December 21, 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 Carosa.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
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
that the single most important thing all of us can
(00:49):
do is to protect ourselves legally, because what does it
matter how brilliantly I invest and how diligently I save
if there's a greater than forty percent chance of losing
assets to a long term illness and expensive divorce taxes.
(01:11):
This can be capital gains taxes or estate taxes, not
to mention ordinary lawsuits. We are living in the most
litigious society that the world has ever seen, so we
need to take steps to educate ourselves and protect ourselves
(01:37):
from the legal landmines that I believe we all have
lurking in our lives. I want to welcome all of
you to the program with a special welcome to our
listeners in New York States, Beautiful Capital District, Albany and
the surrounding areas. Welcome to the program. I have an
(02:01):
office in Albany three eleven State Street, So if anyone
is interested in calling to make a consultation, please indicate
which office you're interested in going into to make sure
I'm in the right place on the right day. Joining
me today in the studio is my co host William Duke,
(02:27):
a geriatric physician, internal medicine and the medical director of
Long Island Care Center. But I think for our longtime listeners,
you would be better identified as Billy Duke's other parent.
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Bill thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So what I want to jump into today? And I
didn't ask you here as much for your medical acumen
this time, although maybe we'll get to a few little
medical topics, but to really just get your input on
(03:08):
some of these broader topics. You've been listening to me
talk about trusts and asset protection literally for decades now,
and I am curious as to what your takeaways are.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I don't think I can live up to Billy's reputations.
I'll do my best.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
We are at year end and when it comes to
financial and legal moves that we should all be taking.
We want to ensure that we're maxed out on our
four to oh one K contributions, which must be done
by December thirty. First, it's a great idea to pull
(03:52):
credit reports to see where we stand financially before heading
into the new year. Also, want to revisit beneficiary designations
on assets. This can be a CD, A, brokerage, account,
life insurance because your beneficiaries situation may have changed. So
(04:20):
it's extremely common to name your spouse as the beneficiary
and to name children as the contingent or backup beneficiary.
So when your spouse dies, there's really nothing you need
to do there because the children would pop up automatically
(04:40):
into that first position. But if instead of dying, my
primary beneficiary has the bad luck to have a long
term illness, perhaps a stroke or Parkinson's or dementia related illness,
they should know longer be the primary beneficiary, right because
(05:04):
in the event that I predecease them, and they may
very well be in a nursing home situation, that is
not where I want the money to go by the
same token. We don't want to totally cut them out
of the estate because they had the bad luck to
have an illness. So we want to really think about
(05:26):
doing a trust for their lifetime benefit so they can
not be disinherited. They can benefit from the estate without
the long term care providers taking everything. We also want
to think about our insurance coverage, our property insurance, our
(05:49):
auto insurance. And my advice to people in this area
is that you need to be honest with your insurance age.
It's like a priest or a rabbi. You can have
no secrets from your insurance carrier, because that is akin
to having no insurance. If I have a second property
(06:14):
that I use on the weekends and I don't tell
the insurer that I am also renting it out and
we have a crazy tenant who has a trip and fall,
I may as well not be covered because I didn't
let the insurance company know how I am using that property.
(06:34):
So if you're going to go without insurance, that is
your decision. But there's no middle ground. There's no such
thing as having insurance but failing to tell the insurer
everything that they need to know. And this is very
common when we have a death in the family, a
parent or a grandparent dies and the house is vacant
(06:59):
for the period of time that it takes the estate
to be administered. I see a lot of adult children
kind of adopt the don't ask, don't tell mentality, and
this is a huge mistake because, yes, the insurance premiums
will go up if the house is vacant, but you
need to do that to ensure that you do have coverage.
(07:23):
The last area of financial advice as we head into
the end of the year with family and holiday gatherings,
is that we need to be prepared for visiting with
loved ones, with friends, with cousins, some of whom may
(07:48):
be asking you for a loan. There was a JG.
Wentworth study recently which revealed that fifty one percent of
respondents have asked a relative for a loan, and forty
(08:09):
eight percent of the people who have gotten alone from
a friend or relative have not paid it back. So
this can create a lot of stress, a lot of trauma.
