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June 22, 2025 • 39 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. And last week, at this time,
you were not listening to this show live anyway, you
were listening to a rerun. Sorry about that. It burns
my heart to have to do a rerun. But I
was on the way to summer camp with the Boy Scouts,

(00:40):
and I know it's Scouting America, but it's still a
rock and roll to me. It's still Boy Scouts of
America to me. So there you go. Anyway, I spent
a week at camp with the Scouts and male and female. Yes, indeed,
and very delightful young woman, very nice, but very good,

(01:02):
very good summer camp. Again. Unfortunately, my youngest is aging out.
As they say, I don't know, uh uh, they've asked,
they've invited me back. Can you believe that? It's hard
to believe?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
They like the way I do the citizenship Merit Badge courses,
I guess. But uh but in any event, uh, I
won't have I won't have the excuse of, yeah, well
my goods going so I get to go for a week.
I won't have that excuse anymore because, as I say,
he's you know, he gets that ego for real, buddy,
you got six months to do it. But anyway, Uh so,

(01:35):
very good time at summer camp. I tell you, what
if you want your faith in America restored or what
have you? Uh, listen to a whole bunch of boy
Scouts reciting the Gettysburg Address. That's what it's what does it?
Does it for me? Every year? I like to like
to see that like to you know, and you know
it's it's a real it's a real thing for them.

(01:58):
You know, if you do it, if you do it
correctly in what I would say is correctly, meaning if
you do the if you do the course correctly, the
citizenship courses correctly, then it's not boring, it's not good
to do it. Instead, it's a very exciting time. I

(02:21):
really I find it exhausting, to tell you the truth.
But it's also very very they keep you on your
toes put it that way, and the things they come
up with are often very insightful, very like I say,
it's very reassuring. You know, the promise of America is
there in the youth, and the youth of America is

(02:43):
where the promise is and a lot of these kids
get it. And when you expose them to it, you know,
that's the thing that's really the let me say, the
tragedy of what have you is that so often they've
never heard this stuff before. I'm like, you're, like, you're
at least eleven years old and most of you're in
high school or something, you know, and you've never heard

(03:05):
about Gettysburg address. You don't know what the Civil War
was about, what the Revolution was about, how the world works,
or you know none of this stuff or how even
how your local community functions, you know. So it's you know,
it's it's a little startling sometimes when you assume that
they know this stuff but they don't. And then but

(03:25):
when you open the door, this is my point, when
you open the door to it, very receptive, very very
receptive to it. So anyway, it's it's one of those
it's one of those things where I certainly get more
out of it than well, it's not true. You know
how people say, oh, I get more out of it
than they do. I don't get more out of it

(03:46):
than I get a lot out of it, but they
get more out of it. Whatever. I don't know if
we're gonna have a fight about that. So, uh, six one, six, seven,
seven four, twenty four, twenty four is the number to
call if you've got a question, comment, or concern about
estate planning older law. You know, it's funny, the whole

(04:06):
elder law thing is is we're getting fewer and fewer
questions in the elder law category and more and more
where people describe it as a state planning but it
really is elder law. We mean, really, it's just what
we call it. Elder laws is really falling out of favor,
which is great. I think it should be called retirement

(04:27):
law because this effort, this whole estate planning thing is
really about you while you're here, right, how do we
make sure that you enjoy the fruits of your labor,
what you've worked for your whole life. How do we
make sure that that doesn't just get blown out the window.
And that's not special investments or a money tree to

(04:47):
plant in the backyard or something you know by gold.
I don't know how do I know that? I don't
know that. The key is whatever it is you've got,
wherever it's invested in the biggest threat to your prosperity,
to your well being, to your spouse as well being.
If you got one to leaving a legacy to the family,
that's something to be commensurate with the work that you've

(05:11):
done during your lifetime, something to be proud of. Right,
The key there is how do you avoid the pitfalls?
Not what's the home run, but you just don't want
to get struck out by long term care costs. And
that's the easiest part to fix. And it's consistent with
leaving the maximum to your It's consistent with not screwing

(05:33):
things up so that the only thing they remember about
you is the mess that you left. Instead, what they
remember is how well everything was done. And there's this
misconception out there. I just ran into it again last
week where it's like, oh, I got a financial advisor,
a radio show or a listener, right, listener, Oh I

(05:54):
got a financial advisor, And it's like, what makes you
think I do financial advisor. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but
they they took care of everything. It's like probably not,
probably not. Anyway, if you have a question about that,
come to a workshop. They're free. They don't even you know, well,
knowledge is knowledge is power. It doesn't hurt you that much.

