(2025) 10-5 David Carrier Show Podcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
He served at the Pentagon as an army jag. He
graduated from Notre Dame and has two law degrees from
Boston University and Georgetown University. He's been practicing law for
over thirty years. He's your family's personal attorney. It's time
for the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, and now's the time, it really
is the time for you to give us a call
at six one six seven seven four twenty four twenty four.
That's six one, six seven seven four twenty four twenty four. Unfortunately,
the hamster that keeps the you know, on the hamster

(00:42):
wheel that keeps our transmitter going is unfortunately had a
touch of lumbago, and so we had to put a younger,
younger hamster in the on the hamster wheel. So that's
what happened to the first hour of the show. In case,
in case you were wondering anyway, six one six seven
twenty four to twenty four, that's the number to call

(01:03):
and what I'd like to do Oho. This of course
is where we talk about a state planning, elder law,
real estate and business law. So if you have a question, comment,
or concern about any of those things, and of course
who wouldn't, now you can give us a you know,
now's the time it doesn't catch you nothing. So there
you go, and worth every penny six one, six, seven, seven, four,

(01:24):
twenty four to twenty four. Let's get some of our emails.
This is a topic that doesn't come up very much.
You don't hear about it very often, I think because
nobody wants to talk about it. But hey, that's what
we're here for. What are my options for paying medicaid
estate recovery? Again, you don't hear about this very often,
but millions and millions of dollars go to the state

(01:46):
of Michigan every day, every day, every year, and other
states as well, because after you receive medicaid, after you
receive medicaid, they want their money back. It's not like Medicare.
Medicare says, hey, you paid for this right, you paid
for this benefit, you got the benefit, We're not coming

(02:08):
back for it. You already paid for it. Social Security, Hey,
you paid for your Social Security. We gave you the
Social Security. We don't take your stuff when you're dead.
In order to get the money back. But unlike those programs,
Medicaid does exactly that. When you receive the long term care.
Now they want your house, your money, anything you got left,

(02:29):
they want it. So for all these people who keep
telling you, oh, the house is protected, the house is protected,
Uh no, it ain't, because they're coming after it after
you die. So that's what this is about. What are
my options for paying medicaid to state recovery. I am
the sole heir, beneficiary, personal representative, and executor of my
uncle's estate. He left me his beneficiary on a bank account.

(02:53):
After his death, I took the money from the bank
and spent some of it during probate. I received the
bill from Medicaid for the amount that was in the
account at his death. That's because they do a thing
called asset detection, so they know what's going on, all right.
You can't hard to escape that hard to escape the
asset detection. So no question that you receive the bill

(03:16):
for the amount in the account. Okay, question whether or
not you listed the account, You probably did listed the
account on the inventory in probate, because that's how they
know about it, not just the asset detection as well.
I no longer have that amount, don't want to sell
the house. There's also a second eighteen acre lot separate
from the house. I'm willing to sell if needed. What

(03:38):
should my next steps be. Here's the deal. Most of
the time when you owe money to somebody, when you
owe money to somebody, you can negotiate, right, you can go,
you can say, hey, I'll give you this much or
that much whatever. The attorney general does not negotiate the
state recovery has been my experience, because there's no reason

(03:58):
for them too now. So they're not going to say, oh,
if you say, hey, i'll give you a ten to
io twenty, I'll give you a ten right now, No problem,
not interested. Okay, they want their whole twenty and that's
what they want because why because they're entitled to it.
And frankly, if there's enough assets in they can just

(04:20):
come in and seize it anyway. Right, they're being nice,
they're being nice to you that they didn't already show
up and you know, demand to execute on the property.
So they're being very nice to you already that they
didn't do that. So the idea that somehow or other
you're going to pay less that is not going to happen,
just saying, so that's number one. Number two. What they

(04:43):
will do, though, what they will do again, they don't
have to do. But my experience has been what they
will do is they'll accept a payment plan. Now you
got to make the payments. Okay, So if you didn't
want to sell the acreage, if you want to keep
the house, and you don't want to say the acreage,
you just say, hey, look yeah it's uh, I owe

(05:03):
you twenty thirty forty one hundred thousand dollars whatever the
nursing home cost during uncle's lifetime. I owe that money.
And sure you could come in and seize the seize
the land, seize the house, sell it and get paid
off and I get the crumbs. They could do that.
They're not doing that. Typically, they won't do that. You know,