And you know, my advice to people is you need
to keep this in the back of your mind that
(08:31):
you may be asked for a loan. You may be
asked to co sign something, and how do you deal
with it? Because if you say yes too quickly, you
could very well change your life. So, Bill, this is
my first question for you. What would you do and
(08:52):
how would you act if let's say a cousin, let's
say one of my wacky cousins over the holidays, ask
you because you're a physician and they think you have
a regular paycheck and you can give them a loane.
What would be your response.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Well, it's a very interesting and complicated question, and there's
a lot of manipulation. I've actually had an experience where
a relative asked me for money and when I said,
that's fine, but tell me about what you're going to
use this money for, they actually became quite insulted that
I would even ask them.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Okay, so I think I know this story, and because
she is dead, we can say this is your aunt
that we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yes, indeed, okays.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So your lovely aunt. And I think you shielded me
from some of it, but I think she quite regularly
asked you for money. And what did you learn she
was doing with it?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, this was a Manhattan bachelorette who was very, very
savvy about life in general. But as she aged, she
started getting letters from publishers, clearing house type places, and
she kept telling me that she was going to get rich,
and she was very careful about her her where to
(10:19):
find her checkbook. And because she was a close relative
and and I had a great deal of affection for her,
I did put out a lot of money for her
and uh, and in the end I didn't get any
of it back.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, it was good karma.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It was, and it was paying it for it, I think.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
And that's a situation though, at the end of the day,
even though she made some mistakes, the money you were
giving her was for her rent, am I correct?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, it was for all of her all of her expenses, yes, yes,
and her home care and a lot of other things
until we got her on the Medicaid, which took a while,
but we succeeded getting her on Medicaid, and at least
I didn't have to pay for her home care after
that point, But there were these other expenses they kept
coming into play.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So when we get together with loved ones over the holidays,
we need to be prepared in case someone asks us
for a loan. And my rule of thumb is to
have a no prepared. So if they're asking to borrow
one thousand dollars, take a zero off of it and
make it a gift. Give them one hundred instead of
(11:31):
quote unquote loaning them one thousand. Because again, half of
all inter family loans will go unpaid.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
I think that's probably the most essential aspect. No matter
what you provide them with, it's wise not to expect repayment.
It complicates matters a great deal. I think it really does.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
You need to write it off. Now, what really causes
people to fight comes to an estate is if there's
a lack of clarity. So an example is an adult
child who asks a parent for a loan, and the
(12:14):
parent quote unquote loaned them money for a wedding, or
for a divorce, or for a down payment on the home,
and it was never paid back. And now when it
comes time to distribute the estate, her brother and sister
feel that that one hundred thousand that was never paid
(12:36):
back should come out of that person's share of the estate.
What are your thoughts on.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
That, Well, this is something you must deal with quite often.
I do think that asking for a loan from your
parents is a little bit separate from asking from a
cousin or other sort of person. But clearly this is
something that should be addressed during the estate planning.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And I think you know, there's no right answer or
wrong answer, but it's incumbent upon the parent. You know,
to be clear that any loans that I made during
my life shall be forgiven at the moment of my death,
and the estate is to be distributed equally.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Shouldn't that also depend a little bit on the size
of the loan. I mean, a ten thousand dollars loan
isn't the same as a two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars loan.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well that that's a very good point, And I think
the further complication or nuance here is an adult child
who very frequently needed help and needed bailouts and needed loans,
which begs the question did they have bad luck or
(13:55):
are they a disaster with money? So then whatever amount
you wish to leave them in the estate, should it
really be all at once? If their financial judgment is
for the.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Birds, well, in terms of how everybody feels after someone
has passed away. Then there's the other aspect where the
one or two of the other children have worked really
hard and have become successful, and at the time of
death they're actually penalized for their success because the black
(14:29):
sheep of the family gets more because they need more,
you know, whereas my son, the neurosurgeon, doesn't need my
help at all.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Well, no, that's very common, and I often have parents
who say, and you know, it's always the doctors in
my office who seem to get the wrap because they say, oh,
Fred doesn't need anything. He's a physician. You know, poor
Fred has been working like a dog for fifteen years.
