August 7, 2025 • 24 mins
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Episode Summary:
You’ve done the hard work of creating your estate plan. But is it actually ready to work when you need it most? In this episode, Evon breaks down the four critical gaps that can make or break your estate plan's effectiveness — especially for busy optometrists and practice owners.
We’re diving into the implementation side of estate planning — those next steps after the documents are signed that so many overlook. Whether you’ve DIY’ed your estate plan or worked with an attorney, this episode will help you spot (and fix) potential breakdowns that could leave your family or practice exposed.
💡 In This Episode, You'll Learn:
- Why having signed documents may not be enough to protect your family or business
- The #1 mistake DIY estate planners make (and how to fix it)
- How to make sure your estate planning documents actually do what you want them to do
- Why outdated beneficiaries can completely derail your estate plan
- How to organize your digital life — from passwords to email — so your loved ones aren't locked out
- When to revisit and update your plan
🔗 Resources & Links:
- Click here to schedule a free intro call.
- Sign up for the Eyes On The Money newsletter and get the Estate Planning Checklist!
- The Optometry Money Podcast Ep 81: An Optometrist's Guide to Estate Planning
The Optometry Money Podcast is dedicated to helping optometrists make better decisions around their money, careers, and practices. The show is hosted by Evon Mendrin, CFP®, CSLP®, owner of Optometry Wealth Advisors, a financial planning firm just for optometrists nationwide.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evon (00:04):
Hey everybody.
Welcome to the Optometry Moneypodcast.
We're helping ODs all over thecountry make better and better
decisions around their money,their careers, and their
practices.
I am your host, Evon Mendrin,Certified Financial Planner and
owner of Optometry WealthAdvisors an independent
financial planning firm just foroptometrists nationwide.
(00:24):
And thank you so much forlistening.
Really appreciate your time andyour attention today and on
today's episode I wanna talkabout a common gap in estate
plan that I see with clients aswe have estate planning
conversations, which isimplementation.
That as you go through the timeand the effort to get a well
(00:45):
thought out estate plandocumented, that should
something happen to you, eitheryour death or incapacity, things
happen according to your wishes,but very often there are steps
that need to be taken after thatwork.
To make sure that what youintend to happen in that estate
plan actually happens, and let'swalk through an example as it
(01:05):
would look for a family that myfirm is serving.
One of our conversations forevery family, is estate
planning, and we talk througheducation around what estate
planning is.
How different parts of theestate plan work.
we'll diagram out the plan as itcurrently is, and then we'll
talk about areas of improvement.
And once we have thatconversation, very often it
(01:26):
makes sense to connect with anestate planning attorney in that
client's state who can actuallyprovide legal advice.
'cause surprise, surprise, I'm,I'm not an attorney, and create
the legal documents, especiallyif there's families that just
haven't had the chance to workon it just yet, or a time has
passed since their last estateplanning documents were done.
(01:47):
And they need to be eitherupdated to, reflect current laws
or simplified or just reflectthe, the family situation of
that family.
So we meet with the attorney, wetalk through the finances and
the goals of the family.
The attorney will ask questions,advise on the situation, and
then draft documents, and we'llall review and make sure that
(02:07):
the documents are according towhat we had intended initially,
and then the final documentswill get done and signed and
notarized.
And then you have the coredocuments of your estate plan,
and what are those coredocuments?
Well, at the very least, you'regonna have a will, either for
yourself or if you're marriedfor you and your spouse.
this is especially important ifyou have minor children, as you
can name guardians in your willfor those minor kids.
(02:30):
In many states and situations,living trusts may make sense as
the foundation of the estateplan.
very often it's to avoid theprobate court process, which Can
be time consuming andpotentially costly in certain
states like California.
potentially better management ofthe assets, including if you
become incapacitated, becausethe trustee can just step in and
(02:52):
to keep the process private aswell as probate is a public
process where the trust, whathappens with the trust is not,
it's a, it's a private affair.
It's a private arrangement, aprivate document.
Even in that case where you havea living trust, you will also
have a will as well.
And the goal of that will youall, you'll sometimes hear it
called a pour over will, is tograb anything that was left out
(03:15):
of the trust sort ofaccidentally.
And pour it into the trust stillhas to go through that probate
process, very often, but it'llat least grab what's left and
pour it in.
you'll also have powers ofattorney, most likely, documents
where you can name someone tostep in and make financial and
healthcare decisions If youcan't, if you're incapacitated,
you might see documents calledadvanced healthcare directives
(03:37):
or living wills.
As a part of that, often on thehealthcare side, you're gonna
see HIPAA authorization involvedthere too, which is gonna allow
your, your agents to accesshealth information for you.
and then whatever documents areneeded to carry out your wishes
that the attorney deemsnecessary.
And so you go through all thatwork, you get these documents
done, they're signed andnotarized and, and valid legal
(03:59):
documents, but that's not theend of the process.
And that's very often wherepeople stop and assume that
things are done.
But that's, that's not the endof the process.
There are follow-up actions.
That you need to take to makesure that you don't just have a
fancy pile of paperwork.
there are implementation stepsto make sure that what you
intended to happen as part ofthat process in those documents
(04:22):
will actually take place.
And that's what we're gonna talkabout today.
And this isn't legal advice,the, the required disclosure
here.
I'm, I'm required to add in.
I'm not an attorney.
But this should be someeducation to help you have
better conversations with yourown attorney and financial
Advisors, and to make surethings are working as intended.