(06:16):
Sometimes it does, but check it out. Okay, here's a
typical question, is you know from the mail bag? How
can we And it's like there's so much wrong with
even asking this question. You understand what they want to do, right,

(06:36):
But the tragedy of it is they'll go to some
hack and the hack will do what they ask them
to do. And the hack might be an attorney, might
be a financial advisor, might be an accountant, might be
a title company, might be somebody who calls himself an
estate planner. Okay, but in my view, it's just a
total hack because because there's something that can be very

(06:59):
done very correctly here and it's not being done. So,
how can we change deed from a trust from a trust?
Get this from a trust? How can we change deed
from a trust to my husband, myself and one of
our daughters. We want to give our home to one
of our eight children. How can we do this easily easily.

(07:25):
You have a trust already, it says, making the deed
read my husband, myself, and our daughter. It's the stupidest
thing you would ever want to do. It's wrong, it's
bad on so many levels. And here's here's what. Here's
what tells you. It's the it's the smoking gun at
the scene of the crime. Okay. The crime is they

(07:48):
didn't receive smart advice. They didn't receive even the most
fundamental advice right about what they were. They have a trust.
See that was in the first line. How can we
change deed from a trust? It's in a trust already.
Why didn't you ask the person who set up the trust. Hey,
we'd like our one daughter to get this. No problem.

(08:11):
That can be done easily, easily, right securely. And guess
what with a knowledge, with the with the obvious reality
that your daughter might get hit by a bus? Okay,
what if that happens. What if your daughter gets married

(08:32):
and then divorced. What if your daughter buys a cell
phone okay, and now she forgets to make the payments.
What if she goes to college and you know, and
doesn't pay the student loan. What if there's a million
what ifs here? Right, Why out of eight kids do
you want the one kid to get it? There might
be reasons, Okay, you don't have to tell us what

(08:54):
the reasons are. Let's just make it effective. Let's just
all right, but do it through the trust. When you
do it through the trust, right, if you change your mind,
if your daughter dies, right, if she's in financial difficulty,
bankruptcy or something like that, you haven't just thrown the
house away. Okay, But but this is this is lunacy,

(09:19):
and you went to somebody, and this is the tragedy
of it, in my opinion, Right, you went to someone
and guess what if you if you know I'm getting
the email, right, I'm getting this question because they intend
to go back to the person who did the trust, right,
just to make sure that they're not getting overcharged for
the deed or something like this. Right, maybe that's what

(09:42):
Maybe that's what they're trying to do. I don't know
who knows, all right, but it's absurd. It's so wrong.
You should use the trust to get the house to
the kid you want to get it, but you give
it to her, give it to that child in trust
so that no one can take it away by adding
her name to the deed. Right. Oh, we'll do a

(10:04):
transfer on death deed. You know, we'll do a Ladybird
deed or something that will avoid that problem. You know
of the leans and everything else. Yeah, but number one,
you might not do it. You probably won't do it,
and you won't do the Lady birdied. You'll do something else.
You'll do a joint tendancy, which seems to be what
they're asking for. Is again not a good idea. But secondly, secondly,

(10:25):
even with the Ladybird deed, you don't know what situation
the kid is in when you die. Oh, my kids
are very responsible. My kids make more and more money
than I do. Oh, my kids are d And it's
like you have no clue about any of that. You're
just saying stuff, all right, Well, there's ways to do
all this, very solid, very easy, Okay, very responsible. You

(10:50):
should do that. You've been listening to the David Carrier Show.
I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
so call in now at seven four. This is the
David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, dredging up experiences from the Deep Pass.
We're listening to Chicago Today's Our Bumper Music, one of
my favorite bands, and I have to confess that when
they when I was in college. It was the first
concert I went to that good old Notre Dame with

(11:31):
a girl with a date and I had the flu
or something, and it was one of those things you
know where where any expense like this was like you know, oh,
you have to do it. And it was the most
miserable night of my life. Was it was just terrible because,
like I said, I love the band, but I had
a date and I was coming down with the flu

(11:53):
or something. Have you have you ever done that where
it was like this is really a bad idea. I shouldn't.
I should just given her the tickets and said go
take a friend or something. But I was too pig
headed and went through it anyway. It was. It was.
It was just as horrific as you could possibly imagine.

