(2025) 6-8 David Carrier Hour 2 Podcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. No, I wasn't getting coffee. That's
not why I'm late. I did not chop down that
cherry tree. Welcome back. This is the place where we
talk about a state planning, elder law, real estate and
business law. So give us a call. Why don't you
six one, six seven seven four twenty four twenty four

(00:23):
six seven, seven four twenty four twenty four. We'll get
your question, comment or concern on the air. What we'd
like to do is take some of our let's take
some of our emails here. Wouldn't that be fun? One
of my legal responsibilities and obligations with my elderly parents.

(00:46):
Parents are elderly mother requiring twenty four to seven long
term care. Both live at their home. However, my father
recently diagnoses with cancer and expecting not be able to
be my mom's primary caregiver going forward. They're in poor
shape financially, cannot afford long term care on their own,
have high debt. I've been helping a dad get organized

(01:06):
in order to apply to Medicaid, but he's been uncooperative.
That's such a real problem. See, people think, well, just
because I have no money, I'll qualify for the medicaid.
It doesn't work like that. In order to get the
government benefits, you got to dance to the government tune
and they want five years, up to five years. They
don't usually get five years, but up to five years

(01:29):
of bank records. What happens when mom and dad won't participate.
We recently had a situation we got you know, the
spouse calls all frantic, you know, because their spouse is
in the is in the hospital. You know, it's been
in the hospital repeatedly. There's multiple real estate, there's all

(01:51):
there's all kinds of stuff. Absolutely like a mule sits down,
refuses to budge in terms of doing planning. What does
that mean. It's terrible. It's terrible because now nothing is ready.
And see what people will do is they'll put off
doing something because they think that it's too much work.

(02:15):
It's too much, this is too much debt. Right, Oh,
you don't want to get money of those rotten lawyers.
And okay, yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it.
But by doing nothing, you simply are ensuring that the
most expensive thing is what's going to happen because in
a situation like this, right, Poorchpe financially cannot afford long

(02:35):
term care, high debt, but been trying to help that
get organized in order to apply to Medicaid uncooperative unknown
if they qualify, family services called do an assessment? Not
able to take on the long term care for mom
be financially crippling? Can family services require that I take responsibility?
The answers, no, they can't. What are the legal repercussions

(02:57):
to me if I decline taking long term care responsible?
There really isn't any. There really isn't any. This is
a real problem. Now you say, on the one hand, well, glory, hallelujah,
I'm not responsible for doing something I cannot do, which
is namely taking care of mom and dad if they
refuse to be taken care of. Right, it's a real
problem with so many, so many times, And don't make

(03:20):
this a problem for your kids for crying out loud.
Don't do it to them if they come to you,
good faith and all the rest of it, right, and
you know they're not trying to rip you off, they're
not trying to put you in a long term care facility.
They're trying to make sure that you don't go into one,
and if you do need it, then it's going to
be the best possible, okay. But so often people are uncooperative,

(03:42):
whether it's with the spouse or the kids, or well
meaning neighbors or whoever, just refuse to recognize this reality.
Like this guy right and now he's worried, Oh my god,
I helped out mom and dad. How badly am I
going to get it? Right? Well, you're not going to

(04:02):
It's okay, right, They cannot require as a condition of
admission that you guarantee payment. But what long term care
facility in their right mind would accept mom and dad?
How is that gonna work? Okay, I'll tell you badly,
because what happens is people who refuse to participate, people

(04:26):
who refuse to help out, you know, like the mule
in the tree is sitting down right when they do that.
Who pays? You pay? I pay, We all pay. Because
this is this is a big reason, this sort of
reluctance to cooperate to get the Social Security to get

(04:47):
the medicaid. People don't medicare, people don't have a problem
with that. It's with this medicaid thing then people have
all kinds of problem with it. Get over it, because
this is why it's so expensive at a skilled nursing facility.
This is why do you ever look at a hospital bill.
Go dig out a hospital bill right that you received,
You know, one of those things that says, this is

(05:08):
not a bill, all right, this is just a statement
of what we're charging your insurance company. That thing. Okay,
you probably have a lot more of those than actual
actual bills, so that it goes both ways. The point
is that if you look on the statement that you got,
you're wondering, japers, is this gold plated you know, a stam infant?

