(2025) 8-31 David Carrier Show Hour 2 Podcast

Episode Transcript

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. This is the special Labor Day
edition of the David Carrier Show. Labor Day weekend tomorrow
is Labor Day, when we honor all those people like you,
like my mom and dad, like me. Dear, I say,
I mean here we are laboring on the Sunday. I

(00:42):
supposed so much for the day of rest. Am I right? Anyway?
Life of rest? Anyway? Six six seven seven four twenty four,
twenty four. That's the number to call if you'd like
to get your question, comment or concern on the air.
That's six six seven seven four twenty four, twenty four.
If you have a question, comment, or concern about wills,

(01:03):
trusts or probate. If you're wondering how do I beat
the high cost of long term care? I would sure
life to sell my house I don't have a clue
how to do it. What is this? What is all
this title stuff? Are they really gonna thieve my title
away from me? And golly, I'd love to start a business.
Stop a business, keep that business humming like the top.

(01:24):
I was very fortunate yesterday. This happened yesterday, so I'm
gonna share it. Go to a wedding, you know, some friends,
the kids getting married, beautiful bride, handsome husband, just wonderful groom.
I should say, right, keep it even. It was a
wonderful time. But you know, I have to say the

(01:46):
highlight of my experience was my You know how they
put you at tables, right, They make you sit at
tables at a reception. You know, you do the church
thing first, of course, and then you go to this
thing called a reception and they have dinner and you know,
dancing and all that could, et cetera. But often, often
rather than making you sit by yourself, they'd let you

(02:06):
sit at at a table and there's other people at
the table, you see, and then you have to sit
next to somebody, generally your spouse if you bring them along,
if you know, if they're there as well. My lovely
wife was there, of course, But on my other side,
I guess who was I was sitting next to? You
will never guess in a million years. So I'm gonna
have to tell you, Marge of Margin's Donuts. Can you imagine,

(02:28):
you know, here you wire this random thing. You were
expecting to have a good time, but now it's elevated
beyond comprehension, you know, and you know, sit next to
somebody famous. It was just it was it was very nice,
very interesting, very interesting lady, very nice lady. And it was,
you know, talking about the creativity that goes into making
all those unbelievable and truly unbelievable, unbelievable donuts. Yeah. I mean,

(02:55):
I think Margin's Donuts has ruined at least six of
my diets, expectations or whatever. Anyway, six one, six, seven,
seven four, twenty four, twenty four. My reflections on Labor
Day is that, you know, because people say, well, what
do you care so much about? You know, why is
it that this I'm always yacking about long term care?

(03:18):
And I'll tell you why. I've been thinking about it.
You know, that's dangerous when I start thinking about things.
But I have been thinking about it, and it seems
to me, that a big part of the emphasis, the
reason the reason I get so I don't know if
excited is the right word, but the reason we get
so intense on the whole long term care thing has

(03:41):
to do with my experiences with my own folks. All right, Mom,
eight kids in the family, Dad working two jobs sixteen
hours a day for seventeen years, right, and he was
a teacher, right, so oh we get to somewhere off. Well, No,
he still worked in the brewery during the summer, and
he was a carpenter, you know, worked on building houses

(04:02):
and stuff by day. So that's that's where I'm coming from.
You know, think about this. Here's a test for you.
Do you remember remember cool whip? I think it's still around.
I think it's still around. But if in your house
cool whip was the tub aware right, right, food storage

(04:25):
was was the you know you washed out the tup
of work, you know, after you after you had the
cool whip, that was the that was the tubleware. Well
that was that was our house. Okay, So maybe maybe
you can see where I'm coming from. If if in
your house the cool whip container, right was the you know,

(04:47):
you had a drawer full of them, of course was
the was the tup aware. That's that's where I'm coming
from on this stuff. Okay, it's like use it up,
wear it out, make it do or do it out.
That was that was the thing. And that's why, you know,
at seven, I had my paper route and I was
saving college money because why because that's what mom said.

