November 23, 2025 • 29 mins
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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 Into Pendant talk show
(02:01):
in 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, Exuce, I've in sending out Thanksgiving messages.
I think right now about sixteen hundred. I think it's
about on my phone 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 lists. 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. Is a possibility. That's 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.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Halloween.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So 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
(04:03):
having a 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 in right? Blah blah blah,
and its 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 an
(08:18):
experience 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
(08:40):
rent 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
(09:00):
did come in. 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.
(09:21):
And you 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 said 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 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 more 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 within the estate plan,
(12:02):
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 my son,
(12:23):
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,
(12:44):
you need to deal with that within 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 works for you,
(13:07):
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 one way that
(13:29):
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 who gets my stuff? And
(13:51):
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 the document, They want to
(14:11):
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. New York state law where
(14:35):
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 your kids. And
(14:56):
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 by a percentage of
(15:16):
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 company if there has
(15:41):
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. They can be a
(16:05):
cleaning person, someone to care for a child, an 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 a preacher, I will
(16:28):
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 would talk about our dogs.
(16:52):
Long story short, he called my cell one day asking
me for legal advice because he took a header off
of someone else 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 really it was a wake up call.
(17:13):
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 probate is they take the house their
single biggest asset, and they put it into the kids' names.
(17:35):
And in 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.
(17:58):
Now she 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.
(18:19):
And the 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
(18:40):
awkward to have 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
(19:00):
without that unexpected 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
(19:21):
pay capital gains later because for a completed gift during life,
you don't 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
(19:41):
doing a trust to avoid probate to obviate a capital
gains hit to the kids. And if the trust is
properly drafted, not something that I buy online and hope
for the best. If the trust is properly drafted, it
will will also start the protections vis a v long
(20:05):
term care planning.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, you give me a lot to think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
A 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
(20:33):
on Amazon. So if you want to just go onto
Amazon and search and Margaret Carosa, uh, 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 is actually the book I wish I had, right.
(20:59):
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 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 you're 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.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Card if.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Oh kind of shi 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,
(22:09):
you know, I 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 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, so 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
(24:12):
security and success is saying no. Right. 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 is 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 assembly woman in Albany for fourteen years, and
(27:09):
I 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 it people.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Living, 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.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Now.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
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 I
want to reads. Why I'm here, like I told you before,
not only being honored to be your guest host, but
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 Into Pendant talk show
(02:01):
in 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, Exuce, I've in sending out Thanksgiving messages.
I think right now about sixteen hundred. I think it's
about on my phone 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 lists. 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. Is a possibility. That's 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.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Halloween.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So 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
(04:03):
having a 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 in right? Blah blah blah,
and its 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 an
(08:18):
experience 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
(08:40):
rent 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
(09:00):
did come in. 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.
(09:21):
And you 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 said 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 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 more 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 within the estate plan,
(12:02):
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 my son,
(12:23):
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,
(12:44):
you need to deal with that within 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 works for you,
(13:07):
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 one way that
(13:29):
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 who gets my stuff? And
(13:51):
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 the document, They want to
(14:11):
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. New York state law where
(14:35):
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 your kids. And
(14:56):
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 by a percentage of
(15:16):
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 company if there has
(15:41):
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. They can be a
(16:05):
cleaning person, someone to care for a child, an 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 a preacher, I will
(16:28):
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 would talk about our dogs.
(16:52):
Long story short, he called my cell one day asking
me for legal advice because he took a header off
of someone else 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 really it was a wake up call.
(17:13):
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 probate is they take the house their
single biggest asset, and they put it into the kids' names.
(17:35):
And in 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.
(17:58):
Now she 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.
(18:19):
And the 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
(18:40):
awkward to have 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
(19:00):
without that unexpected 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
(19:21):
pay capital gains later because for a completed gift during life,
you don't 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
(19:41):
doing a trust to avoid probate to obviate a capital
gains hit to the kids. And if the trust is
properly drafted, not something that I buy online and hope
for the best. If the trust is properly drafted, it
will will also start the protections vis a v long
(20:05):
term care planning.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, you give me a lot to think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
A 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
(20:33):
on Amazon. So if you want to just go onto
Amazon and search and Margaret Carosa, uh, 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 is actually the book I wish I had, right.
(20:59):
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 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 you're 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.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Card if.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Oh kind of shi 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,
(22:09):
you know, I 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 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, so 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
(24:12):
security and success is saying no. Right. 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 is 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 assembly woman in Albany for fourteen years, and
(27:09):
I 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 it people.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Living, 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.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Now.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
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 I
want to reads. Why I'm here, like I told you before,
not only being honored to be your guest host, but
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.
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