And we'll go through fourthings, four common areas of
(04:45):
gaps that I tend to see.
the first one that we'll mentionis A, is really for those that
are DIYing it yourself.
I'm a huge fan and believer ofusing a good estate planning
attorney to go through thisprocess, but there are a lot of
online offerings out there wherethey sort of just ask you a
bunch of questions and they.
Draft and create documents foryou, D-I-Y approach and and.
(05:09):
And then you just take thosedrafted documents.
And so if that's you, if youDIYed it through an online,
through, through a website,through some online service
provider, make sure yourdocuments are signed and
notarized according to therequirements of your state laws,
so that they are not just a bigfancy expensive PDF, but they're
actually active, valid legaldocuments.
(05:31):
I've seen that, more times thanyou would expect.
But just wanted to throw thatout there if that's what you're
doing, make sure that those are,properly executed, signed in if
needed, notarized documents andif there needs to be a witness,
then, then a witness as well.
Number two, retitling assets,and this is especially relevant
if you have a living trustinvolved in the plan.
(05:54):
You wanna make sure that anyassets that should be titled in
the name of the trust whileyou're alive.
Are actually titled in the nameof the trust.
You can kind of think of theliving trust as a big box where
if something happens to you,you've named exactly who steps
in and controls the stuff in thebox.
(06:15):
For who Like who are thebeneficiaries and what are the
rules that that person needs tooperate under In order to manage
it according to your wishes, andyou can put stuff in the box
while you're alive by retitlingassets, or you can put stuff in
the box after your death bynaming the trust as beneficiary.
(06:35):
And so while you're alive, youwanna make sure that the things
that should be titled in thename of the trust are actually
titled in the name of the trust.
Some examples of this are, realestate.
So for example, primaryresidence.
if the primary residence isintended to be controlled by the
trust at your death.
Your attorney should help you tochange the deed of your house if
(06:57):
that's what's intended.
So you wanna lean on theattorney to do that.
And if you don't remember, youcan look at public records
usually for your county.
And you can see very often howyour house is titled, and if
it's just in your name, or youand your spouse's name, that's
probably a good indication thatit's not.
And so primary residence andreal estate's a good example of
something that, may need to beretitled with the help of the
(07:19):
attorney and re-deeded to becontrolled by the trust.
Taxable brokerage accounts.
So another example of this.
Very often you'll have anindividual taxable brokerage
account somewhere, or, a jointtenants accounts, especially if
you're married.
You may have a, an account thatyou own jointly with your
spouse.
And if those accounts areintended to be inside of and
(07:40):
controlled by the trust, thenyou want to either have your
custodian Convert the account toa trust account, or open a new
trust account and transfer thoseassets into it.
And very often as a part of thatprocess, the, the custodian,
they're gonna wanna seedocumentation of the trust.
You don't have to send them thewhole trust.
(08:00):
Remember, that's your privatedocument.
they should accept acertification of trust document,
which is a Shortened, documentthat gives them all the
information they need and leavesout all the other private stuff.
And so, that's something thatyou'll want to consider.
Now, I will add, this isn'talways what's best.
(08:20):
So for example, in states thatallow a.
a type of joint titling betweenspouses called tenants by the
entirety.
There may be extra creditorprotections to keeping it in
that joint titling rather thanmoving it into a trust.
another example is that incommunity property states like
California or Texas, you mayhave separate property that,
(08:44):
that you had before marriage,for example, or a separate
property that you've inherited.
That's not community propertybetween the two of you.
sometimes moving your separateproperty assets into the trust
can commingle it, can mix it upand make it community property
accidentally.
Sometimes, although many trustdocuments allow assets to keep
(09:05):
their character that they hadgoing into it, so many trust
documents are worded in order toto avoid that from happening
accidentally.
But, these are all things thatyou want to talk through with
your attorney and, and to readwhat the trust document actually
says.
Or you may simply wanna retitleindividual taxable investment
accounts.
Into joint tenant accounts sothat at the death of one spouse,
(09:27):
for example, it automaticallypasses to the surviving owner.
so those taxable investmentaccounts are things you wanna
take a look at.
Retirement accounts are nonretirement accounts.
You cannot retitle into the nameof the trust.
you're gonna be handling thatwith beneficiaries, but those
taxable accounts you wanna keepa close eye on.
What about practice entities orother LLCs?
So for example, if you have realestate, in other cases you may
(09:50):
see that your attorney uses anassignment of assets.
So.
Where the, the practice entitiesor the real estate LLCs for, for
example, are, are assigned nowwhile you're alive into the
trust or after death, which issomething that the attorney
should advise on.
But sometimes there's anassignment, of interest in, a
(10:10):
business entity or LLC.
Sometimes there's potentiallyrestructurings of the entities
or restructuring of theownership of, different real
estate properties.
So those are all things youwanna keep account of and, and
talk with your attorney about.
if you own an Optometrypractice, make sure that your
ownership interests, thebuy/sell agreements and the
operating agreements.
And, and succession planning areall tied into your estate plan.
(10:33):
this might include how theownership passes at your death,
what your legal documents, likethose operating agreements say,
funding strategies how wouldyour, if you co-own it with
another optometrist, how willthat buyout happen at your
death?
How is it gonna be funded?
Is it gonna be funded throughlife insurance?
Is it gonna be funded through,through an installment plan or
something like that?
and then who's gonna step in andactually run that business?
(10:55):
And so these are all things thatyou'd want to think of, in light
of the, the overall estateplanning care.