(05:29):
Why is it five bucks a pill? And whatever? It
is some ridiculous amount. It's a ridiculous amount because the
hospital is required by law, right by law, not to
turn anyone away, including people who can't pay or cannot
qualify for Medicaid, because there's a process involved with that.

(05:53):
This is why you know, in days past, days of
future past, in the past, when people would come in
the country with no documentation, they would just gin up
a Social Security number and put them on Medicaid boom
right away, right because if they didn't then there would
be no way I mean they said you can't come in.

(06:16):
They could have said that, but what they did instead
was they enrolled all these people in Medicaid, off a
lot of them so that the local hospital would have
some way of getting paid. Are you with me on this?
They that's why they did it. You know it wasn't
you know? I guess what it did was it silenced

(06:37):
the local hospitals who didn't have to go bankrupt because
at least they could get the Medicaid reimbursement right for
the care that they were providing. Okay, there's an awful
lot of folks, awful lot of folks who are receiving benefits,
have no money like this situation, like the situation we're
talking about here, and they won't cooperate so they don't

(06:59):
qualify for the Medicaid. Does that mean the nursing home,
you know, can give them the old bum's rush heave
ho walk the plank. No. No, the facility has to
keep them. But nobody's paying for them? Is there? Is
it ever the case that nobody pays? Somebody always pays.

(07:20):
And if you wonder who this somebody is, I suggest
that you look in a mirror and if you're there
with your spouse, look at each other. You're the ones
who pay. You pay through astronomic long term care costs.
A big driver of long term care costs is the
fact that they're carrying for a whole bunch of people

(07:41):
who aren't paying, and there's no effective, way, effective way
of saying see you later to those folks. It's so
difficult to do. They don't even bother anymore. It's been
years since we've had a client even threatened with separation
for failure to pay while medicaid was pending or what
have you. Now maybe part of that is because there

(08:03):
are there are clients. They know they're gonna get paid
because we're gonna do the medicaid for them, but still
in all you don't hear it being you know, it's
not being done. A consequence of that is in a
situation like this, situation like this, Yeah, the kid's not responsible, Okay,
the kid doesn't have to pay. Who has to pay?

(08:24):
Mom and dad? Mom and dad don't have anything, So
now who's gonna pay? Well, it ain't gonna be sunny Boy, right,
It's not gonna be the kid. Who's it gonna be you?
That's who it's gonna be and typically and this goes
all over the map, so I'm very careful cautious about
saying it. But my experience has been that the reimbursement

(08:46):
rate is usually about two thirds of the private pay rate,
and the reimbursement rate includes profit, includes margin, so it's
fifty percent more than that. It's a fifty percent tax.
How I think about it, to fifty percent tax on
nursing home care because a third of the money that

(09:06):
they charge you on a private pay is going for
the people who aren't paying. Nursing home have bad debt
right off. It's a real problem. Okay, so that's going
to but don't contribute to the problem. You already paid
for this long term. Don't be in this situation where
your kids are wondering, oh, you know, what do I
have to do? The good news for the kid is

(09:27):
you do not need to guarantee payment. You don't need
to do that. They can't come after you. Am I
able to help parents with decision making without being financially liable?
Absolutely you are. Yeah. But the way these things go
is you're either going to go to probate court and
get a guardianship conservatorship done or the nursing home is

(09:49):
going to do that for you. And if you really
want a messed up situation, go ahead and have a
stranger taking care of you because you refused to empower
your kids to do it for you. You've been listening
to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's
personal attorney. Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. Yeah,

(10:11):
I'm David. Yeah, that's right. 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 sixty one six seven seven four twenty four twenty four.
We'll get your question, comment or concern on the air.
We're going through some of our emails here, questions that people,

