Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
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 (00:33):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. And you have found the place
where we talk about retirement law. That's it, retirement law.
Nothing else, Okay, estate planning and real estate and business law. Yeah,
we talk about all that stuff, but that's all really
part of retirement law anyway. It's all about how do
(00:54):
we figure out how to hang on to what you've
earned over your lifetime? For you, how do we get
it to the kids in a way that they don't
curse your name? You don't want that. You don't want that.
You don't want I'm cursing your name. That would be bad, right.
You want them to rise up and call you blessed.
That's what you want. But you know, but that ain't
(01:16):
gonna happen if you mess things up. So let's not
miss things up. What are you saying plus it doesn't
work out particularly well for you while you're on this
side of the great divide. See, here's the thing. There's
an awful lot of folks who understand you know what
you understand, you do well, okay, you know, you know
how to do stuff, and you do stuff, and you
(01:37):
do the good things, and that's all the rest of it.
Oh and there we go some music anyway, and then
and then there are some things that we don't know
that much about, right that we assume and lots of
times that we have heard other people do and we think, oh,
that must be the way it works. But I think
as we're as we're finding out as we look around
(02:00):
the world I'm trying to be non political here, as
we look around the world and you find out how
things actually work, sometimes it comes as rather of a shock, okay,
that that's actually how it works. And that's the way
it is with a lot of this estate planning stuff
because you don't get to you don't get to do over.
It's only the one time that you get to do it.
(02:22):
And so that's why it's kind of difficult and it's
kind of hard to believe that things actually work the
way they actually work. It's very difficult to believe that
until you've been through it. Like, I have no problem
explaining things. In fact, I usually get one uped by
people i'm talking to who've been through the process. Okay,
(02:44):
but when you haven't been through the process yet, and
I'm not saying every single time, because it occasionally, oh
it's very easy. Yeah, okay, well that happens too, I guess.
But most of the time I got people one up
and beyond horror stories about the way it works, then
how bad it was. Well, okay, well you don't have
any experience of that. You haven't been through it, so
(03:07):
you know, what's the big deal? Oh, look, everybody else
is doing this, I guess it must be okay, Well,
you know, maybe my mother used to say, if your
friends were all jumping off the bridge. This was after
I jumped off the bridge. My friend, your friends all
jump off the bridge, would you do it? And I'm like, well,
if my friends were all jumping off the bridge, then
(03:28):
I guess it's safe, at least safe enough to actually
do it. So yeah, I did it, and that was
not acceptable anyway. It kind of works that way with
the state planning. I mean, sometimes you know there's rocks
underneath that maybe other people don't notice. I don't know.
The point is that this whole planning thing is something
(03:49):
that you really do need to kind of take seriously.
I mean, no, it'll all work out. Don't worry about it.
Complex things always work out on their own. It's never
any problem. Now. One of the complex things we've got
going on is cottages. You know, in in our part
of the country, this part of the country, God's country,
the cottage is sort of the not the holy Grail,
(04:12):
but you know it's everybody likes the good way to
the lake, right, and whether it's the packed you know,
go to Hoffmaster, go to Wabbasses, go to wherever. You know.
If you don't already have your your camping spot for
the summer, you're in tough shape. I mean you better.
You better hope that somebody cancels go into the lake.
(04:36):
And for those blessed people who have the cottages or
have the blessed cottages, I don't know how that works. Anyway,
if you've got a cottage, you know what that's like, right,
It's a big deal. And that's what we're talking about today,
is the whole is the whole cottage thing. Not everybody.
But here's the thing I'm not talking. This isn't for people.
(04:58):
This isn't only for people who have cottages. Okay, there
are things that people you would think. You would think
that if somebody had a cottage, Oh, your cards are
very expensive, right, those most people be really on the ball.
The people a cottages screw it up like ninety eight
percent of the time. And if it's ninety seven percent,
call me on it. Okay, they screw it up all
(05:19):
the time because they put their kids on the deed
or they'd leave it to all the kids in their
trust or their will or whatever it is you know
that they've done. There's like no thought goes into it
most of the time, and that's where you get the
horror stories of all the kids on the deed, and
that's just terrible. The other thing that people will do,
(05:42):
I'm kind of recapping the last hour. The other thing
that people will do is a limited liability company. And
people very proud of having the limited liability company. And
they're smart, they're justified. It's aokay for them to be
very proud of. Haven't thought enough about it to do
a limited liability company in LLC to hold the cottage. Okay,
(06:04):
because with the deed stuff, there's no rules and the
only way out is to go to court, right or
just you know, have a free for all with your family.
If somebody's unhappy, right and and uncooperative, one person can
sink the whole thing. Okay, that's with the deeds. It
(06:25):
only takes one it's not a vote. There's no voting,
and there's no requirement that you pay the taxes. They
can't assess you for the taxes. Right, and if one
of them fails to pay the taxes, what's the what's
the Did the other ones get to sue the kid
who didn't pay the taxes, who didn't pay the electric bill,
who didn't help out, No, they don't. You don't. You
don't get to sue them. You don't get to force
(06:47):
them to live up to their responsibilities because guess what
they don't have any responsibilities. But they have is ownership
and what they have is privilege, and they have the
right to go in on the fourth of July with
the biker gang or you know whoever. You know, the
body piercing Association. I apologies to body piercing people. Anyway
to show up with thirty of them on the fourth
(07:09):
of July and you say, well, wait a second, that's
not for we all agreed. It doesn't matter what you agree,
It don't matters what they agree, and they can renig
on it, and what are you gonna do? See these
other sorts of things that if we're smart about it,
we can avoid, And the LLC avoids a lot of
that by providing rules. Okay, there are now rules for
(07:31):
if you're going to use the thing, then you got
to do these things. And if you don't do these things,
then you're trespassing because you don't own it. You're not
an owner, right. You have privilege, right, you have the
the the entitlement under the terms of the LLC to
use it, but you don't have any natural right like
(07:53):
you do if you're on the deed. So forget about
the deeds. Don't do the deeds. Deeds are terrible, forget
about them. The LLC much better. But here's the problem
with the LLC. Oh plus, another benefit to the LLC,
of course, is if a biker gang does show up
and one of them drowns, and now they sue everybody.
At least if it's in the LLC. They're not taking
(08:15):
your house, okay, So that's a good thing. With the LLC,
it's some limited liability, right for whatever goes on at
the cottage. What goes on at the cottage stays at
the cottage, and so does the liability if the LLC
has been done and maintained, which they're usually not. But
let's assume it has been maintained properly. In all the rest, great,
(08:36):
now I can at least keep my own house. But
the whole point of setting these things up is to
provide a resource through the generations right on and on
and on. We want the family to keep the cottage
in the family, and the LLC doesn't do that because
there's always some ejection seat provision in there where you
(08:59):
can hit the out button and boom, you can eject
from the from the aircraft. You can you can get
out of it. And the problem is you might not
think this is such a problem, but this is just experience.
The problem is when somebody, when one person gets out,
they all get out. Nobody has the heart to pay
off that jerk. It's just a screw it, sell it, okay,
(09:23):
And that's what happens Okay, So what if there was
a way to get the limited liability, to get the rules,
to get the expectations all set up and and keep
it the thing going, to keep the thing going right
from you know, here to eternity. There is a way
to do that, and that's what we're going to talk
about in the next segment. The think about Oh that music?
