(2025) 9-14 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 (00:21):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, and you have found the place
where we talk about a state planning, elder law, real
estate and business law. So if you have a question, comment,
or concern about will's trust and probate, does a power
of attorney really allow you to leap tall buildings in

(00:43):
a single bound ben steel in your bare hands, more
powerful than locomotive. No, no, it doesn't really. But if
it's done correctly, then oh boy, we're not going to
probate court just because mom or dad has got the
hint of the dementia or a husband, wife whatever. Okay,
the powers of attorney most important document that we can do.

(01:04):
Not sufficient obviously obviously not sufficient by themselves. But you know,
if you could, only if you can, only have you know,
one document or whatever the powers of attorney the way
to go because they're about you while you're alive, and
since you're not dead yet, then you see, that's why
we would want to do those powers of attorney most important,

(01:28):
but trust and wills and all the rest of that
stuff all play a role very important. Now if you'd
like to find out about that stuff. Besides listening here
faithfully for the last twenty or so years, however long
it's been, we really are to find that out because
I'm I'm really sure exactly how long it has been,
but yeah, going on twenty years anyway. Anyway, the point

(01:50):
is we just and this I'm just so excited about it.
We just got our first shipment of a It's a guide,
is what it is. It's a call it a brochure
if you want to. That doesn't do it justice. It's
a heavyweight fifty pages of really good information. Okay, I
don't know if this will be an endorsement or not.

(02:11):
People are like, oh no, I definitely don't want that.
But I wrote most of it and it sort of
so if you're familiar with the approach that we take
on the show, it's in the book and it's more
of a Actually, we got two things coming out three maybe.
So the one is the brochure. Just call in and

(02:34):
we'll send you a copy, all right, or stop by.
We've got one hundreds of them and no charge for that.
The then I've been working for quite a while on
a book which is mostly various little short pieces about this,
that and the other thing. A lot of it was
from the from my newspaper columns. And so you can

(02:56):
get the book. Hopefully we'll have that in time for Christmas.
And then and if you go to the website Davidcarrier
Law dot com. On the website, we've got a new
upgraded we keep upgrading it. It's a it's not a chatbot.
People call it chatbot. In fact I call it a chatbot.
But it's a lot more than that. It's you putting

(03:17):
your particular you know, you can even talk to it
if you want to. You click on the microphone or
something and you can talk to it and it will
talk back to you. And the idea is how do
we how do we have this conversation about state planning,
about long term care, about all the rest of this stuff.
And the beauty thing is that while we've been putting

(03:40):
words to paper for a long time, we've been on
radio for a long time and the TV and all
the rest it can be. You know, it's mass communication, right,
it's not really tailored to you now the way we
tailor it to you as we sit across the table
one on one. Okay, that's helpful, but that's expensive. So
what if instead of that, what if you could just

(04:01):
go to the website and for free you could talk
to Well, it's not me exactly, but we built it
based using my stuff, my written materials and other things
from over the years. So it's sort of kind of
like it, but it isn't. It's not legal advice, like
the radio show is not legal advice, the book, the brochure,

(04:23):
it's not legal advice. But it's helpful, right, it's helpful
getting the conversation started, and if you're thinking about it yourself,
it's helpful for you get the conversation. You know, what
is it that you should be looking at? I know
that people oh you should do this, you should do that. Well,
that might work for them, and it might not work

(04:44):
for them. And chances are if it didn't work for them,
you're not going to hear about it. You only hear
about the success stories. People are like that, and there's
a lot going on that you might think you might miss.
So get the brochure, go to the website. You can
ask it questions and stuff, and it will give you
useful information. That's the only promise I make. It's not

(05:06):
tailored to you specifically, but it is useful information. If
you go to one of our workshops. You know we're
doing these three secrets workshops. Ooh secret. This stuff isn't secret.
I mean, it's not like it. It's not top secret
sensitive information. It's not like that. I mean, I've been
saying it for a long time. But at the workshop

(05:28):
we kind of bring it all together and a lot
of what we say, well what I say might as
well be secret because nobody's talking about it. It's all
this misdirection stuff. Oh you need a ladybird deep, Oh
just put beneficiaries on here. Oh, worry about the taxes, Oh,
worry about this and that. And it's just incorrect and

(05:49):
there's a better way to approach it, and that's what
we're that's what we're trying to do, trying to communicate
things in such a way that it's accessible, that it's easy,
it doesn't cost you anything. Doesn't cost you anything to
find out, so you might as well find out what's
really going on. That's that's my Uh so this doesn't
happen to you. Do I have rights?