(10:34):
real live people have posed, mixing up trusts and wills.
My father is pretty obsessed with keeping lawyers and courts
out of his business and wants to avoid probate. Well,
who doesn't, All right, I mean, those are pretty basic,
pretty basic requirements. He's done a DIY do it yourself

(10:54):
a will to try to avoid those things. What he's
done is put is to put all his assets in
revocable trust. Okay, not unreasonable, not what we recommend, but
not unreasonable. Oh but wait, there's more to one of

(11:15):
his five children, and then and then written a will
instructing that child to split up the assets evenly between
all five children. The hell are you thinking? Anyway? What
would typically happen if someone passes with things arranged that way? Disaster,

(11:37):
there's a lot of family common there's already a lot
of family conflict. Holy cow, there's a lot of you know,
because sometimes when people do really stupid things like this,
you can rescue the situation if everyone in the family
kind of gets along, you explain what was going on,
and you know, and then you get agreement to alter
shareres or waivers. And there's way of kind of working

(12:02):
around this kind of thing. But not if there's a
lot of family conflict. I'm afraid will get worse because
of doing things inappropriately. Well, here's the thing. Everything, in
some sense, everything works if you do nothing. That works.
If you make sure that your assets are protected from

(12:24):
long term care and that they go precisely correctly to
each one of the kids, that works too. Okay, everything
eventually we get to tomorrow. Okay, But if what you
want to do is eliminate or minimize the amount of
family conflict. Okay, there's a way too, there's a way

(12:45):
to do that. This is not it. Let's assume that
this is true, that he did a revocable trust. This
inherited all the other kids from the trust, so that
which is not exactly the right term, but close enough. Okay.
I have this little head, little voice going on in
the back of my head and thinking, well, you know that, legally,

(13:07):
that wasn't exactly correct. Okay, so just between you and me,
the little voice doesn't always correct me. And lots of
times I don't say anything when legally, like you don't
inherit from a trust. Okay, that's not really the appropriate
way of talking about it. But there will be times

(13:29):
when I say things like that. You understand what I'm
talking about. You don't disinherit the kids from the trust.
It's like you just don't make them beneficiaries. So it's
kind of a different process. So bear with me on that.
I just have this image of you know, some you know,
some lawyers sitting out there who wants to be critical. Oh, well,
you know, you said disinherit, and that's not really what

(13:49):
happens with the trust. It's like, yeah, yeah, I know,
I know, I'm just we're just talking. Anyway, here's the deal.
When you do that and people have done that. I
have people come in wanting to do that. Just last
week we had somebody, well, what if I'll give it
all to the kid, or what if Here's here's the
one where it comes up a lots. You've got a

(14:10):
disabled kid, right, and they want to double up on
the distribution to whichever kid it is they think will
care for that child. So they want to double up
on the distribution to that kid, the one that they
expected to take care of, the one who's developmentally disabled.
Let's just say if that's the problem, that's like the

(14:31):
worst horriblest, terriblest idea in the world. Other than just
giving all the money to the disabled kid, that would
be even worse because there wouldn't be any way to
fix that one. But the problem with this kind of
thing is what if that kid dies? Ever think of that?
What if that kid's going through bankruptcy, what if they're
going through divorce, or if they were in a car accident.

(14:54):
There's too many what ifs about because you're counting on
that kid to be there and to have the same
mentality my favorite case. I mean, this was a good
twenty years ago, so beyond the statue limitation or whatever.
And for libel any I guess I'm republishing the libel.