So number two is gonna be aretitling or, or assigning
assets.
Take inventory of all youraccounts and all the different
assets and say, Hey, knowingwhat my documents say should
happen, knowing what my desiresare, my wishes, are there any
(11:16):
accounts or assets that need tobe retitled based on that?
the third one is updatingbeneficiaries.
And this is, this is animportant one.
Take a look at, review the lifeinsurance policies that you
have.
the investment accounts that youhave and retirement accounts,
and see who are thebeneficiaries and then ask
yourself, are these up to datewith my current estate planning
(11:36):
needs?
Are these up to date with mycurrent family situation?
these are things you wanna takea look at.
And for all of these things, youcan name a primary beneficiary
or a group of primarybeneficiaries.
It could be people, it could beorganizations, nonprofits, and a
contingent group ofbeneficiaries, the primary are
(11:56):
the first beneficiaries to stepin in case something happens to
you at your death.
the contingents are, and sort ofin that worst case scenario
where the primary beneficiariespass away before you, or if you
all pass away at the same time,they, the contingent
beneficiaries are that secondline of beneficiaries.
So you know that your assets aregoing to somewhere that you'd
(12:17):
want them to go to.
and so sometimes, just as anexample, sometimes we're naming.
A spouse is a primary and aliving trust as a contingent
beneficiary, or kids ascontingent beneficiaries or
something like that.
So you'll want to take a look atboth of'em and bringing back
that living trust in the case ofa living trust, if something
(12:38):
should name the trust asbeneficiary, make sure the trust
is listed as a beneficiary whereit's appropriate.
for life insurance policies Ifthe death benefits intended to
be controlled by the trust.
Make sure that the trust isinvolved there as a beneficiary.
Taxable investment accounts,even joint accounts.
If, if they're not in the trustitself for whatever reason, you
(13:01):
still will name beneficiaries.
And this can be a trust createdat your debt.
So, for example, a living trustis a trust that an attorney
creates for you while you'realive.
but even if you don't have aliving trust during your
lifetime, you can still create atrust at your death through your
will this is called atestamentary trust, but you may
(13:22):
see this in the language, inthe, in the language of your
will.
this is helpful if you want yourassets managed for very specific
purposes.
So, for example, if you haveminor kids, and you want those
assets to be managed in acertain way to certain ages for
those minor kids, you, yourattorney may still create one
under that will, and so thattestamentary trust named under
(13:45):
your will.
Can also be involved as abeneficiary.
and the language to do thiswhenever you're naming a trust
as a beneficiary is often superlong.
something like Jim and PamHalpert Living Trust dated one
one 2025, like it's somethingridiculous like that.
And beneficiary forms may haveinstructions on how exactly to
(14:07):
word that.
with examples too.
So reference that if that's thecase.
and then attorneys often includeinstructions in their documents
too, but if not, if you needhelp, chat with your financial
advisor or, or chat with yourattorney to figure out what to
do there.
So again, if your trust isintended to receive these assets
at your death, you want to makesure that it's included
(14:29):
appropriately, where needed as abeneficiary.
and then retirement accounts.
Retirement accounts are aspecial set of assets that need
to be looked at.
carefully and handled with caredue to tax rules around how
inherited accounts need to behandled by the heirs.
The right way to handleretirement account beneficiaries
depends entirely on who you wantto inherit them.
(14:51):
So some examples here, yourspouse, spouses tend to be
pretty simple because we canname each spouse as the primary
beneficiary if that's what'sintended.
Like it can be very simplethere.
or another example is, let's sayyour estate plan creates a
trust, and you have veryspecific ages where you want
your kids to get access to theassets that they're gonna
(15:13):
inherit.
And very often this can bepretty substantial.
So if you look at your lifeinsurance beneficiaries, if you
look at your, retirementaccounts, if you look at the
value of your practice, like ifsomething happens to both
parents very often, that dollaramount can be pretty
substantial.
and this is something that'sespecially something that
consider when you have minorkids.
(15:34):
so for example, you might say inyour trust, Hey, I want my kids
to get access to these dollars.
A portion of it at 25, anotherportion at 30, and then the rest
at 35 or whatever it may be.
and you may want to name thetrust as a beneficiary then of
that retirement account.
So those assets are managed foryour kids based on those rules.
(15:56):
that's one example of where thattrust may be, be involved there.
Or they may be old enough towhere you're comfortable just
naming them directly and, andthe trust isn't involved at all
for those particular retirementaccounts.
And for retirement accounts,there are very specific, overly
unnecessarily complicated rulesaround how beneficiaries need to
(16:16):
handle inherited retirementaccounts.
And whether they need to takewithdrawals from the accounts,
depending on who inherits it andwhat age the account owner was,
when they passed away, and whatyear they passed away.
So it can be different from aspouse versus your, your minor
children, versus your minorgrandchildren versus anyone
(16:39):
else, versus a trust and howthat trust is worthy, the type
of trust it is.
And so.
Especially when minor kids areinvolved, you want to take some
care, and careful thought andlean on good advice around
naming beneficiaries for yourretirement accounts.
if it's supposed to go tocharity.
Another example of thoseretirement accounts, because the
(16:59):
charity won't pay tax on them,but your heirs will, you may
want to make sure that pre-taxretirement accounts are
Prioritized, naming thecharities as beneficiaries and
leaving other more tax efficientassets to other people.
And so that's again, anotherexample of you wanna look at who
do I intend to inherit these?