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Now?

Speaker 2 (06:11):
See how I segued from that? Do I have rights
to my deceased husband's IRA? My husband had a will
and trust. He named me as an executor and trustee.
He's now deceased, but he also had an IRA, but
he did not name me as beneficiary or anyone else.
Should the IRA holder honor my request to be the beneficiary?
Absolutely not the custodi the IRA custodia. You've got to

(06:34):
go through probate on that. Sorry, but that's what that's
what you've got to do. And you say, well, why
in the world wasn't I named as the beneficiary? I
don't know. Why do people run through stop signs? I mean,
things happen, right, and and this whole thing, he's got

(06:54):
a will and a trust? Oh really? Yeah? How did
he get the will and the trust? I mean? And
why aren't you involved? You're the spouse for crying out loud,
what's going You know, there's a lot of questions here, right,
My husband had a will and a trust. Well, what
kind of will? What kind of trust? What was he
trying to do? What was the whole point of it?

(07:15):
People don't ask themselves that question, but you really have
to because a tool is See here's the thing. A
will is a tool. A trust is a tool. That's
what it is. That's all it is. You have to
decide first what am I trying to do. I'm trying
to make things good for my spouse, I'm trying to
make things good for my kids. I'm trying to curse everybody.

(07:37):
I don't know. Your desires with your stuff after you're
gone is on you. It's on you. But if you
want to hold onto your stuff while you're alive, if
you don't want it to go to the long term care,
you want to avoid nursing home poverty, if you want
to make things, you know, if you want your final

(07:58):
act and this you know, when the curtain comes down,
people are like, wow, that was really great. That was
super duper, instead of, oh my god, what do a
dumpster fire? That was? That was terrible. It's up to you,
and it depends on how you leave things. So if
you've got loose ends, see, this is the thing. If

(08:19):
you don't even have beneficiary designate your spouse on your IRA.
You don't have your you don't have any beneficiaries on
your IRA. Well, what are the chances that you actually
funded your trust, you actually did the right thing with
your trust versus you know, you downloaded something that doesn't work.
I mean, what are the chances right that you actually

(08:42):
followed through on the rest of this stuff? Slim to
none in my opinion. You know, it makes you, it
makes you wonder, and we get people all the time.
We just have a lady last week went to it
came to one of our workshops. I don't know, fifteen
years ago, I went to see a couple of other

(09:03):
I went to see a couple of other attorneys. Didn't
like them. But you know, so ten years after she
get the trust done, she finally came back. It's like, okay,
let's get it done correctly. And it's like you see
hear the yeah yeah, And it was kind of it
was one of those where it's like yeah, I know,
I know, okay, I'll get it done right now. Good good,
But especially here, when you've got you got a willing

(09:27):
to trust, you name your spouse as the guardian excuse me,
as the trustee, as the personal representative. You did that,
all right, well, good good, but you didn't put beneficiary designation.
What are the chances if you didn't follow through on
the IRA where it's the most obvious, where people will
remind you to do it. What is the likelihood that
you actually followed through and made sure that the will

(09:50):
is going to be excuse me, that the trust is
going to be functioning. I don't. I don't have any
confidence in that. I don't have any I don't have
any belief that that's what's going to happen. Let's see
in separate spell. I'm just looking for another another good one. Well,

(10:14):
when we get back, we'll hit another another one that's personal,
another individual set of facts. You've been listening to the
David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
So call in now at seven seven four twenty four,
twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, that's what we call the beneficiary song. I want
it all, I want it now, six one six seven
seven four twenty four at twenty four. That's the number
to call if you'd like to get your question, comment
or concern on the air. If you didn't get it all,
and you didn't get it now, well give us a call.
We'll tell you why. We'll tell you why six one, six, seven, seven, four,