(12:14):
And so I still remember and with with with shame
that I, uh we did that anyway. Uh you see,
I don't I don't I don't have all the answers
I mean, sometimes you just gotta sometimes you've got to
recognize reality. Anyway, we're just talking about what happens. Why

(12:35):
is it so stupid to put your kid on the deed?
And guess what, Now we've got another question that kind
of answers one of the reasons. It's not it's such
a bad idea, it's such a Why is it such
a bad idea to do that? And the question is,
what if both the owner of the property and the
beneficiary both die at the same time. My daughter is

(12:59):
named in my beneficiary deed? This brain dead, this absolutely
blunt force brain dead so called plannings. Like it's like
it's like you ever had an old car and it
started to rust and before you knew it, it was like,
what happened to my car? You know, it's all rusty.

(13:21):
It's like this. It's like the rust the debilitating nonsense
of transfer on death deeds has like overtaken the country.
It's as stupid as beneficiary designations on a four one
k an ira a life insurance. It's that, it's that pernicious.
It's just that until fairly recently, and I would say

(13:43):
the last ten fifteen years, fairly recently these, Uh, at
least the house didn't go this way. Well now it is.
It's just it makes you shake your head, you know,
like what what are people thinking? And the answer is
they're not thinking. You know, you're just being and sold
a bill of goods. This is my opinion. So what
if both the owner of the So everybody's doing these things, right,

(14:06):
I get it. Everybody's doing it, doing it, doing it,
and it's terrible, but we're taking it. So my daughter
is named and my beneficiary deed, which by which I
mean it I'm thinking they mean in what we call
an enhanced life estate deed, enhanced life estate deed or
lady bird deed or transfer on death deed. They're all

(14:26):
the same thing. We're taking a taking a trip together,
and I was just curious, what would happen if we
both died? Says in a car crash? Well, how about
a plane crash or whatever? You know, what if? Okay,
but it's a fair question, right, what if the answer
is the answer is half is in her estate, half

(14:51):
is in your estate. They're going to try to figure
out who died first, generally speaking, though generally speaking, at
least for probate purposes, right, you have to survive someone
by a certain amount of time. Usually it's a few days.
You got to survive them in order to take under

(15:12):
under probate. Okay, So I think generally speaking, the way
this would be viewed, if you can't determine who died first, right,
they might split it, okay, because they couldn't figure it out,
they might take it through probate. But this avoids probate. Right,
So you don't get to probate. Presumption that someone's got
to survive you by one hundred and twenty hours in

(15:34):
order to in order to take right. You don't get that.
So good question, right, who gets it? I'm sure. My
assumption is that where it's ambiguous, there's two possibilities. Either
it's half in eche of state now you get to
probate it twice, or it's with the original. It's with
the original transfer or right because because their ability to

(15:59):
change it doesn't die until until they do. But once
they're dead, no, it would be the daughters. It would
be in the daughter's probated state because once you're dead,
your life estate is gone and they have title. That's
how that would work. Okay, So your daughter gets the
property it's now probated in your daughter's estate. So whatever

(16:21):
else you had gets probated in your estate. The house
gets probated with the real estate, whatever it is, gets
probated in your daughter's estate. Great, well, you know, it's
just so dumb to do it this way. I know
everybody's doing it, and your financial advisor told you to,
and the accountant told you to or somebody told you to.
I get it. But at least this person doesn't have

(16:43):
a trust, and they're you know, the previous the previous
question was about, well, I have a trust and I'm
changing it to add the daughter. Put the daughter on
the deed. And they're not even talking about that question.
Wasn't even talking about a transfer and death theater or
a or enhanced life estate theat They were just gonna

