(2025) 3-23 David Carrier Show Hour 1

Episode Transcript

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 (00:32):
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 right, retirement. Why retirement? Well,
why not? Because an awful lot of people do go
broke in retirement. It's a shame. It doesn't have to happen.
It doesn't have to happen to you. You work too

(00:53):
hard for that to happen. So the things that people
call a state planning, right estate planning. How do we
make make sure that our stuff gets to the kids. Yeah,
that's important. You know, we've done surveys and you know
what most people are most concerned about, most concerned about,
See if this fits you. Most concerned about. Number one
concern is that they'll leave such a mess that will

(01:15):
be embarrassing after they're gone. Okay, that's it. That's the
thing that people are like super worried about is leaving
a mess that'll be embarrassing when they're gone. Well, you know,
here's the thing. When you're gone, you're not here anymore.
Tough to be embarrassed at that point. But you don't
want everybody remember you like a schlump? Am I right?

(01:39):
I mean you work too hard, you did too much.
You know, you were faithful, you did all the good things.
Why would you want the lasting memory to be that
a mess?

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
In fact, we got a lot of folks nowadays people
don't even want the funeral, okay, A lot of folks,
A lot of folks like, oh, I don't want to
feel you know, I don't want anything special. And it's
like like they're afraid that somehow it'll be ostentatious or
be it'll hit the wrong note. See, it's the idea
that when they leave, they want to go quietly. I guess,

(02:15):
I mean maybe that's the idea. But it's the memory
that you leave behind that is so important for an
awful lot of folks. And if the memory is going
to screw up, well let's not have that be your legacy. Okay.
So that's why they do the plan but the second
most important thing, according to the survey says thing survey says,

(02:39):
the second most important thing is you would like to
actually leave something to your kids, right, So that's why
people do this stuff. That's why people do these trusts
and stuff like that. Number one, so they're not embarrassed
after they're gone. I guess you're up there with your
harp on the cloud and looking down and terrible. You know,
you don't want to leave a mess for your kids. Secondly,

(02:59):
you'd like to do something positive for your kids. Okay,
that's consistent, it's not. But way down on the list
when it comes to this kind of planning, way down
on the list. I think it's. The last thing actually
is making sure that your stuff lasts as long as
you do. And that's what we call retirement long because
you know, estate is the leftovers when you're dead. Okay,

(03:22):
that's what that is. But how about figuring out how
to hang on to it, how to make your stuff,
what you've built up work for you while you're still alive. Okay,
And we have the Lakefront Living in Cottage shows coming
up next week. We'll be there. We go to that
every week, every week, every year. I have it once
a year and we go every year because we have

(03:45):
so many people who are involved in the in the
cottage culture. You know, out here in West Michigan anyway,
it's I think it's pretty pretty uniform throughout the country.
People like to have a place to get out of
the get out of the city, you know, get out
there for the weekend. Cottage culture very strong. But what

(04:06):
people do usually most often for passing on the cottage
is destructive and it doesn't work, and it winds up
screwing everything up. It's very unfortunate and anyone living on
a leg, you know, if you have a cottage, think
about the stories that you hear. I don't have. You know,

(04:30):
you've heard enough stories. You don't need me to you
don't need me to tell you. You know, Oh, the
McGill cuddy's cottage, Oh yeah, too bad, that kids all
fell out over that, or you know, they sold it
to somebody in Chicago and they're never here, but now
it's an airbnb or what have you. I mean that
those are the kinds of things that frequently happen, and

(04:50):
there's a reason for it, and to understand why this
all works. Right, we're gonna have to dig a little
bit deeper, dig a little deep into the life cycle
of the cottage, all right. And some people it's the
hunting property. Some people it's you know, it's a cabin
in the woods, you know. But you know what I'm
talking about, the recreational property, the how the home away