(17:21):
What's the tax situation oroutcome or required withdrawals
if they do?
And, and does that make sensebased on your estate plan?
You also want to review donoradvice funds.
health savings accounts andother things like 529 plans,
because they all have their ownunique nuances.
So, for example, HSAs.
If anyone other than your spouseinherits them, it immediately
(17:44):
ceases to be an HSA and it'staxable to the heirs.
So like that's, that's aninteresting nuance that you
wanna keep in mind when figuringout who that contingent
beneficiary should be.
A 529 plans are another example,529 plans you're actually naming
successor owners, becausewhoever the beneficiaries are,
meaning whoever the.
(18:04):
the 529 dollars are intended tobe used for, they're gonna
continue to be the beneficiariesof the account.
So you're naming a successorowner, and sometimes you can
name two lines of successorowners.
So that's another one you wannakeep an eye on.
And then lastly on this is, bankaccounts and how you handle bank
accounts And bank productsdepends on the type.
(18:25):
So, for example, oh, savingsaccounts, you can often convert
them to trust accounts.
or you can open another trustsavings accounts that's titled
in the name of your trust, butchecking accounts because you
often have to change the accountnumber with checking accounts or
open a new account to, to put itunder the ownership of the, of a
trust.
(18:46):
And you have all those billsthat are probably like
automatically coming out of theaccounts that you probably have
to redirect to a new accountnumber.
I've seen attorneys recommendthat it's much simpler just
naming.
the trust or you know, yourspouse, whoever it needs to be
as a beneficiary on thosechecking accounts.
And then titling of those bankaccounts too.
Like check, you know, are theyjoint accounts, are they
(19:08):
individual accounts, and soforth.
So beneficiaries are a reallyimportant one.
that's one of the ones I seemost missed is just accounts are
not updated.
beneficiaries just aren'tupdated even though, many times
that whole process was done toget the, to get the estate
planning documents done.
The beneficiaries still need tobe updated.
and then number four, don'tforget digital assets.
(19:29):
make sure someone can accessyour financial tools.
your financial websites, yourpassword manager, or even things
like crypto accounts if youneed, and I would highly
recommend using a passwordmanager.
One example is 1Password, butthere are a bunch of other ones
out there because, not only arethey gonna help you be more
secure on your passwords for allyour really important websites,
(19:51):
but they often have like a sortof estate or contingency
planning feature to them, thatsomeone else can get access to
it at your death.
And so.
that will help that wholeprocess there.
think of, think of all youremail and social media accounts
too.
think of online file storage, orvaults.
You know, who has access to thatif you were to pass away.
(20:12):
We live in a really fascinatingworld now where you have to
track all these digital assetsand digital properties like
alongside all of the real and,and financial ones.
So, keep in mind all of thatdigital stuff in your life as
well.
these are some things to thinkthrough and, and we can't get
through every possible thingthat you wanna look at.
But I think thinking throughthese four, four broad
(20:35):
categories of things to keep aneye on, to implement as you
change or update or get yourestate planning done, I think
this is gonna be helpful for youto have, again, good
conversations with your estateplanning attorney, good
conversations with your ownadvisor.
all in all, lean on the guidanceof your attorney and your
Advisors and make sure thateverything's implemented as it
(20:55):
should, and then keep an on itover time to keep up with any
changes in your life.
And our, you know, my role, ourrole as financial planners is to
help bridge that gap betweenwhat's written on paper and how
your accounts and assets areactually structured.
So the legal plan actually doeswhat it's supposed to do, and
we're sort of like projectmanagers here.
Deeply embedded in the lives ofour clients to make sure that
(21:17):
all of this gets done and wecan, interpret communication
between attorney and client and,and make sure that what the
client really desires as a partof their estate plan and their
family life actually gets done.
And then you can review.
You go through all that.
You go through that wholeprocess, it's done.
You can take a deep breath andthen you review.
(21:39):
And this should, this reallyshouldn't need to change every
year, but things likebeneficiaries, if you keep good
records of them, are easy toreview once a year just to make
sure that they reflect anychanges in your life or if you
have any new accounts that thoseare updated too.
and then you'll wanna pull outthe whole estate plan every, I
don't know, maybe three to fiveyears, every few years or so,
(21:59):
and just ask.
Does this reflect your currentwishes and the current financial
and family situation?
And some triggers then to revieware the birth of a child, sale
or acquisition, sale or purchaseof a practice, the relocation to
another state.
So if you did all of your estateplanning documents in one state
(22:20):
based on that state's laws, andthen you move to a new state,
that's something you're gonnaget, wanna get reviewed again in
that new state.
marriage, divorce, orremarriage, anything related to
marriage is an instant trigger,to review this and then
inheriting.
So if you inherit assets, that'ssomething you wanna take a look
at too.
Hopefully this is helpful foryou as you go through your own
estate planning.
This is often something that isreally important.
(22:44):
but not often urgent forclients.
It's not something that they areracing to do, but most of the
time when I talk with clientsand other optometrists about it,
they know it's important.
They just haven't done it yetbecause you're busy.
You have, your family life, youhave practice life, you have
patients and everything else.
And so hopefully thisconversation helps you to, to
get a better grasp of all this.
And if you wanna talk with aprofessional, if you wanna talk
(23:05):
with a financial Planner to helpyou to review all this stuff, to
talk through all this stuff, tohelp you make sure that All of
these really important thingsare actually implemented and
decisions are made.
reach out.
