May 27, 2025 • 20 mins
In this episode of the Main Street Business Podcast, Mark J. Kohler and Mat Sorensen explain why every adult—single or married, wealthy or not—needs a will and a revocable living trust. Learn the practical steps for setting up your estate plan, naming a trustee, and ensuring your assets stay protected and your wishes are followed.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Mark emphasizes the importance of having a will, noting that 50% of Americans do not have one.
- Mat explains that a trust allows for more control over who gets what, when, and under what conditions.
- Mark and Mat discuss the flexibility of a trust, including the ability to amend it as life circumstances change.
- Example of Robin Williams' will being made public, highlighting the privacy benefits of a trust.
- A living trust is effective immediately and can be funded with assets during one's lifetime.
- The concept of a "trifecta" or "pitcher" that brings together all the elements of an estate plan.
- Mark clarifies that a trust does not provide asset protection and should not be used for that purpose.
- Grab my FREE Ultimate Tax Strategy Guide HERE!
- You don't want to miss this! Secure your tickets for the most significant business, tax & legal event of the year: Main Street 360
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Main Street Business Podcast with
your distinguished hosts, mark JKohler and Matt Sorenson.
Both are bestselling authorsand have over 25 years of
industry experience, with 10,000client consultations, making
them the leading tax and legalexperts in the nation.
Together, they'll unpack themost complex tax, legal and
financial strategies.
Crucial for saving more,stressing less and building
(00:23):
generational wealth.
Crucial for saving more,stressing less and building
generational wealth.
Today they're your personaladvisors, ready to break it down
for you and make the tax andlegal game easier than ever.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Here is Mark and Matt .
Welcome everybody to the MainStreet Business Podcast.
My name is Mark Kohler.
I'm here with the illustriousMatt Sorensen, Excited today to
talk about that special time ofyear, the Memorial Day and the
estate planning special.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I was like that's a special time when we're talking
about dying.
Sorry, we want to think of ourloved ones, those that have
passed before us, but we alsowant to remind you this is time
you need to plan for the yearyou will die one day.
I hate to tell you that, solet's plan for it and leave a
legacy and not a freakingdisaster.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I love it.
Yeah, it's an exciting time,exciting times, yeah, and
regrettably, 50% of Americansdon't even have a will.
This is not something thatshould fall on deaf ears.
I know there's going to be manyof you listening today.
They're like I got to get thisdone.
What do I need to know?
So we're going to break it down, matt, let's go hard Will
versus trust.
I'll be Mac, you'll be PC.
(01:22):
Tell us about the will you goodwith that.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
The will is the PC here, that's fair, the boring PC
.
The will says who gets yourstuff when you die.
It at least does that.
So that's one feature of thewill.
I can keep going if you'd like.
Yeah, you name a few.
Here's the other thing that Ilike about the will is you can
designate who is the guardian ofyour children after you pass
away.
Really critical for any of youthat have minor children to say
(01:47):
who's going to take care of themwhen I pass away.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Okay, we'll just riff on the will for a minute.
A will can also be holographic.
I mean, at the very least, Iwould recommend all of you sit
down this weekend and handwriteout a will, which means
holographic.
You can't do it on a wordprocessor.
Print it out, you've got tohandwrite it out.
Get a couple of witnesses, butat least say who gets what.
Who gets what, who's going toraise my kids?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, what else?
Yeah, and even the holographic,I'll say in 46 states, as long
as it's in your handwriting andsigned by you, you don't even
need witnesses.
But in the other states, you do.
Here.
Here's where the will startsbreaking down, though.
There's not much left.
If you want to have a lot ofother features and bells and
whistles, you're going to rollover to the trust.
After you say who gets what?
There's not a lot of greatfeatures.
(02:33):
Here's the problem, though,that most people don't like
about the will and why they do atrust instead.
You're going to probate withthat will.
Just because I have a willthat's signed that says who gets
my stuff doesn't mean we get togo carry that out and do it.
You still have to take the willto the judge and get the
judge's stamp of approval to sayI approve this will, and
they'll issue these thingscalled letters of testamentary.
(02:54):
That allows the executor of thewill to then distribute the
assets.
It's public, it's not great,and that probate process is not
only going to cost you money,but it's also going to take more
time and it's very inflexible.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I like that.
One last thing, and I thinkthis is a good transition Even
if you do get a trust, you haveto have a will.
Yes, A will is kind of thebookend of a trust, because we
want to designate who theguardians might be, who that
executor might be, and then thatopens the door to the trust.
I'm going to riff a little onthe trust, the trust.
What's nice about the trust?
It not only says who gets what,it says when and how.
(03:39):
So now we can put on strings,conditions, provisions, and we
can really screw up our kid'slife after we die as well during
our lives.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Why stop all the fun?
So obviously we're trying toprotect our kids, right, and
that's the purpose of the trust.
We want to, of course,designate who gets what, so
they're not left guessing forthose of you who don't even have
a freaking estate plan or evena will.
But we also want to say at whatpoint do they get it?
If you pass on and you have an18-year-old child, they can
inherit your assets.
That's kind of scary, and so wewant to say what conditions do
(04:07):
they get on?
What if they have a drug oralcohol addiction?
Do they need to deal with thatbefore they get any inheritance
for the trust?