(17:04):
dat it out to the you know, put the kid
on the deed with mom and dad as a co owner,
which makes like zero sense. There's no reality in which
that makes any sense. If all you're trying to do,
If what you're trying to do is make sure real
estate goes to the kid. So here's what you do,
all right, and this is true of everything. This is
why you don't do beneficiary designations. This is why you

(17:26):
don't do any of that stuff, because you don't have
a crystal ball. You don't know what the future holds. Right,
you want to provide for your kids. I understand, that's great, wonderful.
Why shouldn't the leftovers go to the kids? Sure, good,
let's do that, okay, But the way that you do
that shouldn't be the hand them a pillow case of

(17:48):
cash in the bad part of town at midnight. That's
not how you do it. You give them a key
to the safe deposit box. See you at the bank
on Monday. That way, if the kid gets mugged, dies
in a car accident, gets divorced, has student loan debt,
co signs for your grandkids student loans. All right, Now

(18:09):
they have student loan debt thanks to your grandkids, who
are now pouring coffee somewhere. All right. All these things
are things that actually happen, and most of the time
blow them off, don't worry about it. And it starts.
It starts with not being aware of or concerned about

(18:29):
what's going on in your own life. Okay, I'm so
sick and tired of people just oh, I have a
financial advisor. Yeah, what's the financial advisor gonna do for
you when your wife gets the Alzheimer's? All right, I
know what's gonna happen, Okay, because I get the calls
on that from people who've done the correct planning. And

(18:50):
now it's not a matter of or we're gonna lose
x hundred thousand in her four one k, we're gonna
lose mine. We got to sell this, We gotta know
more cottage, blah blah blah blah, whatever it is. And
the best work that we do are for families with
fairly low amounts of assets. Yeah, the more assets you have, yeah,

(19:11):
but you know something, if you're wealthy, if you're doing well,
you've got a few hundred thousand, you know, several hundred thousand,
got a cottage, whatever, you can take a hit. You
can take a hit without it wrecking everything. Now, you
hate to lose the cottage, I'm not saying you don't,
and I'm not saying you don't like to lose the
security that you've built up over the years. Okay, But

(19:31):
when you've got you've built up quite a bit of security.
I don't think it's any more fair that they take
it away from you. But the fact of the matter
is you won't be greeting at the department store, whereas
a lot of our folks, if they don't plan ahead right,
they will be. You don't want that to happen. Listening
to the David Carrier Show, I'm David Carrier, your family's

(19:53):
personal peace of mind attorney.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
David's got the how to you're looking for. Just call
seven seven four twenty four twenty four. This is the
David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Wellcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now is the time 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. Won't cost you, won't cost you a thing,
I mean, what could it hurt? Right, So, we've been

(20:31):
talking about various things that people do which are kind
of nutty, which is not really fair to say. I mean,
it's not fair to say that it's nutty because I mean,
it's ill advised. Right, it's not going to do what
you think it's going to do. It's a waste of
time and money and everything else. Right, But again, it's customary.

(20:57):
Uh don't you love that? It drives me absolutely bonkers
when people tell me, well, this is what everybody else
is doing. I know, I know, I know everybody else
is doing it. That's why everyone else is going broken.
Long term care what you think, right, I'll just tell
you I figured this stuff out probably thirty years ago,

(21:20):
when you know, I was doing what you know, after
I got out of the service. I forgot out the Army.
I went to work with a big downtown law firm.
Wonderful they fired me. Took two years to do it,
but they should have done it right away. I didn't.
I was in no way a match for the kind
of law that they did, right, I mean, they did everything,

(21:43):
and well, the fault is mine, I admit it. I
mean there's lots of people work in a big law
firm and they like it and they do well, and
God bless them, That's what I say. But certainly that
was not a skill that I possessed. The Army liked
me well enough, but I guess you know big law,
you know, regimentation, all the rest of it is a

(22:04):
little bit different. Anyway, long story short, the uh ah,
that experiment failed and so I went out on my own,
and what everybody told you about the estate planning turned
out to be like false, shaded wrong. It was a startling.