We would love to have aconversation with you.
I'll throw a link in the shownotes and you can schedule a,
and you can pick out a time andschedule and no commitment, no
pressure introductory call.
We can talk about what's on yourmind financially, and we can
(23:28):
share how we help optometristsall over the country navigate
those same decisions and more.
And if you're not quite ready toreach out, I'll also throw a
link in the show note to sign upfor our weekly newsletter, Where
I write all about these thingseach and every week in addition
to the podcast here.
And if you do that, if you signup.
I'll give you access to achecklist where you'll be able
to sort of keep inventory of allthese decisions and make sure
(23:50):
that it's getting done in yourown estate planning.
And again, really appreciateyour time.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
In the meantime, take care.
Hey everybody.
Welcome to the Optometry Moneypodcast.
We're helping ODs all over thecountry make better and better
decisions around their money,their careers, and their
practices.
I am your host, Evon Mendrin,Certified Financial Planner and
owner of Optometry WealthAdvisors an independent
financial planning firm just foroptometrists nationwide.
(00:24):
And thank you so much forlistening.
Really appreciate your time andyour attention today and on
today's episode I wanna talkabout a common gap in estate
plan that I see with clients aswe have estate planning
conversations, which isimplementation.
That as you go through the timeand the effort to get a well
(00:45):
thought out estate plandocumented, that should
something happen to you, eitheryour death or incapacity, things
happen according to your wishes,but very often there are steps
that need to be taken after thatwork.
To make sure that what youintend to happen in that estate
plan actually happens, and let'swalk through an example as it
(01:05):
would look for a family that myfirm is serving.
One of our conversations forevery family, is estate
planning, and we talk througheducation around what estate
planning is.
How different parts of theestate plan work.
we'll diagram out the plan as itcurrently is, and then we'll
talk about areas of improvement.
And once we have thatconversation, very often it
(01:26):
makes sense to connect with anestate planning attorney in that
client's state who can actuallyprovide legal advice.
'cause surprise, surprise, I'm,I'm not an attorney, and create
the legal documents, especiallyif there's families that just
haven't had the chance to workon it just yet, or a time has
passed since their last estateplanning documents were done.
(01:47):
And they need to be eitherupdated to, reflect current laws
or simplified or just reflectthe, the family situation of
that family.
So we meet with the attorney, wetalk through the finances and
the goals of the family.
The attorney will ask questions,advise on the situation, and
then draft documents, and we'llall review and make sure that
(02:07):
the documents are according towhat we had intended initially,
and then the final documentswill get done and signed and
notarized.
And then you have the coredocuments of your estate plan,
and what are those coredocuments?
Well, at the very least, you'regonna have a will, either for
yourself or if you're marriedfor you and your spouse.
this is especially important ifyou have minor children, as you
can name guardians in your willfor those minor kids.
(02:30):
In many states and situations,living trusts may make sense as
the foundation of the estateplan.
very often it's to avoid theprobate court process, which Can
be time consuming andpotentially costly in certain
states like California.
potentially better management ofthe assets, including if you
become incapacitated, becausethe trustee can just step in and
(02:52):
to keep the process private aswell as probate is a public
process where the trust, whathappens with the trust is not,
it's a, it's a private affair.
It's a private arrangement, aprivate document.
Even in that case where you havea living trust, you will also
have a will as well.
And the goal of that will youall, you'll sometimes hear it
called a pour over will, is tograb anything that was left out
(03:15):
of the trust sort ofaccidentally.
And pour it into the trust stillhas to go through that probate
process, very often, but it'llat least grab what's left and
pour it in.
you'll also have powers ofattorney, most likely, documents
where you can name someone tostep in and make financial and
healthcare decisions If youcan't, if you're incapacitated,
you might see documents calledadvanced healthcare directives
(03:37):
or living wills.
As a part of that, often on thehealthcare side, you're gonna
see HIPAA authorization involvedthere too, which is gonna allow
your, your agents to accesshealth information for you.
and then whatever documents areneeded to carry out your wishes
that the attorney deemsnecessary.
And so you go through all thatwork, you get these documents
done, they're signed andnotarized and, and valid legal
(03:59):
documents, but that's not theend of the process.
And that's very often wherepeople stop and assume that
things are done.
But that's, that's not the endof the process.
There are follow-up actions.
That you need to take to makesure that you don't just have a
fancy pile of paperwork.
there are implementation stepsto make sure that what you
intended to happen as part ofthat process in those documents
(04:22):
will actually take place.
And that's what we're gonna talkabout today.
And this isn't legal advice,the, the required disclosure
here.
I'm, I'm required to add in.
I'm not an attorney.
But this should be someeducation to help you have
better conversations with yourown attorney and financial
Advisors, and to make surethings are working as intended.
And we'll go through fourthings, four common areas of
(04:45):
gaps that I tend to see.
the first one that we'll mentionis A, is really for those that
are DIYing it yourself.
I'm a huge fan and believer ofusing a good estate planning
attorney to go through thisprocess, but there are a lot of
online offerings out there wherethey sort of just ask you a
bunch of questions and they.
Draft and create documents foryou, D-I-Y approach and and.
(05:09):
And then you just take thosedrafted documents.
And so if that's you, if youDIYed it through an online,
through, through a website,through some online service
provider, make sure yourdocuments are signed and
notarized according to therequirements of your state laws,
so that they are not just a bigfancy expensive PDF, but they're
actually active, valid legaldocuments.