(05:12):
from home. That's what we're talking about this week. And
the life cycle goes something like this. We've got the
little kid. And for the little kid, grandma's cottage. In
my case, Memeor, it was my French grandmother who had
the cottage on the lake Keach Pond and Chapatchick, Rhode Island,
right And we learned to fish there and we learned

(05:34):
to swim there, and we hiked all around, and we
camped out and we you know, pulled the water from
and had it actually had a well pump the water
from the well. You know that kind of thing. And
that was when you were a little kid. Well that's
a magical that's a magical place. I mean, you can't
wait to go, and we did and we did frequently.
And she had like a twenty three pound cat, you know,

(05:55):
it was that kind of thing. Anyway, long story short,
when you were a little kid, it's amazing place. As
you get older, into your teenage years, you know, why
do we have to go there again? And it's not
cool and your friends are back in the city and
back home, and you know, you had stuff to do,
and why should you have to go, you know. And

(06:17):
then it becomes especially in my case, where the little
kids still wanted to go, My brothers and sisters still
wanted to go. It was like whatever. Then as you
continue on, you become young adult. Grandma's passed, and now
the house is available, right, the cottage is available. It's
and you could get a share of it. Right, You've

(06:38):
got other expenses, right, the kids have other expenses, and
whether it's insurance or taxes or tuition or whatever, it
may be, right, more valuable at that point than the cottage.
And so you cash in your share of the cottage
or you agree to sell it or that kind of thing.

(06:59):
Now the cottage goes, and then you have kids on
your own, and oh, why don't we have a cottage anymore. Oh,
it's too bad we left the cottage like that. Okay,
then comes the regret. So the question is how do
we break that cycle? How do you as the person
who owns the cottage, right? Who can see that if

(07:19):
you give up the cottage, if you don't guarantee, if
you don't encourage the family to keep the cottage right,
then there ain't going to be any cottage. I mean,
look at the expense. Look how much they cost. It's
freaking it's absolutely absurd, But they go for right. I
have clients who pay back in the sixties, you know,
less than twenty thousand dollars for a place on Lake Michigan. Well,

(07:43):
I forget how many millions it's worth now. But I
mean it's different. And even in small lakes, you know,
it's it's very It becomes very expensive to buy a cottage,
very difficult to do it. So if you've got one
in your family, right, and you don't take steps to
break the life cycle, to break that chain of immediate

(08:06):
need trumping long term benefit for the family, If you
don't break that chain, it's not going to get broken
and the family won't have a cottage. Now maybe that's
cool with you. I'm fine with it. But how cool
would it be to be the person who had the cottage?
It was a magical place and now it's a magical place.

(08:27):
Unto the generations. What if you could actually do that
and do it in a way. See, because here's the
other problem. What a lot of folks will do is
they'll put everybody on the deed. They'll put all the
kids on the deed. All right. Well, that means that
there's no rules. Okay, they can bring anybody they want,
anytime they want, because they all own it. It actually

(08:50):
makes you want to put your head through the wall
when you see this. But it's very inexpensive to do.
Everybody's doing it, and so that's why people continue, you know,
to do this whole joint tenants with rights of survivorship stuff,
which is absolutely awful, very destructive. You know, everybody's got somebody,
think about this. Everybody's got somebody in their family, right

(09:12):
who are going to leave the wet towels on the floor.
Everybody's got somebody like that. Everybody's got somebody who leaves
the milk in the refrigerator and when somebody comes three
weeks say oh my god, what's that smell? Or worse,
they'll put it in the garbage. They'll put the you know,
oh I cleaned out the refrigerator. You told me to
clean out the refrigerator. I cleaned it out. Yeah, you
put the milk in the in the garbage in the kitchen,

(09:34):
and you didn't take it outside and put it in
the garbage can. Right. Plus plus the whole place stinks
now because you had left the wet towels and you know,
and the beds weren't changed, and you know, and you
left dirty dishes. Oh you forgot. Oh I forgot to
run the dishwasher. Oh my god, the flies. It's terrible.