(09:49):
Does that music mean I need to get out? John?
What is going on? Do we have an intern working
there today? All right, all right, so we're out. We'll
be right back. You've been listening to the David Carrier Show.
I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Get back on.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Change is back, It's changing love. Change is that Joe.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Chi chits.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Chit. 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 (10:40):
Welcome back to the David Carriers Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now's the time to give us
a call. Six one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's six one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. Now, if you have a cottage. And
I'm already you know, saying, oh, you shouldn't do this,
and you shouldn't do that, which is true if you're
(11:02):
already dated it out to your kids. But you're still alive.
You're still alive. Okay, Well, I don't know if they
get this in heaven or not whatever. If you're still alive, right,
you can lots of times, not always, but frequently you
can get them to sign it back, which would be,
which might be. You got to look at every situation
(11:24):
is unique, but it might be the good thing to
unwind that, right, so you can move ahead and do
the righteous things. So the fact that you've already made
the huge, unbelievable, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mistake
of eating your cottage or whatever to your kids. Oh
and retain, Oh I've retained the life estate. That's a
good thing. No, it isn't. And for reasons that if
(11:47):
we have a conversation will become obvious. But anyway, the uh,
you can you can still fix it, okay, And what
do I mean by fix it? I'll tell you this
is a method that we came up with.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
It's got to be twenty five thirty years ago, because
what I was seeing was what I just described to you,
the kids at each other's throat with the deeds and
then with the LLC. I thought, well that you read
the book. The guy wrote a book up in Traversy
wrote a book. It's like, oh, this will be great,
and it's like, yeah, it seemed great until I saw
(12:23):
how it actually worked, which was if one kid pulls
the plug, you're done with it. One exception. I've only
had one exception in all these years where they actually
paid the other kid off, the one who wanted to
get out. And they were like a dozen people in
that one. So that's unusual for these things to actually
work in my experience. That's what I've what I've seen.
(12:47):
So here's the thing. What if that wasn't what we
were trying to do anyway. What if what we were
trying to do was not give the kids some money
or whatever you know, how to do that. What if
the idea was to preserve the cottage as a focus
for the family, right, as a place to go to,
as a resource that couldn't be replaced. Okay, And what
(13:12):
is like that? What's like that in our experience? The
answer is the answer is national parks. What if we
set up a trust that treated your cottage like a
national park. You can't cash in your share of a
national park. You have to pay to go there. There
are rules and regulations about how you can use it.
(13:35):
And if we ever gave up the national parks, we
never get them back, they'd be all developed whatever. You
never get it back. That's the fundamental idea behind the
cottage trust, the way national park model, cottage trust, the
way we do it. Okay, and then nobody has the
right to cash it in. Nobody can sink the ship.
(13:57):
It's a way for there to be rules, reasonable expectations,
financial security, on and on and on going through the generations. Okay,
and everybody in your family, however distant relative gets to
use it. So far, that's what we've been doing. Had
quite a bit of success with it. Think about it.
We've got Brenda on the line. Hello, Brenda, welcome to
(14:18):
the David Carrier Show. Hello, how can I help?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh? Sorry, my phone was actually I was willed some
stuff in a friend's will. We took care of her
for like, huh eleven, can you hear me?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, I can hear you. Lunge Claar.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Okay, sorry, I was willed some stuff in a friend's
will that we took care for like eleven years. We
didn't know that we were willed anything. So I got
this random phone call and he said that there was
some stock accounts and some cash. He gave me the
information for the stock account and now he will not
(15:06):
returning near my phone calls or.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Give me a copy of the will.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
So I didn't know what my next step would be.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
How long ago did the person die?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Almost four months ago?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Okay? And we're talking with a family member who told
you this or what?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
No, it was her executor, Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So the first step would be to go to the
probate court in your county, all right? So in theego,
you know, you know, I go to the Nwego County
probate because that's where the person lived.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Is that right correct? Yes?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Okay? And then what you want to do is just
find out if if an estate has been opened in
that person's name. Okay, okay, And they will tell you
whether or not there has been an estate opened in
that person's name, and then if there is, now you
can get a copy of the will. You can get
a copy of whatever has been filed on that on
(16:13):
that estate. So if there is a if there actually
actually now if there was a trust, then you can't
all right, because they will have filed there there won't
be any probate on that.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Part of it was part of it was in a trust.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Okay, So let's go to probate first and find out
what the what the story is. Get the documents. Okay,
Now you can find out what your entitlement is to
the stuff that's actually going through probate. And because by
now you should have there's all kinds of paperwork you
should have received, you know, the the the petition to
open the probate, the inventory not in accounting just yet,
(16:53):
but you know, letters, copies, the letters of authority, there's
a lot of information, that copy of the fee agreement.
There's a lot of stuff that you should already have received,
and it's curious that you haven't gotten it yet. Also
kind of curious that you know that there is a
probate going on and a trust. Okay, but we can.
You're entitled to receive all the probate documents. You're also
(17:16):
entitled to receive as much of the trust as relates
to you. You don't get the whole trust, but you
get the portion that says, you know, Brenda's getting my
amalgamated widget stock or whatever it is that says that
you're getting something. Okay, you are definitely entitled to receive
that as well as you know, notice that the notice
(17:39):
that there is a trust, who the trustee is, inventory
that kind of thing. So the fact that you haven't
gotten it yet, it's four months, that's kind of a
long time sometimes for enough of who did you get
the call from? Just a random person or an attorney or.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
What no, it was next or neighbors.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Okay, well, I mean lots of people. That's all they've
got nowadays, you know. So okay, So so that person
may have shuffled it off on the attorney and just
doesn't want to be bothered anymore. That could be. There's
lots of there's lots of possibilities here, Okay. The fact
that you know that some of it's in probate, that's
(18:26):
hopeful because you're that's public record. I mean, you can
find out about that if nobody will give you from
the probate record, it should be obvious who the trustee is. Okay, Okay,
But because usually the personal representative is the trustee. Right,
So now you know, and you can say, hey, I'm
(18:47):
a beneficiary, at least I think I'm a beneficiary. Tell
me I'm a beneficiary or I'm not a beneficiary, whichever,
and then once you find that out, if they still
won't do it, then you can go to probate court
and put their feet to the fire and make them
give you a copy of the inventor, make them do
an inventory, make them. You know, you can even seek
to replace them if they're not willing to carry out
(19:08):
their fiduciary obligations under the trust, under the will. Okay,
they owe it to you. That's their job. They're supposed
to be. You know, they're supposed to be looking out
for you. They're supposed to be because you're a beneficiary.
Now you know their job as the trust. Now you
wouldn't expect the whole thing to be In fact, it's
not really possible for it all to be administered in
(19:30):
full in four months. That can't happen. Okay, the timing
just doesn't work. But by now you should have received
your notices, you should have received some assurance of what's
going on, and then it's being done, that it's being
done properly, okay. But first my first stop would be
to the to the probate court to find out what's
(19:51):
been filed. Okay, and then you know, then you find
out who's in charge, and then you can demand of
them give me my give me the documents that you're
supposed to give me, you know, sixty days ago. What
the hell? Right, that's that would be? You know, that
would be my Sometimes sometimes people just need you to,
(20:12):
you know, put a firecracker under their pillow, you know,
and let's get going here. You know.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Well, very helpful. And he gave me all the stocked information.
