Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed. The following program is sponsored by New
York Priority Medical Care. Now it's time for the Laws
of Your Money, a weekly call in show with legal
(00:20):
tips to help you protect your money. Here's your host
and Margaret Caroza.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, and welcome to the Laws of your Money. This
is a program dedicated to protecting you from legal and
financial mayhem when it comes to personal finance. I believe
the single most important thing is protecting yourself legally, because
(00:52):
what does it matter how brilliantly I invest and how
diligently I save if there is a greater than forty
percent chance of losing assets to a long term illness,
a devastating breakup. Taxes This can be capital gains taxes,
(01:12):
estate taxes, not to mention ordinary lawsuits. We are living
in the most litigious society that the world has ever known.
If you do not inform yourself and protect yourself legally,
you will be steamrolled. So we're gonna jump in to
(01:37):
a wide variety of topics designed to keep you safe
from losing your money. I am asset protection attorney and
Margaret Carosa. Joined today by my esteemed guest co host
who I'm honored is back with us. We have Todd Wharton,
the host of the number one Intendant talk show in
(02:01):
New York. FaceTime with Todd Wharton. Welcome back to the program. Todd.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's a pleasure. Thank for having me back.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I love having you on the program because you are
a student of human behavior and psychology, and I think
I'm not going out on a limb to say that
you know more people than anyone I know, so not
to put you on the spot. You have your phone out.
(02:31):
How many contacts do you have on.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
My phone right now?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
On your phone right now?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's kind of funny, except in sending out Thanksgiving messages,
I think right now about sixteen hundred. I think it's
about on my phone thirteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, I have like four hundred and something. But I
think if we looked at your contacts, you probably have
more A listers than I have on my phone. So
I'm looking over at your phone. I'm trying to get
a glimpse at it.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
You know, you're one of my listes. I have to
have an attorney and attorney, so I have to have
van Margaret, is that.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Do you have Dustin Hoffman's cell phone?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I don't have his, but that might be his agent
that you're looking at. There's a possibility du'st the name
that's popping up.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So yeah, well I don't have my reading glasses on.
So if Dustin Hoffman gets prank calls later today, it
wasn't it wasn't me because I couldn't actually see the number.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Sorry, I'll tell him that all those two sees he
keeps getting this from you. And so.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Let's go into the first topic that I want to address.
So my law practice is a state planning, asset protection,
elder law, and the number one question I get is
how do you prevent your family members from having a
(04:03):
will war? So I die, I have a will. Off
the top of your head, Todd, what do you think
is the number one cause of will wars when someone dies?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Oh? I mean, first of all, obviously it's money. Everybody
wants to know who's getting what, when am I getting
how fast am I getting it right? Blah blah blah,
and it fights between siblings, but they forget money shouldn't
be the issue it should be, Hey, you just lost
a family member. And I think that's what the fights
(04:37):
come down to, is it's money all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, so you know often I will have a client.
If you have three children, the chances that they are
equally situated financially, I think are zero. Right, So, how
do we deal with someone who has less money? And
there are a number of that we deal with it
(05:01):
within the estate planning. I think, if at all possible,
you want the will, you want the trust distribution to
reflect equality. Right, doesn't matter if my daughter, you know,
can't find a job and my son is a neurosurgeon.
At the end of the day, these are the parents'
(05:25):
last words to the children, and it's nice if there
can be some equality. If my daughter needs some more money,
maybe I set up a CD for her and she's
the beneficiary of that. So that passes outside of the
actual estate. But the number one reason for family members
(05:46):
going at each other legally is when someone was loaned money. Okay,
so let's say your hypothetical sister borrowed one hundred thousand
dollars from your mother, and now it comes time to
(06:07):
distribute the estate, and the estate plan whether it's in
the will, or preferably it's in the trust. The estate
plan calls for an equal distribution. Do you feel like
your sister's share should be docked because of this one
hundred thousand dollars loan? Just yes or no?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, okay, okay, And most people who are not the
recipient of that loan feel like that child share should
be docked. There's no right or wrong here, but I
believe it's incumbent on the parent to make this crystal clear.