(09:54):
This is what really happens when you do that. Okay,
So but that's not very much okay, and it's bad
blood and it's like the worst and it happens. How
do you prevent that from happening. That's what we're going
to talk about today. How do you make sure that
the house becomes something that everybody continues to enjoy, that

(10:16):
really is a center of the family where people can
get together, people do get together. You encourage that right
by the way you leave it to the kids. Number one,
you're not embarrassed. You're the hero, right who established this
unto the generations. Right, that's a good thing. Also, you
aren't giving something to your kids that they can't get

(10:37):
for themselves. They can't afford the cottage on Lake Michigan.
Somebody from Chicago can afford the cottage on Lake Michigan,
and they will, which is why it's also expensive, because
they all come over from Chicago on the weekends, bidding
up the price of everything. It's it's terrible. Doesn't have
to be that way, does not have to be that way.
You can actually break that cycle. Listening to the David

(10:58):
Carrier Show, I'm David Carrier, your family's retirement law specialist.
Give us a call sixty one six seven seven fourth
twenty four to twenty four. We'll get your question, comment
or concern on the air Ground control to mad It's angs.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
so call in now at seven seven four twenty four
to twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Hello and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now's the time to give us
a call. Sixty one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's sixty one six seven seven four twenty
four to twenty four. Will get your question, come in
concern on the air whether it has to do with well,
whatever it has to do. First step is to give

(12:02):
us a call. Six one six seven seven four twenty four,
twenty four. We've got Liz on the line. Good morning, Liz,
welcome to the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Well, thank you and good morning, thank you.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
How can I help well?

Speaker 3 (12:19):
A couple of questions. My husband pardon oh, I said, Okay,
my husband and I were co trustees of our trust.
He passed away. I have an only child. Could she
now be co trustee with me for the estate?

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah? The answer is yes, and that is an excellent
idea and in most cases sort of what we recommend
for someone in your situation, whether it's an only child
or multiple kids or what have you. It's always a
good idea to have a co trustee. Number one, There's
very little risk in it because this is the person
that you trust. Okay, you have confidence in you already

(13:07):
name them as your successor trustee. They're already in line
for that, and you can fire them anytime you want.
If they don't not doing what you want, you can
see it later. But the advantage is this, if something
were to happen to you, who's going to take over?
And the answer is your daughter. She's on there. I'm
guessing she's on there as your successor trustee.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, is that right? Well, so attorney for financial.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Okay, well, in your trust. Generally speaking, what we do
is we name people who if we're not around or
if we need a new trustee, who's the trustee going
to be? That should always be someone in whom you
have great confidence and faith and all that. I'm going
to guess that would be your child, your daughter. She's
got power of attorney. Why wouldn't it be her, right,

(13:59):
That's my presupposition. Assumption is that she would be your
success or trustee, right, yeah, right, okay, So if you
die or become incapacitated, you want her to be making
the decisions now. The reason we would suggest making her
an immediate co trustee, a co trustee right now is

(14:22):
that when something happens to you, she can become the trustee.
But in order to do that, we have to get
a death certificate, certification by doctors. In writing, we do
a family panel where the family members vote and decide
whether or not you're incompetence. So I don't have to
go to the doctors. It makes things a lot easier,

(14:44):
but still you have to go through it, and then
there's paperwork that needs to be done in order to
establish your daughter as your co trustee or as your trustee.
So the advantage of doing it now is it's done,
happens to you. She's already the trustee. She already knows
what's going on. She's already been to the lawyer office

(15:07):
and signs and paperwork, you know what I mean. It
very much eases smooths out the process by making your
next successor trustee your co trustee right now. The downside
of it, to the extent there is a downside, is
that the person now does have access to, not control over,

(15:30):
because remember you can always fire them. You can always
fire them, but they now have access to your finances
and what have you. But that was the point, wasn't it.
I mean, to give them access when they need it
and you trust them to do the righteous thing. Okay,
So the risk is minimal and the advantage is that

(15:52):
during a very difficult time, when you've died or become incapacitated,
it's one less thing that they need to get done
right away, you know, to help out put it that one?
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (16:07):
It makes sense. But now, is she then automatically eligible
to take over my entire estate upon my death?