(22:25):
It was startling this idea that trusts were going to
actually work when you when you get out in the
real world, you find out they don't. I mean they're
all telling themselves, telling one another, and you'll hear the
conferences too. Uh. Some people say claim that it still works,
and other people just admit it and blame the client
for it not working. But the whole funding piece, the

(22:49):
whole how do you get your assets into the trust? Right? Well,
you you signed a letter that said it's not their
fault if that doesn't happen, and they don't even make
a real effort to do it. Well, that took me
about six months back in nineteen ninety to figure out
what was going on that people weren't doing that, Nobody
was doing it, nobody was actually funding the trust. So

(23:13):
since then we've had a program to do that and
keep working on it and working on it, trying to
make it more successful, more airtight, more you know, continuous.
And you think after thirty years you'd have it down,
but thirty five years you'd have it figured out yet,
but you know, things keep changing. Banks keep changing, and
financial institutions keep changing their requirements, and so it's an

(23:36):
ongoing it's an ongoing process to bring the cost down
of doing it, of making sure that your trust actually works.
And the sad reality is that most of them don't,
the vast majority of them don't work. And it's not
my well, it is my opinion, obviously is my opinion,
but it's also based not only on what I've seen,

(23:56):
and I've seen quite a few of these, but it's
also based on talking with other professionals. Talk to a
state planning attorney for five minutes and preaching, they'll start
complaining about how clients don't put their stuff in their trust,
and my reaction is, hey, dummy, you know they're not
going to you know, you know that that's not going
to happen. What did you do about it? Well, it's

(24:17):
their fault. They signed the letter, and it's like, okay, hopeless. Anyway.
The point is that between not funding the trust and
not planning for long term care, most of the state
planning sets people up for failure, right, and that's it.
And then there's denial about what really needs to happen

(24:40):
until reality shows up, and then people are scrambling making
excuses instead of being you should be calm, you should
be peaceful. You should know, you know what's the answer to.
If I die at the same time as my kid,
what happens next? If I need long term care? Then
what happens? If I go bankrupt, then what happened? If

(25:00):
my kid goes bankrupt, then what happens? If my kid
gets divorced. What happens? My kid has student loan debt?
They still get the inheritance that somebody else get the inheritance?
Who pays the taxes on the IRA? Right? What if
my kid is bankrupt and I left them beneficiary in
the IRA? Who pays the taxes on the IRA? When
the banker's court seizes it and the creditors get it? Right?

(25:22):
Who pays? You know the answers to those questions. Don't
even ask them because it's not what you do all day.
So this is what we do all day. You would
have thought, you would have thought that it would be customary,
You would have thought it would be accepted practice to
answer those questions, But you would be You would be wrong.
People don't even ask those questions. And I mean lawyers

(25:45):
don't ask the questions financial advice because if they did
ask the questions, there's no way you could have the
proliferation of beneficiary designations and all the rest of this
stuff and then have people tell you that you've got
a solution because you don't. And but what's a lot
of fun. Here's my problem because on the one hand,

(26:07):
here I am like Jeremiah right ooh, terrible wrath of
God descend on you. Right. But every once in a while,
and frankly, I shouldn't complain, I mean get a lot Uh.
We're talking with folks for whom it has actually worked,
right where it's like, hey, it didn't you know, Yeah,

(26:27):
you save this, you save and people recognize the value
of it. So every once in a while you get
the bask in that say, oh, I don't have to
tell everybody how bad everything is, because it when it works,
it's it's it just goes very smoothly, and you know,
and it's just it's just wonderful anyway. So here's another

(26:51):
one of our questions. We're going to get this one
knocked out for you. How can I cover myself for
the future if my brother doesn't want to help financially. Today,
I'm building an adult dwelling unit on my mother's property
that will be used as a rental unit for income.
I have her consent. My brother and I were both
going to pay to have it built. Now he doesn't

(27:13):
want to cooperate financially with his half. Mom has a
trust and the house, not the ADU, the adult dwelling
unit is under it. But it is Actually if you
build it on Mom's land, the land is in the trust,
then whatever you build is in the trust. So right
away somebody's giving you bad advice. Okay, you think it's
not included, it's included. Okay. Just you build something on

(27:37):
land that is needed to a trust, then that thing
is now part of the land and is needed and
is deeded to the trust. I don't want my brother
claiming the ADU the adult dwelling unit because he's not
helping build it. Will the trust need to be amended
or is there something I can file separately? Well, the