What if they are 20 years old?
Do you want them getting athird of your estate if you have
three kids?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
No, absolutely, and I know many of you are either
single and no kids, and thetrust gives you a lot of
creative options.
You can create your own charitywithin the provisions of a
trust and say here's where Iwant my assets to go.
I want my trustee to create acharity that does the following
(04:38):
or I want them to find a charitythat does this.
Or I'd like to leave my moneyto some nieces and nephews.
I want to do this, I want to dothat, does this.
Or I'd like to leave my moneyto some nieces and nephews.
I want to do this.
I want to do that.
This is your chance to writeyour book of where all this
legacy goes, like all this hardwork and money goes, and the
trust allows you thatflexibility.
Now back to the probate.
I got to have lawyers involvedwith the trust right and it's
(05:01):
going to cost a ton.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, just at the front end, just for a little bit
to get the plan and the trustdone.
But the nice thing is is, onceyou pass on, that trust lives on
.
The trustee of the trust we'lltalk about here in a second gets
to carry on.
You don't need to go to a judge, you don't need a stamp of
approval, the trust carries on,and all the conditions and
restrictions you put in thereare what's going to protect your
assets and your loved ones, sothat this legacy that we're
(05:26):
trying to create is businessowners, entrepreneurs, investors
, people trying to build andgrow wealth.
We want to have a legacy, andif you don't plan for it and not
only the who but the how andunder what conditions, you leave
a disaster instead of a legacy.
So all this how is reallyimportant.
But I'll say one other thingthat I love about the trust.
(05:46):
Oh, okay, keep going.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I just want to be a Mac too.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I got one too.
All right, maybe an iPod.
Jeez, let me come on, you gofor it, it's private.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Oh, I was going to say that, yeah, I'm going to
take that now.
Yeah, the trust is.
Isn't this fun?
You never thought it would bethis fun listening to trusts and
wills.
What's cool about a trust isyou get to give it an innocuous
name.
I'm going to call it the GreenTree Trust, the Blue Sky Trust,
(06:23):
and on a lot of the property youhold, it could even be
brokerage accounts, crypto orother things, not just real
estate.
You're not going to have yourname out there and when you die,
your will is not public.
Robin Williams, who passed awaya few years ago, all he had was
a will and it's been in court.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I mean everybody got to see his assets and how many
assets he got and who did heleave it to and not leave it to
and what kid was disinherited.
Do you want that after you passaway?
I don't think so.
And you know the nosy, the nosyneighbors and all your other
family members and some of yourhaters.
You know, I don't know the, theex spouse, whatever you know do
you really want them alldigging into that?
(06:53):
No, you don't, um.
So let's get in a trust thatstays outside of court and also
I think it's less contestablebecause of that Cause.
In the, in the probate process,there's like a contest period
where someone could come in andbe like they promised me this,
but a trust is out of court.
It's a lot more private, it's alittle more chill.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, Now let's just talk about price for a moment.
We talked about the will beingsimple and easy.
I mean, heck, you could even doa holographic will on your own,
so that's very, very affordable.
But it's a myth.
The trust has to be really,really expensive.
You might see places out therecharging five or 10 grand and
they kind of base their pricebased on what your wealth is.
But you don't have to be richto have a trust.
(07:32):
In fact, many, many people needit just with having some life
insurance and a home and somefamily or not, and so the price
point could be around $3,000.
We have a special every year tobring that down, usually throw
up to $500 off and we want tomake sure it's easy, simple and
affordable.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And once you get that estate plan done, keep in mind
it's done.
You don't have to do an annualfee, you only need to go back to
it when you want to make achange.
And this is a revocable trust.
Don't do these irrevocabletrusts.
You see on TikTok, those are BS.
You need a revocable trust.
That's what I have, that's whatMark has, that's what we're
doing for 99% of our clients,and we can change it whenever we
want.
Because life happens, you mightneed to disinherit a kid, you
(08:13):
might have a kid that getsdivorced, you might get divorced
yourself, you might getremarried, your financial
situation might change and youmight not be willing to give so
much to charity that you werebefore.
Who knows?
But the nice thing about thesetrusts is it can be changed in
an easy amendment.
That can be very inexpensiveand cost you only a few hundred
bucks to just change littleprovisions here as you need.
Yeah, and just remember if youdon't have an estate plan,
(08:35):
you're planning for disaster.
That is your plan.
For those of you don't have africking estate plan in place,
you haven't gone through thisprocess.
We're here to help you takecare of it.
Now we got a lot more to talkabout still yeah, it's going to
be good.
Now we want to talk about thetrust, the components of it, the
parties and a lot of thedecisions you need to make to
get the living trust done.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, so let's do a living trust 101 and break down
the living trust.
I think this will be reallyhelpful for many of you so that,
as you go into this process,you're going to have a lot of
your questions answered, so thatyou can avoid getting misled by
a lawyer that's trying tocharge you too much.
You need to get this estateplan done, get a living trust
done.
Let's help you with some of thebasics so that you know what to
(09:14):
ask and what to look for.
So, matt, let's volley back andforth here.
What do you like about thetrust?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Well, the first thing I like about it is you're not
going to probate court.
I should say your loved onesaren't.
You're dead already, so you'redefinitely not going to probate
court.