(06:49):
So if you're out there listening and there is some
intra family loan, you loaned to child money for a divorce,
you loan to child money for a down payment on
a house for a wedding, on and on and on,
you need to realize that if that loan is not
repaid during your life, your kids will be at war
(07:13):
with each other. So within the estate planning document, I
encourage people to make a decision is the loan going
to be forgiven and in which case it's mom's fault
and the kids shouldn't be fighting with each other. So yeah,
(07:33):
so that's the number one thing. But I think, you know,
loans in general are a tricky area, and you know
who among us has not had someone ask us for
a loan. A relative wants alone for you know, their
new business idea. A friend of a friend asks for
(07:58):
a loan for god knows what. And I encourage people
to have a no ready in their minds, right because
you can put yourself in a precarious situation when you
make a loan to someone. And I've had, unfortunately experience
(08:19):
with this in my own life. It was the second
year of law school and it was the first week
of law school and I became friendly with a new
transfer student and the transfer student's loan money had not
come in and he was having difficulties paying his rent
(08:40):
because the loan money hadn't come in. Now, in terms
of a good credit risk, a law school student is
up there. You know, banks throw loan money at these people.
So I had money because my loan payment did come in.
(09:01):
So I had money in the bank, but it wasn't
really my money. I needed it for a million things.
But I thought his loan check was going to be
coming in very soon and he would be able to
pay it back. So I loaned him an amount of
money that I could not afford to lose. And you
(09:21):
know what, happened. Do you think he paid it back?
Probably not. Not only did he not pay it back,
I didn't see him in school anymore. So I went
to the registrar's office and asked about him. This dude
was not even a law student. Do you believe this?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
These scam artists are brilliant. He made a brilliant attorney.
So his cost for this scam was to show up
at Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, Long Island
for a week and sid in the cafeteria and chat
(10:03):
up stupid ann. You know. So that was a painful lesson,
but I've never forgotten it. So if someone asks me,
can I borrow one thousand dollars? I have you know, X,
Y and C. My my holiday bonus is about to
(10:24):
come in. You know what I do. I take a
zero off of the loan request and I say, here's
a gift. So you want to borrow one thousand dollars,
I will give you one hundred dollars. That's my rule.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, I hit you up a lot. Now I'm going
to be that can zero. Just take a zero off
and I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, you never know So we have a statistic I
want to dive into, and that is or adult children
are moving back home with their parents. And I think,
you know, we all know that the housing market is
very difficult for young people. And they say that the
(11:14):
National Association of Realtors has changed its stock cover photo
for their brochure and it no longer has a twenty
something beautiful couple, it has, you know, a fifty something
year old, a slightly less beautiful couple. Because the average
age of first time home ownership is now over forty
(11:37):
years old. So a lot of people are moving back
home with their folks. And I think there are some
legal guard rails here that we need to deal with.
So if I have my daughter living in the house
with me, and maybe she brought her husband and school
age children, we need to deal with if within the
(12:01):
estate plan, what is going to happen to the house
upon my death right because she's living there, and if
the will and the trust say it's a three way
equal split, I am setting her up to be in
the crosshairs of her brother and sister. And now you
have in laws involved, and they may be saying to
(12:22):
my son, you know, why are you letting her live there,
the house is supposed to be sold, and maybe I
want my grandchildren to be able to finish out the
school year. So this is another hot button item. If
you have adult children back at home, or if they've
never left home, you need to deal with that within
(12:45):
the estate plan. And maybe you still want to leave
the home equally three ways to the kids, but you
want to give your child who lives there a right
to continue to occupy it, let's say until the earlier
of two years from mom's state of death, or whatever
(13:06):
works for you, and make crystal clear who's going to
be paying the bills in the meantime. So that's what
this whole area of good estate planning is trying to
anticipate the future fault lines. And you know, the number
(13:27):
one way that we can avoid a will war is
to avoid having to probate the will. You know, we've
all heard this term probate, and there is still so
much misinformation out there. People say, well, why would I
have to go through probate. I have a will outlying
(13:48):
who gets my stuff? And probate is very fascinating but
archaic process going back hundreds and hundreds of years to
come in law England and the process has changed very
little since that time. And the court wants to authenticate
(14:10):
the document, they want to physically examine the will. They
want to be assured that the test stator, the person
who signed the will, had full capacity. So a lot
of times when you're going through a probate, you can't
even list the house for sale for many, many months.
(14:33):
New York state law where I practice says that a
probate must be open for a minimum period of seven months. Well,
I'm doing this, I would say a million years now,
and I've never seen a probate wrap up as quickly
as seven months. So you're really putting a burden on
(14:55):
your kids. And I've heard attorneys out there saying, well,
probate is not so bad. Well, probate is not so
bad for the attorney because it is open for seven
to eight months minimum, and it's a cash cow for
an attorney doing and a state administration. They're either billing
(15:15):
by a percentage of the estate or hourly. Either way,
it's a bonanza for the attorney. But during the pendency
of this probate, a lot of people don't notify the
insurance company, the homeowner's insurance and a condition of all
of our homeowners insurance policies is that we notify the
(15:39):
company if there has been any change. Right, so you
know you're not pulling one over on the insurance company.