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Well, she would continue to be I mean right now,
I'm guessing, and you seem to indicate that she was
your successor trustee, so that means that on your death
she would take over. But there's nothing automatic in any
of this, so she wouldn't automatically take it over. She'd
have to go do the paperwork to prove that you

(16:40):
were dead, that she was the person she says she is.
She has to sign some paperwork. You know, there's it's
not terrible. I mean it's a hell of at list
and probate ridiculously less than that, but she does have
to say, yeah, I'm the trupe. We don't just give
people control over other people's assets without proving a few

(17:01):
things right. And the point is if you do it now,
then in that difficult period, you don't have to do
it immediately in order to take over. You can take over,
just continue as the trustee. The idea is you and
she would be the trustee. You're not going to sign off.

(17:22):
It's your stuff, do what you want with it, right,
You're not going to sign off. But what you are saying, is, hey,
if I want you to sign the papers, pay the bills,
sell the house, I don't know, whatever it may be
that you would want her to do, she would have
the authority to do that right away instead of only
after you had died and then she did the paperwork

(17:46):
to take over as trustee. So right now she's got
the power of attorney right well, she doesn't actually need
the power of attorney right now, but she doesn't need
it because you're competent, you're happy and healthy and making
it work. But she's got it now so that she
could step right in. That's what I'm suggesting that you
could do with regard to the trustee being a trustee,

(18:09):
she can step right in because she's already a trustee.
A lot of our folks, I would say, the majority
of our folks do that when the spouse dies, simply
because it just it just smooth as smooth as smooth
as I don't think that's the word, smooths everything out.
It just makes things that much easier, you know, and

(18:32):
in a difficult time, you know, who the hell wants
to go see the lawyer? Gay and I'm dealing with
other stuff. So that's why we would. That's why we
would suggest in most cases, not if you have a
professional trustee, if it's a family member. Yeah, if it's
a professional and yours only child, So that would be
just more reason more suggestion that it would be a

(18:54):
good idea to make her your immediate your immediate co trustee. Okay,
not if you're not you know, if you haven't okay.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yes, okay, then she is now co trustee and fun
my death, she then can do with the trust as
she decides. Is well, I will have shared with her
I was the money divided? It was? Yes, she would

(19:27):
then would just be able to do that.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yes, correct, that's right.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Okay, very good you just answered.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, it makes things a little easier at that point. Okay,
well then I will seek thank you Liz.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Made code trustee.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Okay, then thank you Liz, thanks for calling in. That's
a great question. Yeah. Yeah. People think these things happen automatically.
There's very little that's automatic. There's an awful lot that
we need paperwork to make happen. You know, what would
you expect, as I say, it's a lot less in probate,
but making somebody your co trustee so long as it's
not a professional I mean, because who needs the professionals involved?

(20:11):
But you know, nine times out of ten when we've
got a family member, it just makes things, like I say,
one less thing when you're in a family tragedy situation,
one less thing to get done. So yeah, that's kind
of that's kind of a routine, sort of we call

(20:33):
it our Surviving Spouse Trust package. Part of that. You've
been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
David's got the how too you're looking for Just call
seven seven twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's retirement loss specialist. Whatever that means, I'll tell
you what it means. It means, how do we make
sure that your retirement is as golden as David Bowie
sings about, huh golden years. That's right, well it should be.
Unfortunately for a lot of people, there's a lot of

(21:32):
anxiety and all the rest of its let's ditch the anxiety. Hey,
this weekend, our next weekend, right, it's the Lakefront Living
and Cottage Show. Cottage and lakefront Living show and whatever
they call it. Anyway, it's about cottages and that's what
we're talking about this week. Cottage culture very strong in
this area, right. You can't blame us because there's so