I got that all taken care of. And then all
of a sudden he was like, I'm not sending you
a will, I'm not the cash amount is no longer,
you know. I was like, I didn't understand what was
going on, and he now he will not turn any
phone calls or this guy.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Okay, So this would be one, Yeah, this would be
one where we'd ask you to bring this stuff in right,
and we'd take a look at it, take a look
at what you've got and the way it's gone, you know,
And it could be because, let's face it. This process
is kind of weird sometimes, you know. Our advice to
you my no, everything's just fine. You got what you're
(21:02):
gonna get, it's all done, don't worry about it. Or
it could be no, we've really got to, you know,
go to the mattresses on this one. It could go
either way, and from the phone call it's impossible to
tell which. So if you want to give us a
call on Monday, that'd be fine. All right, and it's
six one, six three, six eighty four, and we'll just
take a look at the stuff and tell you know
(21:22):
which way the wind's blown.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Okay, so fair enough, yep.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh, thank you, Brenda. Take care now.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Bie.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
David's got the how to you're looking for. Just call
seven seven twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. You know, it is frustrating when
you've been named as a beneficiary and things seem to
be dragging out and dragging out and dragging out and
dragging out that's pretty frustrating. And I got to tell you,
it's kind of frustrating on our part as well. Sometimes,
you know, when we're when we're talking with you know
(22:25):
what I mean, we're talking with the pr and whatnot,
and sometimes they have a very low incentive to get
anything done. It's just reality. So what do you do
about you know, what do you do about that? And
the answer is, you know, patients often patients often works right,
(22:45):
but sometimes it doesn't, so you know, then you got
to you gotta take the next step. But it also happens,
it also happens sometimes that our expectations are a little
bit unrealistic. You know, we expect to have things done
much more or quickly, and certainly we would like things
to be done more quickly than it's possible. But sometimes
(23:07):
that does happen, and when we look at things, we
can say, hey, you know, here's what's really going on
with this. It's not that it's not that bad. You know,
it's kind of along the lines of what you would
expect it to be. But you know, you don't know
that because sometimes you don't have a word for four
months and after someone has passed, and it's like you
(23:29):
know skullduggery is going on, and sometimes it's just they
haven't gotten into it yet. So, like I say, always,
it never hurts for us to take a look at
it and just we'll tell you. You know which way,
which way the wind is blowing, you know. I think
Bob Dylan said, you don't need a weather man to
know which way the wind blows, but sometimes you need
(23:51):
a lawyer and it can help. We're talking this this
week about cottages and how do we maintain cottages down
through the generations. We make sure that the cottage is
a blessing, not a curse. And the free for all
that most people engage in when they put everybody on
the deed or they or they leave, they bequeath to
(24:12):
their family the cottage and then everybody gets on board
with it. Right, everybody's on the deed to the cottage.
That way lies madness. Frankly, nobody agree. I mean, it's
just it gets to be a pretty pretty unhappy, let's
put it that way, pretty unhappy situation. So let's not
(24:35):
do that. The cottage trust that we're putting together is
fundamentally different than what I've seen being done, and the
fundamental difference is. We don't think that what you're trying
to do is transfer property, okay, because that's not really
(24:59):
what it's about. Cottage is not about the bricks and
the sticks plus the dirt. Okay, that's not what a
cottage is about. A cottage is about families getting together,
families who have an opportunity now to interact with each
other down through the down through the years. And that's
very difficult. The world is a very very busy place,
(25:22):
and in this busy place, it's difficult to get the
to get the cousins together, get the family together. One
of my nephews organized the thing for all the for
all the the cousins to get together and go skiing,
and those with and some of those with babies did
(25:46):
show up, but mostly it was the ones without kids
did show up. They spent the weekend skiing and all
the rest of it. You know what I mean. You
really like to see that kind of thing, so that,
especially when you have a charge family, even if you don't,
you know, just to keep that momentum going because it
can be a very cold and lonely world, and having
(26:09):
family and real relationships people who like you anyway, right,
that can be a big deal. But too often what
we see is people who don't like you because of
some story that got told about who did what to
whom back in the day, right, and the no And
(26:31):
here's the other thing. Okay, when it comes to this,
nobody retells a story without making it better, okay. And
and stories that tend to cast shade on somebody are
the most popular kinds of stories. Right, And even when
the teller kind of feels like they're going too far here,
(26:54):
they do it anyway. Right, So, with this whole estate
planning thing, right, with the whole how do I set
things up so that things are good going forward? Okay?
There are things you can do to encourage it. You
don't have we don't control the future. I get that.
But there are things you can do to encourage goodness
(27:15):
and discourage badness. And maybe that would be a good thing.
And when you put all the kids on the deed
to the cottage, you're encouraging badness, okay, because you're putting
everybody hostage to the person who is the least considerate. Well,
how does that? How's that going to work? The answer
is my observation has been not well, doesn't work well?
(27:37):
But you can set up rules where people of good spirit, right,
good spirit provide a framework for success. Right, and the
and the krabby ones. You can deal with the crabby
ones in the content because you don't give them disproportionate power.
You see, crabby people usually have disproportionate power in most
(28:00):
relationships because they're willing to go places you're not willing
to go. They're willing to wreck a conversation, They're willing
to do things that would be so beyond what you
you've been there before, right, I mean, you know I'm
going to blow the whole thing up, you know, I
(28:21):
just want to watch it burn. There are people like
that who would rather everything get wrecked than anybody have
a good thing, Okay, because for some reason they celebrate destruction.
Look around you. It's everywhere you see people who are
celebrating that. And it happens in families as well, because
(28:41):
it's a human impulse, right, it's a you know, when
people feel resentment and you know all the things, you know,
they're unhappy that somebody else is having a good time.
Don't we all know people like that? Right, It's like,
what are you so upset about? Why they're having a
good time. They're yabor next door. You know, who's going
to call the cops on the party, you know, rather
(29:03):
than say, hey, you know, my dog is trying to sleep,
could you keep it down a little bit?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Right?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Who don't want to go over and invite themselves to
the party. They don't want to have a good time too, right,
They just want to shut everything down, even though it's
now you know what I'm talking about. You know, people
who are just looking for a reason to complain. Right,
there's plenty of people looking for and there's some of
them in your family. And so what we are trying
(29:28):
to do with the cottage, right, with the cottage Trust,
is to create a framework to minimize the influence of
the crabby ones, the ones who want to shut everything down,
and to facilitate the friendliness, the fellowship, the family feeling
that surrounds that cottage. And it's not just cottages, Okay,
(29:51):
it can be all kinds of you know, it's not
just real estate. When you when you set there's ways
to set things up, all right, There's ways to set
things up to encourage the goodness and discourage the badness.
And what I see all the time is no appreciation
for that whatsoever. No appreciation for it. It's like, but
(30:16):
where you're not even thinking about human beings and family relationship.