(15:00):
But in my humble opinion, having dealt with over twenty
thousand clients in my practice, I think at the end
of the day, adult children who are heartbroken having lost
a parent, it's nice to see that everyone is treated
(15:21):
equally within the trust, within the will. And if you
want to give your daughter Susie, who always needs a
little extra, some more money, open up a CD for
her and name hers the beneficiary. She'll close that out,
she'll have a little more money. But within the gross
(15:43):
Omoto estate plan, everyone is treated equally, so it's usually
the children asking parents for money, but sometimes it works
in reverse. And there was a story in this week's
paper about a Mississippi mail carrier who took ten thousand
(16:11):
dollars from his four year old's bank account. So the
article does not get into how and why the bank
allowed him to get into the child's bank account, but
it reminds me of the so called Jackie Coogan laws.
(16:32):
And I think you've heard me talk about Jackie Coogan.
He was a super famous child actor in the thirties
and when he reached adulthood looking for his millions of dollars,
he learned that his parents squandered everything. And if you
google Jackie Coogan, the images that will pop up are
(16:57):
of his mother in fur co send designer clothing and
fancy cars. So every state in the United States has
passed so called Jackie Coogan laws which prevent a minor
from owning money that's bequeathed to them through In a state,
(17:20):
a court would have to become involved. So if you
have little loved ones in your lives, you need to
think about creating your own trusts for these children. You
don't need to fund it now. You can put a
ceremonial ten dollars in the trust for the child. But
(17:40):
because it is created now, it has its own tax
id number. It can be a recognized beneficiary on your
life insurance, on your retirement account, so that's something important
to do.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I'm wondering where this four year old you mentioned in
the article got their tenth dollars from.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well, it indicated that it was money from relatives, so
maybe Christening money. I don't know what other big events
would take place before you're four, but this child had
ten thousand dollars. And the excuse that the father gave
was that he thought the child would benefit more from
(18:22):
the nice memories of going to Disney with the ten
thousand dollars. So listen, at the very least the guy
didn't fly off, and you know, he at least shared
his ill gotten gains with.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
The child legedly.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah. At this point, I want to segue and talk
a little bit about my upcoming book, The Smart Woman's
Guide to Growing and Protecting Wealth. It comes out January twentieth,
but it is available for pre order on Amazon. And
(18:57):
this is the book that I wish I had decades
ago when I was living under a mountain of credit
card debt bill. You know, I was elected to the
New York State Legislature in my twenties and I was
such a financial disaster that when I would go to Albany,
(19:22):
I stayed at a pretty miserable place. I guess I'm
going to leave the name of the establishment silent in case,
and probably they're still in business. But every time when
I would be checking out, I would be holding my
breath that the credit card would go through because it
(19:44):
was always so close to the max. So when I
look back at how I dug myself out from the
mountain of credit card debt and started really to change
my mindset some money together, and I really construct a
(20:07):
trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak, because if I was
able to do it, anyone is able to do it.
And I share not only my story, but the stories
of my more than twenty thousand clients who went from
rags to riches, and riches to rags and back again.
(20:30):
And a central theme of the book is that money
problems are not solved by money alone, because no amount
of money is inexhaustible. And if you are in this
consumer vortex, I can tell you that it's never going
(20:54):
to be enough. How many designer handbags does someone need,
how many items of designer clothing does someone need? It's
never going to be enough, and people jeopardize not only
their finances but their lives when they become entangled in
(21:16):
so much debt.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And how many people do we know like this?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
You and I know a lot of people like this
who seem to have a lot more things than we
do and have a lot more fun than we do.
But I think at the end of the day, we
can sleep at night. And I'm reminded of a story
that I tell in the book. This was a dentist
who was out over his keys financially. They belong to
(21:44):
a country club and they had everything you can ask for,
and he was so choked with debt he didn't see
a way forward, and he decided to end his life.
But the way that this genie chose to end his
life was with carbon monoxide in his car, and the
(22:07):
garage was attached to the house, so he succeeded in
killing himself, but the carbon monoxide seeped into the main
house killed his wife and two of his three children.