But your family's not going toprobate court, all right, and
what's that mean?
And that means it's all privateand everything I put into my
trust it's not out in court.
There's not a contest period.
(09:41):
I don't need a judge to put arubber stamp on the thing to say
this is a valid will and theassets can get distributed.
It's all happening under theterms of my trust document,
privately.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
How probate came about was people that were dying
with a will or nothing at all,and a judge had to verify what
did they want, or guess whatthey may have wanted to do with
their estate.
The trust bypasses that.
The trust allows you in advanceto say here's my trustee,
here's my stuff, here's where Iwanted to go, and as long as
your trust is funded, we'll cometo that.
(10:07):
Then your family can justhandle the matters.
The probate is about the peoplethat are a train wreck with
their planning.
A judge is going to say, oh,there's no trust, so do they
even have a will?
And what are we going to dowith their stuff, their kids,
their money, their real estate?
And that's what probate isabout.
And the trust allows us tobypass that.
(10:28):
And the average probate inAmerica is around $10,000 to
$15,000 and takes over a year.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, and let me tell you what that trust document
looks like too, just quicklyhere.
I mean, this is a documentyou're going to sign.
It's going to be notarized.
Typically, we're doing thesefor clients across the country,
in all 50 states.
There's a little differencestate by state on the signing
requirements.
But it's going to say, hey, I'mmarried, I'm not, I've got kids,
I don't If I got kids, here'swho's involved, who's not
getting anything.
(10:53):
It's going to say what's thepercentage of my estate that
each person gets?
It might say, hey, here's aspecific asset that a specific
person gets.
I own a boat with my brother,but when I die, my brother gets
the boat.
Or I've got this musicalinstrument or the jewelry and I
want a specific person to getthis.
So it's all these thingshappening in the trust about
your estates and this wealthyou've spent so much time
accumulating.
(11:14):
Now we're going to get intosome of the conditions and some
of the restrictions we love toput in there to protect your
family and to protect the wealththat you've built.
But this is what the trustdocument is.
It's not filed with the state,it's not in court anywhere.
Once you sign this thing, wewant to fund it, which Mark
mentioned just a second ago.
But this is the living document.
It's alive and effective.
Once you sign that baby, youdon't have to go to court.
(11:36):
You're not filing, you'regetting approved by the state
like an entity, and why?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
people like it.
The revocable living trust iswhile you're alive and starting
right now.
Once you sign it, you are thetrustee.
If you're married, typicallyit's going to be a joint
revocable living trust.
So you're trustee.
You're putting stuff in it,you're taking it out.
There's a lot of privacy.
You may name it the Blue SkyTrust or Green Tree Trust so
people don't see your name onpublic record where possible.
(12:01):
So you're using this trust asyou're alive and well to build
it, grow it.
But when you die you get tochoose who the backup trustees
are going to be.
That's the first key person in atrust.
Is this trustee?
It could be two or threetrustees.
It may be your surviving spouseand they're going to carry out
the wishes of your trust withouthaving to go to court and ask
(12:23):
for permission.
So it starts immediately.
It's a living, breathingdocument.
You're in control at all timesand you can amend it whenever
you want.
We amend other people's truststhey bring to us for a few
hundred dollars.
Sometimes.
It depends on how much theywant to talk about it and what
those changes may be, but it isvery amendable.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, and let's talk about who to choose as your
trustee.
This is one of those questionswhen you're going in to get your
estate plan done, you're goingto need to answer, and some
people get stuck on this one.
Now Mark talked, of course,during your lifetime you're the
trustee.
If you have a spouse, yourspouse is likely co-trustee and
whoever passes first thesurviving one is still kind of
trustee running it Once you'regone.
Or if you're married, both ofyou are gone.
(13:03):
Who is that trustee?
I just want to give a coupleideas here, some of the common
things people do, maybe somethings to think about.
Do they have to be good withkids?
Not necessarily they got to begood with money.
They got to be good with money.
Okay, that's more what I careabout.
And can they follow directionand do they understand you and
(13:23):
what you want?
And so some of you might havean older child.
That's you know.
They're maybe in their thirtiesor so, more mature.
You feel like they'reresponsible and that might be
someone that you list as yourtrustee in your trust.
Okay, that's who's listed inmine now.
At first I had Mark listed,okay.
Okay, mark was my trustee on mytrust before and then I cut him
out by the way.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
This is a very emotional moment, Patty, and I
wanted you to be our trustee.
I would be honored.
Yeah, because we're no feeeither.
You're not going to charge, wehave this on tape.
No, what's special about this,and why that would occur, is
because we're a blended family,yeah, and so if you have that
one child the oldest one, thatcould handle this role, I'd like
(14:05):
your example.
And let's say you do have ablended family, choosing one
child from one of these twofamilies could be problematic,
so we want to choose someonethat's good, with money, that we
trust.
I don't know if we could trustto get the kids to school and
feed them.
Yeah, you didn't give me thatjob.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Thank goodness, they're all adults too.
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
But I think that's a great point.
You bring up as someone thatyou trust with finances.
Well, someone else might begood with raising the children
or handling your underwear andyour sock drawer and emptying
the house, and those aredifferent jobs.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So, for those of you that have minor children, that's
your guardian designation.