(05:31):
I've seen that, more times thanyou would expect.
But just wanted to throw thatout there if that's what you're
doing, make sure that those are,properly executed, signed in if
needed, notarized documents andif there needs to be a witness,
then, then a witness as well.
Number two, retitling assets,and this is especially relevant
if you have a living trustinvolved in the plan.
(05:54):
You wanna make sure that anyassets that should be titled in
the name of the trust whileyou're alive.
Are actually titled in the nameof the trust.
You can kind of think of theliving trust as a big box where
if something happens to you,you've named exactly who steps
in and controls the stuff in thebox.
(06:15):
For who Like who are thebeneficiaries and what are the
rules that that person needs tooperate under In order to manage
it according to your wishes, andyou can put stuff in the box
while you're alive by retitlingassets, or you can put stuff in
the box after your death bynaming the trust as beneficiary.
(06:35):
And so while you're alive, youwanna make sure that the things
that should be titled in thename of the trust are actually
titled in the name of the trust.
Some examples of this are, realestate.
So for example, primaryresidence.
if the primary residence isintended to be controlled by the
trust at your death.
Your attorney should help you tochange the deed of your house if
(06:57):
that's what's intended.
So you wanna lean on theattorney to do that.
And if you don't remember, youcan look at public records
usually for your county.
And you can see very often howyour house is titled, and if
it's just in your name, or youand your spouse's name, that's
probably a good indication thatit's not.
And so primary residence andreal estate's a good example of
something that, may need to beretitled with the help of the
(07:19):
attorney and re-deeded to becontrolled by the trust.
Taxable brokerage accounts.
So another example of this.
Very often you'll have anindividual taxable brokerage
account somewhere, or, a jointtenants accounts, especially if
you're married.
You may have a, an account thatyou own jointly with your
spouse.
And if those accounts areintended to be inside of and
(07:40):
controlled by the trust, thenyou want to either have your
custodian Convert the account toa trust account, or open a new
trust account and transfer thoseassets into it.
And very often as a part of thatprocess, the, the custodian,
they're gonna wanna seedocumentation of the trust.
You don't have to send them thewhole trust.
(08:00):
Remember, that's your privatedocument.
they should accept acertification of trust document,
which is a Shortened, documentthat gives them all the
information they need and leavesout all the other private stuff.
And so, that's something thatyou'll want to consider.
Now, I will add, this isn'talways what's best.
(08:20):
So for example, in states thatallow a.
a type of joint titling betweenspouses called tenants by the
entirety.
There may be extra creditorprotections to keeping it in
that joint titling rather thanmoving it into a trust.
another example is that incommunity property states like
California or Texas, you mayhave separate property that,
(08:44):
that you had before marriage,for example, or a separate
property that you've inherited.
That's not community propertybetween the two of you.
sometimes moving your separateproperty assets into the trust
can commingle it, can mix it upand make it community property
accidentally.
Sometimes, although many trustdocuments allow assets to keep
(09:05):
their character that they hadgoing into it, so many trust
documents are worded in order toto avoid that from happening
accidentally.
But, these are all things thatyou want to talk through with
your attorney and, and to readwhat the trust document actually
says.
Or you may simply wanna retitleindividual taxable investment
accounts.
Into joint tenant accounts sothat at the death of one spouse,
(09:27):
for example, it automaticallypasses to the surviving owner.
so those taxable investmentaccounts are things you wanna
take a look at.
Retirement accounts are nonretirement accounts.
You cannot retitle into the nameof the trust.
you're gonna be handling thatwith beneficiaries, but those
taxable accounts you wanna keepa close eye on.
What about practice entities orother LLCs?
So for example, if you have realestate, in other cases you may
(09:50):
see that your attorney uses anassignment of assets.
So.
Where the, the practice entitiesor the real estate LLCs for, for
example, are, are assigned nowwhile you're alive into the
trust or after death, which issomething that the attorney
should advise on.
But sometimes there's anassignment, of interest in, a
(10:10):
business entity or LLC.
Sometimes there's potentiallyrestructurings of the entities
or restructuring of theownership of, different real
estate properties.
So those are all things youwanna keep account of and, and
talk with your attorney about.
if you own an Optometrypractice, make sure that your
ownership interests, thebuy/sell agreements and the
operating agreements.
And, and succession planning areall tied into your estate plan.
(10:33):
this might include how theownership passes at your death,
what your legal documents, likethose operating agreements say,
funding strategies how wouldyour, if you co-own it with
another optometrist, how willthat buyout happen at your
death?
How is it gonna be funded?
Is it gonna be funded throughlife insurance?
Is it gonna be funded through,through an installment plan or
something like that?
and then who's gonna step in andactually run that business?
(10:55):
And so these are all things thatyou'd want to think of, in light
of the, the overall estateplanning care.
So number two is gonna be aretitling or, or assigning
assets.
Take inventory of all youraccounts and all the different
assets and say, Hey, knowingwhat my documents say should
happen, knowing what my desiresare, my wishes, are there any
(11:16):
accounts or assets that need tobe retitled based on that?
the third one is updatingbeneficiaries.
And this is, this is animportant one.
Take a look at, review the lifeinsurance policies that you
have.
the investment accounts that youhave and retirement accounts,
and see who are thebeneficiaries and then ask
yourself, are these up to datewith my current estate planning
(11:36):
needs?
Are these up to date with mycurrent family situation?
these are things you wanna takea look at.