You're simply effectively going without insurance if you fail to
notify them of something. And I would also urge people
who are dealing with an unpaid or an informal caregiver.
(16:04):
They can be a cleaning person, someone to care for
a child and elderly relative if it's informal. If it's
off the books, and they hurt themselves on your property,
your homeowner's insurance does not have to cover that claim
because it's an illegal employment situation. And I'm not being
(16:27):
a preacher, I will admit I've done this in my
own life. And I had a lovely, lovely guy who
a couple of times a year would come to clean
the leaves out of the gutters on my home, and
his insurance situation was a little sketchy, but he was
such a lovely guy and I really liked him. We
(16:50):
would talk about our dogs. Long story short, he called
my cell one day asking me for legal advice because
he took a header off of someone else is roof,
and he wanted to sue the homeowner. And I thought, oh,
my goodness, you know this is the last time you
will ever climb up onto my roof. But it was
(17:11):
really it was a wake up call. You can't play
fast and loose with the homeowner's insurance. So the best
way to avoid probate is not what most people do.
What most people ill advisedly do to try and avoid
probit is they take the house their single biggest asset,
and they put it into the kids' names. And in
(17:36):
my soon to be released new book, which I'll get
to in a second, I tell the story about a
retired judge. He was a widower, lived with his adult daughter.
He put the house in the daughter's name. They were
super close. He didn't think anything of it, and the
daughter tragically was killed in a car accident. Now she
(17:59):
didn't for the house as hers, so what did she
not get around to doing? She died without a will.
And in New York State, if you don't have any
estate plan, my former colleagues in the legislature have one
for you, and it's called intest state planning. And the
(18:20):
husband of this tragic young woman got half of the house,
and the five year old son of the tragic woman
got the other half of the house and dad was
the odd man out. And once the son in law
started dating again, he told his father in law that
it was going to be kind of awkward to have
(18:41):
his dead wife's father around, So he effectively kicked him
out of his own house. And who did he have
to blame. He had himself to blame because he put
himself in that position. So you never want to transfer
the real estate to a child. Even without that unexpected
(19:03):
and statistically unlikely tragedy, you would have a built in
capital gains problem. If I buy the house for fifty
thousand dollars and it's now worth six hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and I put it in the names of
my kids, they're going to have to pay capital gains
later because for a completed gift during life, you don't
(19:27):
get a step up in basis or an elimination of
the capital gains at death. So anyone out there with
appreciated real estate, you want to think about doing a
trust to avoid probate to obviate a capital gains hit
to the kids. And if the trust is properly drafted,
(19:52):
not something that I buy online and hope for the best.
If the trust is properly drafted, it will also start
the protections vis a v long term care planning.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, you give me a lot to think about it, a.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Lot to think about on a on a Sunday. So
I want to switch gears for a moment and announce
that my new book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Building
and Protecting Wealth is now available for pre order on Amazon.
(20:35):
So if you want to just go onto Amazon and
search and Margaret Carosa, the prior book, which is Love
and Money, and the new book, The Smart Woman's Guide
to Building and Protecting Wealth should come up and you
can read a little bit about it. But this book
(20:55):
is actually the book I wish I had, right. I
wish I didn't have to write it. I wish I
never needed it. But way back when, when I was
trying to climb out from under a mountain of consumer debt, right,
I had credit card debt up to my eyeballs, I
(21:17):
had much nicer clothes.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
By the way, Why you look good now? You look
good now? She does not have a face for radio nobody, No,
she looks good so fine.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Well, this vest I googled faux fur vest on Amazon
and it was like twenty dollars. So I want to
make clear that this is not a real fur vest.