(05:09):
I just I didn't question it. And you know, we
walked to school. It wasn't uphill both ways. Yeah, I
can't tell you how much that annoys me. Is when
you know, you start talking kids these days, you know,
you start talking like kids these days about the way
it used to be. And yeah, we did walk to school.
You walked to school. I thought it was. We always

(05:31):
used to say it was a mile, and now you
get Google maps, it was one point one mile from
our house to the to Saint Michael's Saint Michael's school.
But you just did that. And if it was raining,
you know, oh my goodness, it's raining outside. What are
we going to do now that it's raining outside? Put
on your raincoat, put those put those rubbers over your

(05:53):
you know, if it's snowing glosses. I mean, that's what
it was, right that that wasn't That's just what everybody did. Now.
Of course it's different nowadays. But my point is that
the people who did that are the same ones, right,
and you live that life and you know, and it's
the go out and entertain yourself. And I'm not here

(06:15):
for you, you know, to tell you what to do.
You know, that was my mom's thing. You know, I'm
about your tour director. Go find something to do. The uh.
I think he's get into this whole cruise ship thing.
Now you know this is not a cruise and I'm
not your tour director. Go find something to do. You know,
don't tell me you're bored. I'll find something for you

(06:37):
to do. Oh, I'll find something for you to do.
But the uh. But but it's those people and then,
you know, what were we told? Well, we were told
your work, and you do this, and you did. There
were things that you were supposed to do and you
did those things. And this practice is all about making
sure that those promises are kept. That the promise that

(06:58):
if you do these things, you won't go broke. If
you do these things, you won't be remembered as a hopeless,
you know, screwed up in probate. What a mass Oh
my god went broke. No, that's not going to happen
to you. That's not going to happen to you. Because
why because we recognize what's going on. We made the

(07:18):
rules work for the people who played by you, played
by the rules. Why should you get screwed now? I
don't get it. I don't expect to get it. I
know it's not customary. I mean, if people keep telling me, oh,
that's not the customary way to do it. Oh, that's
not the way to do it, it's like, whoa, what do
you want from me? Right? I'm sorry, it's not customary.

(07:38):
Maybe it should be, huh all right, And we are trying,
and faithful listeners know we are trying to make it
the customary way, which is why I am a couple
of buddies of mine. We've organized the national Law Firm.
We've got now fourteen law firms that are participating in
it to do exactly this kind of thing across the country.

(08:01):
So from San Diego to Staten Island, this, you know,
this way of doing things is being established, is being
forwarded because I think it's so important that the people
who on Labor Day of all days, we should recognize
that the people who work shouldn't get ripped off at
the end and remembered as a chump instead of the

(08:22):
heroes that they are. Right, well, we get regular folks
are the heroes of this story. You know, in America,
regular folks are the heroes. Why should they be treated
Why should they be impoverished at the end. Why should
they have to go broke? Why should they have to
have the anxiety? Why should they get right less than
what they've earned? I don't get it now. I understand

(08:43):
that there needs to see a floor for everybody. Good, good, good,
Let's have the floor. But if you worked and saved,
you should you should be able to get whatever it
is you can afford, and you should be able to
afford it because you already paid for it. I don't
know anybody likes to pay for the same thing, same
thing twice. So anyway, six one, six, seven, seven four,
twenty four, twenty four, that's number to call. Get your question,

(09:06):
comment or concern on the air. We'd love to have
you do that. I'm gonna give you the question, we're
going to answer in the next and I will get
to questions. Okay, I've been having too much fun with laboraty.
I guess anyway, Can a trust here's the question. Can
a trust be created that splits into two trusts for
two trustees for the benefit of their kids from different families.

(09:28):
I don't have any kids myself, but I want my
assets to be split between two kids from different families
that I care about. Can I create a revocable living
trust that would be split into two trusts when I die,
one of the trusts to the parent of one of
the kids will be a beneficiary, with the parent ofs trustee,
and the other half going to another trust for a
child and another family with their parent being the trustee. Okay,

(09:50):
that's the question. Can that be done? And the answer is,
I'll give you the short answer, absolutely, yes, it can
be done. But let me suggest that there's a way
to do this right to make things easy after you're gone,
all right, and we're going to get into something that
one of those things we're always doing. It I've never

(10:11):
seen anywhere else, but we're going to share that with
you in the next segment. And listening to the David
Carrier Show, I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
So call in now at seven seven twenty four, twenty four.
This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, come back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, and we work hard for the money.
You're darn right we do. So does Donna Summer anyway?
Six one six seven, twenty four, twenty four. Do you
remember that Donna Summer song that she was most famous
for the first one, love to Love Your Baby. I