You weren't even thinking about that. You treat this as
a real estate problem or as a money problem. It's
not estate planning, is not the law, you know, the
whole retirement nothing. It's not a money problem, okay, it's
a family relationship problem. It's a you know, up with
(30:39):
the goodness, down with the badness problem. That's what it
really really is. You've been listening to the David Carrier Show.
I'm David Carrier, your Family's retirement Law Specialists.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, David's working and working and taking your calls. Now
this is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Welcome back to the David Carriers Show. I'm David Carrier,
your Family's retirement loss Specialists, personal attorney, whatever you want
to call it. That's that's all good. Now's the time
for you to sign up for one of the Life
Plan Three Secrets workshops. These are the workshops we do
every week. The Good Lord brings in good old Grand Rapids,
but also in Norton Shores in Holland and of course
(31:48):
down in down in Portage why do we do these
so often? You know, lots of lots of times you
get these, oh, you know, the circus is coming to
town kind of workshop. So we do them all the
time because we want to be sort of like the
electric company, you know what I mean when you turn
on the switch. It's not like, oh, I'm sorry, we're
(32:09):
only working on saturdays. Well, you know, I have my
need right now. I would like to find out now.
So that's why we do as many workshops as we do.
As you know, so I guess I keep getting counseled.
Oh you know, you really shouldn't do it quite so often.
You should, you know, tease it a little bit more,
make it a little less accessible. That'd be better. Maybe maybe,
(32:35):
I don't know. We've been at it now for thirty
five years. It seems to work. You know. People seem
to be happy with it. So that's all good. If
you are a Life Plan member or a Red Wagon
Club member. Already, congratulations, that's wonderful. We've already got a
couple hundred year You signed up for the April First.
It's not a joke. April First Live quarterly meeting at
(32:57):
the Meyer Gardens. Butterflies are blooming uh you know, and
all the usual stuff that we at our first meeting
of the year, that's when we issue the the annual mug,
the Yettie mug you know, with you know stated so
it's collector's item. Oh boy, well it's a very nice mug.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
It's one of those things that keeps keeps everything hot
forever and it's great. Uh so, yeah, we'll be we'll
be doing that and of course different color every year,
you know, until they run out of colors. But uh
so it's not red. It was it was inaugural was red.
But anyway, you're do them in different colors. So I'd
love to see you there if you you know, and
(33:39):
sign up. You got a call call ahead last you know,
at the last meeting, a lot of people showed up
at last minute. We didn't say no, but we had
to start moving chairs around from the from the dining
area to the show area and then back and forth,
and it was you know, I have to I have
(34:01):
to tell you it was it was a little bit chaotic,
you know what I mean, because we didn't really expect
as many people as showed up, which was very nice,
very welcome show up. Don't don't let that hold you back.
But it was. But everyone was like, I don't want
to be Pollyanna about it, but it was. It was
(34:23):
Actually everyone was very cooperative and very helpful, and you know,
people pitching in, moving the chairs and can we help
out with this, can we help out with that? And
you know, that's the that's who you are, you know,
the people who've gone through the through the process. And
it really makes it a lot of fun doing these
the monthly fun events, the monthly educational events, and of
(34:44):
course our big, our big Hoopla, the quarterly events. You know,
it's just really just a lot of fun to see
the friendships that have grown up, and you know, and
and when it when something unexpected happens, like we have
to move the chairs from one area to the other,
you know, I have to say it was I wasn't surprised.
(35:08):
Put it that way. I wasn't surprised by the fact
that people were just pitching in and helping out and
you know, moving them from here to there. And I
didn't I didn't hear any grumblings. There may have been
some grumbling, but I didn't hear any I just saw
people pitching in and helping out, and that was it
was just really really nice. Anyway, the point is that
(35:32):
it is I know, it goes quickly, doesn't it. It's
a quarterly meeting time. Again, a couple of hundred folks
have already a couple hundred of you have already signed up.
I don't it's a huge space. I don't expect we'll
I think if everybody signed up we would. We might
have a little bit of difficulty and brought a guest
because remember you're you're you can bring a guest to
(35:52):
these things. Weren't happy to have your guests come, but
I think it's possible for us to overflow. But mostly
it's just a matter having enough chairs. So we would
ask you to please, please please please let us know
that you're coming so that we do have enough, you know,
Like I say, it was kind of community building activity
(36:13):
to be moving chairs around. On the other hand, we
did run out of food, so we had enough brownies,
but the but the hot food ran out, So let's
not have that happen again. Call ahead, let us know
that you're coming so that we can that we can provide.
That would be great. So that's that's April first and
(36:36):
of course you can see us at the Lakefront living
Living in cottage show. That's what we're talking about this time,
this whole week is cottages can be a real anchor
point for a family. People have the same experience, so
that even if we don't get together as much as
we would like to, and we don't let's let's face facts.
(36:57):
You know, we don't get together as often as we
would like. Life is very busy. But you know, having
a few of those anchor points can really establish continuity
for a family. It's it's just a very positive thing.
I think I've mentioned before that for four of us,
(37:18):
for the brothers in my family, we own a place
on the cape to where we're from, and it is
a you know, we've had Thanksgiving there, we've had weddings there,
family weddings and whatnot, and uh, it's been one of
those things it's very nice to have, UH and we've
we've got it set up so that it will succeed,
you know, we'll keep on uh being a kind of
(37:39):
a focal point for the for the family down through
the generations. That's really the I that's really the idea.
But but it doesn't come without planning. It doesn't in
the Once you've done the planning, the implementation becomes easier.
It's not easy, not saying it's easy, but it's easier.
And the words are fantastic. You can't get it, how
(38:02):
do you? How else are you going to get it?
How else are you going to get that continuity? How
else are you going to get that? Family feelings very
difficult to do in a world as busy as we are.
And listen, the next generation is busy too, and especially
they have babies, and oh my god, you know, it's
it's kind of unbelievable just how much people are doing.
(38:26):
And to have a place, a geographic place, location, that's
that's amazing. Now that's not the only way you do it,
this wholy arabean. Let me just throw out an idea
for you. We had all the male members, Yes, we
were very sexist about it, all the male members of
the family, whether it was dad's sons, nephews, nieces not
(38:47):
nieces are but all the guys got together and I
don't know, there were like fifteen to twenty of us,
you know. And the Airbnb thing, right, that was that
that was a good idea. So the idea of bringing
family and we've brought the whole family together. Course, but
sometimes getting together like that, you know, not just a Thanksgiving,
(39:10):
make it something that's that's a little bit different right now.
It's not put so much pressure on turkey and cranberry sauce.
Let's kind of relate to each other, you know. And
the airbnb thing, even if you don't have a cottage,
the airbnb thing now makes that available for a lot
of folks, you know who, Yeah, we can't afford a cottage.
We can't afford to do that, and we rent ours
(39:32):
out most of the time and order or cover the cost.
But you know, there's ways of we AIRBNBA, there's ways
of there's ways of doing that, you know, And it's
so important, and it's what this stuff is really all about.
It's not about the money, it's not about the stuff.
It's about the family relationships that you can forge down
(39:52):
through the generations. That's what sustains us. You've been listening
to the David Carrier Show on David Carrier. Your family's
tiring a law personal attorney.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
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
(40:37):
visit Davidcarrier law dot com.