(27:58):
answer is yes, indeed there is something you can file separately,
And in fact, most of the time, the kids who
are paying the bills and helping out and all the
rest of it get totally screwed, right, because then Mom
goes to the nursing home, the nurse the house gets sold, right,
the money goes because you're thinking, well, I'll get paid

(28:19):
back when the house sells, right, That's obviously what this
person is thinking. I'll get paid back when the house sells.
I just don't want to split it with brother because
he shouldn't get it. I should get what's coming to
me for the money that I put up, which is
not unreasonable, but at least you're thinking that at some
point you're going to get the money back, which might

(28:42):
be true, might not be true, and I'm going to
suggest it won't be true, right because right now you're
kind of hoping that Mom won't need long term care.
You're hoping that the rent I guess from this property
and the addition that you're making to the property will
cover it, and that at some point, right you'll get
the money back. And you want to do it through
the trust, which assumes that Mom will still own the property,

(29:06):
which is not a good assumption because if she needs
long term care and doesn't get it paid for it
with a mental property, that's going to be problematic. It
will be that will be problematic whether or not Medicaid
will pick up the tab right. Plus you got the
rental income. Don't worry, we'll fix it when you get back.
When we get back. In the last segment, you've been
listening to the David Carrier Show inviting you to a

(29:28):
three Secrets workshop. Just go to the website David Carrier
Law Davidcarrier Law dot com and sign up right there.
Looking forward to seeing it at a workshop.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
David's perking and working and taking your calls. Now, this
is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. The question here is the simple question,
and will get time to answer it. The simple question
is what happens when one of the kids contributes financially
and there's real estate and the other one does not.
This is a very typical situation, and sadly, the answer

(30:10):
most of the time is that the one who contributes
gets screwed. In other words, the one who contributes basically
has to eat it. Okay, because frequently what happens is
there is you know, you're kind of thinking, well, there
it'll be an inheritance. Well, if what you've been doing
is helping out with the living expenses and whatnot. Right,

(30:33):
lots of times there is no inheritance because the house goes,
goes for taxes, goes to pay the long term care facility,
what have you. In Michigan, unlike most states, most states
put a lien on the house so the Medicaid gets
paid back first. Michigan doesn't do that. So when's it
gonna start? The answer is, I don't know. I've been

(30:54):
worried about it for thirty five years. It still hasn't happened.
Does that mean it's not gonna happen. No, it just
means that hasn't happened yet. Michigan hasn't joined the other states.
I don't know when it's going to happen, but when
it does again, if you're one of those kids who
put up the money upfront to help out mom and dad,

(31:14):
you're likely to be, you know, holding the bag. Okay,
that seems wrong to me. It always seems wrong to
me that people who are generous, people who are kind,
people who look out for other people right should take
it in the back of the head with the Tubai four.
I don't get it. I I really don't understand why

(31:36):
the people who actually saved their money and did all
the good things right should lose it all when they
need long term care. And yet financial advisors perfectly aokay
with that, judging from their actions, most attorneys perfectly aokay
with that, Most you know so called estate planners perfectly
aoka accountants, whoever, perfectly aokay with you going broke? Because why, oh,

(32:02):
I'm uncomfortable. I don't really understand. Well, you should understand it,
or you shouldn't be given the advice. This is my view,
and it's not that hard to learn. This is why
we do the three Secrets workshops. We're telling you everything
that you need to know to make a decision whether
or not hanging on to what you've earned is a
good idea? Is it a good idea? Is it a

(32:22):
bad idea? I don't know. Why don't you decide is
it worth doing? Is it not worth doing? While my
financial advisor told me, you know, okay, great, why don't
you tell me that the person you're standing in line
next to at the seven eleven told you that? And
because it's the same value, all right, So what do

(32:43):
we do in a situation like this, which is very
common situation. You're putting up the money to improve mom's property,
so there's real estate involved, right, You're putting up the money,
and what you're concerned about is you're not going to
get what you put up. You're not going to get
it back, and you have reason to believe you won't