(10:52):
was in high school and I was being my dad
was driving us to a It was a date and
my dad was driving the car and Donna Summer came
on that loved to Love Your Baby song. It was
just like, Oh my God, get me out of here now.
It was terrible. Anyway, Okay, I promised that I would

(11:16):
talk about this question, and so I will let me
repeat it. Can he trust there is one of the
questions we got. Can he trust be created that splits
into two trusts for two trustees for the benefit of
the kids from different families. So I don't have any
kids myself, but I want my assets to be split
between two kids from different families that I do care about.

(11:38):
Can I create a trust would split into two trust
when I died, one of the trusts the parent one
of the kids would be beneficiary, their parents trustee. The
other half going another trust for another family, but their
parent being the trustee. Thank you, Okay, so can this
be done? Yes, yeah, it's no big deal. In fact,
this is the way we do every single trust and

(11:58):
whenever we're doing a state plan this is just the
way we do it. Okay. When we're doing a state planning,
what we do is we divide the assets into separate
trusts for the beneficiaries. All right. You never want to
distribute directly from a trust to a beneficiary. You don't
want to do that because why because you don't know

(12:19):
what the future holds. Like Yogi Bear said, predictions are
tough because they're about the future. Well, you don't know
what the future is going to bring. You don't know
what's going to happen. And because you don't know, because
you're humble enough to recognize that you don't know, you
want someone there in the future to look around and say, hey,
should I be giving the money to the person at

(12:42):
this time? Because if they're dead divorced in a long
term care situation. Maybe they got in a car accident,
maybe they're going through bankruptcy. Maybe COVID showed up again,
God knows. Okay, that you've got some way to make
sure that what you want to give to this person
actually gets there. So the immediate question, can we split

(13:04):
it into two trusts for the beneficiaries? Not only is
it yes, it's absolutely yes, it's the only rational way
to do it, right with the trust that protects the
assets for not from, but for the beneficiary. Okay, so
that's number one. Can you do it? Yeah, you can

(13:24):
absolutely do it. But now here is where it gets interesting. Okay,
so you can do that, yes, and you should do
it in such a way that's a protection trust. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you should do that. Okay. But here's the thing. When
you're dividing assets to between people who have no emotional

(13:45):
family or other stake, other reason to get along with
each other, Okay, you're asking for trouble. You see, this
seems easy, right, Oh, just divide it in half. Well,
what's happened? Okay? Why did you sell the house for
whatever you sold the house for? Why did you cash
out those investments so quickly. Why didn't you cash out

(14:08):
those investments more quickly? Why did you pay the lawyers
so much? Why did you do this? Why did you
do that? You see the problem is that when you're
dividing assets, when you give somebody a share, then it
becomes very easy for the decisions of the trustee, not
the individual parent over the kid trustee, but the trustee

(14:30):
who's administering your estate, who's setting this thing up, becomes
very easy to question why did they do things the
way they did them. Maybe they should have done them
some other way, Maybe there was some ulterior motive. And
the problem is a bad beneficiary can make life torture
for the person who you trusted to handle your affairs. Okay,

(14:54):
it's easy to do, and all they have to do
is allege that the trustee or had some ulturior motive
or something like, some bad motive, and now the trustee
has got a right to check for the defense out
of their own pocket. And the attorney who drew up
the trust now has a conflict of interest conflict between

(15:16):
the beneficiary and the trustee. Oh my goodness, now we
got big problems, japers. What are we going to do.
The answer is that's bad. So there are ways, and
we're going to talk about it in the next segment.
But there's a way to make sure that you're intent,
which is to benefit these people who have perhaps a

(15:39):
lesser tie, a lesser reason not to squabble with their
with the other beneficiary.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
David's got the how too you're looking for Just call
seven seven four twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. Carrier, your family's
personal attorney, apologize for the audio keep dropping out. Apparently
we're going to have to reboot the tin cans and
restrain the twine between them, and who knows, maybe by
the next century it'll it'll work reliably. Six one six, seven,

(16:21):
twenty four to twenty four. That's the that's a question.
That's call if you have a question. But in the meantime,
so the question here is the caller or the writer says,
can trust be created to split in the two trusts
for different beneficiaries. The answer is absolutely yes. It's kind