(11:00):
twenty four or twenty four. I'm David Carrier, your family's
personal attorney. You got a couple of Adult Protective Service
questions here, let me just read them to you have
an issue with APS? Adult Protective Services? Do I go
to the interview? Do I bring legal help? Mom just passed. Now,
APS says is saying I was neglecting her, but when
she died, she was in a facility and financial I

(11:23):
did nothing wrong. Okay, that's one. Where's the other one?
It was another another? Here we go back in February,
grandmother received visit from Adult Protective Services due to her
bank notifying them a large sum of money being transferred
from her account into one of granddaughter's. Granddaughter, helped with paperwork,

(11:46):
had access to accounts, claimed grandmother allowed her to borrow
money for home repairs, but Grandma did not. Granddaughter stopped
contacting family and disappeared. Now APS has closed the case,
but they did want to see the money repaid, but
never happened. Since I'm the power of attorney, what do
I do? What do I do next? So here two sides. Right,

(12:06):
on the one hand, you're getting a call from the
Adult Protective Services to come in and have a chit chat. Well,
APS is a police agency, Okay. They're there to prevent
exploitation of vulnerable adults. And it's not like you have

(12:27):
to be sixty or something to be an elder adult
or vulnerable adult. It's over over eighteen. If you're under eighteen,
it's Child Protective Services. If you're over eighteen, it's Adult
Protective Services. And yes, typically you're talking about you know,
older folks, you know, sixty plus, eighty plus whatever, seventy
plus whatever that I mean, that's usually who you're talking about. Now,

(12:49):
if the question is, should I go see the police
who think I did something wrong without a lawyer? Hmm,
let's take that question apart. Would that be a good idea? Well, no,
it's a terrible idea. Maybe you did nothing wrong. Maybe
you did something which you didn't know was wrong and

(13:12):
turned out to be wrong. See here we've got the
second one, especially right, bank account bank notified the adult
protective services that there were large sums of money being transferred. Okay,
sometimes that happens because you can't because the loved one,
the older person, the older person is being scammed, right,

(13:36):
They're being scammed, and in order to stop the scam,
a family member will actually take the money out of
their account so that they have no control over the
money anymore, and move it to a separate account, and
then they will spend the money on the client. Right.
So what they did, right, what the family member did,

(13:57):
was what they thought was correct, what they thought was righteous.
What they did was to protect their loved one. Thirty
years ago, I had a situation like this where the
you know, all the clients' money was taken by his brother.
My brother gets all my money. I don't see any
of it, blah blah blah. But the brother and the

(14:18):
brother did move all the guy's money into his own account.
Why was he doing that? Because the reason he was
doing that was because if his brother had access to
his money, he'd go to Burger King and by whoppers
until the money was all gone. Okay, and so you

(14:38):
know when which I didn't know. You know, you don't
know that until you get into it. Right, But there
was nothing wrong with what the brother was doing. He
was doing it out of love and concerned for his
brother who was a total pain, right, But he was
the brother was really putting himself out there. So sometimes
things that look very suspicious, very suspicious, have nothing to

(15:03):
do with the selfish motivation of the person doing it,
but instead can come from altruism, from being doing the
righteous thing. That doesn't mean that it's okay, and it
doesn't mean that Medicaid will look kindly on it, because
if you if you move the money, it's going to
be treated as a divestment. You wind up with a

(15:23):
huge penalty. Period. It can be it can be really bad.
So whenever you're accused of something like this, and even
and more accurately before you're accused, if you're if you're
doing something for a loved one, whether you're paying for care.
This happens all the time, right where it's like, well, yeah,

(15:46):
we paid granddaughter ten bucks an hour, but it was
forty bucks an hour, you know, to have anybody at
all come from one of the services, or one hundred
dollars an hour to have a nurse come out okay,
And there's no way we could afford that. So we
paid granddaughter ten bucks an hour. What's the problem. It's
super cheap. She did a really good job. She had

(16:06):
to give up her job at McDonald Okay. That is
still unauthorized use of the money, okay, And it's going
to lead to a Medicaid penalty period. Sometimes sometimes you
can convince the case worker not to assess a penalty.
But when you've got money going like that, there's no