I would lose my vegetarian membership card if.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Kind of shaking.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
No, no, no, never. But I encourage people to check
this book out. You know, I did not have a
road map. But when I look back, I say, Okay, yeah,
I happen to have done this, and I happen to
have done that, And I feel like, you know, I
(22:09):
was playing bumper cars, and I just kind of stumbled
through some correct actions. I took some incorrect actions, such
as that loan to my law school buddy. I think
maybe I'll run into this guy at some point.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I held not for his sake. I have to ask you, though,
the book that you wrote, it's called The Smart Woman's
Guide to Building and Protecting Wealth. Is there a reason
why you call it for women? Is there a difference
of advice that you can get between women and men?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
So I think I appreciate that question. The advice is
the same, right, the financial steps are the same, but
the entire topic is more fraught for women. And I think, no,
it's not that I think statistics clearly indicate that women
(23:06):
experience higher levels of financial stress. You know, you may
have financial stress over A, B and C. My financial
stress is ABCDG and it you know, because I'm thinking
about my fifteen year old son asked me for two
(23:28):
hundred dollars sneakers. Should we do that? No, we should
definitely not do that. That's going to blow a hole
in our household budget. But how do I feel because
of how I think he'll feel when he goes to
school and his friends are wearing these two hundred dollars sneakers.
So I think for women, we are more empathetic, and
(23:52):
we are we feel guilty when we have to say
no to a child. And you know I talk about
in the book as a parent and specifically as a mother,
one of the most important things we can do that
will help set our children up for financial security and
(24:13):
success is saying no.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I don't think kids hear the word no enough. But
women need support and encouragement to get to that place
where we're going to say no.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah. That's when both the husband and wife have equals
say and what they say to the kids, and they
support one another. The worst thing is because I'm from
a family, and I did that. My mother would say
one thing, and I would go to my father and
he would say something else. And I think that's very
important that both parents have to come together and agree that, hey,
we have to say no more to our kids, and
(24:51):
we both have to agree on it, and that's it.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And yeah, yeah, I mean have the dispute in private,
right of course, to present a united front all the time,
one hundred percent. Yeah. So in the book, I chronicle
not only my journey out from under a mountain of debt,
but I talk about the lessons that I have learned
(25:16):
from more than twenty thousand estate planning clients. I have
wildly successful clients who are making more than a million
dollars a year, who are broke right, they are below
water financially, they are in the red. And I have
(25:38):
blue collar retirees who can buy and sell a lot
of people who are making more than a million dollars
a year. It is not what you make, it is
what you save. It's what you protect legally, it's what
you protect you from your inner demons. And you know
(26:00):
it's not common sense. You need to read about other
people's stories and you can see your own life in
these other people's stories. So I really encourage folks to
check out the book. It's The Smart Woman's Guide to
Building and Protecting Wealth, available for pre order on Amazon,
(26:26):
And then you can go onto my website, which you
can reach through my Instagram. Check out on Instagram. I
have the cover of the book and you can judge
for yourself whether my face should be safely kept on radio.
And the instagram is at my lawyer Ann And then
(26:46):
from there you can jump onto the website where I
do give a ton of information. You know, the things
we're talking about today. You don't need a lawyer for everything.
You don't need a lawyer to do a health care
proxy right. As a legislator during my misspent youth, I
was an assemblywoman in Albany for fourteen years, and I
(27:09):
was a co sponsor of New York's healthcare proxy law,
and that is designed to be a deiy endeavor. Should
you do the trust on your own Absolutely not. I'm
not doing my own electrical wiring in my house. I
don't think someone should do their own trust. There's too
(27:29):
much at stake. So the book gives us tax advice. Right,
we all have to pay taxes that is mandatory. But
over paying taxes is absolutely stupid, right, So you want
to learn how to avoid unnecessary as state taxes. Did
(27:55):
you know if you have life insurance, the death benefit
is subject to a state taxes. People say, well, I
thought life insurance was tax free. Life insurance is income
tax free. It is not a state tax free.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Well, I mean everything's free once you die because you
have no obligation to it anymore to the people living.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Well, yeah, it's the people we leave behind. And that
brings me full circle to this is our last act
as a parent. Do we want things to be smooth
for the next generation? So check out the book Smart
Woman's Guide to Building and Protecting Wealth.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Well, I think it's a I'll be honest with dude. Now.
If you guys don't know, I actually did read the book,
and I'm going to tell people right now there's no
way you cannot read this book and not at least
come away with one strategy that can improve you net wealth.