You might be like oh, mybrother or my sister is great
with kids, if I were to pass on,I'd want them to raise my kid
List, them as the guardian.
But they might be like oh, mybrother or my sister is great
with kids, if I were to pass on,I'd want them to raise my kid
List, them as the guardian, butthey might be a disaster with
finances, and so know that yourtrustee and guardian are not
necessarily going to be the sameparties.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yep, now that executor is that third party.
So you have trustee, you havethe guardian who's really kind
of again taking the kids toschool making them lunch Could
be terrible with money, but theylove your kids and then you've
got the executor or personalrepresentative.
They're going to be the onethat handles the funeral,
empties the house, sells somepersonal property and they're
(15:18):
going to kind of work for thetrustee and help them get their
job done.
Those three parties aresomething that attorneys should
be asking you for and you cansee this is a very tailored
document to your situation andreally hard to kind of find a
boilerplate situation.
You might be able to do thatwith a will, but not the trust.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, let's talk about some of the common
provisions we like to put in thetrust that protects your family
.
All right.
Now one of the common issuesthat we have is hey, I might
have a child that could be anheir to my estate, but they're
19 years old.
If I just have a will or I havenothing, they're going to
inherit whatever share of myestate is out there.
(15:55):
But if I have a trust, I canput conditions on it.
Maybe they get money to go tocollege, Maybe they get money
for a first home, to start abusiness.
You can add those provisions andthose common questions.
We ask our clients Do you wantsome of this stuff in?
Maybe they get a third whenthey're 25, another third when
they're 30, and the final thirdwhen they're 35.
So they kind of take care ofthe first little third and then
(16:15):
maybe blow it, and the nextthird they're a little more safe
and the final third theyactually do something with it.
So those are the little commonprovisions we want you to think
about and what the trust doesthat a will just can't do.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, and I want to bring up another angle, and
that's the business continuationplan or some real estate
investing you might have goingon.
You want to make sure yourtrust is funded, which means it
actually owns the LLC membershipinterest or the stock or the
real estate.
The trust has to own it so yourtrustee can control it.
You could sign a wonderfultrust.
(16:46):
It's beautiful, but if youdon't put anything in it it's
worthless.
You got to make sure it'sfunded.
So for some of you that alreadyhave a trust, you want to make
sure you're reviewing it everyyear, making sure everything's
in it that it should be.
We have what's called atrifecta, a picture that kind of
brings it all together.
When you work with one of ourlawyers, they're going to lay it
out like a beautiful piece ofart and say this is how it all
(17:07):
works and comes together,because if you can see it, you
can feel it and believe it andmake it happen.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, and let's talk about something that a trust
doesn't do, though, because youstill need some other documents.
For example, let's say you wantto have the kind of pull the
plug document Okay, this iscalled a living will or an
advanced healthcare directive.
So if you're in a vegetativestate determined by two
physicians, do I get the plugpulled or am I staying on life
support?
So we want to address thatquestion.
It comes up more and more now.
(17:34):
If you're going into surgery orsomething at a hospital, they
ask for this now, like, hey, doyou have a living will or
advanced directive?
If you don't make it out ofhere alive, you know what are we
doing.
Are you in a veget state ofstate?
So don't leave that decision toyour family member.
(17:54):
That has to make that decisionfor you.
Decide ahead of time.
That's part of the trust.
The second thing that's partthat we want to do outside of it
and feel free to jump in herebut is the powers of attorney.
So let's say you're in a.
You know you haven't passedaway, but you're in a state
where you can't make decisionsfor yourself.
You might have a medicalcondition or be incapacitated.
Can my spouse or some otherperson maybe it's the trustee.
Do the financialdecision-making for me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, the trust can actually kick in earlier than
death and take care of you whenyou get older.
My mom had Alzheimer's and hertrust.
My brother and sister and Imanaged her affairs for a number
of years inside the trust forher benefit, even before she
passed away.
Now, another thing the trustdoesn't do and this is a big
shocker for a lot of people itdoes not provide asset
(18:38):
protection.
That's not its purpose.
I mean, we got all sorts ofasset protection plans and ideas
and we can set up entities andother types of trusts if
necessary, but a revocableliving trust is there for your
legacy, your wealth, your estate.
It is not to protect you from alawsuit and anybody that tries
to sell you that and tell youotherwise.
They're ripping you off andthey're a bad advisor.
(19:00):
A revocable living trust isabout your estate and wealth and
going in the right direction,not a barrier or a bulletproof
vest.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah, now you want to take action on this.
As we said before, we want youto leave a legacy and not a
disaster for your family.
They are going to be grievingfor you after you pass on.
Let's make it easy for them,give them a layup, give them
some wins here.
Let's get a trust and awell-crafted estate plan, and we
want to help you.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
We have a law firm?
Yes, and every year we do aspecial and our pricing all year
long is amazing compared to alot of other estate planning
firms Starting around $3,000,.
We're helping families with allsorts of levels of complexity
and estates and we haveattorneys that help clients in
all 50 states.
You can get on a Zoom call,really collaborate and design
(19:45):
something that really fits yourneeds, so you shouldn't delay
Get it done.
You can always change it later.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So click the link below to get started and take
action.