And for all of these things, youcan name a primary beneficiary
or a group of primarybeneficiaries.
It could be people, it could beorganizations, nonprofits, and a
contingent group ofbeneficiaries, the primary are
(11:56):
the first beneficiaries to stepin in case something happens to
you at your death.
the contingents are, and sort ofin that worst case scenario
where the primary beneficiariespass away before you, or if you
all pass away at the same time,they, the contingent
beneficiaries are that secondline of beneficiaries.
So you know that your assets aregoing to somewhere that you'd
(12:17):
want them to go to.
and so sometimes, just as anexample, sometimes we're naming.
A spouse is a primary and aliving trust as a contingent
beneficiary, or kids ascontingent beneficiaries or
something like that.
So you'll want to take a look atboth of'em and bringing back
that living trust in the case ofa living trust, if something
(12:38):
should name the trust asbeneficiary, make sure the trust
is listed as a beneficiary whereit's appropriate.
for life insurance policies Ifthe death benefits intended to
be controlled by the trust.
Make sure that the trust isinvolved there as a beneficiary.
Taxable investment accounts,even joint accounts.
If, if they're not in the trustitself for whatever reason, you
(13:01):
still will name beneficiaries.
And this can be a trust createdat your debt.
So, for example, a living trustis a trust that an attorney
creates for you while you'realive.
but even if you don't have aliving trust during your
lifetime, you can still create atrust at your death through your
will this is called atestamentary trust, but you may
(13:22):
see this in the language, inthe, in the language of your
will.
this is helpful if you want yourassets managed for very specific
purposes.
So, for example, if you haveminor kids, and you want those
assets to be managed in acertain way to certain ages for
those minor kids, you, yourattorney may still create one
under that will, and so thattestamentary trust named under
(13:45):
your will.
Can also be involved as abeneficiary.
and the language to do thiswhenever you're naming a trust
as a beneficiary is often superlong.
something like Jim and PamHalpert Living Trust dated one
one 2025, like it's somethingridiculous like that.
And beneficiary forms may haveinstructions on how exactly to
(14:07):
word that.
with examples too.
So reference that if that's thecase.
and then attorneys often includeinstructions in their documents
too, but if not, if you needhelp, chat with your financial
advisor or, or chat with yourattorney to figure out what to
do there.
So again, if your trust isintended to receive these assets
at your death, you want to makesure that it's included
(14:29):
appropriately, where needed as abeneficiary.
and then retirement accounts.
Retirement accounts are aspecial set of assets that need
to be looked at.
carefully and handled with caredue to tax rules around how
inherited accounts need to behandled by the heirs.
The right way to handleretirement account beneficiaries
depends entirely on who you wantto inherit them.
(14:51):
So some examples here, yourspouse, spouses tend to be
pretty simple because we canname each spouse as the primary
beneficiary if that's what'sintended.
Like it can be very simplethere.
or another example is, let's sayyour estate plan creates a
trust, and you have veryspecific ages where you want
your kids to get access to theassets that they're gonna
(15:13):
inherit.
And very often this can bepretty substantial.
So if you look at your lifeinsurance beneficiaries, if you
look at your, retirementaccounts, if you look at the
value of your practice, like ifsomething happens to both
parents very often, that dollaramount can be pretty
substantial.
and this is something that'sespecially something that
consider when you have minorkids.
(15:34):
so for example, you might say inyour trust, Hey, I want my kids
to get access to these dollars.
A portion of it at 25, anotherportion at 30, and then the rest
at 35 or whatever it may be.
and you may want to name thetrust as a beneficiary then of
that retirement account.
So those assets are managed foryour kids based on those rules.
(15:56):
that's one example of where thattrust may be, be involved there.
Or they may be old enough towhere you're comfortable just
naming them directly and, andthe trust isn't involved at all
for those particular retirementaccounts.
And for retirement accounts,there are very specific, overly
unnecessarily complicated rulesaround how beneficiaries need to
(16:16):
handle inherited retirementaccounts.
And whether they need to takewithdrawals from the accounts,
depending on who inherits it andwhat age the account owner was,
when they passed away, and whatyear they passed away.
So it can be different from aspouse versus your, your minor
children, versus your minorgrandchildren versus anyone
(16:39):
else, versus a trust and howthat trust is worthy, the type
of trust it is.
And so.
Especially when minor kids areinvolved, you want to take some
care, and careful thought andlean on good advice around
naming beneficiaries for yourretirement accounts.
if it's supposed to go tocharity.
Another example of thoseretirement accounts, because the
(16:59):
charity won't pay tax on them,but your heirs will, you may
want to make sure that pre-taxretirement accounts are
Prioritized, naming thecharities as beneficiaries and
leaving other more tax efficientassets to other people.
And so that's again, anotherexample of you wanna look at who
do I intend to inherit these?
(17:21):
What's the tax situation oroutcome or required withdrawals
if they do?
And, and does that make sensebased on your estate plan?
You also want to review donoradvice funds.
health savings accounts andother things like 529 plans,
because they all have their ownunique nuances.
So, for example, HSAs.
If anyone other than your spouseinherits them, it immediately
(17:44):
ceases to be an HSA and it'staxable to the heirs.
So like that's, that's aninteresting nuance that you
wanna keep in mind when figuringout who that contingent
beneficiary should be.
A 529 plans are another example,529 plans you're actually naming
successor owners, becausewhoever the beneficiaries are,
meaning whoever the.
(18:04):
the 529 dollars are intended tobe used for, they're gonna
continue to be the beneficiariesof the account.