And I appreciate you putting this out there because one
of the reasons why I'm here, like I told you before,
not only being honored to be your guest host, but
(29:02):
this is an educational purpose.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Thank you, Todd. I need to have you back again
so I can get a better look at Dustin's cell
phone number, check out Instagram, at my lawyer, and and
catch us again next Sunday. Take care, everyone, have a
great day.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The preceding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed. The following program is sponsored by New
York Priority Medical Care. Now it's time for the Laws
of Your Money, a weekly call in show with legal
(00:20):
tips to help you protect your money. Here's your host
and Margaret Caroza.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, and welcome to the Laws of your Money. This
is a program dedicated to protecting you from legal and
financial mayhem when it comes to personal finance. I believe
the single most important thing is protecting yourself legally, because
(00:52):
what does it matter how brilliantly I invest and how
diligently I save if there is a greater than forty
percent chance of losing assets to a long term illness,
a devastating breakup. Taxes This can be capital gains taxes,
(01:12):
estate taxes, not to mention ordinary lawsuits. We are living
in the most litigious society that the world has ever known.
If you do not inform yourself and protect yourself legally,
you will be steamrolled. So we're gonna jump in to
(01:37):
a wide variety of topics designed to keep you safe
from losing your money. I am asset protection attorney and
Margaret Carosa. Joined today by my esteemed guest co host
who I'm honored is back with us. We have Todd Wharton,
the host of the number one Intendant talk show in
(02:01):
New York. FaceTime with Todd Wharton. Welcome back to the program. Todd.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's a pleasure. Thank for having me back.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I love having you on the program because you are
a student of human behavior and psychology, and I think
I'm not going out on a limb to say that
you know more people than anyone I know, so not
to put you on the spot. You have your phone out.
(02:31):
How many contacts do you have on.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
My phone right now?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
On your phone right now?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's kind of funny, except in sending out Thanksgiving messages,
I think right now about sixteen hundred. I think it's
about on my phone thirteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, I have like four hundred and something. But I
think if we looked at your contacts, you probably have
more A listers than I have on my phone. So
I'm looking over at your phone. I'm trying to get
a glimpse at it.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
You know, you're one of my listes. I have to
have an attorney and attorney, so I have to have
van Margaret, is that.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Do you have Dustin Hoffman's cell phone?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I don't have his, but that might be his agent
that you're looking at. There's a possibility du'st the name
that's popping up.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So yeah, well I don't have my reading glasses on.
So if Dustin Hoffman gets prank calls later today, it
wasn't it wasn't me because I couldn't actually see the number.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Sorry, I'll tell him that all those two sees he
keeps getting this from you. And so.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Let's go into the first topic that I want to address.
So my law practice is a state planning, asset protection,
elder law, and the number one question I get is
how do you prevent your family members from having a
(04:03):
will war? So I die, I have a will. Off
the top of your head, Todd, what do you think
is the number one cause of will wars when someone dies?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Oh? I mean, first of all, obviously it's money. Everybody
wants to know who's getting what, when am I getting
how fast am I getting it right? Blah blah blah,
and it fights between siblings, but they forget money shouldn't
be the issue it should be, Hey, you just lost
a family member. And I think that's what the fights
(04:37):
come down to, is it's money all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, so you know often I will have a client.
If you have three children, the chances that they are
equally situated financially, I think are zero. Right, So, how
do we deal with someone who has less money? And
there are a number of that we deal with it
(05:01):
within the estate planning. I think, if at all possible,
you want the will, you want the trust distribution to
reflect equality. Right, doesn't matter if my daughter, you know,
can't find a job and my son is a neurosurgeon.
At the end of the day, these are the parents'
(05:25):
last words to the children, and it's nice if there
can be some equality. If my daughter needs some more money,
maybe I set up a CD for her and she's
the beneficiary of that. So that passes outside of the
actual estate. But the number one reason for family members
(05:46):
going at each other legally is when someone was loaned money. Okay,
so let's say your hypothetical sister borrowed one hundred thousand
dollars from your mother, and now it comes time to
(06:07):
distribute the estate, and the estate plan whether it's in
the will, or preferably it's in the trust. The estate
plan calls for an equal distribution. Do you feel like
your sister's share should be docked because of this one
hundred thousand dollars loan? Just yes or no?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, okay, okay, And most people who are not the
recipient of that loan feel like that child share should
be docked. There's no right or wrong here, but I
believe it's incumbent on the parent to make this crystal clear.
