“Estate Planning: A Labor of Love”, Hosts: Lou Pierro and Frank Hemming

August 30th, 2025. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And good morning everyone.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Welcome to Life Happens Radio on this beautiful Saturday here
in Albany, New York. Wherever you are, we hope you're
enjoying Labor Day weekend. I'm Loupiro, your host for this morning.
We are with Pierre O connoran Strauss. And when I
say we, I don't have a mouse in my pocket.
I have a partner with me, Frank Hemming, who's here
in studio with me. Good morning Frank, Good morning Lou

(00:22):
and Frank and I are going to do something today
that we're going to call your estate plan a labor
of love.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Being Labor Day.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hard work is part of our lives for most of us.
And if we're working hard, we want to make sure
that we're working smart, that we're saving.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Money, that we're putting money aside.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
And there is a show here on WGY, actually several
shows talking about how to accumulate wealth, how to build
your nest egg, how to put money in the bank,
how to put it into investments, into the stock market,
into the bond market, into annuities. And it's a preference
for you and your financial advisor as to how you

(01:05):
build that wealth during the course of your lifetime.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Attorneys can help with some of that.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
If you have a business, we structure the business, we
help you to protect it, We help you to find
ways to minimize taxes. And as you get closer to
retirement and as you work your way, and Frank, it
isn't just closer to retirement. You're in this position now.
You have a young child, I do. You have a marriage,

(01:33):
and you were in the process of trying to build
your estate and your plan. So let's start there. Okay,
we like to talk about a labor of love being
something where you're doing something that you love. But also
we're going to take that right through to the family
that you love and working hard to build a life

(01:57):
for you, your.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Spouse, your children. And where do you start for you, Frank,
what was the.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
First time that you really thought hard about Okay, I'm
an adult, now I have to start doing adult thing.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh, I don't know if I don't know if I
feel that way now, but uh no, no, I'm my
only kid. So I think the first time that I
really felt like an adult was probably like the first
day that I went to like my my lawyer job,
my first job out of law school, which was which
was not with with the firm Pierre O'Connor and stress,

(02:34):
I actually had a job before coming.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
We hadn't met you.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, you hadn't met me, which is probably good because
because I had some growing pains to do. But the
first day that I went to work for, like the
job that i'd gone to school for a long time
to get, that was kind of the first day where
I think I actually felt like, Okay, this is this
is adult right, This is no more school, this is
no more fooling around. And that was kind of the
first time that I felt like an adult. But I

(02:57):
would have been thinking about planning or and I was.
I was single at the time. I didn't I had
uh I was, I was. It was dating my my
now wife, so so she was around, but we weren't married.
We weren't thinking about marriage yet. So so I think
really the answer to your question, Lou is when did
I really think that I wanted to do something to
protect the people that I loved That got that?

Speaker 4 (03:19):
It was much more after I got married.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
So when I got married, that clearly changed mindset for
for quite a few reasons, because now I had I
had a spouse.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
At home, and then for a while.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
I don't mind admitting this because I tell people this
all the time when we do our our seminars and
our educational events. I didn't do any planning right away
because I didn't really think that I had the need
to not because I didn't have things that I wanted
to make sure went the correct way. It was just
I know how intestacy works, and there wasn't really anything
that that that I had that was that wasn't joint
with my with my then wife, So if I got

(03:51):
hit by a bus on the north Way, everything was
going to go to her anyway. So while it wasn't well,
it was certainly in my mind to make sure things
went as I liked. I wasn't really concerned about it.
Now that doesn't mean that that's smart, because I could
have been incapacitated. I might have needed a power of
attorney things like that, but but that wasn't front of
mind at that moment. The time when it really really

(04:12):
changed and which forced me to get to me to
take my own advice to do some planning, was right
after the birth of my daughter. That's when we got
into the office. That's when I did my estate plan.
When we signed our documents because we were concerned not
only if something happened to us. We wanted to make
sure that our spouse could help each other, or our
parents could help us if something happened and we both

(04:34):
couldn't help each other. And then we wanted to make
sure that if something happened then we were to pass away,
that everything would go to our daughter how we want,
when we want, with the right people in charge. So
for me, the time when the planning really became like
front of mind was when was when I had my
child more than anything.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
And that is the first dose of responsibility.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
It's a much different kind of responsibility, yes, right, I
mean when you're in a dull we all we all
if you, if you're lucky enough to become an adult,
I think everybody kind of goes through that realization of
I'm not a child, I'm on my own, I can
make my own decisions, I'm responsible for myself. When you
get married, I tell people all the time, it does
change the things, or at least for me it did.