(21:52):
many lakes around. And you know, it's funny in different
parts of the country they call it different different things.
Like buddy of mine's from Pittsburgh area and I'm talking
about cottages and cottages, cottages and I'm like, yeah, cottage,
you know, cottage, you know, get away for the weekend.
And apparently over there it's it's cabins. Cottages as a

(22:15):
as a complete has a completely different connotation in Pittsburgh.
So if you're talking to your buddy from Pittsburgh and
you say, oh, yeah, we're going to the cottage this weekend,
and they kind of turn their nose up, Well, if
you called a cabin, they'd be fine with it. Just
see what do you come here for? News you can use.
There's news, some news that you can you can use.

(22:36):
You can also go to the website. Davidcarrier Law dot
com been bragging about this for weeks and we're getting
a lot of good feedback on it. We have an
AI assistant artificial intelligence, right, because my natural intelligence is
obviously quite limited. We had to go with the artificial
And anyway, if you go to the website, you know,

(22:58):
picture meal pop up and in a thing, and you
can like click on the thing and it will click
on the microphone and you can talk to it if
you have a microphone on your computer. If you don't,
but you probably do. Ma anyway, if you click on
it and you can say, ask a question and it
will type out the answer. Now they're working on making
it talk back to you as well. But with the

(23:20):
with the print thing, you can read it, you know,
you can save it, you can email it to yourself.
You can do all kinds of great things with it.
But the point is that and it's not perfect. I'm
not saying it's perfect, but but it's pretty good. It's
pretty good. It'll it'll answer you know a lot of
questions that you may have. We're really trying to, you know,

(23:42):
deliver a lot of this digital stuff to our clients,
to our to our Red Wagon club member. Oh don't
forget if you're a Red Wagon club member. April first,
next Tuesday, you know, a week from Tuesday is the
is the quarterly meeting. I'll be reminding you will be
getting stuff in the mail. You've already gotten stuff in
the mail, but you'll get phone calls and stuff, and
your life plan members as well also welcome, you know,

(24:04):
come on down to the quarterly meeting. That's it. Myer
Gardens will do the butterflies again. You usually have a
few hundred people. We've already got a couple hundred signed
up for that, so, you know, and we'll just add
extra chairs. You know. Sometimes people say, oh, you better
call right away or you won't be able to make it. Well,
you know, we can't get everybody in there, but it's

(24:27):
a pretty big place, and this time we'll have more
chair Last time we were moving chairs from one side
to the other, you know, from the dining area to
the you know, speechifying area, and that got to be
a kind of a hassle. So we'll have more chairs
this year this time than we did last Christmas time.
So don't worry about it. If you're thinking I don't

(24:49):
I don't want to go there because they didn't have
enough chairs and I had to move the chairs around. Hey,
don't worry. We'll get more chairs, so there should be
plenty chairs, there should be no problem, but there's so
many of you can't blame me for that anyway. So
that's coming up lake Front Living Show and the Quarterly
Meeting Live Quarterly Meetings that's coming up as well. But

(25:14):
let's talk today about cottages. There is a life cycle
to cottages. Already told you about that. The question is
how do we hang on to the cottage so that
rather than see, this is the problem, so much of
what you have done, so much of what you've accomplished
in your life, when it goes to the next generation.
All right, I'm going to talk about that today, next

(25:34):
generation stuff, rather than how they hang on to it
for you, although that if you don't do that, then
there's no next generation. But inheritances can be a blessing.
Inheritances can be a curse, all right. You can curse
your kids with an inheritance. It's it's horrible to say,
but it's also very true. And it doesn't take a

(25:56):
lot of money when you screw it up to have
cursed the generations, because what happens is when you do
it wrong. Okay, and this is especially true with cottages
because people have such conflicted ideas about the I mean,
it can be such a wonderful place, but so often
people are just sick and tired of it, and it's like,
screw that, stupid. The memories are not good memories because

(26:21):
it's the garbage that didn't take get taken out. It's
the laundry that didn't get done, it's the wet towels,
it's the boat that sank. You know, there's so much stuff,
and it doesn't have to be that way. See, this
is what's so frustrating. It could be a real blessing.
But if you just assume that the next generation that
the kids are going to take care of it, what
have your kids taking care of anything? Give me a break.