So there was a toddler who survived this. And because
(22:30):
the dentist and his wife did not have a state
planning in place, they didn't have a guardian named for
the children, so each set of grandparents fought in court
for a guardianship over the grandchild. And you know, this
is just really hammers at home that no amount of
(22:56):
money is inexhaustible. And I read a story I brought
the article here Brandon Miller. This past year he killed himself.
He lived an enviable life in the Hamptons with a
house to die for, and you know, more cars than
(23:17):
he could drive in a week's time, and he killed
himself and it was revealed that he was thirty three
million dollars in debt. So folks, just take a pause
and don't get out over your skis financially, don't break
the bank buying fancy presents for people, because if someone
(23:41):
really loves you, they don't want you jeopardizing yourself financially
getting them gifts.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
And avoid the carbon monoxide method of.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Avoid the carbon monoxide method if your garage is in
fact attached to the house. And when it comes to
holiday gifts, I would caution people to think twice before
getting those ancestry DNA kids because you could be inviting
(24:13):
new objectants to your parents' estate planning.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Papa rolling Stone, Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
If someone is legally related to you, they do have
standing to contest the estate, so let's be careful with that.
I want to move now to a terribly sad story.
This past week, Rob and Michelle Reiner apparently were killed
(24:48):
by their thirty three year old son. And you know,
aside and apart from the heart wrenching tragedy of it,
it is an estate planning issue that it brings to mind.
And there is a statistic that forty six percent of
(25:11):
us know a family member or friend with substance abuse
problems and within the estate, how do you deal with them?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Well, interestingly enough, to me, this brings up a lot
of sort of morbidly interesting questions. And I had to
say that when I read when I had I read
the article that you showed me, I was wondering just
exactly how this affected the whole trust situation. And I assume,
(25:46):
of course that Rob Ryinder set up a trust for
all of his children, but particularly this son who had
his issues. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Well, I mean, obviously I don't have any first hand
information about their estate planning, but I would encourage anyone
if there is someone in your life who is struggling
with substance abuse issues, you want to consider protecting them
(26:15):
from themselves in your estate, and you want to dole
out whatever you wish to give them in the estate.
And I can't help but think of Whitney Houston's estate
and when poor troubled Bobby Christina turned twenty one, she
received millions of dollars, you know, out of the blue
(26:38):
from Whitney Houston's estate. And poor Bobby Christina was dead
within months of that. So we need to protect our
loved ones who are struggling with issues and don't give
them enough rope to hang themselves.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
What I couldn't help asking myself is is if your
parents set up a trust for you and you killed them,
and there's brothers and sisters involved, does somehow the trust
become null and void? And I mean, well, we.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Don't have enough time to go into all of the
permutations there, but we know that the laws of all
fifty states hold that if I am found guilty of
killing a person, I cannot inherit from them. But that
does not affect a gift that was made during life.
(27:33):
And you can make a completed gift into an irrevocable
trust for the benefit of someone, and it's unclear whether
that would be covered by this statute, and it's also
unclear in this case. Not only were his parents wealthy
and famous, his grandfather Carl Reiner, who was also super rich,
(27:59):
died a few years back and could have well left
Nick Reiner the assets with which he has hired counsel.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I was gonna say, can he use any of this
for his legal fees, because I'm sure he'll have major
legal fees. Y, you know, I think he has already
likely phonied up money in.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Legal fees because this is not a case that a
lawyer would take for pr because at this point doesn't
look like it's going to have a good outcome for
poor Nick Reiner. So with that, I want to encourage
anyone with questions or issues about all of these topics
(28:40):
reach out to me on Instagram and that's at my
Lawyer Ann and that's Ann Noe. Visit me on the
website my lawyeran dot com and if you want to
come in and chat about your situation, give the office
a call let them know whether you want to come
(29:02):
to Bayside fictional home of Archie Bunker or Port Jefferson,
Beautiful Port Jefferson, or Albany the Capital District. So with
that I want to thank you Bill for joining the program.