(05:23):
will they start next week? You don't know. Uh, And
it really depends lots of times. It depends on who
it is you're dealing with over there. But the point
is that if you go to them and say, look,
I don't want to sell the eighteen acres either, right,
I don't want you putting a putting in a I
don't know, government building next door or what have you, right,

(05:44):
I just assume keep the control over that. If you
can make a reasonable payment, then they will let you
do that. You can also if you borrow money against
the property. Right, all they want is the cash at
the end of the day. They don't really care how
they get it. Right. So here's the thing. Two points

(06:04):
with the state recovery. Number One, it's real, it's out there.
They haven't forgotten about it. And when you go through probate,
they are coming after the house there, whatever it else is,
you've got right, that's number one. Number two, Michigan is
one of seven just a few states, just a few
states where they wait until you go through probate. In

(06:28):
most states, not yet Michigan, Not yet Michigan. Right, they
put a lean on the property immediately when you apply
for the Medicaid. They don't do that here. What they
do is they wait until assets go through probate and
then they say, aha, now'll give us the money. Okay,
So that's nice. Right, they don't so you could sell
it outside of probate and avoid a state recovery. In fact,

(06:53):
the one of the attorney assistant Attorney generals said that
the Michigan and State recovery was a tax on not planning.
If you don't plan, you'll pay it. If you do plan,
which is kind of what we do all day, you
can avoid it. That's anyway. So there's that. That's the deal.
It's real. It's out there. You can avoid it if

(07:13):
you plan ahead, but most many people do not, and
if you wind up owing it, then nine times out
of ten you can work an accommodation. There are some
exceptions for hardship and adults who live in the house
and on and on that wouldn't delay us here anyway.
You need to look into those any given case. What

(07:36):
can I do? Here's another one. What can I do? Oh,
by the way, interrupt me six one six seven seven
four twenty four twenty four. That's sixty one six seven
seven four twenty four twenty four. What can I do
to protect my mom when she needs long term care?
I moved in with my mom and have taken care
of her for eight years. Eight years. Most things have

(07:57):
been taken care of power of attorney, medical power. Okay,
people say that a lot. I've taken care of everything,
and then you read the actual power of attorney and
there's no mental health provisions. In the health care power
of attorney, there's no gifting provisions, there's no trust provisions,
trust creation provisions, et cetera. In the financial power of attorney,

(08:19):
that is like routine. Most of the powers of attorney
when it comes when the rubber hits the road, when
it really gets down to it, you can't use them
because whoever drafted them was just thinking, I need somebody
to pay the bills. If mom's not able to pay
the bills, and that is not the case, we need
to do more advanced estate planning. Also, the health care power,

(08:43):
I really don't understand why they don't include the mental
health powers. We've been able to do that for you. Yeah,
there was a time when you couldn't, but we've been
able to do that for years, and the most recent
power of attorney law accentuated that. I mean it's right there.
I mean you could do it, but people aren't doing
it anyway. I just learned that Medicare does not cover

(09:05):
long term care in a nursing home. No kidding. I
hope she won't ever need that type of care, But
if she did, is there a way to protect her
funds because she wants to leave some funds for family
if she did a trust, would that help cost question mark?
Question Mark, thank you for reading this. Okay, no problem anyway.
The thing is, is there a way to do it? Yes,
there is, and when we get back, we'll we'll talk

(09:28):
about that. Now here's the here's the thing. I wonder
what we're what we're doing. It says taking care of
mom for eight years? What is taking care of mean?
Because there is what we call the child caretaker exception,
which I'll cover in the next in the next segment,
it's often overlooked people. Again, so much of what's possible

(09:52):
doesn't happen. And the reason it doesn't happen is because
regular folks attorneys, you know, so called a state playing attorney.
Oh I'm not comfortable with medicaid, I get it, but
you miss out on tremendous opportunity. And we're going to
talk about that when when you get back. We've been
listening to the David Carrier Show. On David Carrier your

(10:14):
family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
so call in now at seven seven four twenty four,
twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Wellcome back to the David Carrier Show on David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. We're talking about how do you
protect mom when she needs long term care. So here's
the email. I moved in with mom, taking care of
her for eight years. Eight years, most things have been
taken care of power of attorney, medical power of attorney.
I don't believe you. Okay, you say you've got a