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 (00:33):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. And you have found the place
where we talk about retirement law. That's it, retirement law.
Nothing else, Okay, estate planning and real estate and business law. Yeah,
we talk about all that stuff, but that's all really
part of retirement law anyway. It's all about how do
(00:54):
we figure out how to hang on to what you've
earned over your lifetime? For you, how do we get
it to the kids in a way that they don't
curse your name? You don't want that. You don't want that.
You don't want I'm cursing your name. That would be bad, right.
You want them to rise up and call you blessed.
That's what you want. But you know, but that ain't
(01:16):
gonna happen if you mess things up. So let's not
miss things up. What are you saying plus it doesn't
work out particularly well for you while you're on this
side of the great divide. See, here's the thing. There's
an awful lot of folks who understand you know what
you understand, you do well, okay, you know, you know
how to do stuff, and you do stuff, and you
(01:37):
do the good things, and that's all the rest of it.
Oh and there we go some music anyway, and then
and then there are some things that we don't know
that much about, right that we assume and lots of
times that we have heard other people do and we think, oh,
that must be the way it works. But I think
as we're as we're finding out as we look around
(02:00):
the world I'm trying to be non political here, as
we look around the world and you find out how
things actually work, sometimes it comes as rather of a shock, okay,
that that's actually how it works. And that's the way
it is with a lot of this estate planning stuff
because you don't get to you don't get to do over.
It's only the one time that you get to do it.
(02:22):
And so that's why it's kind of difficult and it's
kind of hard to believe that things actually work the
way they actually work. It's very difficult to believe that
until you've been through it. Like, I have no problem
explaining things. In fact, I usually get one uped by
people i'm talking to who've been through the process. Okay,
(02:44):
but when you haven't been through the process yet, and
I'm not saying every single time, because it occasionally, oh
it's very easy. Yeah, okay, well that happens too, I guess.
But most of the time I got people one up
and beyond horror stories about the way it works, then
how bad it was. Well, okay, well you don't have
any experience of that. You haven't been through it, so
(03:07):
you know, what's the big deal? Oh, look, everybody else
is doing this, I guess it must be okay, Well,
you know, maybe my mother used to say, if your
friends were all jumping off the bridge. This was after
I jumped off the bridge. My friend, your friends all
jump off the bridge, would you do it? And I'm like, well,
if my friends were all jumping off the bridge, then
(03:28):
I guess it's safe, at least safe enough to actually
do it. So yeah, I did it, and that was
not acceptable anyway. It kind of works that way with
the state planning. I mean, sometimes you know there's rocks
underneath that maybe other people don't notice. I don't know.
The point is that this whole planning thing is something
(03:49):
that you really do need to kind of take seriously.
I mean, no, it'll all work out. Don't worry about it.
Complex things always work out on their own. It's never
any problem. Now. One of the complex things we've got
going on is cottages. You know, in in our part
of the country, this part of the country, God's country,
the cottage is sort of the not the holy Grail,
(04:12):
but you know it's everybody likes the good way to
the lake, right, and whether it's the packed you know,
go to Hoffmaster, go to Wabbasses, go to wherever. You know.
If you don't already have your your camping spot for
the summer, you're in tough shape. I mean you better.
You better hope that somebody cancels go into the lake.
(04:36):
And for those blessed people who have the cottages or
have the blessed cottages, I don't know how that works. Anyway,
if you've got a cottage, you know what that's like, right,
It's a big deal. And that's what we're talking about today,
is the whole is the whole cottage thing. Not everybody.
But here's the thing I'm not talking. This isn't for people.
(04:58):
This isn't only for people who have cottages. Okay, there
are things that people you would think. You would think
that if somebody had a cottage, Oh, your cards are
very expensive, right, those most people be really on the ball.
The people a cottages screw it up like ninety eight
percent of the time. And if it's ninety seven percent,
call me on it. Okay, they screw it up all
(05:19):
the time because they put their kids on the deed
or they'd leave it to all the kids in their
trust or their will or whatever it is you know
that they've done. There's like no thought goes into it
most of the time, and that's where you get the
horror stories of all the kids on the deed, and
that's just terrible. The other thing that people will do,
(05:42):
I'm kind of recapping the last hour. The other thing
that people will do is a limited liability company. And
people very proud of having the limited liability company. And
they're smart, they're justified. It's aokay for them to be
very proud of. Haven't thought enough about it to do
a limited liability company in LLC to hold the cottage. Okay,
(06:04):
because with the deed stuff, there's no rules and the
only way out is to go to court, right or
just you know, have a free for all with your family.
If somebody's unhappy, right and and uncooperative, one person can
sink the whole thing. Okay, that's with the deeds. It
(06:25):
only takes one it's not a vote. There's no voting,
and there's no requirement that you pay the taxes. They
can't assess you for the taxes. Right, and if one
of them fails to pay the taxes, what's the what's
the Did the other ones get to sue the kid
who didn't pay the taxes, who didn't pay the electric bill,
who didn't help out, No, they don't. You don't. You
don't get to sue them. You don't get to force
(06:47):
them to live up to their responsibilities because guess what
they don't have any responsibilities. But they have is ownership
and what they have is privilege, and they have the
right to go in on the fourth of July with
the biker gang or you know whoever. You know, the
body piercing Association. I apologies to body piercing people. Anyway
to show up with thirty of them on the fourth
(07:09):
of July and you say, well, wait a second, that's
not for we all agreed. It doesn't matter what you agree,
It don't matters what they agree, and they can renig
on it, and what are you gonna do? See these
other sorts of things that if we're smart about it,
we can avoid, And the LLC avoids a lot of
that by providing rules. Okay, there are now rules for
(07:31):
if you're going to use the thing, then you got
to do these things. And if you don't do these things,
then you're trespassing because you don't own it. You're not
an owner, right. You have privilege, right, you have the
the the entitlement under the terms of the LLC to
use it, but you don't have any natural right like
(07:53):
you do if you're on the deed. So forget about
the deeds. Don't do the deeds. Deeds are terrible, forget
about them. The LLC much better. But here's the problem
with the LLC. Oh plus, another benefit to the LLC,
of course, is if a biker gang does show up
and one of them drowns, and now they sue everybody.
At least if it's in the LLC. They're not taking
(08:15):
your house, okay, So that's a good thing. With the LLC,
it's some limited liability, right for whatever goes on at
the cottage. What goes on at the cottage stays at
the cottage, and so does the liability if the LLC
has been done and maintained, which they're usually not. But
let's assume it has been maintained properly. In all the rest, great,
(08:36):
now I can at least keep my own house. But
the whole point of setting these things up is to
provide a resource through the generations right on and on
and on. We want the family to keep the cottage
in the family, and the LLC doesn't do that because
there's always some ejection seat provision in there where you
(08:59):
can hit the out button and boom, you can eject
from the from the aircraft. You can you can get
out of it. And the problem is you might not
think this is such a problem, but this is just experience.
The problem is when somebody, when one person gets out,
they all get out. Nobody has the heart to pay
off that jerk. It's just a screw it, sell it, okay,
(09:23):
And that's what happens Okay, So what if there was
a way to get the limited liability, to get the rules,
to get the expectations all set up and and keep
it the thing going, to keep the thing going right
from you know, here to eternity. There is a way
to do that, and that's what we're going to talk
about in the next segment. The think about Oh that music?