It went really quickly, and I wish everyone happy holidays
(29:25):
and a happy New Year, and take care everyone.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
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 Carosa.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
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
that the single most important thing all of us can
(00:49):
do is to protect ourselves legally, because what does it
matter how brilliantly I invest and how diligently I save
if there's a greater than forty percent chance of losing
assets to a long term illness and expensive divorce taxes.
(01:11):
This can be capital gains taxes or estate taxes, not
to mention ordinary lawsuits. We are living in the most
litigious society that the world has ever seen, so we
need to take steps to educate ourselves and protect ourselves
(01:37):
from the legal landmines that I believe we all have
lurking in our lives. I want to welcome all of
you to the program with a special welcome to our
listeners in New York States, Beautiful Capital District, Albany and
the surrounding areas. Welcome to the program. I have an
(02:01):
office in Albany three eleven State Street, So if anyone
is interested in calling to make a consultation, please indicate
which office you're interested in going into to make sure
I'm in the right place on the right day. Joining
me today in the studio is my co host William Duke,
(02:27):
a geriatric physician, internal medicine and the medical director of
Long Island Care Center. But I think for our longtime listeners,
you would be better identified as Billy Duke's other parent.
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Bill thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So what I want to jump into today? And I
didn't ask you here as much for your medical acumen
this time, although maybe we'll get to a few little
medical topics, but to really just get your input on
(03:08):
some of these broader topics. You've been listening to me
talk about trusts and asset protection literally for decades now,
and I am curious as to what your takeaways are.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I don't think I can live up to Billy's reputations.
I'll do my best.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
We are at year end and when it comes to
financial and legal moves that we should all be taking.
We want to ensure that we're maxed out on our
four to oh one K contributions, which must be done
by December thirty. First, it's a great idea to pull
(03:52):
credit reports to see where we stand financially before heading
into the new year. Also, want to revisit beneficiary designations
on assets. This can be a CD, A, brokerage, account,
life insurance because your beneficiaries situation may have changed. So
(04:20):
it's extremely common to name your spouse as the beneficiary
and to name children as the contingent or backup beneficiary.
So when your spouse dies, there's really nothing you need
to do there because the children would pop up automatically
(04:40):
into that first position. But if instead of dying, my
primary beneficiary has the bad luck to have a long
term illness, perhaps a stroke or Parkinson's or dementia related illness,
they should know longer be the primary beneficiary, right because
(05:04):
in the event that I predecease them, and they may
very well be in a nursing home situation, that is
not where I want the money to go by the
same token. We don't want to totally cut them out
of the estate because they had the bad luck to
have an illness. So we want to really think about
(05:26):
doing a trust for their lifetime benefit so they can
not be disinherited. They can benefit from the estate without
the long term care providers taking everything. We also want
to think about our insurance coverage, our property insurance, our
(05:49):
auto insurance. And my advice to people in this area
is that you need to be honest with your insurance age.
It's like a priest or a rabbi. You can have
no secrets from your insurance carrier, because that is akin
to having no insurance. If I have a second property
(06:14):
that I use on the weekends and I don't tell
the insurer that I am also renting it out and
we have a crazy tenant who has a trip and fall,
I may as well not be covered because I didn't
let the insurance company know how I am using that property.
(06:34):
So if you're going to go without insurance, that is
your decision. But there's no middle ground. There's no such
thing as having insurance but failing to tell the insurer
everything that they need to know. And this is very
common when we have a death in the family, a
parent or a grandparent dies and the house is vacant
(06:59):
for the period of time that it takes the estate
to be administered. I see a lot of adult children
kind of adopt the don't ask, don't tell mentality, and
this is a huge mistake because, yes, the insurance premiums
will go up if the house is vacant, but you
need to do that to ensure that you do have coverage.
(07:23):
The last area of financial advice as we head into
the end of the year with family and holiday gatherings,
is that we need to be prepared for visiting with
loved ones, with friends, with cousins, some of whom may
(07:48):
be asking you for a loan. There was a JG.
Wentworth study recently which revealed that fifty one percent of
respondents have asked a relative for a loan, and forty
(08:09):
eight percent of the people who have gotten alone from
a friend or relative have not paid it back. So
this can create a lot of stress, a lot of trauma.