It's up to you to create anestate plan and leave a legacy,
and if you fail to do it, thatis the plan you are leaving to
your family.
Make no mistake no plan is yourplan, so let's change that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And thank you again for listening.
We appreciate your patronagehere at Main Street Business
Podcast.
We're here every week trying tobring creative and insightful
topics.
Next week, I think, it's goingto be open forum, so please get
to the website.
We've got a refresh coming withthat soon.
It's going to only get better,but you can submit questions
there.
And next week is the PeopleShow and we're going to see
(20:26):
everything we can cover asquickly as possible.
We'll see you there.
Welcome to the Main Street Business Podcast with
your distinguished hosts, mark JKohler and Matt Sorenson.
Both are bestselling authorsand have over 25 years of
industry experience, with 10,000client consultations, making
them the leading tax and legalexperts in the nation.
Together, they'll unpack themost complex tax, legal and
financial strategies.
Crucial for saving more,stressing less and building
(00:23):
generational wealth.
Crucial for saving more,stressing less and building
generational wealth.
Today they're your personaladvisors, ready to break it down
for you and make the tax andlegal game easier than ever.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Here is Mark and Matt .
Welcome everybody to the MainStreet Business Podcast.
My name is Mark Kohler.
I'm here with the illustriousMatt Sorensen, Excited today to
talk about that special time ofyear, the Memorial Day and the
estate planning special.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I was like that's a special time when we're talking
about dying.
Sorry, we want to think of ourloved ones, those that have
passed before us, but we alsowant to remind you this is time
you need to plan for the yearyou will die one day.
I hate to tell you that, solet's plan for it and leave a
legacy and not a freakingdisaster.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I love it.
Yeah, it's an exciting time,exciting times, yeah, and
regrettably, 50% of Americansdon't even have a will.
This is not something thatshould fall on deaf ears.
I know there's going to be manyof you listening today.
They're like I got to get thisdone.
What do I need to know?
So we're going to break it down, matt, let's go hard Will
versus trust.
I'll be Mac, you'll be PC.
(01:22):
Tell us about the will you goodwith that.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
The will is the PC here, that's fair, the boring PC
.
The will says who gets yourstuff when you die.
It at least does that.
So that's one feature of thewill.
I can keep going if you'd like.
Yeah, you name a few.
Here's the other thing that Ilike about the will is you can
designate who is the guardian ofyour children after you pass
away.
Really critical for any of youthat have minor children to say
(01:47):
who's going to take care of themwhen I pass away.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Okay, we'll just riff on the will for a minute.
A will can also be holographic.
I mean, at the very least, Iwould recommend all of you sit
down this weekend and handwriteout a will, which means
holographic.
You can't do it on a wordprocessor.
Print it out, you've got tohandwrite it out.
Get a couple of witnesses, butat least say who gets what.
Who gets what, who's going toraise my kids?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, what else?
Yeah, and even the holographic,I'll say in 46 states, as long
as it's in your handwriting andsigned by you, you don't even
need witnesses.
But in the other states, you do.
Here.
Here's where the will startsbreaking down, though.
There's not much left.
If you want to have a lot ofother features and bells and
whistles, you're going to rollover to the trust.
After you say who gets what?
There's not a lot of greatfeatures.
(02:33):
Here's the problem, though,that most people don't like
about the will and why they do atrust instead.
You're going to probate withthat will.
Just because I have a willthat's signed that says who gets
my stuff doesn't mean we get togo carry that out and do it.
You still have to take the willto the judge and get the
judge's stamp of approval to sayI approve this will, and
they'll issue these thingscalled letters of testamentary.
(02:54):
That allows the executor of thewill to then distribute the
assets.
It's public, it's not great,and that probate process is not
only going to cost you money,but it's also going to take more
time and it's very inflexible.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I like that.
One last thing, and I thinkthis is a good transition Even
if you do get a trust, you haveto have a will.
Yes, A will is kind of thebookend of a trust, because we
want to designate who theguardians might be, who that
executor might be, and then thatopens the door to the trust.
I'm going to riff a little onthe trust, the trust.
What's nice about the trust?
It not only says who gets what,it says when and how.
(03:39):
So now we can put on strings,conditions, provisions, and we
can really screw up our kid'slife after we die as well during
our lives.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Why stop all the fun?
So obviously we're trying toprotect our kids, right, and
that's the purpose of the trust.
We want to, of course,designate who gets what, so
they're not left guessing forthose of you who don't even have
a freaking estate plan or evena will.
But we also want to say at whatpoint do they get it?
If you pass on and you have an18-year-old child, they can
inherit your assets.
That's kind of scary, and so wewant to say what conditions do
(04:07):
they get on?
What if they have a drug oralcohol addiction?
Do they need to deal with thatbefore they get any inheritance
for the trust?
What if they are 20 years old?
Do you want them getting athird of your estate if you have
three kids?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
No, absolutely, and I know many of you are either
single and no kids, and thetrust gives you a lot of
creative options.
You can create your own charitywithin the provisions of a
trust and say here's where Iwant my assets to go.
I want my trustee to create acharity that does the following
(04:38):
or I want them to find a charitythat does this.
Or I'd like to leave my moneyto some nieces and nephews.
I want to do this, I want to dothat, does this.
Or I'd like to leave my moneyto some nieces and nephews.