(16:28):
question under the rules, you don't have a you don't
have a personal care contract. You don't have you know,
and you're also paying the you know, you're paying one
grand kid to sit with mom, and you're paying the
other one to paint the house or plow the You're
supposed to have a home care contract, a contract for
services to maintain the house. You've got to have a
special Medicaid approved contract to provide care or for the individual,

(16:54):
or to provide care, you know, plant, paint and whatever
for the house. And if you don't right now, you're
gonna be in trouble. And now the nursing home doesn't
get paid. And what happens when the nursing home doesn't
get paid, Then they say, well, why didn't the nursing home.
Go oh, because you divested the money to your kids, right,
and now adult Protective Services, a police agency gets involved,

(17:17):
and it's like all you were trying to do was
the good and righteous, smart thing. I gotta tell you,
so often with the medicaid, right, the things that people
that good people normally do, the things you would think
are just common sense, will get you penalized, all right,

(17:38):
will result in a penalty. This is how the house
gets lost. Okay, because you think, well, mom didn't give
away any money. We paid ten bucks for sissy to
sit with him and brother, and we paid fifty bucks
for brother to plow the snow all winter long and
mow the grass and stuff like. That's all legitimate. Yeah,
it's all legitimate. Here are the receipts. Okay, Now, show

(17:59):
me the home care contract. I don't have one of those. Well,
show me the personal care contract. I don't have one
of those, which incidentally is almost impossible to comply anyway.
The regulations are so difficult. Nobody does it naturally, and
when you're trying, it's very difficult. Now what happens is

(18:19):
you got a penalty. The nursing home doesn't get paid
you think nursing homes like not getting paid. They do
not like not getting paid. And now they sue mom
because there's no one lived in the house anyway. And
now instead of having an exempt homestead, now I have
to sell it to pay the three months of nursing
home care for the penalty period for having sissy and
brother take care of the house, which only made common sense, right,

(18:44):
But now you got Now the house is not house anymore.
Now it's a pile of cash. Great, now spend the cash.
Do you see these things go south so quickly. So
I would never ever go to an interview with Adult
Protective Services or anybody else. I wouldn't do any of
this stuff right without somebody who's done that kind of

(19:04):
thing before. Right, Oh, we're just trying to ask you
just need to ask a couple questions. Yeah, Colombo used
to ask a couple questions, right. And you don't have
to do anything that violates your moral code. You could
do everything above board morally, everything else, and it would
still be penalized under the Medicaid rules. I think that's

(19:29):
I mean, so many good people they just well I
didn't take anything. It was just all maybe it was
all perfect comments. Yes, yes, it was common sense. Anyone
would do it like that, but the way you did
it violates the Medicaid rules. Now it's the investment. Now
you lose the house. Now Adult Protective Services gets involved.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Terrible.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Okay, So no, don't go see Adult Protective Services without
your friend about your lawyer, and don't be spending mom
and Dad's money without knowing what you're spending it on.
Because you've got some good advice. Okay, You've been listening
to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's
personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
David's got the how too you're looking for. Just call
seven seven four twenty four twenty four. This is the
David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now's the time give us a call.
Sixty one six seven seven four twenty four twenty four.
That's sixty one six seven seven four twenty four twenty
four to twenty four. We're just answering some of these
email questions that we get. I do want to remind

(20:43):
you that we have a new brochure out of fifty
pages long. It's full size eight and a half by
eleventh good size, and basically what it is, it's sort
of a it's a way to get that conversation started
in your family, or use it as a reference guide
to sort of it's authoritative stuff. I think it's good stuff.

(21:04):
But it's not legal advice, and it's not not a
legal document itself. But if you give us a call,
we'll shoot you a copy. We also have a new
thing now, it's a we're calling it the Diagnostic Threat Assessment.
That's a good name. So why do we call it
that because number one, it's sort of a diagnosis. You

(21:25):
give us basic information, right, name, rank, serial number, do
you have a house, do you have savings? How much? Roughly?
Kids names? And you can give us as much or
as little as you want. It's just more useful the
more information you give us, right and uh. And then
we'll produce a report for you again using the using

(21:45):
the AI, using sort of our our typical tools that
we use. How much you can save, you know how
much you have at risk? And the idea is to diagnose,
diagnose right what would be what your situation is, evaluate that,
figure out what the threats are to you, to your
family and then give you some basic guidance. It's not

(22:05):
a it's not a plan by itself. It's not that
any more than any more than getting a radio show answer.
It's it's a radio show answer. Is what it is? Useful, helpful,
but not not definitive. But that's available. And what else
we do, Oh, we're doing our workshops. Of course, those

(22:27):
are continuing. We finally finally down to the h We're
down to the ten yard line, maybe the five yard
line on the on the book, so hopefully by Christmas.
You know, if you're wondering what do I get for
the what do I get for everyone on my list?
The thing that they don't have would be David Carrier's book,
because he's only been working on for the last ten years.