(10:49):
power of attorney, a medical power of attorney. I believe. I
absolutely believe that you have documents that say power of
attorney and medical power of attorney. What I don't believe
is that they will be adequate because my experiences they
typically are not. They are very important things that should
be in there, which are not because for the long
term care I aspect of it. You know, people say,

(11:09):
oh I got I go to this, I go to that,
and it's like, oh, yeah, I know, you have a
you have a car, really nice car. Huh. You have
a Jaguar. Those aren't really nice anymore. But anyway, you
have a really yeah, but it's a matchbox car. It's
the little one. Oh I guess we're I'm driving around
in that thing anyway. Yeah, you've got something that's called

(11:31):
that but it isn't the real thing. It isn't what
you really need. And and that's typical anyway. So you
got these things. I'm not believing that they're gonna work,
but maybe maybe maybe stranger things have happened, let's see.
But I just learned that matter care does not cover
long term in a nursing home. And that's a that's

(11:52):
a wake up call for an awful lot of folks
discovering that that no, indeed, Medicare does not cover that stuff.
I hope you won't ever need that type of care.
Seventy percent plus and the older you get, the more
the greater the percentage of people who will need that care. So,
but you're not whistling past the graveyard, that's a good thing.
Whistling past the nursing home, that's a good thing. Is

(12:15):
there a way to protect your funds? Because she wants
to leave funds for the family if she did a
trust with that help cost Thank you for reading this.
Here's the deal. You have sort of a unique not
a unique opportunity, but you have an unusual opportunity right
now because you've been residing with Mom providing care. Now,
the question is, have you been providing the kind of

(12:37):
care that would remove Mom from needing long term care. Okay,
so I know, I know it's confusing, but bear with
me on this, Okay. Medicaid has seven sets of criteria

(12:57):
that determine whether or not you need long term care.
Seven doors is what they call them. You only have
to make it through one of the doors in order
to qualify, Okay, but there are different criteria for each door.
The first door is the activities of daily life. Is
Mom able to transfer herself from one surface to the other?

(13:21):
Is she able to dress? Is she able to feed herself?
Is is she able to toilet? That kind of thing? Okay,
that's the first that's the first door. Can Mom do that?
And then how often can Mom do that in the
course of a week. There's criteria. Don't worry about that.
But first you know, how's mom handling herself? Does she
need you to for bathing, for dressing, for feeding, all

(13:46):
that kind of stuff, because if she does, she might
pass through and qualify through door number one. Door number
two is probably the most common. I've been exhibiting symptoms
of door number two for many, many years. Door number
two is is your cognition, your ability to reason moderately impaired.

(14:08):
That's number one. Okay, that doesn't have to be severely impaired,
just moderately impaired, which has saved me and God knows anyway.
The second thing is is memory issues. Do you have
memory issues? So if mom's cognition ability to think freezing
things through althoever is moderately impaired, and she has cognition

(14:29):
memory issues, See I forgot that memory issues, right, those
two things, that's door number two. Now there are five
more ways to do it. Let's forget about those for
the moment. Those are the two that are most common
when kids move home to take care of the parent. Now,
I'm assuming that when you moved home to be with mom, right,

(14:51):
you change your driver's license, your voter registration, your bills,
you know, credit card, et cetera, cetera, cetera. So you
have resided with mom for the last eight years. That's
important because what the law says, what medicaid says, is
if you resign if a child resides with the parent,

(15:12):
child resides with the parent for two years twenty four months.
I don't need eight years. Just give me two years, right,
as certified by the doctor by mom's physician, and that
care that you provided has removed the need, right, has
replaced the need for Mom to access skilled care. Mom

(15:33):
can transfer the house, the homestead to you. How cool
is that? Totally cool? Right, It's wonderful. So that's the house, right.
I don't know what else mom has got. Maybe she's
got some money, she says, protect her funds. Well, let's
take care of the house first, because typically that's where
that's where most of the money is. Right, So, right

(15:55):
off the bat, that's a good thing. Now you have
to reside there. You have to prove that you reside there.
You have to provide the services. You have to prove
that you provide the services. The doctor has to certify
that the services you provided.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Because Mom needed or number one assistance with the activity's
daily life, you provided that for two years or more, bingo,
you get the house. Or for two years or more.
Mom has had moderately impaired cognition and memory problems. Now
here's the thing. Can you have moderately impaired cognition and