I want to do this.
I want to do that.
This is your chance to writeyour book of where all this
legacy goes, like all this hardwork and money goes, and the
trust allows you thatflexibility.
Now back to the probate.
I got to have lawyers involvedwith the trust right and it's
(05:01):
going to cost a ton.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, just at the front end, just for a little bit
to get the plan and the trustdone.
But the nice thing is is, onceyou pass on, that trust lives on
.
The trustee of the trust we'lltalk about here in a second gets
to carry on.
You don't need to go to a judge, you don't need a stamp of
approval, the trust carries on,and all the conditions and
restrictions you put in thereare what's going to protect your
assets and your loved ones, sothat this legacy that we're
(05:26):
trying to create is businessowners, entrepreneurs, investors
, people trying to build andgrow wealth.
We want to have a legacy, andif you don't plan for it and not
only the who but the how andunder what conditions, you leave
a disaster instead of a legacy.
So all this how is reallyimportant.
But I'll say one other thingthat I love about the trust.
(05:46):
Oh, okay, keep going.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I just want to be a Mac too.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I got one too.
All right, maybe an iPod.
Jeez, let me come on, you gofor it, it's private.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Oh, I was going to say that, yeah, I'm going to
take that now.
Yeah, the trust is.
Isn't this fun?
You never thought it would bethis fun listening to trusts and
wills.
What's cool about a trust isyou get to give it an innocuous
name.
I'm going to call it the GreenTree Trust, the Blue Sky Trust,
(06:23):
and on a lot of the property youhold, it could even be
brokerage accounts, crypto orother things, not just real
estate.
You're not going to have yourname out there and when you die,
your will is not public.
Robin Williams, who passed awaya few years ago, all he had was
a will and it's been in court.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I mean everybody got to see his assets and how many
assets he got and who did heleave it to and not leave it to
and what kid was disinherited.
Do you want that after you passaway?
I don't think so.
And you know the nosy, the nosyneighbors and all your other
family members and some of yourhaters.
You know, I don't know the, theex spouse, whatever you know do
you really want them alldigging into that?
(06:53):
No, you don't, um.
So let's get in a trust thatstays outside of court and also
I think it's less contestablebecause of that Cause.
In the, in the probate process,there's like a contest period
where someone could come in andbe like they promised me this,
but a trust is out of court.
It's a lot more private, it's alittle more chill.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, Now let's just talk about price for a moment.
We talked about the will beingsimple and easy.
I mean, heck, you could even doa holographic will on your own,
so that's very, very affordable.
But it's a myth.
The trust has to be really,really expensive.
You might see places out therecharging five or 10 grand and
they kind of base their pricebased on what your wealth is.
But you don't have to be richto have a trust.
(07:32):
In fact, many, many people needit just with having some life
insurance and a home and somefamily or not, and so the price
point could be around $3,000.
We have a special every year tobring that down, usually throw
up to $500 off and we want tomake sure it's easy, simple and
affordable.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And once you get that estate plan done, keep in mind
it's done.
You don't have to do an annualfee, you only need to go back to
it when you want to make achange.
And this is a revocable trust.
Don't do these irrevocabletrusts.
You see on TikTok, those are BS.
You need a revocable trust.
That's what I have, that's whatMark has, that's what we're
doing for 99% of our clients,and we can change it whenever we
want.
Because life happens, you mightneed to disinherit a kid, you
(08:13):
might have a kid that getsdivorced, you might get divorced
yourself, you might getremarried, your financial
situation might change and youmight not be willing to give so
much to charity that you werebefore.
Who knows?
But the nice thing about thesetrusts is it can be changed in
an easy amendment.
That can be very inexpensiveand cost you only a few hundred
bucks to just change littleprovisions here as you need.
Yeah, and just remember if youdon't have an estate plan,
(08:35):
you're planning for disaster.
That is your plan.
For those of you don't have africking estate plan in place,
you haven't gone through thisprocess.
We're here to help you takecare of it.
Now we got a lot more to talkabout still yeah, it's going to
be good.
Now we want to talk about thetrust, the components of it, the
parties and a lot of thedecisions you need to make to
get the living trust done.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, so let's do a living trust 101 and break down
the living trust.
I think this will be reallyhelpful for many of you so that,
as you go into this process,you're going to have a lot of
your questions answered, so thatyou can avoid getting misled by
a lawyer that's trying tocharge you too much.
You need to get this estateplan done, get a living trust
done.
Let's help you with some of thebasics so that you know what to
(09:14):
ask and what to look for.
So, matt, let's volley back andforth here.
What do you like about thetrust?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Well, the first thing I like about it is you're not
going to probate court.
I should say your loved onesaren't.
You're dead already, so you'redefinitely not going to probate
court.
But your family's not going toprobate court, all right, and
what's that mean?
And that means it's all privateand everything I put into my
trust it's not out in court.
There's not a contest period.
(09:41):
I don't need a judge to put arubber stamp on the thing to say
this is a valid will and theassets can get distributed.
It's all happening under theterms of my trust document,
privately.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
How probate came about was people that were dying
with a will or nothing at all,and a judge had to verify what
did they want, or guess whatthey may have wanted to do with
their estate.
The trust bypasses that.