And you know, my advice to people is you need
to keep this in the back of your mind that
(08:31):
you may be asked for a loan. You may be
asked to co sign something, and how do you deal
with it? Because if you say yes too quickly, you
could very well change your life. So, Bill, this is
my first question for you. What would you do and
(08:52):
how would you act if let's say a cousin, let's
say one of my wacky cousins over the holidays, ask
you because you're a physician and they think you have
a regular paycheck and you can give them a loane.
What would be your response.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Well, it's a very interesting and complicated question, and there's
a lot of manipulation. I've actually had an experience where
a relative asked me for money and when I said,
that's fine, but tell me about what you're going to
use this money for, they actually became quite insulted that
I would even ask them.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Okay, so I think I know this story, and because
she is dead, we can say this is your aunt
that we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yes, indeed, okays.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So your lovely aunt. And I think you shielded me
from some of it, but I think she quite regularly
asked you for money. And what did you learn she
was doing with it?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, this was a Manhattan bachelorette who was very, very
savvy about life in general. But as she aged, she
started getting letters from publishers, clearing house type places, and
she kept telling me that she was going to get rich,
and she was very careful about her her where to
(10:19):
find her checkbook. And because she was a close relative
and and I had a great deal of affection for her,
I did put out a lot of money for her
and uh, and in the end I didn't get any
of it back.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, it was good karma.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It was, and it was paying it for it, I think.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
And that's a situation though, at the end of the day,
even though she made some mistakes, the money you were
giving her was for her rent, am I correct?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, it was for all of her all of her expenses, yes, yes,
and her home care and a lot of other things
until we got her on the Medicaid, which took a while,
but we succeeded getting her on Medicaid, and at least
I didn't have to pay for her home care after
that point, But there were these other expenses they kept
coming into play.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So when we get together with loved ones over the holidays,
we need to be prepared in case someone asks us
for a loan. And my rule of thumb is to
have a no prepared. So if they're asking to borrow
one thousand dollars, take a zero off of it and
make it a gift. Give them one hundred instead of
(11:31):
quote unquote loaning them one thousand. Because again, half of
all inter family loans will go unpaid.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
I think that's probably the most essential aspect. No matter
what you provide them with, it's wise not to expect repayment.
It complicates matters a great deal. I think it really does.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
You need to write it off. Now, what really causes
people to fight comes to an estate is if there's
a lack of clarity. So an example is an adult
child who asks a parent for a loan, and the
(12:14):
parent quote unquote loaned them money for a wedding, or
for a divorce, or for a down payment on the home,
and it was never paid back. And now when it
comes time to distribute the estate, her brother and sister
feel that that one hundred thousand that was never paid
(12:36):
back should come out of that person's share of the estate.
What are your thoughts on.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
That, Well, this is something you must deal with quite often.
I do think that asking for a loan from your
parents is a little bit separate from asking from a
cousin or other sort of person. But clearly this is
something that should be addressed during the estate planning.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And I think you know, there's no right answer or
wrong answer, but it's incumbent upon the parent. You know,
to be clear that any loans that I made during
my life shall be forgiven at the moment of my death,
and the estate is to be distributed equally.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Shouldn't that also depend a little bit on the size
of the loan. I mean, a ten thousand dollars loan
isn't the same as a two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars loan.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well that that's a very good point, And I think
the further complication or nuance here is an adult child
who very frequently needed help and needed bailouts and needed loans,
which begs the question did they have bad luck or
(13:55):
are they a disaster with money? So then whatever amount
you wish to leave them in the estate, should it
really be all at once? If their financial judgment is
for the.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Birds, well, in terms of how everybody feels after someone
has passed away. Then there's the other aspect where the
one or two of the other children have worked really
hard and have become successful, and at the time of
death they're actually penalized for their success because the black
(14:29):
sheep of the family gets more because they need more,
you know, whereas my son, the neurosurgeon, doesn't need my
help at all.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Well, no, that's very common, and I often have parents
who say, and you know, it's always the doctors in
my office who seem to get the wrap because they say, oh,
Fred doesn't need anything. He's a physician. You know, poor
Fred has been working like a dog for fifteen years.