(16:30):
memory problems and still function? Yes? Obviously? Can you still
do the documents? Yes? Right, Just the fact that you're
moderately impaired. Doesn't mean that you don't understand who the
natural objects of your bounty are. Doesn't mean that you
can't place yourself, time, place person. I mean you can

(16:52):
orient yourself, you can determine those you can understand those things.
It may take longer, you may forget in a couple
of days, but you can still plan ahead. So if
you're working with your parents, say oh, we got a
finding of dementia, diagnosis of dementia, right, and so now
we can't do anything. One of the I don't know,

(17:13):
it's probably twenty thirty percent of folks who finally come
in to do a plan are because the reason they're
there is because they found they got a dementia diagnosis.
Holy cow, does that mean you're now Sometimes sometimes people
are you know, straight up about that, But frequently the

(17:33):
sorts of things that lead to the diagnosis are not disqualifying. Okay,
so number one, we can get rid of the house.
Number two, what are we going to do about the money,
because apparently we're talking about funds, protect her funds. So
the first thing we can do is protect the house.
The second thing we can do is what we call
and you're taking care of mom and if when you
had moved in, you had come to one of our workshops,

(17:55):
which you hear me preaching about all the time, but
you didn't do that, well, that's okay, hurt my feelings,
I'll get over it. If you had come to the
workshop and we had set up a divestment trust five
years ago, which you can't you can't claw back, right,
but you just go forward after five years Medicaid devestment trust,
the assets in that trust are off the table. This

(18:17):
is not the typical trust that everybody's doing, okay, because
most people are all concerned about avoid probate, save taxes,
get it to the kids, which is fine, good thing
to worry about. Answer the Medicaid mail. It's not going
to for the so's the that's what we want to
do here. It would seem to me, number one, let's

(18:37):
look into what level of care were you providing. Will
it be the sort of thing that will it be
the Has it been the sort of care that would
enable mom to just give you the house, which I'm
going to bet it it would be, you know, depending
on the level of care that you've been providing, or
physicians certify all the rest. We got to go through

(18:58):
the steps. But once you do, I've got the house
off the table. Then I've got to worry about the money.
I've got a five year plan for that. And if
the reason that you're writing is because mom needs care
right now. If she needs care right now, we can
save about a single person we can save about half.
Married couple we can save pretty much all of it,

(19:19):
but pretty much. But for a single person figure we
can save half of the money. Even if you haven't
done a pre plan. If you've done the pre plan right,
if you've already, if you did the pre plan, if
you planned ahead, then again, any assets that are in
the Devestment Trust five years or more are going to

(19:40):
be one hundred percent protected. So there are very effective
things that can be done. The question is do you
want to do them? And shall we get it implemented.
You've been listening to the David Carriers Show. I'm David
Carrier inviting you to our Three Secrets Workshop. These are
the where you every week the good Lord brings Skegan

(20:00):
Holland Grand Rapids and of course all the way down
there in Portage.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
David's got the how too. You're looking for Just call
seven seven four twenty four, twenty four. This is the
David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now is the time give us
a call. Sixty one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's sixty one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. Will get your question, comment or concern
on the air. It that easy, especially if it's about

(20:35):
a state planning, elder law, real estate and business law.
So so many things going on in the world that
jurisprudentially legally that you can't even a little bit beyond
the scope here. But anyway, it's a it's an amazing
time to be alive. Amazing look around you. This kind

(20:56):
of stuff hasn't happened since I don't know, the seventies.
Of course, back in the sev of these there were
a lot more. There were a lot more bombs, you know,
people anarcho Tenet, terrorists and radicalists and all the rest
of it. You know that, the fact there was twenty
five hundred bomb attacks, you remember that. I don't know.
I was in high school at the time. I don't

(21:17):
I don't really have a current recollection of that. But
that was going on back then. I think it's worse now.
Maybe maybe not anyway, six one, six, seven, seventy four,
twenty four, twenty four. Because life goes on, so does death.
Can I add my siblings names? This is this is
like what we got going on here is like horrible. Okay,

(21:39):
the proposal is horrible, so hopefully we'll be able to
head them off at the pass. Okay, if I could
say that? Can I add my siblings names to the
deed of the house I'm inheriting from my mother. My
mother placed her house in a trust and then left
it to me. Yay for mom? Okay, The taxable value
the house is appraised, meaning the taxable value is less