(06:49):
So if you're out there listening and there is some
intra family loan, you loaned to child money for a divorce,
you loan to child money for a down payment on
a house for a wedding, on and on and on,
you need to realize that if that loan is not
repaid during your life, your kids will be at war
(07:13):
with each other. So within the estate planning document, I
encourage people to make a decision is the loan going
to be forgiven and in which case it's mom's fault
and the kids shouldn't be fighting with each other. So yeah,
(07:33):
so that's the number one thing. But I think, you know,
loans in general are a tricky area, and you know
who among us has not had someone ask us for
a loan. A relative wants alone for you know, their
new business idea. A friend of a friend asks for
(07:58):
a loan for god knows what. And I encourage people
to have a no ready in their minds, right because
you can put yourself in a precarious situation when you
make a loan to someone. And I've had, unfortunately experience
(08:19):
with this in my own life. It was the second
year of law school and it was the first week
of law school and I became friendly with a new
transfer student and the transfer student's loan money had not
come in and he was having difficulties paying his rent
(08:40):
because the loan money hadn't come in. Now, in terms
of a good credit risk, a law school student is
up there. You know, banks throw loan money at these people.
So I had money because my loan payment did come in.
(09:01):
So I had money in the bank, but it wasn't
really my money. I needed it for a million things.
But I thought his loan check was going to be
coming in very soon and he would be able to
pay it back. So I loaned him an amount of
money that I could not afford to lose. And you
(09:21):
know what, happened. Do you think he paid it back?
Probably not. Not only did he not pay it back,
I didn't see him in school anymore. So I went
to the registrar's office and asked about him. This dude
was not even a law student. Do you believe this?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
These scam artists are brilliant. He made a brilliant attorney.
So his cost for this scam was to show up
at Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, Long Island
for a week and sid in the cafeteria and chat
(10:03):
up stupid ann. You know. So that was a painful lesson,
but I've never forgotten it. So if someone asks me,
can I borrow one thousand dollars? I have you know, X,
Y and C. My my holiday bonus is about to
(10:24):
come in. You know what I do. I take a
zero off of the loan request and I say, here's
a gift. So you want to borrow one thousand dollars,
I will give you one hundred dollars. That's my rule.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, I hit you up a lot. Now I'm going
to be that can zero. Just take a zero off
and I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, you never know So we have a statistic I
want to dive into, and that is or adult children
are moving back home with their parents. And I think,
you know, we all know that the housing market is
very difficult for young people. And they say that the
(11:14):
National Association of Realtors has changed its stock cover photo
for their brochure and it no longer has a twenty
something beautiful couple, it has, you know, a fifty something
year old, a slightly less beautiful couple. Because the average
age of first time home ownership is now over forty
(11:37):
years old. So a lot of people are moving back
home with their folks. And I think there are some
legal guard rails here that we need to deal with.
So if I have my daughter living in the house
with me, and maybe she brought her husband and school
age children, we need to deal with if within the
(12:01):
estate plan, what is going to happen to the house
upon my death right because she's living there, and if
the will and the trust say it's a three way
equal split, I am setting her up to be in
the crosshairs of her brother and sister. And now you
have in laws involved, and they may be saying to
(12:22):
my son, you know, why are you letting her live there,
the house is supposed to be sold, and maybe I
want my grandchildren to be able to finish out the
school year. So this is another hot button item. If
you have adult children back at home, or if they've
never left home, you need to deal with that within
(12:45):
the estate plan. And maybe you still want to leave
the home equally three ways to the kids, but you
want to give your child who lives there a right
to continue to occupy it, let's say until the earlier
of two years from mom's state of death, or whatever
(13:06):
works for you, and make crystal clear who's going to
be paying the bills in the meantime. So that's what
this whole area of good estate planning is trying to
anticipate the future fault lines. And you know, the number
(13:27):
one way that we can avoid a will war is
to avoid having to probate the will. You know, we've
all heard this term probate, and there is still so
much misinformation out there. People say, well, why would I
have to go through probate. I have a will outlying
(13:48):
who gets my stuff? And probate is very fascinating but
archaic process going back hundreds and hundreds of years to
come in law England and the process has changed very
little since that time. And the court wants to authenticate
(14:10):
the document, they want to physically examine the will. They
want to be assured that the test stator, the person
who signed the will, had full capacity. So a lot
of times when you're going through a probate, you can't
even list the house for sale for many, many months.
(14:33):
New York state law where I practice says that a
probate must be open for a minimum period of seven months. Well,
I'm doing this, I would say a million years now,
and I've never seen a probate wrap up as quickly
as seven months. So you're really putting a burden on
(14:55):
your kids. And I've heard attorneys out there saying, well,
probate is not so bad. Well, probate is not so
bad for the attorney because it is open for seven
to eight months minimum, and it's a cash cow for
an attorney doing and a state administration. They're either billing
(15:15):
by a percentage of the estate or hourly. Either way,
it's a bonanza for the attorney. But during the pendency
of this probate, a lot of people don't notify the
insurance company, the homeowner's insurance and a condition of all
of our homeowners insurance policies is that we notify the
(15:39):
company if there has been any change. Right, so you
know you're not pulling one over on the insurance company.