(26:45):
You got to do the work. This is as simple
as that. So here's the deal. Here's the deal. Most
of the time people will put all the kids on
the cottage as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. Okay,
this is like the worst possible thing. It's the cheapest thing.
It's the thing everybody does. But it's the worst possible
thing you could possibly do. Okay, so you put your

(27:07):
three kids, your five kids, however many kids on the thing.
What does it mean? It means that the one who
lives the longest gets all of it, okay, And in
the meantime, each one has the right to use it. Okay,
they have the right to use it. What does that mean.
What it means is they have the right to use
it with guests and whatever. And they don't have to

(27:29):
answer to anybody. Okay, they don't if they want, you know,
they're a member of the biker gang of you know,
apologies to offend the biker gang members. They bring the
biker gang out on the fourth of July and you're like, hey,
we all agreed that I was going to have it
with my church group. Yeah, well I'm bringing the biker
gang because it's my place. And they're right. They are correct,

(27:50):
it is their place. They can bring the biker gang.
Or maybe you're having a good time with your biker
gang and you don't want all the church group showing up.
You could go both ways. But when you're join tenants
with rights of survivorship, you don't have to maintain the thing,
you don't have to pay the taxes, you don't have
to do anything, and you can use it as much

(28:11):
as you want until the city, you know, or the township,
you know, forecloses on it for taxes. Whoopsies, Is that
what you really meant? Probably not, but that's what you did. Also,
because it's joint tenants with rights of survivorship, none of
them have an ongoing interest in it. Why would you
fix the roof? It's like the idea. Nobody changes the

(28:32):
oil on a rental car. Okay, because it's not your car.
You might wash it so you look good while you're
in it, right, but you're not gonna fix the roof.
You're not gonna replace the water heater. You're gonna do
the very bare minimum so that you can keep using it. Oh,
that never happens. That would never happen in my family.
Everyone in my family looks out for each other. Yeah right, okay, fine,

(28:53):
well maybe so all right, I'm talking to the other
ninety eight percent of folks. Okay, who will you know?
They ride the horse hard and put it in the
stable wet, bad news, And they do that with cottages. Terrible.
You don't want that. And with joint tends with rights
of survivorship, you're almost guaranteeing that because nobody has an interest.

(29:14):
And here's the other thing. Here's the other thing. That's
even worse. Right, you can't get out of it, okay,
you can't partition the thing. You can't go to court
and say, judge, this is terrible. We're all at each
other's throats. Please force them to sell. One says no sale.
There's no sale. And you can't go to court and
fix that. Okay, you can't. There's no there's no way

(29:36):
to fix it. Oh and by the way, by the way,
one third, if you've got three kids, right, whatever your
percentage of the thing is, Medicaid is going to treat
that as cash in the bank. It's not cashing the bank. Yeah,
but you're completely disqualified from any of this medicaid stuff
because you're a joint tenant with rights of survivorship on
a cottage that you've never been to. You're not going

(29:58):
to use. It's a running sore, right. It's terrible. But
as far as they're concerned, it's cash in the bank.
This whole it's a circular firing squad. Why would you
do it? I know why you would do it because
it's cheap, it's easy. It kind of makes sense. Oh yeah,
all the kids, they all get together, and then whoever

(30:18):
lives the longest they'll have it. You can imagine you
could tell yourself a story that it would work out.
Oh and it worked out for the mcgillicuddies. Oh, it
worked out for them. Oh and it worked out for
the Smiths too. Yeah, but the twenty three other people
it didn't work out for it. Guess what, they're not
bragging about it. They're not talking about it. Do you see.