(15:15):
Well anyway, I'm gonna say it anyway. So Dad had
a traditional will where he divided everything to they were
like five or six kids, and then he started a process.
Whenever a CD, and he was mostly CDs that he had.
Whenever CD matured, he would put daughter's name on it

(15:35):
because somebody told him to, right, somebody told him to
do that. So he's got daughter's name on most of
the c or a lot of the CDs, A couple
hundred thousand dollars worth of CDs certificates of deposit have
daughter's name on it. Well, at the funeral, daughter is
all about, you know, telling her siblings. I'm all about to, oh,

(15:58):
you know that. I know that Dad wanted me to
divide this among all of us, and so yeah, my
name's on it, but I'll divide by five or six
or however minute it was. You know, I'll do that
and don't worry about it, and et cetera. Well, six
months later, the kids are wondering, including my client. They're
kind of wondering, you know, what the hell's going on
with you know, it was only a CD, come on now.

(16:21):
And then the client brought in a letter that his
sister had written, you know, six copies of it or
five got whatever it was. Anyway, we sent to all
the other kids saying, yeah, I know I said this
at the funeral, but you know I've been praying on
this a lot, and I decided that Dad and God
want me to have the money. But it's like, what

(16:46):
God wants you to have the money? Huh okay, well possible.
I suppose you know, you wondered, did the you know,
did the lord a peer in the you know, looking
like a like a banker or something like that, saying oh, yes,
my child, you know, here's the vision from heaven on
high that you know, your brothers and sisters should get
nothing except for the other CDs which that hadn't switched over,

(17:10):
and that really meant for you to get all the money.
It's like people will convince themselves of things like that.
We all seriousness. Now, the good news is the good
news is that it's a very forgiving family and they
got all. They're still but that story will be repeated
and repeated and repeated. And if those cousins don't wind

(17:32):
up in hating each other, you know, that's an actor.
That's where the act of God comes in. You know
where the screw up here by Dad making one person
the conduit of the thing you know, which you understand
is trying to avoid probate. But boy, what a bad
way to do it. And this is even worse. You're
doing a trust, so you do avoid probate, right, and

(17:52):
it says, give it all to this one kid. The
fact that later on you did a will is completely irrelevant.
In effect, you can't use it for anything. It doesn't
mean anything. It doesn't modify the trust. No, the trust
is cleared by its terms, and so the trust would
be enforced. All the assets would go to that kid,
and then you're kind of hoping that kid will share,

(18:14):
and if he doesn't, too bad. So sad. You've been
listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier helping
thousands of tens of thousands of West Michigan families not
make mistakes like this one. Welcome back to the David
Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney. Let's
get back to the mail bag, the email bag, that is,

(18:34):
the questions that real people have, would phone calls, text
messages in email to a trustee from the creator. Those
mostly be legal under the emergency situations. My friend passed
after unexpected emergency surgery. Her father brother was her trustee before.

(19:00):
I don't know what that means, but anyway, before surgery
she talked to him by phone, emailed, and texted him
about changes to her trust. I also received textphone and
emails from her about changes that included me, is this
acceptable to the court? Well, the short answer is The
short answer is no. The longer answer is maybe. Okay. See,

(19:24):
a trust is a relationship and trusts trust cannot arise
in all kinds of ways. There can be express trusts
where you write down what you mean, and that's what
you mean. You write it down, or you say it.
You could speak a trust into existence, or a trust
can arise with no writing and no expression at all. Okay,

(19:50):
So all kinds of ways for trust to be created.
They're kind of weird that way. It's not like a
will where you've got to have witnesses. And all the
rest of it, although courts are making some exceptions to
that rule as well. But with the trust, like I said,
with the trust, you can you can amend it. So
the the short answer is no to this question, can

(20:13):
can you do it that way? The short question, the
short answer is no. The longer answer is maybe, possibly
because of the weird nature of the trust right, because
it is this relationship between the grand tour who sets
up the trust, and the trustee who is trusted. Get that,
see what I did there, trusted to carry out the

(20:36):
Grand tour's desires, carry out what their terms and conditions are.
So can they can they do it with the phone call?
Pretty tough to prove the phone call, but it's recorded,
so maybe that's possible. Is a writing right? Is a writing? Now?