(22:48):
But well, you know, I've been busy, got other stuff going.
But that's we're finally pushing that across the finish line.
So these are all things that not the book. I'm
selling the book. You got to pay for that. But
the fifty page you know, kind of the brochure. We're

(23:09):
calling it a brochure, but you know, you think brochure,
you think something small and flimsy, But this is very
good quality. It doesn't cost anything. A lot of good
information in there and that's available, but we don't charge
for it. The diagnostic threat assessment, we don't charge for that.
But if you call the office, we'll set you up

(23:31):
to do a personal interview to just an interview. You
don't have to come in, just give us the information.
We'll plug it in, we'll take a look at it
and shoot it out to you along with the brochure
if you would like. And of course, if you come
to one of our three Secrets workshops. We're doing those
all the time. I think it's like every other week
now we're going over to Russa's and having them on

(23:56):
twenty eighth Street over now Pine maybe we'll do Plainfield,
who knows. But if you'd like a workshopping, there's another
thing we're doing more for churches, American Legion, those kinds
of folks. We're doing a workshop just for you, just
for your group. So if you would like, you know
it's you. We bring the whole We bring the whole

(24:19):
setup to your group if you want to do it.
Lunch isn't enough time, but any kind of evening appointment
we can. We'll work with you work with the nursing
homes and all that. So there's a lot of there's
a lot of good information out there. We're trying to
make it easier for you with the workshops, with the

(24:40):
with the publications, like I said, those will be we
have those in stock now. So I didn't want to
I haven't talked about that before because one of those
things until we actually get it, I didn't want to say.
But the book that is that is coming. This thing
is a immediate you can get it. Same way with
the diagnostic thing. Also with the with the workshops. Just

(25:02):
love to have you come to those. The way you
sign up go to the website Davidcarrier Law dot com
and at Davidcarrier law dot com is where you can
you can even talk to our AI assistant Artificial intelligence assistant,
which draws on our information, you know, the stuff that
we've been doing for the last forty years, and you know,

(25:26):
you get some good information. That way, you don't have
to guess about this stuff too often people that go
on half heard things and it doesn't it doesn't work
out well. Okay, can estate documents made via templates using
my first middle initial, last name printed, so my signature
match using online websites. Can I put my full name

(25:47):
or to match my actual signature? Can I use my
Is there any law against just using the middle initial?
Figured If I use my full name on the documents
but signed it front of a notary of witnesses, this
could cause pushback from the notary if I ever need
to use it documents. Here's the deal on that. In
order for a a signature to be valid, right, you

(26:09):
basically have to deposit deposit some ink on the line
above your name. The key is that whatever your name says,
whatever is printed printed underneath the line where you sign.
You can sign with a happy face if you want to,
or a frowning face I guess, depending on your mood,

(26:31):
or just a squiggle all right, it doesn't matter. What
matters is that the name that's printed underneath the line
where you signed it, you know, wet ink signed it. Okay,
that's got to match the name in the what they
call a jurat in the thing where it says that
so and so, well, it's got to if it says

(26:52):
so and so under the line, then it says so
and so on the in the part where the notary
signs okay, that's the only a requirement. So you can
sign whatever you want. You know, mister mcgilli cutty, if
you want to the signature, you're not going to get
pushed back. But what you do want is you want

(27:13):
the name as you say it in the documents to
match the name that goes under the line where you
put the happy face, which matches the name in the jurat,
right in the where the notary signs. You want all
those things. You want all those things to match. Okay,
And if you're doing it online, well God bless you.