(09:49):
Does that music mean I need to get out? John?
What is going on? Do we have an intern working
there today? All right, all right, so we're out. We'll
be right back. You've been listening to the David Carrier Show.
I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Get back on.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Change is back, It's changing love. Change is that Joe.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Chi chits.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Chit. 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 (10:40):
Welcome back to the David Carriers Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now's the time to give us
a call. Six one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's six one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. Now, if you have a cottage. And
I'm already you know, saying, oh, you shouldn't do this,
and you shouldn't do that, which is true if you're
(11:02):
already dated it out to your kids. But you're still alive.
You're still alive. Okay, Well, I don't know if they
get this in heaven or not whatever. If you're still alive, right,
you can lots of times, not always, but frequently you
can get them to sign it back, which would be,
which might be. You got to look at every situation
(11:24):
is unique, but it might be the good thing to
unwind that, right, so you can move ahead and do
the righteous things. So the fact that you've already made
the huge, unbelievable, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mistake
of eating your cottage or whatever to your kids. Oh
and retain, Oh I've retained the life estate. That's a
good thing. No, it isn't. And for reasons that if
(11:47):
we have a conversation will become obvious. But anyway, the uh,
you can you can still fix it, okay, And what
do I mean by fix it? I'll tell you this
is a method that we came up with.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
It's got to be twenty five thirty years ago, because
what I was seeing was what I just described to you,
the kids at each other's throat with the deeds and
then with the LLC. I thought, well that you read
the book. The guy wrote a book up in Traversy
wrote a book. It's like, oh, this will be great,
and it's like, yeah, it seemed great until I saw
(12:23):
how it actually worked, which was if one kid pulls
the plug, you're done with it. One exception. I've only
had one exception in all these years where they actually
paid the other kid off, the one who wanted to
get out. And they were like a dozen people in
that one. So that's unusual for these things to actually
work in my experience. That's what I've what I've seen.
(12:47):
So here's the thing. What if that wasn't what we
were trying to do anyway. What if what we were
trying to do was not give the kids some money
or whatever you know, how to do that. What if
the idea was to preserve the cottage as a focus
for the family, right, as a place to go to,
as a resource that couldn't be replaced. Okay, And what
(13:12):
is like that? What's like that in our experience? The
answer is the answer is national parks. What if we
set up a trust that treated your cottage like a
national park. You can't cash in your share of a
national park. You have to pay to go there. There
are rules and regulations about how you can use it.
(13:35):
And if we ever gave up the national parks, we
never get them back, they'd be all developed whatever. You
never get it back. That's the fundamental idea behind the
cottage trust, the way national park model, cottage trust, the
way we do it. Okay, and then nobody has the
right to cash it in. Nobody can sink the ship.
(13:57):
It's a way for there to be rules, reasonable expectations,
financial security, on and on and on going through the generations. Okay,
and everybody in your family, however distant relative gets to
use it. So far, that's what we've been doing. Had
quite a bit of success with it. Think about it.
We've got Brenda on the line. Hello, Brenda, welcome to
(14:18):
the David Carrier Show. Hello, how can I help?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh? Sorry, my phone was actually I was willed some
stuff in a friend's will. We took care of her
for like, huh eleven, can you hear me?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, I can hear you. Lunge Claar.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Okay, sorry, I was willed some stuff in a friend's
will that we took care for like eleven years. We
didn't know that we were willed anything. So I got
this random phone call and he said that there was
some stock accounts and some cash. He gave me the
information for the stock account and now he will not
(15:06):
returning near my phone calls or.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Give me a copy of the will.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
So I didn't know what my next step would be.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
How long ago did the person die?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Almost four months ago?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Okay? And we're talking with a family member who told
you this or what?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
No, it was her executor, Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So the first step would be to go to the
probate court in your county, all right? So in theego,
you know, you know, I go to the Nwego County
probate because that's where the person lived.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Is that right correct? Yes?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Okay? And then what you want to do is just
find out if if an estate has been opened in
that person's name. Okay, okay, And they will tell you
whether or not there has been an estate opened in
that person's name, and then if there is, now you
can get a copy of the will. You can get
a copy of whatever has been filed on that on
(16:13):
that estate. So if there is a if there actually
actually now if there was a trust, then you can't
all right, because they will have filed there there won't
be any probate on that.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Part of it was part of it was in a trust.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Okay, So let's go to probate first and find out
what the what the story is. Get the documents. Okay,
Now you can find out what your entitlement is to
the stuff that's actually going through probate. And because by
now you should have there's all kinds of paperwork you
should have received, you know, the the the petition to
open the probate, the inventory not in accounting just yet,
(16:53):
but you know, letters, copies, the letters of authority, there's
a lot of information, that copy of the fee agreement.
There's a lot of stuff that you should already have received,
and it's curious that you haven't gotten it yet. Also
kind of curious that you know that there is a
probate going on and a trust. Okay, but we can.
You're entitled to receive all the probate documents. You're also
(17:16):
entitled to receive as much of the trust as relates
to you. You don't get the whole trust, but you
get the portion that says, you know, Brenda's getting my
amalgamated widget stock or whatever it is that says that
you're getting something. Okay, you are definitely entitled to receive
that as well as you know, notice that the notice
(17:39):
that there is a trust, who the trustee is, inventory
that kind of thing. So the fact that you haven't
gotten it yet, it's four months, that's kind of a
long time sometimes for enough of who did you get
the call from? Just a random person or an attorney or.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
What no, it was next or neighbors.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Okay, well, I mean lots of people. That's all they've
got nowadays, you know. So okay, So so that person
may have shuffled it off on the attorney and just
doesn't want to be bothered anymore. That could be. There's
lots of there's lots of possibilities here, Okay. The fact
that you know that some of it's in probate, that's
(18:26):
hopeful because you're that's public record. I mean, you can
find out about that if nobody will give you from
the probate record, it should be obvious who the trustee is. Okay, Okay,
But because usually the personal representative is the trustee. Right,
So now you know, and you can say, hey, I'm
(18:47):
a beneficiary, at least I think I'm a beneficiary. Tell
me I'm a beneficiary or I'm not a beneficiary, whichever,
and then once you find that out, if they still
won't do it, then you can go to probate court
and put their feet to the fire and make them
give you a copy of the inventor, make them do
an inventory, make them. You know, you can even seek
to replace them if they're not willing to carry out
(19:08):
their fiduciary obligations under the trust, under the will. Okay,
they owe it to you. That's their job. They're supposed
to be. You know, they're supposed to be looking out
for you. They're supposed to be because you're a beneficiary.
Now you know their job as the trust. Now you
wouldn't expect the whole thing to be In fact, it's
not really possible for it all to be administered in
(19:30):
full in four months. That can't happen. Okay, the timing
just doesn't work. But by now you should have received
your notices, you should have received some assurance of what's
going on, and then it's being done, that it's being
done properly, okay. But first my first stop would be
to the to the probate court to find out what's
(19:51):
been filed. Okay, and then you know, then you find
out who's in charge, and then you can demand of
them give me my give me the documents that you're
supposed to give me, you know, sixty days ago. What
the hell? Right, that's that would be? You know, that
would be my Sometimes sometimes people just need you to,
(20:12):
you know, put a firecracker under their pillow, you know,
and let's get going here. You know.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Well, very helpful. And he gave me all the stocked information.