(20:58):
An email? Is an email? Or writing? Well, you know,
back in the day, the reason they required writing was
number one, people would know what the terms and conditions were.
But they also made people physically signed documents, not using
an autopen but physically signed the documents so that it
could be determined whether or not that person actually signed

(21:18):
the documents. Now, there's problems with fraud and all the rest, sure,
but the idea was, if we have your ink on
the page, right, and then we have somebody who witnessed
you put the ink on the page, well, then we
can be pretty sure that this was your agreement. Nowadays, though,
we've got text messaging, we've got voicemail, we've got email,

(21:42):
we've got lots of digital solutions to the They answered
the question what did this person say and what did
they mean when they said it? Okay, so I don't
like the case, but certainly you could, you know, you
could make you take it. So somebody walked in with

(22:05):
this story saying that this is what happened. Here, here's
the recording of the voicemail, here's the email, here's the
text messages right, and we could verify all that, which,
of course, with anything digital, you can always verify. So
we can prove that. You may not be able to
prove that that individual sent the texts or sent the emails.

(22:28):
I mean, somebody was looking over their shoulder. But you
can do a voice analysis on the If we've got voicemail,
we can use a there's a way to authenticate that
you know whether or not they were under stress. Of
course they're unexpected emergency surgery. I guess they'd be under stressed.
But the point is that maybe this would work. But

(22:51):
but you're going to wind up in court over it.
Like if the person writing the letter is a friend,
says my friend, right, so it's a friend and the
friend is disinheriting family members in favor of the friend. Well,
well are the family members going to fight? How hard

(23:14):
are they going to fight? It goes into the It
goes into the thing, not the analysis of whether or
not you've got a case, but whether or not it
makes sense to take the case. Right. So here I
would say they definitely have a case. You've got text messages, emails,
and voicemail that all support the changes. So you would

(23:34):
get into court, you probably would survive just a motion
to dismiss. But now you've got testimony. You've got testimony
about where she was, what she was saying, or he
or she was saying, you know, to suggest that these
statements are corroborating. Now, what would the easy thing be.

(23:56):
You know, there's an easy way to do this, called David,
and we'll send an attorney out signed the documents. So
now we're dealing with signed documents. Now we're not wondering
what the what the court's going to do. We've got
something that can be that would naturally be enforced by
the other side and can be enforced if necessary in court.

(24:18):
So and something like this, is it a good idea
to do. No, it's a terrible idea. Call and writing
things out that might that might be more effective as well.
But we've got texts, we got void, we got uh
let's say, talk to him by phone, emailed and texted
him about the changes. So assuming that those are all consistent,

(24:41):
then I think it's a fair bet that going to
court on something like this if there's enough money involved,
you know, because this is not None of this is inexpensive, right,
And this is the thing that so many, I think
so many folks miss. It doesn't cost any more to litigate.

(25:03):
Doesn't cost more to litigate over a million dollars than
it costs to litigate over ten dollars. Okay, So when
you say, oh, that's awful that you know money considerations
would enter into it, Well, it may be awful, but
it's reality because lawyer's got to keep his doors open
and the light's Welcome back to the David Carrier Show.

(25:25):
I'm David Carrier. Your family's personal attorney. Now is 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. So we had
a little bit of technical difficulties there. You know, sometimes
the string breaks, you know, between the tin cans, and
occasionally the you know, the hamster dies, the one on

(25:48):
the hamster wheel that keeps the systems going over there,
you know, they die or go and strike sometimes whatever,
and then you have to get a new hamster. Anyway,
six one, six seven seven four twenty four twenty four.
That's the number to call. Now we're answering some of
your emails, some rapid fire here. If parent makes special

(26:10):
needs trust for an adult child, is the trust protected
from being harvested harvested if parents needs care aged parent
sets up special needs trust for an adult child when
the parent passes, if the parent comes to need their
own care, is that trust protected from harvesting by the
state right or a facility providing for the parent's care. Well,

(26:37):
those are two good questions, right, So there is an
exception in the Medicaid right. You can set up a
trust solely for the benefit of solely for the benefit
of a disabled adult child a disabled child, and that
will not count against you for the medicaid. Now you