You're simply effectively going without insurance if you fail to
notify them of something. And I would also urge people
who are dealing with an unpaid or an informal caregiver.
(16:04):
They can be a cleaning person, someone to care for
a child and elderly relative if it's informal. If it's
off the books, and they hurt themselves on your property,
your homeowner's insurance does not have to cover that claim
because it's an illegal employment situation. And I'm not being
(16:27):
a preacher, I will admit I've done this in my
own life. And I had a lovely, lovely guy who
a couple of times a year would come to clean
the leaves out of the gutters on my home, and
his insurance situation was a little sketchy, but he was
such a lovely guy and I really liked him. We
(16:50):
would talk about our dogs. Long story short, he called
my cell one day asking me for legal advice because
he took a header off of someone else is roof,
and he wanted to sue the homeowner. And I thought, oh,
my goodness, you know this is the last time you
will ever climb up onto my roof. But it was
(17:11):
really it was a wake up call. You can't play
fast and loose with the homeowner's insurance. So the best
way to avoid probate is not what most people do.
What most people ill advisedly do to try and avoid
probit is they take the house their single biggest asset,
and they put it into the kids' names. And in
(17:36):
my soon to be released new book, which I'll get
to in a second, I tell the story about a
retired judge. He was a widower, lived with his adult daughter.
He put the house in the daughter's name. They were
super close. He didn't think anything of it, and the
daughter tragically was killed in a car accident. Now she
(17:59):
didn't for the house as hers, so what did she
not get around to doing? She died without a will.
And in New York State, if you don't have any
estate plan, my former colleagues in the legislature have one
for you, and it's called intest state planning. And the
(18:20):
husband of this tragic young woman got half of the house,
and the five year old son of the tragic woman
got the other half of the house and dad was
the odd man out. And once the son in law
started dating again, he told his father in law that
it was going to be kind of awkward to have
(18:41):
his dead wife's father around, So he effectively kicked him
out of his own house. And who did he have
to blame. He had himself to blame because he put
himself in that position. So you never want to transfer
the real estate to a child. Even without that unexpected
(19:03):
and statistically unlikely tragedy, you would have a built in
capital gains problem. If I buy the house for fifty
thousand dollars and it's now worth six hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and I put it in the names of
my kids, they're going to have to pay capital gains
later because for a completed gift during life, you don't
(19:27):
get a step up in basis or an elimination of
the capital gains at death. So anyone out there with
appreciated real estate, you want to think about doing a
trust to avoid probate to obviate a capital gains hit
to the kids. And if the trust is properly drafted,
(19:52):
not something that I buy online and hope for the best.
If the trust is properly drafted, it will also start
the protections vis a v long term care planning.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, you give me a lot to think about it, a.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Lot to think about on a on a Sunday. So
I want to switch gears for a moment and announce
that my new book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Building
and Protecting Wealth is now available for pre order on Amazon.
(20:35):
So if you want to just go onto Amazon and
search and Margaret Carosa, the prior book, which is Love
and Money, and the new book, The Smart Woman's Guide
to Building and Protecting Wealth should come up and you
can read a little bit about it. But this book
(20:55):
is actually the book I wish I had, right. I
wish I didn't have to write it. I wish I
never needed it. But way back when, when I was
trying to climb out from under a mountain of consumer debt, right,
I had credit card debt up to my eyeballs, I
(21:17):
had much nicer clothes.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
By the way, Why you look good now? You look
good now? She does not have a face for radio nobody, No,
she looks good so fine.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Well, this vest I googled faux fur vest on Amazon
and it was like twenty dollars. So I want to
make clear that this is not a real fur vest.