(33:03):
get it back because brother agreed to share the expenses,
and now brother has backed out and said, oh, I'm
not gonna help. Okay. What we do routinely, and this
is true if you are providing any kind of support
to your parents, okay, any kind of support, any kind
of monetary support to your folks, all right, All too

(33:27):
often there will be bitterness, there will be recrimination. Why
should you get it I put you know, I bought
a lunch one time or whatever. Okay. So what we
do for the people who are going the extra mile
for mom and dad, right, is we treat you the
way mom and dad treat you, the way the family

(33:47):
is treating you like a bank. Okay, when they need money,
they come see Susie or come see Bob whoever. Okay,
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna do the
bank of Bob, and we're going to put a home
equity line of credit on the house from the bank
of Bob, from the son, from the daughter, from whoever

(34:10):
is willing to step up. Okay, you don't want to
be giving stuff to your folks, to your loved one.
It's not a married couple situations. This is you know,
third party, right, could be the kids, could be the friends,
could be the siblings. Whoever it is that's putting up
the money should get right a secured interest in the

(34:33):
house so that they get paid back first. And generally speaking,
the line of credit is a good model for this
because you're not giving money one time. No one ever
gives money one time. Okay. Once the camel's nose is
under the tent, the rest of the camel is coming through,
all right. So when you give money to loved one,

(34:58):
mom and dad, whatever, we're you're supporting them, even if
you're building a piece of real estate whatever, So much
the better put a line of credit, a mortgage on
mom and Dad's property, right, why, so that you get
paid back first. Even if mom and Dad have creditors, right,

(35:19):
you're a secured creditor. Okay, you put your line of
credit on the house. You put your Hey, I get
paid back, right, your security interest goes on the house, right,
and it beats out all the non secure debt. So
mom and dad ran up huge credit card debt. That happens.
They've got great medical bills. Terrible, that happens. Now you're

(35:42):
not going to get paid You thought you were going
to get paid back, you explain to your spouse, Yeah,
oh yeah. When mom and dad die, then we'll get
paid back our vacation money for the last ten years.
Then we can put it back in our retirement fund.
Then we can put it in the kids college. We
can do whatever. Dad die and the property gets shared out. Well.

(36:02):
Number one, your siblings don't recognize that. Siblings don't. Number two,
your mom and dad's creditors don't recognize that. And so
all too often what we see are the kids who
are doing the most right actually taken in the chops.
The most doesn't have to be that way. So in

(36:25):
a situation like this, how can I cover myself for
the future if my brother doesn't want to help financially today?
Is you make sure that you document what's going on
with a line of credit. Okay, so that any money
that you spend on Mom or Dad automatically. Automatically, right

(36:45):
becomes now you have to prove it. You can't just
nobody's gonna believe you. Oh yeah, I spend a month.
Nobody believes that. Right. Instead, when you do it correctly
and you've got the you got the receipts right, you've
got the transfers, you've got all that right there to
prove that you spent this money on their behalf. Now
you've got something. Now you get paid off the top,

(37:09):
you get an equal share as one of the kids. Sure, right,
but there's recognition and there's reimbursement for what you did
over and above what everybody else did. It's not unfair,
it's not wrong. It's not bad. Right that if you
went the extra mile you should get your money bag.

(37:32):
How did that become a bad thing seemed obvious to me.
It's a very good thing. And that's what should be
happening in a situation like this, and in the more
routine situations where you're not laying out so much money
to build an adult dwelling unit on the property. You're
not doing that. What you're doing is you're laying out
utility expenses or you paid the property taxes or you

(37:54):
you know, you did something else to make your mom
and dad got a private room at the long term
care facility. Those things that you're spending money on mom
and dad should be recognized, should be documented, and you
should get your money back right before the creditors, before
the state, before brothers and sisters. That's the key. You've

(38:15):
been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney in fighting. You to a three
Secrets workshop. These are workshops we do every week. Grand Rapids,
Holland Portage and Morton Shorts. See you there.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show. A lively
discussion addressing your questions and concerns, but not legal advice.
There is a big difference. So when making decisions that
affect your family, your property, or yourself, the best advice
is to seek good advice specific to your unique needs.
If you missed any of today's show, or would like
additional information about the law offices of David Carrier, please

(39:10):
visit Davidcarrierlaw dot com.
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