(26:58):
have to follow the rules. There are specific things that
need to be in the in the in the Supplemental
Needs Trust, Okay. So there are specifics that need to
be in there in order to qualify as a supplemental
Needs trust solely for the benefit of solely for the

(27:18):
benefit of trust. So yeah, there are ways of doing it.
You can't just say it in your you just can't
say it in your you know, in the trust. Whatever.
The point is, it's got to be solely for the
benefit of the disabled child. Okay. So but here's here's

(27:41):
a question, and then medicaid won't count it. The question
is if mom or Dad has not been paying their
bills for a while, can the nursing home still get it?
And the answer to that is yeah. There's this thing
out there called the doctrine of fraudulent transfer, and the
concept is that if you owe money, or we're about
to owe some money and you moved money to somebody else, right,

(28:06):
have you protected it that money or can they reach
through and get the money that you transfer to somebody else?
So for Medicaid purposes. Transfers to disabled child right are
clearly aoka. Right. You've got to do it right. Like
everything else in life, you got to do it correctly.
But if you do, you can set up solely for

(28:28):
the benefit of trust for the benefit of the disabled
adult child. That'll be fine. You can even outright give
them the money. You don't even need to do the trust.
But if you're going to do the trust, then the
trust has to have the right. Isn't that funny. It's
like if you just give the kid the money, that's okay.
If you give the kid the money through the trust,
then they have to determine whether or not there would

(28:48):
be any potential other beneficiaries, and if there are. If
there are other beneficiaries, then the trust doesn't work anymore.
Now it's a divestment. But the point is number one,
If you do it correctly, Medicaid's not going to come
after it, but the nursing home might very well. Right,

(29:08):
is there anything to keep the state well meeting Medicaid?
And the answer is not, if it's done correctly. If
it's done correctly, it's all accordance. If it's done all
according to the rules, then you can certainly do that,
But does that mean that the that the nursing home
would ensue on a theory that, hey, if you still
have the money, you could pay the bills. You don't

(29:29):
have the money. And the reason you don't have the
money because you gave it away, which is a violation
of the and you knew you were going to owe
this money. So now we're going after the kid. Now,
that would only happen. That would only happen if you
didn't do the medicaid application correctly, because we do that
kind of thing all the time. But when you do it,
you had better be sure that the long term care

(29:51):
facility is paid in full, either by private money, your
mom and dad's own money, or buy the medicaid. Okay,
you can make sure that it's already been paid in full,
then yes you can. You can do this kind of thing.
You know, you think this stuff is easy. I get it,
but you know, uh, it ain't that easy. Uh. Let's see,

(30:17):
let's just get another one. Oh, here's a good one.
I hate my father. He's given me trauma. Oh that's terrible.
Should shouldn't give trauma to your kids? They'll they'll write
emails about you. But anyway they uh so they're they're

(30:39):
traumatic and you know, been giving them trauma and stuff.
So that's not good. But what I want? Can I
request my last name to be changed after death if
I don't get to it in time. I hate my father,
He's given me trauma. I don't want to share his
last name anymore. But also to have the money to
spare just at the moment until we just willing Nelly

(31:01):
change my name, as it would also be a huge
hassle with how much government and I have would have
to update. Well, I understand that part of it. I'm
a paranoid person. Good to know self awareness is, you know,
the first step to make it a better and just
have this inkling feeling at all times something is bad

(31:22):
is about to happen. Well, you know on the side
of the Great Divide, you know what Catholics call the
veil of tears. World is a tragic place, I mean,
And so the idea that something bad is about to happen,
that's not paranoid, that's that's observational. Okay. So if I
don't get to change my last name before I pass,

(31:42):
if I write it down and a will final request
type thing. Can it be changed so it's different in
my obituary in tombstone. No, you can't do that. I
can't imagine that the probate court would allow a petition
or that to happen. Now, you can write your own obituary,