(15:00):
But in my humble opinion, having dealt with over twenty
thousand clients in my practice, I think at the end
of the day, adult children who are heartbroken having lost
a parent, it's nice to see that everyone is treated
(15:21):
equally within the trust, within the will. And if you
want to give your daughter Susie, who always needs a
little extra, some more money, open up a CD for
her and name hers the beneficiary. She'll close that out,
she'll have a little more money. But within the gross
(15:43):
Omoto estate plan, everyone is treated equally, so it's usually
the children asking parents for money, but sometimes it works
in reverse. And there was a story in this week's
paper about a Mississippi mail carrier who took ten thousand
(16:11):
dollars from his four year old's bank account. So the
article does not get into how and why the bank
allowed him to get into the child's bank account, but
it reminds me of the so called Jackie Coogan laws.
(16:32):
And I think you've heard me talk about Jackie Coogan.
He was a super famous child actor in the thirties
and when he reached adulthood looking for his millions of dollars,
he learned that his parents squandered everything. And if you
google Jackie Coogan, the images that will pop up are
(16:57):
of his mother in fur co send designer clothing and
fancy cars. So every state in the United States has
passed so called Jackie Coogan laws which prevent a minor
from owning money that's bequeathed to them through In a state,
(17:20):
a court would have to become involved. So if you
have little loved ones in your lives, you need to
think about creating your own trusts for these children. You
don't need to fund it now. You can put a
ceremonial ten dollars in the trust for the child. But
(17:40):
because it is created now, it has its own tax
id number. It can be a recognized beneficiary on your
life insurance, on your retirement account, so that's something important
to do.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I'm wondering where this four year old you mentioned in
the article got their tenth dollars from.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well, it indicated that it was money from relatives, so
maybe Christening money. I don't know what other big events
would take place before you're four, but this child had
ten thousand dollars. And the excuse that the father gave
was that he thought the child would benefit more from
(18:22):
the nice memories of going to Disney with the ten
thousand dollars. So listen, at the very least the guy
didn't fly off, and you know, he at least shared
his ill gotten gains with.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
The child legedly.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah. At this point, I want to segue and talk
a little bit about my upcoming book, The Smart Woman's
Guide to Growing and Protecting Wealth. It comes out January twentieth,
but it is available for pre order on Amazon. And
(18:57):
this is the book that I wish I had decades
ago when I was living under a mountain of credit
card debt bill. You know, I was elected to the
New York State Legislature in my twenties and I was
such a financial disaster that when I would go to Albany,
(19:22):
I stayed at a pretty miserable place. I guess I'm
going to leave the name of the establishment silent in case,
and probably they're still in business. But every time when
I would be checking out, I would be holding my
breath that the credit card would go through because it
(19:44):
was always so close to the max. So when I
look back at how I dug myself out from the
mountain of credit card debt and started really to change
my mindset some money together, and I really construct a
(20:07):
trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak, because if I was
able to do it, anyone is able to do it.
And I share not only my story, but the stories
of my more than twenty thousand clients who went from
rags to riches, and riches to rags and back again.
(20:30):
And a central theme of the book is that money
problems are not solved by money alone, because no amount
of money is inexhaustible. And if you are in this
consumer vortex, I can tell you that it's never going
(20:54):
to be enough. How many designer handbags does someone need,
how many items of designer clothing does someone need? It's
never going to be enough, and people jeopardize not only
their finances but their lives when they become entangled in
(21:16):
so much debt.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And how many people do we know like this?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
You and I know a lot of people like this
who seem to have a lot more things than we
do and have a lot more fun than we do.
But I think at the end of the day, we
can sleep at night. And I'm reminded of a story
that I tell in the book. This was a dentist
who was out over his keys financially. They belong to
(21:44):
a country club and they had everything you can ask for,
and he was so choked with debt he didn't see
a way forward, and he decided to end his life.
But the way that this genie chose to end his
life was with carbon monoxide in his car, and the
(22:07):
garage was attached to the house, so he succeeded in
killing himself, but the carbon monoxide seeped into the main
house killed his wife and two of his three children.