(16:41):
of the routine thing that we do is to split
your trust into separate trust for the beneficiaries. When it's
done correctly, then the assets go to, not just kids,
it's not just kids, not limited to children, it's everybody,
because everybody can get into a situation where if you

(17:02):
receive money, they can take the money away from you.
So by doing a trust, if it's done correctly, correctly,
your beneficiary can be in complete control and completely protected
at the same time. Obviously with minor children, young kids,
that's an obvious reason for doing it, but it's not
the only one. Anybody can get into a car accident,

(17:25):
Anybody can have business difficulties, these things get divorced, These
things happen. Okay, we either plan for them or we
just wish they didn't happen. Wishing is not a plan.
Wishing is not I don't know what. It is not worthy,
especially not on Labor Day. So here's the But here's
the thing. When you've got when you've got distributions that

(17:48):
are going to people who are not related to each other,
people who may not have a stake, a reason for
things to go smoothly. Okay, if all they are is
a benefit, what they are as a beneficiary right without
an emotional or family tie to the other beneficiaries. Okay,

(18:12):
so that it's no big deal. For them to be
a jerk, that's the question. How big a deal is
it for them to be Well, well, they wouldn't be jerks.
I love these people. I know, I know things happen
when you're gone, things will change. That's just that's reality
of it. Okay, So how do we design a plan
to minimize that? Okay, it can be minimized. Now here's

(18:37):
the thing. You've got multiple beneficiaries, not your kids, kids
dividing the distribute, right, divide by however many get them
out there. That will generally be okay. But you want
to include one percent for each grandchild. Okay, you see
a lot of that. Or we just had one where
three kids and a bunch of grandkids. So it's like

(18:59):
divide by four, right, and divide one share among the
ten or twelve however many were grandkids. Take one share
divided out among all the grandkids. Well, here's the problem
with that. Now, I don't just have to give I
have to I don't just have to terrible go to

(19:19):
school anyway. The problem is I've got to give an
inventory and an accounting, and I've got to listen to
the you know, pissing and moaning of all these beneficiaries,
not just the three kids who I can count on
being reasonably mature and going to get along right. But
I got to also listen to the one who took

(19:41):
off for California right and is living on a commune
and is being told about or whatever is being told about.
How oh, you know, fight the powers that be and
you know you deserve more. Okay, And they have no
tie to the family, But because they are a bi
an officiary, a share beneficial, a share percentage beneficiary, they

(20:05):
have an entitlement, that absolute entitlement to know how did
my one point three percent turn into the dollars that
you gave me? I want an inventory, I want an accounting.
I want to know who wepraised it. I want to
know who the realtor was. I want to know who
the banker was. I want to know who the investment
advisor was. I want to know what you know. Blah

(20:26):
blah blah blah blah. And And you can't defend yourself
as trustee if they say that you you were an
embezzador while you did it. You can't defend yourself with
the trust money. You got to write that check out
of your own pocket. So what are you going to do.
I'll tell you what usually happens. You settle up with
a jerk. All right, you just give them some extra
money get out of it. That's what happens. What if

(20:49):
there was another way? Guess what, There is another way,
and here's the way it goes. So let's say in
this situation that we've got, and it's this is a
very easy situation because I'm only dividing by two, right,
I've only got two beneficiaries that I want to divide by. Okay,
let's say I got half a million dollars and I

(21:09):
want to divide to two beneficiaries who aren't related to
each other. They could be, but anyway, they're not related
to it. They're not your kids. There's no there's no
informal way of enforcing any of this. Okay, we're kind
of stuck with it. So the question is what can
I do to encourage or to force reasonableness. Now you

(21:37):
have to back up a little bit because you said, well,
I got these two families, I want to benefit both
of them. And I'm like, okay, good, you want to
benefit both of them, and it's going to be a
significant amount of money anyway. You go. But they're not
related to it. They're just two families that you care about. Okay.
So here's why we do what I call the lesser

(21:58):
of the lesser of the lesser of a right method
of distributing goes like this. You pick the one who's
less likely to fight or you like better, and maybe
they're the same person. Usually they are, right. And this
works with grandkids too. Right, So you got your own kids,