I got that all taken care of. And then all
of a sudden he was like, I'm not sending you
a will, I'm not the cash amount is no longer,
you know. I was like, I didn't understand what was
going on, and he now he will not turn any
phone calls or this guy.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Okay, So this would be one, Yeah, this would be
one where we'd ask you to bring this stuff in right,
and we'd take a look at it, take a look
at what you've got and the way it's gone, you know,
And it could be because, let's face it. This process
is kind of weird sometimes, you know. Our advice to
you my no, everything's just fine. You got what you're
(21:02):
gonna get, it's all done, don't worry about it. Or
it could be no, we've really got to, you know,
go to the mattresses on this one. It could go
either way, and from the phone call it's impossible to
tell which. So if you want to give us a
call on Monday, that'd be fine. All right, and it's
six one, six three, six eighty four, and we'll just
take a look at the stuff and tell you know
(21:22):
which way the wind's blown.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Okay, so fair enough, yep.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh, thank you, Brenda. Take care now.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Bie.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
David's got the how to you're looking for. Just call
seven seven twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. You know, it is frustrating when
you've been named as a beneficiary and things seem to
be dragging out and dragging out and dragging out and
dragging out that's pretty frustrating. And I got to tell you,
it's kind of frustrating on our part as well. Sometimes,
you know, when we're when we're talking with you know
(22:25):
what I mean, we're talking with the pr and whatnot,
and sometimes they have a very low incentive to get
anything done. It's just reality. So what do you do
about you know, what do you do about that? And
the answer is, you know, patients often patients often works right,
(22:45):
but sometimes it doesn't, so you know, then you got
to you gotta take the next step. But it also happens,
it also happens sometimes that our expectations are a little
bit unrealistic. You know, we expect to have things done
much more or quickly, and certainly we would like things
to be done more quickly than it's possible. But sometimes
(23:07):
that does happen, and when we look at things, we
can say, hey, you know, here's what's really going on
with this. It's not that it's not that bad. You know,
it's kind of along the lines of what you would
expect it to be. But you know, you don't know
that because sometimes you don't have a word for four
months and after someone has passed, and it's like you
(23:29):
know skullduggery is going on, and sometimes it's just they
haven't gotten into it yet. So, like I say, always,
it never hurts for us to take a look at
it and just we'll tell you. You know which way,
which way the wind is blowing, you know. I think
Bob Dylan said, you don't need a weather man to
know which way the wind blows, but sometimes you need
(23:51):
a lawyer and it can help. We're talking this this
week about cottages and how do we maintain cottages down
through the generations. We make sure that the cottage is
a blessing, not a curse. And the free for all
that most people engage in when they put everybody on
the deed or they or they leave, they bequeath to
(24:12):
their family the cottage and then everybody gets on board
with it. Right, everybody's on the deed to the cottage.
That way lies madness. Frankly, nobody agree. I mean, it's
just it gets to be a pretty pretty unhappy, let's
put it that way, pretty unhappy situation. So let's not
(24:35):
do that. The cottage trust that we're putting together is
fundamentally different than what I've seen being done, and the
fundamental difference is. We don't think that what you're trying
to do is transfer property, okay, because that's not really
(24:59):
what it's about. Cottage is not about the bricks and
the sticks plus the dirt. Okay, that's not what a
cottage is about. A cottage is about families getting together,
families who have an opportunity now to interact with each
other down through the down through the years. And that's
very difficult. The world is a very very busy place,
(25:22):
and in this busy place, it's difficult to get the
to get the cousins together, get the family together. One
of my nephews organized the thing for all the for
all the the cousins to get together and go skiing,
and those with and some of those with babies did
(25:46):
show up, but mostly it was the ones without kids
did show up. They spent the weekend skiing and all
the rest of it. You know what I mean. You
really like to see that kind of thing, so that,
especially when you have a charge family, even if you don't,
you know, just to keep that momentum going because it
can be a very cold and lonely world, and having
(26:09):
family and real relationships people who like you anyway, right,
that can be a big deal. But too often what
we see is people who don't like you because of
some story that got told about who did what to
whom back in the day, right, and the no And
(26:31):
here's the other thing. Okay, when it comes to this,
nobody retells a story without making it better, okay. And
and stories that tend to cast shade on somebody are
the most popular kinds of stories. Right, And even when
the teller kind of feels like they're going too far here,
(26:54):
they do it anyway. Right, So, with this whole estate
planning thing, right, with the whole how do I set
things up so that things are good going forward? Okay?
There are things you can do to encourage it. You
don't have we don't control the future. I get that.
But there are things you can do to encourage goodness
(27:15):
and discourage badness. And maybe that would be a good thing.
And when you put all the kids on the deed
to the cottage, you're encouraging badness, okay, because you're putting
everybody hostage to the person who is the least considerate. Well,
how does that? How's that going to work? The answer
is my observation has been not well, doesn't work well?
(27:37):
But you can set up rules where people of good spirit, right,
good spirit provide a framework for success. Right, and the
and the krabby ones. You can deal with the crabby
ones in the content because you don't give them disproportionate power.
You see, crabby people usually have disproportionate power in most
(28:00):
relationships because they're willing to go places you're not willing
to go. They're willing to wreck a conversation, They're willing
to do things that would be so beyond what you
you've been there before, right, I mean, you know I'm
going to blow the whole thing up, you know, I
(28:21):
just want to watch it burn. There are people like
that who would rather everything get wrecked than anybody have
a good thing, Okay, because for some reason they celebrate destruction.
Look around you. It's everywhere you see people who are
celebrating that. And it happens in families as well, because
(28:41):
it's a human impulse, right, it's a you know, when
people feel resentment and you know all the things, you know,
they're unhappy that somebody else is having a good time.
Don't we all know people like that? Right, It's like,
what are you so upset about? Why they're having a
good time. They're yabor next door. You know, who's going
to call the cops on the party, you know, rather
(29:03):
than say, hey, you know, my dog is trying to sleep,
could you keep it down a little bit?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Right?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Who don't want to go over and invite themselves to
the party. They don't want to have a good time too, right,
They just want to shut everything down, even though it's
now you know what I'm talking about. You know, people
who are just looking for a reason to complain. Right,
there's plenty of people looking for and there's some of
them in your family. And so what we are trying
(29:28):
to do with the cottage, right, with the cottage Trust,
is to create a framework to minimize the influence of
the crabby ones, the ones who want to shut everything down,
and to facilitate the friendliness, the fellowship, the family feeling
that surrounds that cottage. And it's not just cottages, Okay,
(29:51):
it can be all kinds of you know, it's not
just real estate. When you when you set there's ways
to set things up, all right, There's ways to set
things up to encourage the goodness and discourage the badness.
And what I see all the time is no appreciation
for that whatsoever. No appreciation for it. It's like, but
(30:16):
where you're not even thinking about human beings and family relationship.