So there was a toddler who survived this. And because
(22:30):
the dentist and his wife did not have a state
planning in place, they didn't have a guardian named for
the children, so each set of grandparents fought in court
for a guardianship over the grandchild. And you know, this
is just really hammers at home that no amount of
(22:56):
money is inexhaustible. And I read a story I brought
the article here Brandon Miller. This past year he killed himself.
He lived an enviable life in the Hamptons with a
house to die for, and you know, more cars than
(23:17):
he could drive in a week's time, and he killed
himself and it was revealed that he was thirty three
million dollars in debt. So folks, just take a pause
and don't get out over your skis financially, don't break
the bank buying fancy presents for people, because if someone
(23:41):
really loves you, they don't want you jeopardizing yourself financially
getting them gifts.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
And avoid the carbon monoxide method of.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Avoid the carbon monoxide method if your garage is in
fact attached to the house. And when it comes to
holiday gifts, I would caution people to think twice before
getting those ancestry DNA kids because you could be inviting
(24:13):
new objectants to your parents' estate planning.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Papa rolling Stone, Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
If someone is legally related to you, they do have
standing to contest the estate, so let's be careful with that.
I want to move now to a terribly sad story.
This past week, Rob and Michelle Reiner apparently were killed
(24:48):
by their thirty three year old son. And you know,
aside and apart from the heart wrenching tragedy of it,
it is an estate planning issue that it brings to mind.
And there is a statistic that forty six percent of
(25:11):
us know a family member or friend with substance abuse
problems and within the estate, how do you deal with them?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Well, interestingly enough, to me, this brings up a lot
of sort of morbidly interesting questions. And I had to
say that when I read when I had I read
the article that you showed me, I was wondering just
exactly how this affected the whole trust situation. And I assume,
(25:46):
of course that Rob Ryinder set up a trust for
all of his children, but particularly this son who had
his issues. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Well, I mean, obviously I don't have any first hand
information about their estate planning, but I would encourage anyone
if there is someone in your life who is struggling
with substance abuse issues, you want to consider protecting them
(26:15):
from themselves in your estate, and you want to dole
out whatever you wish to give them in the estate.
And I can't help but think of Whitney Houston's estate
and when poor troubled Bobby Christina turned twenty one, she
received millions of dollars, you know, out of the blue
(26:38):
from Whitney Houston's estate. And poor Bobby Christina was dead
within months of that. So we need to protect our
loved ones who are struggling with issues and don't give
them enough rope to hang themselves.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
What I couldn't help asking myself is is if your
parents set up a trust for you and you killed them,
and there's brothers and sisters involved, does somehow the trust
become null and void? And I mean, well, we.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Don't have enough time to go into all of the
permutations there, but we know that the laws of all
fifty states hold that if I am found guilty of
killing a person, I cannot inherit from them. But that
does not affect a gift that was made during life.
(27:33):
And you can make a completed gift into an irrevocable
trust for the benefit of someone, and it's unclear whether
that would be covered by this statute, and it's also
unclear in this case. Not only were his parents wealthy
and famous, his grandfather Carl Reiner, who was also super rich,
(27:59):
died a few years back and could have well left
Nick Reiner the assets with which he has hired counsel.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I was gonna say, can he use any of this
for his legal fees, because I'm sure he'll have major
legal fees. Y, you know, I think he has already
likely phonied up money in.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Legal fees because this is not a case that a
lawyer would take for pr because at this point doesn't
look like it's going to have a good outcome for
poor Nick Reiner. So with that, I want to encourage
anyone with questions or issues about all of these topics
(28:40):
reach out to me on Instagram and that's at my
Lawyer Ann and that's Ann Noe. Visit me on the
website my lawyeran dot com and if you want to
come in and chat about your situation, give the office
a call let them know whether you want to come
(29:02):
to Bayside fictional home of Archie Bunker or Port Jefferson,
Beautiful Port Jefferson, or Albany the Capital District. So with
that I want to thank you Bill for joining the program.
It went really quickly, and I wish everyone happy holidays
(29:25):
and a happy New Year, and take care everyone.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
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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