The trust allows you in advanceto say here's my trustee,
here's my stuff, here's where Iwanted to go, and as long as
your trust is funded, we'll cometo that.
(10:07):
Then your family can justhandle the matters.
The probate is about the peoplethat are a train wreck with
their planning.
A judge is going to say, oh,there's no trust, so do they
even have a will?
And what are we going to dowith their stuff, their kids,
their money, their real estate?
And that's what probate isabout.
And the trust allows us tobypass that.
(10:28):
And the average probate inAmerica is around $10,000 to
$15,000 and takes over a year.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, and let me tell you what that trust document
looks like too, just quicklyhere.
I mean, this is a documentyou're going to sign.
It's going to be notarized.
Typically, we're doing thesefor clients across the country,
in all 50 states.
There's a little differencestate by state on the signing
requirements.
But it's going to say, hey, I'mmarried, I'm not, I've got kids,
I don't If I got kids, here'swho's involved, who's not
getting anything.
(10:53):
It's going to say what's thepercentage of my estate that
each person gets?
It might say, hey, here's aspecific asset that a specific
person gets.
I own a boat with my brother,but when I die, my brother gets
the boat.
Or I've got this musicalinstrument or the jewelry and I
want a specific person to getthis.
So it's all these thingshappening in the trust about
your estates and this wealthyou've spent so much time
accumulating.
(11:14):
Now we're going to get intosome of the conditions and some
of the restrictions we love toput in there to protect your
family and to protect the wealththat you've built.
But this is what the trustdocument is.
It's not filed with the state,it's not in court anywhere.
Once you sign this thing, wewant to fund it, which Mark
mentioned just a second ago.
But this is the living document.
It's alive and effective.
Once you sign that baby, youdon't have to go to court.
(11:36):
You're not filing, you'regetting approved by the state
like an entity, and why?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
people like it.
The revocable living trust iswhile you're alive and starting
right now.
Once you sign it, you are thetrustee.
If you're married, typicallyit's going to be a joint
revocable living trust.
So you're trustee.
You're putting stuff in it,you're taking it out.
There's a lot of privacy.
You may name it the Blue SkyTrust or Green Tree Trust so
people don't see your name onpublic record where possible.
(12:01):
So you're using this trust asyou're alive and well to build
it, grow it.
But when you die you get tochoose who the backup trustees
are going to be.
That's the first key person in atrust.
Is this trustee?
It could be two or threetrustees.
It may be your surviving spouseand they're going to carry out
the wishes of your trust withouthaving to go to court and ask
(12:23):
for permission.
So it starts immediately.
It's a living, breathingdocument.
You're in control at all timesand you can amend it whenever
you want.
We amend other people's truststhey bring to us for a few
hundred dollars.
Sometimes.
It depends on how much theywant to talk about it and what
those changes may be, but it isvery amendable.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, and let's talk about who to choose as your
trustee.
This is one of those questionswhen you're going in to get your
estate plan done, you're goingto need to answer, and some
people get stuck on this one.
Now Mark talked, of course,during your lifetime you're the
trustee.
If you have a spouse, yourspouse is likely co-trustee and
whoever passes first thesurviving one is still kind of
trustee running it Once you'regone.
Or if you're married, both ofyou are gone.
(13:03):
Who is that trustee?
I just want to give a coupleideas here, some of the common
things people do, maybe somethings to think about.
Do they have to be good withkids?
Not necessarily they got to begood with money.
They got to be good with money.
Okay, that's more what I careabout.
And can they follow directionand do they understand you and
(13:23):
what you want?
And so some of you might havean older child.
That's you know.
They're maybe in their thirtiesor so, more mature.
You feel like they'reresponsible and that might be
someone that you list as yourtrustee in your trust.
Okay, that's who's listed inmine now.
At first I had Mark listed,okay.
Okay, mark was my trustee on mytrust before and then I cut him
out by the way.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
This is a very emotional moment, Patty, and I
wanted you to be our trustee.
I would be honored.
Yeah, because we're no feeeither.
You're not going to charge, wehave this on tape.
No, what's special about this,and why that would occur, is
because we're a blended family,yeah, and so if you have that
one child the oldest one, thatcould handle this role, I'd like
(14:05):
your example.
And let's say you do have ablended family, choosing one
child from one of these twofamilies could be problematic,
so we want to choose someonethat's good, with money, that we
trust.
I don't know if we could trustto get the kids to school and
feed them.
Yeah, you didn't give me thatjob.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Thank goodness, they're all adults too.
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
But I think that's a great point.
You bring up as someone thatyou trust with finances.
Well, someone else might begood with raising the children
or handling your underwear andyour sock drawer and emptying
the house, and those aredifferent jobs.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So, for those of you that have minor children, that's
your guardian designation.
You might be like oh, mybrother or my sister is great
with kids, if I were to pass on,I'd want them to raise my kid
List, them as the guardian.
But they might be like oh, mybrother or my sister is great
with kids, if I were to pass on,I'd want them to raise my kid
List, them as the guardian, butthey might be a disaster with
finances, and so know that yourtrustee and guardian are not
necessarily going to be the sameparties.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yep, now that executor is that third party.
So you have trustee, you havethe guardian who's really kind
of again taking the kids toschool making them lunch Could
be terrible with money, but theylove your kids and then you've
got the executor or personalrepresentative.