(32:03):
and you can recite this stuff in the obituary. You
know that Dad was an awful person and all that.
You can you can certainly, uh, you can certainly do that.
But you can't. You can't just you know what I mean,
you can't just do it. You can't just you know,

(32:23):
put that in your in your will that after death
you want somebody to change your name or something that
is not that's not gonna work. At least I don't believe.
I can't imagine a judge that I know of, any
judge that I know of, would would actually uh would
actually do that. Okay, So no, if you're going to

(32:43):
change your name, do it now. Get you know, read
some books, go online. It'll be a hassle and everything else,
but it can still be it can still be done.
Let's see, I'm trying to sell a piece of real
estate value at less than a thousand dollars. The deed
lists my wife and I as owners. I need to
get title free and clear so I complete the transaction.

(33:05):
I'm ninety one years old and my wife died in
two thousand and nine. I guess the problem is with
I guess the problem here is with getting wife's name
off the deed. I'm guessing, Say, what is the procedure
in South Carolina in yeah, for resolving in a state
intestate ten years after death. Well, we just got one

(33:25):
that came in the other day thirty five years after death.
They just never never transferred to the title, so we've
got to do that, and other people have died, so
now it's multiple probate, which would be a lot of fun.
But the key here is that if the whenever you
have husband and wife who are listed as owners, that's

(33:46):
presumptively attendance by the entirety, So the other one would
automatically own it, you know, by operational law at least
would own it after the wife's death. So your probably
you don't have to go through probate. You probably can
sell the thing simply because you were tenants by the entirety,
you were both it was It's a much stronger thing

(34:09):
than joint tendancy. Or joint tendency with rights of survivorship
because it's based on the on the marital relationship there.
So just record her death certificate. You should be, You
really should be good to go. See what else we've
got going through the mail bag here? Uh? Do I

(34:35):
have to update the How do I have to update
the address on the trust for my home because I
moved the Uh? The tax assessor requires a trust document
in order to enroll in the property tax waiver for seniors. Well,
here's the thing. You don't have to give them the

(34:56):
whole copy of the trust. In fact, you're not doing
them any favors if you give them the whole copy.
But you can just give them an excerpt that' said,
you know, do the certificate of trust existence, which we'll say,
who's got authority to do what in managing the trust?
And that's all they should need. If you record the
death certificate. Excuse me. If you record the certificate of trust,

(35:20):
that should have all the details on it right there,
you should be. You should be good to go. Am
I mentioned in the family trust? How can I find
out if I am part of my parents' trust? Both
parents have passed, I lost touch with them. For years
falling out. Brother. Sister was living to mom until she died.

(35:43):
Till mom died, so she's in a family home. Does
not work at seventy years old. My brother has his
own family in his own home since both have passed.
I want to know am I part of this trust?
I don't speak to my brother or sister? Where or
who can I call out to find out for me?
I suppose you could hire a lawyer make the phone call.
I lived fifteen minutes from each of them. If I

(36:05):
was mentioned in the trust, wouldn't they have to tell me? Uugh?
So confusing? Help? Well, you know, oh what a tangled
web we leave when first we practice to deceive. And
I guess there was no deception here, but there was
people not getting along, family members not getting along. So
is that a problem? Yeah, it's a problem. Is there
something you can do about it? Yeah? You're going to

(36:27):
have to hire an attorney, have them approach and demand
a copy of the trust as far as it relates
to you. Now, all you may be getting out of
that is the part where you're disinherited. But at least
you'll know. You know, lots of times parents disinherit estrange kids.
They don't even really need the excuse of while we

(36:49):
were fighting or something like that. It's like the kid
isn't coming around. That's the end of it. So you
should come around to a Three Secrets workshop. Just go
to the website David Carrier Law dot com. Sign up there.
I'll be happy to see you at the Three Secrets Workshop.
I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney. You've been listening

(37:09):
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 visit Davidcarrier Law

(37:32):
dot com.