(22:01):
than the state equalized value the fair market value, which
is supposed to be the same. It isn't really, of course,
But anyway, in order to keep the property taxes low, right,
you know, we'll file the property transfer affidavit and the
homeowner's exemption, the principal residence exemption. People still call it
homeowners exemption, but really principal residence exemption. After the house

(22:24):
is transferred out of the trust. Now, my first question
is why in the world would you transfer it out
of the trust? Why not leave it in the trust? Now?
Maybe maybe possible that the trust says, and most do, okay,
most do, but you wonder, you know, I mean, she's
doing some things right here, Maybe they did some other
things right. Maybe we should take a good look at

(22:45):
that trust and see if it enables us to leave
the house in the trust for the benefit of the child.
That way, you still have the principal residence exemption, but
now you also have iron clad i mean, platinum, titanium,
atamantheum whatever protection of the house for the kid, which

(23:05):
everybody blows off, that protection that you can give to
an inheritance, all right, everybody does this, almost everybody because
we don't. And I'm sure there are a couple other
people out there doing it, but I haven't seen them.
When you protect what you're given to the kids for
the kids, not from the kids, for the kids, all right.

(23:26):
So that's the thing. Anyway, At the time the trust
was formed, I intended to live in the house for
the rest of my life. But the best laid plans
of mice and men gang after glay, as the poet says.
But now on my plans have changed, and I'll be
living elsewhere surprised. In order to preserve the tax exemption
or the principal residence exemption, which you're not going to do,

(23:48):
you have to live in the house to get the
principal residence exemption. Some very prominent politicians are now finding
out that when you claim multiple principal residence exemptions occasionally
can come back and bite you. In fact, Federal Reserve
says it's a very common form of mortgage fraud. And
it's terrible that people are doing this because why because

(24:10):
it's a tax cheat. That's number one. Number two. It
also so means the government's getting less taxes than what
they are actually entitled to get. Look, do I like
paying taxes. I'm like everybody else. I would rather not.
On the other hand, the cost of living in a
society is that you pay your taxes, and cheating on

(24:31):
your taxes is bad, horrible, no good, very bad, et cetera.
So don't do that, Okay, don't claim multiple principal residence
exemptions if you're not entitled to it. On the other hand,
I don't want to uncap the value of the property
if I don't have to, right, So there are things
you can do that are legitimate to keep your tax

(24:52):
burden as low as possible. There are illegitimate, terrible things
that should get you fired as a governor of the
federal Reserve, or as a state prosecutor, or what whatever right.
You shouldn't be attorney general if you're breaking the law
yourself in a very common venal money grubbing kind of way,
like taking more than one principal residenten this exemption, or
claiming the personal resident anyway, you get my point now,

(25:16):
in order to keep from uncapping it, says I would
like to add the names of my siblings to the
deed when it is transferred out of the trust. This
is a horrible, terrible, very bad, no good, awful idea. Okay,
because when you do that, when you add somebody's name
to a deed, and is to add my name to

(25:38):
the deed, you're giving them a share of the property. Okay,
that can be good, it can be bad. What if
they get divorced, Oh, you own a third of that house?
What do you mean I owned a third of that
Well I did the title search, or my attorney did,
and it turns out you lied about how much asset
you you actually owned a third of that house used

(25:58):
to be your mother's house, your sib and gave it
to you, and now you're a terrible person. Same way
with bankruptcy. I didn't know I had it. Yeah, well,
oh I forgot or whatever else. Okay, so and medicaid
will find it as well. And it is treated as
if it is cash. Okay, you have a one third

(26:19):
interest in the house that your mom left to your
brother or sister, and now now, surprise, you own a
third of it. And it's it's to say, it's three
hundred thousand. Okay, it's not even you don't even get
the oh it's real estate. No, it's treated as if
it was cash in the bank. Are you with me
on this? This is terrible, very very bad idea. Plus,

(26:42):
if you ever want to sell it in the future,
you ever want to sell this property in the future,
Now you've got to get the siblings to go along.
Oh and depending on how you put it, you know
how you created the tendency, how you added their names
to the deed. Right now you've got to deal with
their widow or with the were their surviving spouse, or