(22:20):
and then you got the grand kids, and you say
I want my grandkids to get one percent, or I
want these two people to split half, okay, And then
what you say is, well, I got half a million dollars.
I'm not likely to go broke because Dave Carrier did
my estate plan. I'm not going to go broke in
the nursing home. I'm not going to go to this
casino that often. I probably will still have half a
million dollars, which is what I expect. Okay, great, half

(22:45):
of a half a million is two hundred fifty thousand, right,
half a half a million is two hundred fifty thousand.
So if I could count on everybody getting along and
the world being a sunny day every day, and blah
blah blah, all this stuff that doesn't exist in the
real world. But you know, everyone knows everybody gets along,
have a coke and a smile. Right, if you could

(23:08):
believe that, well, then fine, do fifty to fifty and
then assume that they're not going to fight with the
trustee or disagree with I say, no, what you really
want to do, what you're really trying to do is
benefit to families, whom you love, with whom you have,
with whom you have good relationship, all the rest of it.

(23:30):
But but right, you want the money to be a
blessing and not a curse. Not a curse to the
person who administers the estate, not a curse to the
people who receive the money. A blessing, not a curse. Well,
if you just leave them the money, say fifty to fifty,
there is going to be a percentage of the time

(23:51):
that it all blows up and now everybody hates each
other and you're remembered as the horrible person. Okay, you
don't want that. So what you do to make things
really easy, really easy, is you say, okay, they would
each get two hundred and fifty thousand, I'm gonna give
one of them. You pick one of them, and you
say you're gonna get not half, You're gonna get two

(24:14):
hundred thousand or fifty percent, whichever is less the lesser
of fifty percent or two hundred thousand. Now, remember you're
expecting that they'll get too fifty if it was even
Stephen right, if you if you wanted to give them
an inventory, if you wanted to give them an accounting,

(24:34):
if you wanted them to be able to piss and
moan and complain and accuse your trustee of all kinds
of stuff. But if you want things to go nice
and easy, especially in a case like this, right, nice
and easy, what you do is you say, all right,
family A, right, family A, You're gonna get whatever is
less two hundred thousand or fifty percent. Now, if the

(24:56):
estate is at five hundred thousand, still going to get
two hundred thousand. But what they don't get is an inventory.
They don't get an accounting because they're not getting a share.
Right all they the maximum they could possibly get was
two hundred thousand. And your trustee, right before you've cooled off, right,

(25:17):
you know, whatever you're sending, they're sending them a check
for two hundred thousand. Here you go, right, because there's
still half a million? Are you with me on this?
There's half an Now you said, well, wait a second,
that's not equal. I say, who's gonna Yeah, you're right,
it's not equal. It is not equal. Correct, it's not equal,

(25:37):
but it is two hundred thousand dollars right, I mean,
I mean, what expectation, what entitlement whatever did they have
to receive that zero? You're not dealing with an entitlement issue.
What you're dealing with is uh. I don't want this,
you know. I don't want the the trustee, the beneficiary,

(25:58):
who I would expect gratitude from, who I would expect
would be nice. I don't want to turning into a
scorpion stabing everybody. No, And I'm going to make it very,
very difficult for them. I'm going to get impossible for
them to do that. That's what the lesserof does, do
you see? So it's based on what you've got right now, Okay,
you're like, look they get if I died today, they

(26:19):
get two hundred and fifty. Well is it good enough
that they get two hundred and the other family family
B gets the leftovers? Now they're going to get three
hundred thousand. Okay, I'm sorry they got Yeah they got more.
They did get more, Yes, they did. Well, these are
two families that you wanted them to get something, and

(26:40):
now they're getting something. Okay, a significant amount of money
because you want to give it, all right, and maybe
you need to think about exactly how you do. I say,
you know, let's make the numbers big so that the difference,
so that the percentage is always more than the dollar amount,

(27:00):
so that the day after you die, the trustee wakes
up Monday morning and says, oh, now I'm got to
administer this estate. Hey, look there's four hundred and fifty
thousand dollars in it. This one gets the lesser of
half or two hundred. Let me think, huh, there's only
four hundred left. Well, two twenty five is bigger than four.
I write the kid a check for two hundred thousand.