(30:40):
That's the problem with this stuff is the success stories
get repeated and repeated. Oh, it worked out great for me,
worked out great, for my grandpart, it worked out great. Yeah,
until it doesn't work out great. And guess what, nobody
a fractured family over it. They don't talk about how
terrible it was. All right, you're only hearing one side

(31:01):
of the thing. That's why you have me. You're listening
to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's
personal attorney. Go to the website Davidcarrier Law dot com.
Check out that AI thing. You might like it. You
might like it.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
David's perkins and working and taking your calls. Now, this
is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier.
Your family's personal attorney. So if joint tenants with rights
of survivorship is the path to madness, and it is,
you can give us a call at six one. Say
about that for a segway six one six seven four.
That's six one, six seven seven four twenty four twenty four.

(32:04):
If you've got a question, comment or concern or a cottage,
how about that. If you've got a cottage and you're
wondering how to make it a blessing rather than a curse,
there you go, easy to do. Pick up the phone,
give us a call. Anyway. So if the joint tends
with rights or survivorship, which is very easy and very terrible,
is not the way to go, and it's not what's

(32:27):
the next well, the next solution for that because there's
absolutely no rules, no rules with the joint tenants with
the rights of survivorship. Okay, so it sounds good, but
it's a disaster. The other way people do it is
what they call tenants in common. This again is a deed,
but each kid now owns a slice of it, and

(32:48):
you can actually sue each other and go to court.
Isn't that great? You can actually sue each other. You
can have the whole family sue each other to get
out of it, or one of them can sue everybody
else and say I'm not happy, and let's all the
thing you can force that if you do the joint
tenants with rights. Because not only does it like you know,
do the whole hat feels and McCoy's the capulets and

(33:11):
amount of use you know, Rumby and Juliet right anyway,
not only does it create an enormous family feud that
goes echoes down through the generations. It can be really expensive.
You can hire a bunch of lawyers. Yay, full employment
for lawyers. Let's let's here for that. That's a great idea.
That's the tenants and common idea. The only difference, and
the main difference is there's no inheriting right because each

(33:33):
person owns their slice. Right. So now you've multiplied the probate,
multiplied and multiplied down through the generations. It's wonderful, so
much probate, so much going to court. Oh, we love it, right.
At least that's from this side of the table. I
don't know. I do know it's not very good from
your side of the table. Let's not do that either.

(33:55):
That's the deed thing. And this includes lady Bridge. Oh
but what about the lady brid deeds. It's the same problem.
It's exactly the same problem, minus the medicaid component to it,
which makes things even more insane. And with the tenants
and common. Of course, if your kid goes bankrupt, now
you can have a bank or the biker gang buying
a slice of your of your house. Great, let's let's

(34:19):
do that. Oh and there is no again, there's no
rules either in terms of paying taxes or anything else.
All right, forget about that. The next solution, there's the
deed solution, which is insanity. There's the next solution, which
is the limited liability company, the LLC. So a lot
of people have done these and they're much better, much

(34:41):
better than doing the deed to all the kids. The
limited liability because there are rules who gets to use it?
How do we decide who gets to use it? You know,
you're there every Memorial Day, fourth of July and Labor Day.
That ain't fair. But well, if it's joint tens with
the rights or survivorship right or the tenants in common,

(35:03):
you're at the mercy of the least considerate. Okay, because
it's very expensive to get out. It's terrible. It's horrible,
just kidding about that fun part. Fun for the lawyers,
I guess, it's terrible for the family. But if you
do an LLC, now there's a way to get out.
If you want to get out, you can get out. Okay,
you can actually sell your share. You can actually say

(35:24):
see you later, guys, I'm done with this. I'm never
going to lake again. You've ruined it for me. But
you can have rules too about who uses it and
when they use it and the condition that it's left in.
And you can have rules about who pays for what
in terms of the new water heater or the roof,
or the chimney, or the wood firewood, or the electric