(27:35):
Good luck. Let's see we got some We got some
good ones here, but we already did them. This is
my half brothers on SSI Supplemental Security Income. It means
it's very low income. Dad recently passed, had no will.
I'm the executor. Dad owned thirty acres not listed on

(27:57):
the will, which it wouldn't be listed on the will.
You wouldn't expect it to be to me and my
half brother who's on SSI. He has a sister on
his mom's side, is a power of attorney over him
that had insurance policy they used to purchase a house. Estimate.
Brother has another fifteen thousand coming from the estate plus
sixty acres, right, that has a half interest the other half. Anyway,

(28:22):
how will this work with brother, who receives SSI since
he was a child is now fifty three, I don't
want to sell the land. Well, SSI is generally an
income based program, not an asset based program. Okay, So
if you get cash now, you get a problem. If
you get income now, you get a problem. If you've
got unsold land, that's probably not a problem, especially since

(28:43):
especially since you can't realize it right, you can't get
cash from it now. This is very different than the
way Medicaid works, Okay, the way Medicaid works, And that's
really what we're interested in, because most people aren't getting
an SSI, But everybody lines up on Medicaid if you're
receiving long term care, and that's an opinion exaggeration. It's

(29:06):
not everybody, but it is most everybody receiving the Medicaid.
If you receive an interest in land, it's treated as
if it was cash, the land that you got in
this situation. So it's a fractional fraction of a fraction
is what you're getting. Medicaid doesn't care as far as
they're concerned. You just received two times the SEV. Slice

(29:30):
it up, however, the fractional interests appear, and whatever your
fraction of two times the SEV is, they're going to
treat it as if that was just cash. Okay, So
not so much of a problem for SSI because that's
mostly income tests, and there are some Medicaid programs that
are income programs, not asset programs. But for the long

(29:50):
term care Medicaid, it's treated as an asset. It will
be counted against you as if it's cash, even though
of course it's not cash. You've been listening the David
Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your famili's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
David's perking and working and taking your calls. Now this
is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, reminding you give us a call
at the office while the office number six one six
three six eighty four hundred, and then all these phone
number six one six three six one eighty four hundred.
Get your copy of our new report, fifty pages worth.

(30:34):
It's a it's very conversation, very breezy, it's sort of
like the radio show. So if you hate the radio show,
then don't you don't want this. But if you like
the radio show, well it's the same sort of style,
is what it is. I wrote it so you might
enjoy it. That's there. That's free. We don't charge for that.
You can also, if you'd like, schedule and drop us

(30:56):
an email if you want to do this, schedule your
own diagnostic threat assessment. This is a personal, personalized report
for you for your family, and you can work with
us with it. You can take it somewhere else say hey,
look at this, it looks like a bunch of bs
to me. What do you think and then they can
tell you how awful it is and whatever. If you

(31:16):
want to go to the customary route, or if you
actually want to protect your stuff, then we can go
that direction as well. You can also go right to
the website Davidcarrier Law dot com and at David Carrier Law.
I'll squish it all together. One word, no hyphens, no underlines,
Davidcarrier Law dot com. There's our special AI expert there. Whatever.

(31:41):
It's not legal advice, but you can ask it question.
You can type in the questions you can ask it questions,
you can schedule your workshops. Everything else makes it very
very easy to do if that's what you would like
to do. If you don't want to, well then don't
do it. But if you do have questions, we're trying
to make it as easy as possible for you to
get useful information, not legal advice, but useful, useful information. Also,

(32:08):
you don't want to be don't be going to those,
don't be buying your Christmas presents just yet, because after
ten years of ten years or fits and starts, it
looks like the looks like my book will actually be published.
So that'll be, uh, that'll be coming out the the

(32:29):
Wit and Wisdom and of course you know people are
going to contest whether there's any wit or any wisdom whatsoever.
But but anyway, that'll be that'll be coming out as well.
Plus if you go to the website, then you can
sign up for one of the three Secrets workshops. These
are the workshops we do every single week. The Good

(32:50):
Lord brings whether at Norton Shores down to Portage from
Holland to Grand Rapids. You know, we got you covered.
We're also working with with AARP and some other folks
in Lansing. Some interesting things happening there, But don't worry
about that. Don't worry about that for now. If you