(27:02):
maybe you've got to deal with your nieces and nephews,
and you never like them anyway, right they all And
now everybody's got to sign off on the house. So
you don't want to do this. Can you get keep
the principal residence exemption? No, because you're not living there.
Can you keep it from uncapping? Absolutely? You want to
leave it to your your siblings, right, okay, fine, so

(27:25):
do your own trust, uh and leave it to them.
They will continue to live here, Oh well, says there
uh Ad Millames and myself, they will continue I guess
everybody's talk about a failure to launch. Nobody's nobody left
the house. So okay, fine, so you've got the you've
got but here's still to my point. All right, you've

(27:47):
got it, says there, continue to live here in the
uh the you know, the relative of the first degree
exemption that's for the for the uncapping, and the principal
residence exemption will still apply. The only possible complication the
trust does not pass the house to all three of
us me only will this make it impossible for me

(28:08):
to add the names to the deed? No, you can
always add their names to the deed. It's just a
terrible idea. And if they're actually living in that. So
here's what you do when somebody is living in the house. Okay,
you do not give them a one third interest or
however much. You don't do that. What you do is
you give them an undivided one percent interest life estate

(28:31):
in a one percent interest. Okay, you give them the
smallest fraction of the house that you can, all right,
but it's an undivided interest, which means the whole thing
gets the principal residence exemption. See, there's ways to do
this stuff, but you gotta slice the onion. You gotta,
you gotta, you gotta do it correctly. If you do
it correctly, you can get the benefits. So if there

(28:54):
is somebody actually living in the house, then we can
get the principal residence exemption, which is do the ownership, Yes,
but how much do you have to own? How much
you have to own? The smallest fraction will be enough
to get the principal residence exemption. So that's what you
should be doing.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
That.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
That's what we need to be doing here in order
to do But you should be much more thoughtful. See,
you never want to give up control. If you've got
one person in a trust who's got control of real estate.
Don't go adding people to the deed. You just complicate
and mess up everything for generations. Yet unborn, don't do
it that way. There is a way to do this.

(29:33):
You can accomplish what your goals are, but only if
it's done correctly, which is kind of always my point.
I guess you've been listening to the David Carrier Show.
I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney, inventing you to
one of our three Secrets workshops. These are the workshops
we do every day. The Good Lord brings and twice
on Sunday. That's not really true. We don't do one Sunday.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Ever, David's working and working and taking your calls. Now.
This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Got another email here, a little
bit too late for you to call in, but you know,
go ahead if you want to six one, six, seven
of them four twenty four, twenty four. How would the
money be legally divided in a revocable living trust between
three boys if the youngest boy has developed cancer. That's

(30:24):
kind of an odd headline, but I am the wife
of the youngest son who has cancer for the second time,
this time stage four. Don't expect them to live past
twelve months. So I'm wondering, am I entitled to anything
to help me survive after he passes or does it
go only split to his brothers. Now, well, here's the thing.
I'm assuming that your in laws are still alive, that

(30:45):
the that your husband's parents are still are still with us, okay,
and so they can decide to do whatever it is
they want to do with their inheritance. It is not
at all unusual for you know, if the if the
child has died, I would say the most common thing
that people do is they give it to the to

(31:06):
the grandkids. So if you have children together, then it
would be not at all unusual, fact pretty common for
the money to go to your kids, right, that would
be that would be something. The most next common is
that it would go only to the surviving siblings, and
the third most common is that it would involve somehow

(31:28):
it would involve the surviving spouse. Okay, so who knows.
It just depends on what the document says. Now, if
your in laws have already died, have already died, and
your son is now entitled to receive his share because
his parents have died, well, he can. He can usually

(31:50):
usually direct that to you if there's no provision for
a continuing trust like in our trust. So we never
get just outright give money to people. We always wrap
it in a trust so that it's protected. You know,
it's super protected from creditors and predators and all the
rest of the stuff. It's great. Now many people choose

(32:10):
not to accept the protection, which is fine. If you
don't want it, you don't have to. But we always
do that because we don't know what the future holds. Okay,
so we always do that. But we give the so
after mom and dad have died, it's in a trust,
but we give control over the trust to the beneficiary,
to the child. So in this case, if your parents

(32:33):
have worked with us, and if your in laws had
worked with us, and then your husband, who's the child, dies,
then your son, your husband could determine it's called the
power of appointment, they could determine who gets his share
of the trust. He can direct that. Okay, if they

(32:56):
haven't died, then it's completely up to the in laws.
Who gets what still up to them. They haven't died yet, right,
nobody's nobody's right to receive has has crystallized, and so
it's just a matter of have they died, if they have,
it depends again, everything depends. But your your husband hasn't died,

(33:16):
so probably he's entitled to it, and then he would
decide whether or not you were entitled to it. Uh.
If your in laws have already passed, Uh, then yeah,
that's that's that's the way. But if you're in laws
haven't passed yet, then you're going to have a talk
with you know, mother in law, father in law. You know.
That's just that's just the way. That's the way it goes.