I would lose my vegetarian membership card if.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Kind of shaking.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
No, no, no, never. But I encourage people to check
this book out. You know, I did not have a
road map. But when I look back, I say, Okay, yeah,
I happen to have done this, and I happen to
have done that, And I feel like, you know, I
(22:09):
was playing bumper cars, and I just kind of stumbled
through some correct actions. I took some incorrect actions, such
as that loan to my law school buddy. I think
maybe I'll run into this guy at some point.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I held not for his sake. I have to ask you, though,
the book that you wrote, it's called The Smart Woman's
Guide to Building and Protecting Wealth. Is there a reason
why you call it for women? Is there a difference
of advice that you can get between women and men?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
So I think I appreciate that question. The advice is
the same, right, the financial steps are the same, but
the entire topic is more fraught for women. And I think, no,
it's not that I think statistics clearly indicate that women
(23:06):
experience higher levels of financial stress. You know, you may
have financial stress over A, B and C. My financial
stress is ABCDG and it you know, because I'm thinking
about my fifteen year old son asked me for two
(23:28):
hundred dollars sneakers. Should we do that? No, we should
definitely not do that. That's going to blow a hole
in our household budget. But how do I feel because
of how I think he'll feel when he goes to
school and his friends are wearing these two hundred dollars sneakers.
So I think for women, we are more empathetic, and
(23:52):
we are we feel guilty when we have to say
no to a child. And you know I talk about
in the book as a parent and specifically as a mother,
one of the most important things we can do that
will help set our children up for financial security and
(24:13):
success is saying no.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I don't think kids hear the word no enough. But
women need support and encouragement to get to that place
where we're going to say no.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah. That's when both the husband and wife have equals
say and what they say to the kids, and they
support one another. The worst thing is because I'm from
a family, and I did that. My mother would say
one thing, and I would go to my father and
he would say something else. And I think that's very
important that both parents have to come together and agree that, hey,
we have to say no more to our kids, and
(24:51):
we both have to agree on it, and that's it.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And yeah, yeah, I mean have the dispute in private,
right of course, to present a united front all the time,
one hundred percent. Yeah. So in the book, I chronicle
not only my journey out from under a mountain of debt,
but I talk about the lessons that I have learned
(25:16):
from more than twenty thousand estate planning clients. I have
wildly successful clients who are making more than a million
dollars a year, who are broke right, they are below
water financially, they are in the red. And I have
(25:38):
blue collar retirees who can buy and sell a lot
of people who are making more than a million dollars
a year. It is not what you make, it is
what you save. It's what you protect legally, it's what
you protect you from your inner demons. And you know
(26:00):
it's not common sense. You need to read about other
people's stories and you can see your own life in
these other people's stories. So I really encourage folks to
check out the book. It's The Smart Woman's Guide to
Building and Protecting Wealth, available for pre order on Amazon,
(26:26):
And then you can go onto my website, which you
can reach through my Instagram. Check out on Instagram. I
have the cover of the book and you can judge
for yourself whether my face should be safely kept on radio.
And the instagram is at my lawyer Ann And then
(26:46):
from there you can jump onto the website where I
do give a ton of information. You know, the things
we're talking about today. You don't need a lawyer for everything.
You don't need a lawyer to do a health care
proxy right. As a legislator during my misspent youth, I
was an assemblywoman in Albany for fourteen years, and I
(27:09):
was a co sponsor of New York's healthcare proxy law,
and that is designed to be a deiy endeavor. Should
you do the trust on your own Absolutely not. I'm
not doing my own electrical wiring in my house. I
don't think someone should do their own trust. There's too
(27:29):
much at stake. So the book gives us tax advice. Right,
we all have to pay taxes that is mandatory. But
over paying taxes is absolutely stupid, right, So you want
to learn how to avoid unnecessary as state taxes. Did
(27:55):
you know if you have life insurance, the death benefit
is subject to a state taxes. People say, well, I
thought life insurance was tax free. Life insurance is income
tax free. It is not a state tax free.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Well, I mean everything's free once you die because you
have no obligation to it anymore to the people living.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Well, yeah, it's the people we leave behind. And that
brings me full circle to this is our last act
as a parent. Do we want things to be smooth
for the next generation? So check out the book Smart
Woman's Guide to Building and Protecting Wealth.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Well, I think it's a I'll be honest with dude. Now.
If you guys don't know, I actually did read the book,
and I'm going to tell people right now there's no
way you cannot read this book and not at least
come away with one strategy that can improve you net wealth.
And I appreciate you putting this out there because one
of the reasons why I'm here, like I told you before,
not only being honored to be your guest host, but
(29:02):
this is an educational purpose.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Thank you, Todd. I need to have you back again
so I can get a better look at Dustin's cell
phone number, check out Instagram, at my lawyer, and and
catch us again next Sunday. Take care, everyone, have a
great day.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The preceding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.