(33:13):
come to one of the workshops, you will also get
a copy of the brochure and we'll do the threat
assessment for you if you would like. So six one, six, seven,
seven four, twenty four to twenty four right now. If
you want to get a question in in the last
five seconds plus, I've got a good one. This is
about ladybird deeds. Unintended consequences of ladybird deeds. Okay, can

(33:37):
my mother remove a beneficiary deed after my father passed
away if he was the sole and separate owner of
the property. Well, Michigan recognizes that married couples can own
their own property and they can dispose of their own property. Okay,
so that's not an issue. My mom and dad filed
a beneficiary its beneficiary deed. I think what they mean

(33:58):
is a ladybird deed that would be natural listed sister
and myself as the beneficiaries as the beneficiaries after death.
The house was in my dad's name only as sole
separate property owner. Unfortunately, my sister has passed away as well. Well,
if sister died, right, and the deed says give it

(34:18):
to sister, then when she dies, her entitlement dies as well.
I filed with the county and had the deed transferred
to my name. It doesn't say here when dad died,
so let's assume that. Let's assume that sister died and
then Dad died. Okay, so sister's not there to get
the property. Then dad dies, now it goes to you.

(34:42):
Let's assume they sent it, gave it to you as
joint tennants with the rights of survivor, so sister's errors
don't have any claim. I filed with the county and
had the deed transferred to my name. In other words,
you filed dad's death certificate, sister's death certificate right, as
well as a deed based on the original deed, you know,
indicating that it was yours. You'd also file a property

(35:04):
transfer affidavit at that At that point, Ken, however, I
just came upon a notice that mother filed to remove
the beneficiary deed from the county recorder. I don't even
know what that means. I don't know how you would
do that, whether they trying to unrecord the deed or
something that's not gonna work. But let's assume that Mom

(35:27):
was filing another deed. Maybe this is what was going on.
Mom was saying that under the that she she was
changing the beneficiaries on the Ladybird deed, which you can
do until you die. Now, there is a way for
Mom to have done that if Mom had Dad's power
of attorney. Right, So if Mom before Dad dies, executed

(35:50):
a deed exercising his power of attorney to change the
beneficiary on that Ladybird deed, Mom could do that. In fact,
depending on what the power of attorney says, she might
give it to herself or she might give it to
somebody else. This is the thing with the Lady Bird
deed A it's a if they work, they work, but

(36:11):
if they don't work, then things can really mess up,
really screwed up. You don't want that. I would suggest
that you don't want that. But anyway, that's that's part
of the that's part of the problem with these Ladybird deeds.
Because Dad's died, Well, what if Mom says, oh, but
you know, before he died, I have this notarized deed

(36:33):
using his power of attorney, and I changed it that
could happen. How are you going to prove that it
didn't happen. Good luck to you, so can mom. But
mom can't do that. She cannot do that after dad died.
So so she can't do it after he died. You
can't use the power of attorney. Power of attorney dies

(36:54):
when the person dies. Okay, but what if she says, oh,
I didn't do this, your dad died. I did it
before he died. I just didn't get around to recording
it because it was so traumatic his passing and daughter's
passing and all the rest, and has an explanation. Now,
what are you gonna do? So there are just so

(37:16):
many ins and outs with the ladybird deeds that they
can really be a problem. I don't ladybird deeds are
a specific And then this is just a bigger point. Okay,
all of these documents that we do, whether it's a trust,
a will, power of attorney, hip, whatever, all these documents
they're just tools. Your job is not to decide, and

(37:39):
it's not to just load the toolbox, right, It's not
just to put anything that, oh this was useful. You know,
my neighbor said this was useful. So I'll buy a
table saw. Well, maybe you don't need a table saw.
Maybe you do. If you do, boy, it's good to
have one because table saws are very useful if you
have the need for a table saw. But if what
you need is a circular saw, the table saw is

(38:03):
no good. I mean it doesn't do they do different things,
is my point. Okay, you know every tool in the
toolbox has a function. But what you have to do
is design what your project is and then get the
right tools. And that's why we do the workshops. That's
why we have the brochure, that's why we do the
diagnostic threat assessment. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.

(38:25):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
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 at 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

(39:08):
visit Davidcarrierlaw dot com.