You weren't even thinking about that. You treat this as
a real estate problem or as a money problem. It's
not estate planning, is not the law, you know, the
whole retirement nothing. It's not a money problem, okay, it's
a family relationship problem. It's a you know, up with
(30:39):
the goodness, down with the badness problem. That's what it
really really is. You've been listening to the David Carrier Show.
I'm David Carrier, your Family's retirement Law Specialists.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, David's working and working and taking your calls. Now
this is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Welcome back to the David Carriers Show. I'm David Carrier,
your Family's retirement loss Specialists, personal attorney, whatever you want
to call it. That's that's all good. Now's the time
for you to sign up for one of the Life
Plan Three Secrets workshops. These are the workshops we do
every week. The Good Lord brings in good old Grand Rapids,
but also in Norton Shores in Holland and of course
(31:48):
down in down in Portage why do we do these
so often? You know, lots of lots of times you
get these, oh, you know, the circus is coming to
town kind of workshop. So we do them all the
time because we want to be sort of like the
electric company, you know what I mean when you turn
on the switch. It's not like, oh, I'm sorry, we're
(32:09):
only working on saturdays. Well, you know, I have my
need right now. I would like to find out now.
So that's why we do as many workshops as we do.
As you know, so I guess I keep getting counseled.
Oh you know, you really shouldn't do it quite so often.
You should, you know, tease it a little bit more,
make it a little less accessible. That'd be better. Maybe maybe,
(32:35):
I don't know. We've been at it now for thirty
five years. It seems to work. You know. People seem
to be happy with it. So that's all good. If
you are a Life Plan member or a Red Wagon
Club member. Already, congratulations, that's wonderful. We've already got a
couple hundred year You signed up for the April First.
It's not a joke. April First Live quarterly meeting at
(32:57):
the Meyer Gardens. Butterflies are blooming uh you know, and
all the usual stuff that we at our first meeting
of the year, that's when we issue the the annual mug,
the Yettie mug you know, with you know stated so
it's collector's item. Oh boy, well it's a very nice mug.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
It's one of those things that keeps keeps everything hot
forever and it's great. Uh so, yeah, we'll be we'll
be doing that and of course different color every year,
you know, until they run out of colors. But uh
so it's not red. It was it was inaugural was red.
But anyway, you're do them in different colors. So I'd
love to see you there if you you know, and
(33:39):
sign up. You got a call call ahead last you know,
at the last meeting, a lot of people showed up
at last minute. We didn't say no, but we had
to start moving chairs around from the from the dining
area to the show area and then back and forth,
and it was you know, I have to I have
(34:01):
to tell you it was it was a little bit chaotic,
you know what I mean, because we didn't really expect
as many people as showed up, which was very nice,
very welcome show up. Don't don't let that hold you back.
But it was. But everyone was like, I don't want
to be Pollyanna about it, but it was. It was
(34:23):
Actually everyone was very cooperative and very helpful, and you know,
people pitching in, moving the chairs and can we help
out with this, can we help out with that? And
you know, that's the that's who you are, you know,
the people who've gone through the through the process. And
it really makes it a lot of fun doing these
the monthly fun events, the monthly educational events, and of
(34:44):
course our big, our big Hoopla, the quarterly events. You know,
it's just really just a lot of fun to see
the friendships that have grown up, and you know, and
and when it when something unexpected happens, like we have
to move the chairs from one area to the other,
you know, I have to say it was I wasn't surprised.
(35:08):
Put it that way. I wasn't surprised by the fact
that people were just pitching in and helping out and
you know, moving them from here to there. And I
didn't I didn't hear any grumblings. There may have been
some grumbling, but I didn't hear any I just saw
people pitching in and helping out, and that was it
was just really really nice. Anyway, the point is that
(35:32):
it is I know, it goes quickly, doesn't it. It's
a quarterly meeting time. Again, a couple of hundred folks
have already a couple hundred of you have already signed up.
I don't it's a huge space. I don't expect we'll
I think if everybody signed up we would. We might
have a little bit of difficulty and brought a guest
because remember you're you're you can bring a guest to
(35:52):
these things. Weren't happy to have your guests come, but
I think it's possible for us to overflow. But mostly
it's just a matter having enough chairs. So we would
ask you to please, please please please let us know
that you're coming so that we do have enough, you know,
Like I say, it was kind of community building activity
(36:13):
to be moving chairs around. On the other hand, we
did run out of food, so we had enough brownies,
but the but the hot food ran out, So let's
not have that happen again. Call ahead, let us know
that you're coming so that we can that we can provide.
That would be great. So that's that's April first and
(36:36):
of course you can see us at the Lakefront living
Living in cottage show. That's what we're talking about this time,
this whole week is cottages can be a real anchor
point for a family. People have the same experience, so
that even if we don't get together as much as
we would like to, and we don't let's let's face facts.
(36:57):
You know, we don't get together as often as we
would like. Life is very busy. But you know, having
a few of those anchor points can really establish continuity
for a family. It's it's just a very positive thing.
I think I've mentioned before that for four of us,
(37:18):
for the brothers in my family, we own a place
on the cape to where we're from, and it is
a you know, we've had Thanksgiving there, we've had weddings there,
family weddings and whatnot, and uh, it's been one of
those things it's very nice to have, UH and we've
we've got it set up so that it will succeed,
you know, we'll keep on uh being a kind of
(37:39):
a focal point for the for the family down through
the generations. That's really the I that's really the idea.
But but it doesn't come without planning. It doesn't in
the Once you've done the planning, the implementation becomes easier.
It's not easy, not saying it's easy, but it's easier.
And the words are fantastic. You can't get it, how
(38:02):
do you? How else are you going to get it?
How else are you going to get that continuity? How
else are you going to get that? Family feelings very
difficult to do in a world as busy as we are.
And listen, the next generation is busy too, and especially
they have babies, and oh my god, you know, it's
it's kind of unbelievable just how much people are doing.
(38:26):
And to have a place, a geographic place, location, that's
that's amazing. Now that's not the only way you do it,
this wholy arabean. Let me just throw out an idea
for you. We had all the male members, Yes, we
were very sexist about it, all the male members of
the family, whether it was dad's sons, nephews, nieces not
(38:47):
nieces are but all the guys got together and I
don't know, there were like fifteen to twenty of us,
you know. And the Airbnb thing, right, that was that
that was a good idea. So the idea of bringing
family and we've brought the whole family together. Course, but
sometimes getting together like that, you know, not just a Thanksgiving,
(39:10):
make it something that's that's a little bit different right now.
It's not put so much pressure on turkey and cranberry sauce.
Let's kind of relate to each other, you know. And
the airbnb thing, even if you don't have a cottage,
the airbnb thing now makes that available for a lot
of folks, you know who, Yeah, we can't afford a cottage.
We can't afford to do that, and we rent ours
(39:32):
out most of the time and order or cover the cost.
But you know, there's ways of we AIRBNBA, there's ways
of there's ways of doing that, you know, And it's
so important, and it's what this stuff is really all about.
It's not about the money, it's not about the stuff.
It's about the family relationships that you can forge down
(39:52):
through the generations. That's what sustains us. You've been listening
to the David Carrier Show on David Carrier. Your family's
tiring a law personal attorney.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
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
(40:37):
visit Davidcarrier law dot com.
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