They're going to be the onethat handles the funeral,
empties the house, sells somepersonal property and they're
(15:18):
going to kind of work for thetrustee and help them get their
job done.
Those three parties aresomething that attorneys should
be asking you for and you cansee this is a very tailored
document to your situation andreally hard to kind of find a
boilerplate situation.
You might be able to do thatwith a will, but not the trust.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, let's talk about some of the common
provisions we like to put in thetrust that protects your family
.
All right.
Now one of the common issuesthat we have is hey, I might
have a child that could be anheir to my estate, but they're
19 years old.
If I just have a will or I havenothing, they're going to
inherit whatever share of myestate is out there.
(15:55):
But if I have a trust, I canput conditions on it.
Maybe they get money to go tocollege, Maybe they get money
for a first home, to start abusiness.
You can add those provisions andthose common questions.
We ask our clients Do you wantsome of this stuff in?
Maybe they get a third whenthey're 25, another third when
they're 30, and the final thirdwhen they're 35.
So they kind of take care ofthe first little third and then
(16:15):
maybe blow it, and the nextthird they're a little more safe
and the final third theyactually do something with it.
So those are the little commonprovisions we want you to think
about and what the trust doesthat a will just can't do.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, and I want to bring up another angle, and
that's the business continuationplan or some real estate
investing you might have goingon.
You want to make sure yourtrust is funded, which means it
actually owns the LLC membershipinterest or the stock or the
real estate.
The trust has to own it so yourtrustee can control it.
You could sign a wonderfultrust.
(16:46):
It's beautiful, but if youdon't put anything in it it's
worthless.
You got to make sure it'sfunded.
So for some of you that alreadyhave a trust, you want to make
sure you're reviewing it everyyear, making sure everything's
in it that it should be.
We have what's called atrifecta, a picture that kind of
brings it all together.
When you work with one of ourlawyers, they're going to lay it
out like a beautiful piece ofart and say this is how it all
(17:07):
works and comes together,because if you can see it, you
can feel it and believe it andmake it happen.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, and let's talk about something that a trust
doesn't do, though, because youstill need some other documents.
For example, let's say you wantto have the kind of pull the
plug document Okay, this iscalled a living will or an
advanced healthcare directive.
So if you're in a vegetativestate determined by two
physicians, do I get the plugpulled or am I staying on life
support?
So we want to address thatquestion.
It comes up more and more now.
(17:34):
If you're going into surgery orsomething at a hospital, they
ask for this now, like, hey, doyou have a living will or
advanced directive?
If you don't make it out ofhere alive, you know what are we
doing.
Are you in a veget state ofstate?
So don't leave that decision toyour family member.
(17:54):
That has to make that decisionfor you.
Decide ahead of time.
That's part of the trust.
The second thing that's partthat we want to do outside of it
and feel free to jump in herebut is the powers of attorney.
So let's say you're in a.
You know you haven't passedaway, but you're in a state
where you can't make decisionsfor yourself.
You might have a medicalcondition or be incapacitated.
Can my spouse or some otherperson maybe it's the trustee.
Do the financialdecision-making for me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, the trust can actually kick in earlier than
death and take care of you whenyou get older.
My mom had Alzheimer's and hertrust.
My brother and sister and Imanaged her affairs for a number
of years inside the trust forher benefit, even before she
passed away.
Now, another thing the trustdoesn't do and this is a big
shocker for a lot of people itdoes not provide asset
(18:38):
protection.
That's not its purpose.
I mean, we got all sorts ofasset protection plans and ideas
and we can set up entities andother types of trusts if
necessary, but a revocableliving trust is there for your
legacy, your wealth, your estate.
It is not to protect you from alawsuit and anybody that tries
to sell you that and tell youotherwise.
They're ripping you off andthey're a bad advisor.
(19:00):
A revocable living trust isabout your estate and wealth and
going in the right direction,not a barrier or a bulletproof
vest.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah, now you want to take action on this.
As we said before, we want youto leave a legacy and not a
disaster for your family.
They are going to be grievingfor you after you pass on.
Let's make it easy for them,give them a layup, give them
some wins here.
Let's get a trust and awell-crafted estate plan, and we
want to help you.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
We have a law firm?
Yes, and every year we do aspecial and our pricing all year
long is amazing compared to alot of other estate planning
firms Starting around $3,000,.
We're helping families with allsorts of levels of complexity
and estates and we haveattorneys that help clients in
all 50 states.
You can get on a Zoom call,really collaborate and design
(19:45):
something that really fits yourneeds, so you shouldn't delay
Get it done.
You can always change it later.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So click the link below to get started and take
action.
It's up to you to create anestate plan and leave a legacy,
and if you fail to do it, thatis the plan you are leaving to
your family.
Make no mistake no plan is yourplan, so let's change that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And thank you again for listening.
We appreciate your patronagehere at Main Street Business
Podcast.
We're here every week trying tobring creative and insightful
topics.
Next week, I think, it's goingto be open forum, so please get
to the website.
We've got a refresh coming withthat soon.
It's going to only get better,but you can submit questions
there.
And next week is the PeopleShow and we're going to see
(20:26):
everything we can cover asquickly as possible.
We'll see you there.
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