(27:20):
I'm done with it. Do you see I don't have
to give him an inventory. I don't have to give
him accounting. Now I do have to give an inventory
and an accounting to the other side. I do have
to do that. Well, fine, I have to do that anyway,
But now I'm not dividing between the two of them,
do you see? And it works. It's especially great when
you're do it with grandkids, right, because you always got

(27:41):
the punk grandkid who ran off became a biker or
god knows what, democratic socialist or some stupid thing, right,
And now, oh, they're going to fight the powers that
be by putting your trustee through the ringer. Well, if
you gave them the lesser of one percent or x dollars, right,
a lower nwe number like in this case, one percent

(28:02):
of five hundred thousand will be five thousand dollars, So
you give them the lesser of one percent or four
thousand dollars. So the estate would have to shrink down
to four thousand, four hundred thousand before this would get
into play, right, And we now know what the maximum
each grandkid's gonna get. But you don't just say they

(28:23):
each get five thousand, because if you did that and
the estate shrinks down, now you're given the grandkids more
than you wanted to do. You see. So there's a
way here, and it's a little convoluted, but it works
out beautifully. So in a case like this, lesser of
you can do it absolutely, but lesser of listening to

(28:43):
the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
David's perking and working and taking your calls. Now, this
is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family at least personal attorney. I don't want to work.
I'll just play this for a minute. I just love
this song. Then you love the song They drum all day. Yeah,
that ain't real life though. Welcome back to the David

(29:18):
Carrier Show. Let's knock one more out for this Labor
Day weekend. Okay, would I be forced to move? Or
could kids say they don't want the home of my
husband dies? So my husband dies without a will and
he has kids, well, his kids automatically get the house
we both live in. And could his children tell a
judge they don't want the house? He has children. I
do not. He bought the house by himself before we
got married. Okay, Now, if it's an intestate situation, you

(29:41):
probably the wife right. He had completely no will at all.
That's what intestine means. There's no will. We're just going
on whatever the state says, and you're still gonna get
a big trunk right up front. Right, So so the
answer is maybe he gets split the rest with the kids.
But here's the answer to this question. Right, he wants

(30:03):
his kids eventually to get the house, but he wants you,
the spouse, to live in the house and not worry
about things. Right, so you want to keep staying there. Now,
the usual answer to this is to put the wife
on the deed, or to give the wife a life estate,
or give the other person a life estate in the property.
That's a big mistake in my opinion, because because lots

(30:25):
of things happen. So if you give someone a life
estate in a particular place, they can stay in that
place for their lifetime until they're dead. Right, they own
the own they own. That person owns the right to
stay in that property. But you don't want to having
that right to stay in the property if they're not

(30:46):
living in the property, if they remarried, if they're in
long term care, if they went bankrupt. There's a million
reasons why you wouldn't want somebody to have a life
estate in your home, including your spouse. You say, oh,
but I don't want my spouse out on the street.
I'm like, yeah, I get that. I get that you

(31:06):
don't want your spouse on the street, But when your
spouse dies, remarries, goes to a long term care facility,
wouldn't you like your kids to get your house, especially
if she has no kids? Right, you die, she takes
up with Raoul the pool boy, Right, and now your
house goes to Raoul. What what is that really what

(31:26):
you want to Oh? Plus, she didn't pay the taxi,
she's not maintaining the thing, and the house is now
a wreck. Whoopsies, Okay, not a good situation when all
you wanted to do was make sure that your spouse
had a confidence and had a place to live and
all the rest of that good, good stuff. That's what
you want to do. You want to take care of

(31:48):
your spouse. You don't want them to worry. You want
everything nicely nice. But you also recognize that you have kids,
and you would like the house to go to the
kids when the wife doesn't need it anymore. And this
is why in situations like this and with blended families,
we've got a lot more blended families. People getting divorced, older,
people getting remarried older. All that happens, right, and so

(32:12):
often when this happens the kids, your kids, you know,
they lose everything, get they get nothing right, and we
can't do anything about it because the way medicaid interacts
with all this. Okay, So what you do in a
situation like this, here's how you fix it. Right. You
give the spouse a trust, so you died, husband wife team, right,

(32:35):
and the husband owns the house, so you set up
a trust. The husband sets up a trust. It's his house,
it's his separate property. Okay, he sets up a trust,
and he deeds the house into the trust. Right now,
there's different ways of doing that. I'm not getting into
that right now, but the idea is that when he dies,
instead of the wife getting a life estate or she's