(35:46):
bill or the tax bill or all the expenses that
come with the cottage. Right when you do an LLC,
now you have meaningful rules, meaningful who gets to use
it when and who gets to pay, and if you
don't pay, you don't get to use it. You know,
you can actually have some which is such a great step,

(36:07):
a great step forward, okay in doing that. But here's
the problem with the with the LLC model. Okay, And
there's been books written on this and stuff like that.
So it's it's is it a step up, Yeah, it's
a step up, it's very far step up. But is
it the answer. No? And here's why I would say

(36:29):
it's not the answer because your idea in leaving the
cottage to the family, leaving the cottage to all the
family was the idea was they'll all be able to
use it, right, and they'll want to use it like that.
The problem is there's always somebody who doesn't want to
use it, and instead what they want to do is

(36:51):
they want to cash in their share. And when you
have the LLC, they have a right in the documents,
and if it's not addressed in the documents, then the
LLC law in Michigan right has rules about how you
can cash out if you're a minority shareholder. Plus if
you're a real pain in the ass, you can require

(37:12):
accountings and demand the receipts and blah blah blah dah dah.
You can turn it. If you've decided to be the
burr under the saddle, the thorn in the paw, whatever
it is, you know, the jerk. You can be the
jerk very effectively simply by holding the people running the LLC.
In other words, your brothers and sisters hold them to

(37:34):
the LLC rules. Okay, And it's not just you See,
here's the thing. Lots of times people go, well, I
would never do that. My brother and sister would never
do that. We're all getting along. Yeah, how about your kids?
Are your kids getting along? There's not one jerk in
all the kids. I have to brag a little bit.
There's a whole bunch of like, I don't know, twenty

(37:54):
plus nieces and nephews in my family right, and everybody
likes each other. It's like I've never seen that before. Okay. Well,
of course, people who are happy don't come to see me. People.
It's probably a lot more than I think, because there's
people who are happy don't come to see me. But
if you're if somebody's fighting, they can cash in, Okay.

(38:15):
They can demand payment, maybe paid over years or something.
Lots of times that's or there's a fixed price, so
there's no fighting over the price. There's no fighting over
the payment. But what happens is whenever somebody cashes one
person cashes in, they all cash in, all right. It's
just it's just the way it works. Nobody wants to

(38:35):
be paying that one and whatever. And for a lot
of people, they don't use it that much. They do
use it, but not that much, and it is a resource,
but blah blah, And maybe they're at the time in life,
Like I said, there's a life cycle to these things.
They're at the time in life when they're not using
it that much, all right, and they're like, oh, screw it,
I don't want to be paying more right, I don't

(38:56):
use it that much. Let's just sell it and I'll
get my money. And comes to regrets, like always comes
to regrets after you've sold them. Okay. So the LLC,
while it is a great step up, is if you've
done an LLC and you've got the rules in there,
then it's much better than the wild West of the
deeds that people do routinely. So not everybody does the LLC.

(39:21):
Very few, well, I don't know ten percent maybe do
the LLC kind of thing. At least they were thinking
about it. At least they provided for rules. It's much
much better than the free for all. That is, I
put all the kids on the deed, or I left
it to them in my trust or my will or
something which amounts to the same which amounts to exactly

(39:43):
the same thing. But there's another way to do it,
which we're going to cover in the first part of
next segment. There's a different model that we've been using
now for I don't know, thirty years, probably because it
was very obvious that the traditional ways of doing it
don't work well. The traditional ways putting the kids on

(40:04):
the deed, leaving it to him as a group doing
the LLC. The weakness with the LLC is that it
collapses when anybody wants to collapse. It okay, but there
is a way. There is a way, this is what
we call it tease. There is a way to fix it,
which we're gonna be talking about top of the next hour.
Even listening to the David Carrier Show, I'm David Carrier,

(40:26):
your retirement law specialist, inviting you to the website David
Carrier Law dot com. And if you're a Red Wagon
or Life Plan member, don't forget April First. It's not
a joke. Is our live quarterly meeting with the Butterflies.