(33:42):
Let's see, if a will lists all the siblings have
equal shares and they all die, doesn't go to the
survivor named on the will. We need a property deed
made to take off dead siblings. So if what we've
it depends again, everything depends, right, You might think so
you might think that if a will or a trust

(34:05):
says it goes to the following people, if then living okay,
if it says that in Michigan anyway, you might think
that it means that if someone has died, then they're
not entitled to a share. That is not true. In Michigan.
The words if then living don't really mean anything simply

(34:28):
because the way those words have been interpreted is that
if they have kids, right, if they're represented by radio presentation,
if they have kids, then the kids would inherit the
parents' share. Even though if all it says is if
then living, the only way you can avoid that right
is by saying if predeceased, then to somebody else. You

(34:52):
have to specify. It's not enough to say it goes
to Larry mow and Curly if then living, Larry and
mo die. Curly doesn't get everything because Larry and Mohad,
if Larry mo had kids, Larry and Moe's kids would take.
But if it says if then you know Larry Moore
and Curly, if then living right first of the following

(35:13):
if then living right if predeceased, but if they predeceased,
then to the surviving sibling. Okay, that would get it
to Curly. But if it doesn't say that, then it's
going to their kids. Okay. You've got to be very
explicit with these things, and not everything works the way
that you think it does. So we've got a whole

(35:35):
bunch of siblings here who died except for one. Apparently,
if it said it goes to my seven kids, if
then living, that's not enough. If those kids had kids,
now we've got to include them in the probate. We've
got to name them as heirs and they would be entitled.
So we need a property deed made to take off

(35:57):
dead siblings. Well, it doesn't just work that way either. Okay,
the property deed is something that comes out of the probate,
which is fine, that comes out of the probate, but
you have to in probate you have to determine who
the heirs are. Right now, We've got a couple of
cases where people died back in the nineties, right and

(36:19):
the kids have just continued and now the grandkids have
continued living in the homestead. Well it's still titled to grandma.
For Krandaw, it's been over thirty years nowhere. And then
they had multiple kids and there's no will of course,
so it's all by intestacy. So we're having to go

(36:43):
through multiple kids to find out if they had kids.
And of course people are estranged over the years because
they've died. I mean, it can really be a morass.
If you're involved at all in a situation where somebody
died and you're living in their house, you need to
get the title work done. Okay, you need You need

(37:03):
to actually do this stuff. You can't just let it slide,
because it can slide for a very long time, and
then when it's done sliding, as in these cases, when
it's done sliding, trying to recreate that stuff is a
nightmare and a half. Plus plus, we're still getting the
principal residence exemption based on somebody who's been dead for

(37:25):
thirty years. Okay, Uh, you don't get a prep A
dead person doesn't get a principal residence exemption. In other words,
they've been paying taxes as if Grandma was still alive. Well,
you're not entitled to grandma's tax status and all the
rest of this. Okay, that's that's another you know, bear
trap about to close. So my point is, when we've

(37:48):
got something, you know, if the will says the siblings,
you gotta look deeper. That's why you have an attorney,
just saying, that's why you have to have an attorney
look at this, because the words don't always mean the
common sense of it isn't always a guarantee of results
that makes sense good. That's why you're gonna come to

(38:09):
the Three Secret Workshow it's not as bad as you
think it's worse. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney,
inviting you to come to one of our seminars. You've
been listening to the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show a lively
discussion addressing your questions and concerns, but not legal advice.
There is a big difference. So when making decisions that
affect your family, your property, or yourself, the best advice
is to seek good advice specific to your unique needs.
If you missed any of today's show, or would like
additional information about the law offices of David Carrier, please

(39:06):
visit Davidcarrierlaw dot com.