(32:56):
on the deed or a Ladybird deed or something like
this is brain dead stuff that doesn't recognize reality, that
doesn't recognize what really happens in the real world when
these things happen. I mean, so many houses are done
that way when they do the deed to the Ladybord
deed or something, and then they lose it to the
nursing home when the spouse needs no long term care,
or they lose it to the next guy in line,

(33:18):
you know or whatever. None of that has to happen,
even people of super good faith. Right, Oh, I'm leaving
this to the kids, and I have a will that
says I leave it to his kids and all the
rest of it. Let's assume the will doesn't get rewritten
or forgotten or written over whatever else. Let's assume that
you really mean that, and now you need long term care. Whoops,
there goes the house. Often not every time, not every time.

(33:42):
It doesn't have to be that way, but often that
is what happens. So we don't want that. So what
you do if you've got a spouse and you got
a house, and you want your house to go to
your kids, but you don't want to impoverish your spouse,
You don't want to put her out on the street
or anything else. Or maybe the two of you contributed together.
That's another good one. You both had a house, you
both sold your house, and you bought the new one. Okay.

(34:05):
How do you make sure that the surviving spouse is
okay and your share of house goes to your kids
is another one. What you do each have a house,
you each have a share of the house, and you
create what we call the residence trust, right, And the
idea is that the house goes into this trust. Your
half of the house. She can do whatever she wants

(34:26):
with her half. When you're dead, your share of the
house right, which at that point is half of the
house goes into this trust. And it says, hey, as
long as my wife, my surviving spouse, my widow runs,
my widow pays the bills, pays the taxes, maintains the property,

(34:47):
lives in the property as her primary residence, lives in
the property as her primary residence, doesn't remarry, Okay, and
all the you know, the bunch of conditions, right, But
as long as she does that right, then she can
live in my half of the house, no problem, or
she can live in the whole house. If in that

(35:08):
situation like this where you didn't contribute, it works both ways,
whether you both contributed or it's all one spouse's house. Right,
then what you say is when if the person, if
you're widow, widower, your surviving spouse, violates the terms of
that trust, then the trust terminates. And this is especially

(35:29):
important and is usually happens, is when the spouse needs
long term care. So now they need long term care,
they've moved into assisted living or skilled nursing. Right, But
there's this house out there, and they've got a life
estate in the house, and I can't sell it without
giving them a ton of money. I don't want to
give them a ton of money. I want it to
go to But because given the spouse a ton of

(35:51):
money means given them money to the nursing home, I
don't want to do that. They already paid for it,
were already good to go on that. I don't want
to do that again. So I've got the residence. Trust,
my spouse is secure, stable, assured, confident of a place
to live, the place to live that we've been living. Right.

(36:12):
But you are also secure, stable and confident knowing that
if you die first, right, you've provided for your spouse.
That was the deal. Sickness, purnis, you know all the
rest of that good stuff. Right, you love, honor, obey,
et cetera, et cetera. You took care of your spouse.
She's got a place to live. All she's got to
do is pay the bills. Oh, oh, that's terrible. You

(36:34):
got to pay the bills.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Terrible.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well, anyway, as long as they pay the bills, they
get to live there. But if they don't pay the bills,
if they move in the biker gang something like that,
they start wasting the property, then the residence trust terminates.
Boom done with. Okay, a victim, and now the money
goes to the kids. But that's not usually how it
goes because generally speaking, the spouse, it's a good person.

(36:58):
You love them, and you want to provide from great.
That's wonderful, and that's how you're doing it. But if
they need nursing home care, right then the house isn't
going to stay empty for as many years as the
person continues to live, or if they move out of
state or they go somewhere, the house doesn't go to
rack and ruin and there's nothing you can do about
it because they have a life estate right Instead, they're

(37:21):
not using the house. They remarried, they moved on, something happened,
who knows, but the house is protected for your kids.
That's the point here. Okay, So this can be done
very well, very easily. Do it. Listening to the David
Carrier Show, have a wonderful Labor Day weekend, Happy to
happy to be here for you.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
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

(38:24):
visit Davidcarrier Law dot com.