So you're naming a successorowner, and sometimes you can
name two lines of successorowners.
So that's another one you wannakeep an eye on.
And then lastly on this is, bankaccounts and how you handle bank
accounts And bank productsdepends on the type.
(18:25):
So, for example, oh, savingsaccounts, you can often convert
them to trust accounts.
or you can open another trustsavings accounts that's titled
in the name of your trust, butchecking accounts because you
often have to change the accountnumber with checking accounts or
open a new account to, to put itunder the ownership of the, of a
trust.
(18:46):
And you have all those billsthat are probably like
automatically coming out of theaccounts that you probably have
to redirect to a new accountnumber.
I've seen attorneys recommendthat it's much simpler just
naming.
the trust or you know, yourspouse, whoever it needs to be
as a beneficiary on thosechecking accounts.
And then titling of those bankaccounts too.
Like check, you know, are theyjoint accounts, are they
(19:08):
individual accounts, and soforth.
So beneficiaries are a reallyimportant one.
that's one of the ones I seemost missed is just accounts are
not updated.
beneficiaries just aren'tupdated even though, many times
that whole process was done toget the, to get the estate
planning documents done.
The beneficiaries still need tobe updated.
and then number four, don'tforget digital assets.
(19:29):
make sure someone can accessyour financial tools.
your financial websites, yourpassword manager, or even things
like crypto accounts if youneed, and I would highly
recommend using a passwordmanager.
One example is 1Password, butthere are a bunch of other ones
out there because, not only arethey gonna help you be more
secure on your passwords for allyour really important websites,
(19:51):
but they often have like a sortof estate or contingency
planning feature to them, thatsomeone else can get access to
it at your death.
And so.
that will help that wholeprocess there.
think of, think of all youremail and social media accounts
too.
think of online file storage, orvaults.
You know, who has access to thatif you were to pass away.
(20:12):
We live in a really fascinatingworld now where you have to
track all these digital assetsand digital properties like
alongside all of the real and,and financial ones.
So, keep in mind all of thatdigital stuff in your life as
well.
these are some things to thinkthrough and, and we can't get
through every possible thingthat you wanna look at.
But I think thinking throughthese four, four broad
(20:35):
categories of things to keep aneye on, to implement as you
change or update or get yourestate planning done, I think
this is gonna be helpful for youto have, again, good
conversations with your estateplanning attorney, good
conversations with your ownadvisor.
all in all, lean on the guidanceof your attorney and your
Advisors and make sure thateverything's implemented as it
(20:55):
should, and then keep an on itover time to keep up with any
changes in your life.
And our, you know, my role, ourrole as financial planners is to
help bridge that gap betweenwhat's written on paper and how
your accounts and assets areactually structured.
So the legal plan actually doeswhat it's supposed to do, and
we're sort of like projectmanagers here.
Deeply embedded in the lives ofour clients to make sure that
(21:17):
all of this gets done and wecan, interpret communication
between attorney and client and,and make sure that what the
client really desires as a partof their estate plan and their
family life actually gets done.
And then you can review.
You go through all that.
You go through that wholeprocess, it's done.
You can take a deep breath andthen you review.
(21:39):
And this should, this reallyshouldn't need to change every
year, but things likebeneficiaries, if you keep good
records of them, are easy toreview once a year just to make
sure that they reflect anychanges in your life or if you
have any new accounts that thoseare updated too.
and then you'll wanna pull outthe whole estate plan every, I
don't know, maybe three to fiveyears, every few years or so,
(21:59):
and just ask.
Does this reflect your currentwishes and the current financial
and family situation?
And some triggers then to revieware the birth of a child, sale
or acquisition, sale or purchaseof a practice, the relocation to
another state.
So if you did all of your estateplanning documents in one state
(22:20):
based on that state's laws, andthen you move to a new state,
that's something you're gonnaget, wanna get reviewed again in
that new state.
marriage, divorce, orremarriage, anything related to
marriage is an instant trigger,to review this and then
inheriting.
So if you inherit assets, that'ssomething you wanna take a look
at too.
Hopefully this is helpful foryou as you go through your own
estate planning.
This is often something that isreally important.
(22:44):
but not often urgent forclients.
It's not something that they areracing to do, but most of the
time when I talk with clientsand other optometrists about it,
they know it's important.
They just haven't done it yetbecause you're busy.
You have, your family life, youhave practice life, you have
patients and everything else.
And so hopefully thisconversation helps you to, to
get a better grasp of all this.
And if you wanna talk with aprofessional, if you wanna talk
(23:05):
with a financial Planner to helpyou to review all this stuff, to
talk through all this stuff, tohelp you make sure that All of
these really important thingsare actually implemented and
decisions are made.
reach out.
We would love to have aconversation with you.
I'll throw a link in the shownotes and you can schedule a,
and you can pick out a time andschedule and no commitment, no
pressure introductory call.
We can talk about what's on yourmind financially, and we can
(23:28):
share how we help optometristsall over the country navigate
those same decisions and more.
And if you're not quite ready toreach out, I'll also throw a
link in the show note to sign upfor our weekly newsletter, Where
I write all about these thingseach and every week in addition
to the podcast here.
And if you do that, if you signup.
I'll give you access to achecklist where you'll be able
to sort of keep inventory of allthese decisions and make sure
(23:50):
that it's getting done in yourown estate planning.
And again, really appreciateyour time.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
In the meantime, take care.
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