actually do more harm than good.

And I love it. Matt's giving you a little prequel to Part two because we're going to talk about what's called Dead Hand control. Your hand coming out of the grave and just jacking up your family's life. They're going to love it. We're going to give you all those tools and tricks and techniques. You're going to love it. And I am so sorry to Elton John. Many of you. Yeah.

It's Sir Elton to you.

Yeah.

Sorry.

And so I. And I saw him in concert, so I have a little bit of latitude.

Okay.

I paid.

Yeah.

For a ticket so. To see him. So if I make a faux pas once in a while, you should give me grace there. But Yeah, I fit. Yeah. So that is Phil Collins with Tarzan and then it was Elton John with Lion King. Okay, you'll get those 90s Disney.

Glad you came back and clarified that of all the things you might have said wrong on today's episode. I'm glad. So I can clear that one up.

Integrity of the show is really what's important here.

Fact checkers on this show.

You do, we do. I, I don't, I don't know what's the fact checker organization there will be all over so. Well, anybody, everyone, thanks for being here. I say anybody, anybody, anybody still listen, thank you for being here. But everybody, thank you for being here. You know I just, Matt said it very accurately at the beginning of the show. So we're going to circle back. That's, that's what a good show does. It's called they bring it back at the end.

Okay.

Little Arrested Development there. So Matt pointed out earlier the majority, over 50% of Americans don't even have a will, let alone quality estate plan. Get her done. We have her in our special this month. It's incredible. You get to meet with an attorney through the process. We've got a link down into the show notes here so you can get to that right away or just get over to kkos lawyers.com kqs lawyers.com you're going to find it right there on the homepage. Go to the estate planning page. The link will be there and get started. Just get it done. And you can always update or change it down the road. And don't be one of the 50% or as in Jurassic park, you're going to have the blood sucking lawyers all over it. So we don't want that. So yeah, no offense.

Yeah, I wasn't offended. I mean we're not part of the blood sucking lawyers. We're the good guys, you know. Well, thanks everybody. Remember next week, the next episode two. If you're, you know, for the next episode here, you know, depending on where you're catching this, we're going to go over the decision making and things you got, you're going to do when you set up your estate plan and then episode after that. We're of course going to be getting how this works, how do you incorporate it, where does it go, what needs to be done? Do you need to record anything? How do I change it? How do I operate this thing moving forward so you know how to put that estate plan in effect in your life for you and your family.

This is, this is better than Stranger Things. You know, coming out. I mean, people are going to be on pins and needles.

That's right. Waiting for when is episode two coming out?

I know that's gonna be, like, all over social media. So, yeah, there's a little bit of a buzz out there. You know, I don't know if it's a buzz kill or a buzz.

It's a buzz.

It's a buzz of some sort. All right, well, thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week for another episode of the Main street business podcast. Keep living the dream and don'.