(05:14):
I think for my wife, I think she'd say the
same thing. We'd been living together previous to our marriage,
so a day to day was very similar to what
it always was. We woke up and we still saw
each other, We still went to the same apartment at
the end of the day. Everything was still kind of
the same, except now we were husband and wife rather
than fiance's or boyfriend girlfriend. But as soon as we
became responsible for a little, tiny person who had nothing

(05:37):
or you know, who could do nothing, say nothing, communicate nothing,
and was just there all of a sudden, that's when
it really hit it for hit home for me.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, and as a parent of adult children now, one
of whom's married, one of who's engaged, and my youngest
son who has a great partner who probably will be engaged.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
No pressure in the distant future.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
But looking at them, you look at them as adults,
and you say, Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Did I do a good job?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Did I teach my children the right values that I
educate them? Are they financially responsible and they're all working
and doing well? Are they putting enough money away in
their retirement accounts? Are they taking advantage of the employer
match in a four to oh one. K and I
had a program when they were working in their teens

(06:30):
before they made too much money to give them enough
money to fund a wroth.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, I remember you telling us all about this, like
when you did it.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
And to me, a roth is the greatest gift the
government gives you. And if you're earning too much, you
can't contribute directly to a wroth. So when your children
are younger, and fourteen is typically the age, you get
a working papers and you can go get a job.
And they did catering jobs, and they did various and
sundry different things to earn money. And for every dollar

(07:01):
they earned, I gifted them a dollar so that they
could put that money, keep their own paycheck, but put
that money into a roth account. And so they each
have a wroth now that has over time grown and
over their lifetimes, by the time there's sixty five, that
money is tax free money completely tax free that will
grow and be invested by them for themselves. So financial

(07:25):
literacy is a big issue, teaching children how to balance
a checkbook, you know, how to balance their bank account,
how to not spend more money than they have, why
not to borrow for certain things. You're going to borrow
from a home and do a mortgage. That's good borrowing
because you're going to get value out of that. But

(07:47):
if you're borrowing just to pay bills or take vacations.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
That's not good borrowing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
So my dad's been gone for fifteen years this year,
which is which is crazy to think that it's been
that long. But I think one of the things that
when I look back on my relationship with both of
my parents, but especially my father, that I can say,
you know, he really did right by me was he
taught me about money, and he taught me about how
to be good with money. And while I hated him

(08:13):
in the moment for this, the best way that he
did it for me was he didn't let me get
my learner's permit.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
To drive until I got a job.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
So I was one of the older kids in my
class because my birthday is in December, so I was
kind of right after the cutoffs, so there were not
many people in my class older than me, so a
lot of my friends got their learners permit like the
second they hit sixteen. I think I was over seventeen
by the time that I got mine, because my parents
wouldn't let me get mine because they wouldn't let me
get it until I got a job. And I decided

(08:42):
early on that there were certain jobs I.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Didn't want to do.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I didn't want to work in the restaurant business because
I saw what that was like, and I didn't want
to touch people's food and all kinds of stuff, And
so I was kind of a bit picky and choosy
about what job I wanted to get, and it just
took me a little while to find one. But until
I got that job and could pay for that car,
he wouldn't let me.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Drive once I had it.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Then I remember the second big thing that he taught
me was that the lesson really wasn't that I was
solely responsible for it.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
He just wanted me to learn the value of the
dollar that I had now had.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
To go out and earn, because I remember one time
i'd come home and so I was very fortunate my
parents got me a car. They just said, you know,
it's on you to now pay for it and deal
with it. So they bought me a car. And then
all of a sudden, my car needed tires, because you know,
that's what happens when you own a car, And I
remember going to my dad and I remember being very upset,

(09:35):
and I said to him, you know, I work any
chance I get, I work around like as much as
I can legally. I like my job and I've been
doing everything I can to make sure i can do
the things you told me I needed to do. There's
no way I'm going to be able to afford the
tires for the car. And he I remember him looking
at me and he just laughed and he said, did
you really think I wasn't going to help you? He's like,

(09:56):
the goal wasn't free that I wouldn't help you if
you needed it. But I needed you to understand that
things just don't happen because you're fortunate or because you
know I'm going to give you everything. You have to
learn to do it yourself.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
And that's tough love, yeah, and it but it worked.
It works.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
And not to be mean or cruel, but to be
stern and to stick to your guns when you're a parent,
because children want things, and they want things that they
see and that their friends have, and they're not always
the right things. So you have to analyze the situation.
But you can be the parent that says no. And

(10:33):
kids don't like to hear that word, but it's a
word that shapes them and teaches them and gives them
respect for the fact that you have to have discipline,
building a financial future, saving money, being smart with your money.
And you know, today in today's world, my kids have
gone through series of their friends getting married. There, my

(10:58):
daughter got married, my son's getting married. That's not inexpensive
because you know, a wedding isn't just Okay, we're gonna
get married at the Oaks Club and you know it's
going to cost an x.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
No.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
No, we have an engagement party, we have a pre
engagement party, we have a post engagement party. We now
have the bachelor party and the bachelorette party. Yeah, and
so it costs them a fortune, and then they get
the gowns for the wedding. And then the weddings aren't
just okay, we'll show up this day and we're gonna
get married.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
No, it's a weekend. Yeah, you have to do a
weekend wedding.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So kids are under a lot of pressure because of
their peers. Everybody needs to have the big wedding and
all those things, and those things tend to set you back.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, just a little bit, especially if if you can't
say again, if you can't say no, because I can say,
when we were doing our wedding, planning. I mean, we
had a very nice wedding. It was easily one of
the best days of my life. I can only imagine
what would have happened with the budget if we had
just never learned to say, like, no, I just say sure,

(12:03):
that sounds great, That sounds great, That sounds great. The
vendors will keep giving your stuff and making your bill
higher and higher if you keep telling them too. Yeah,
so it can get certainly out of control without trying.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Haven't seen Uncle Joe in twenty five years? Does he
need to be on the guest list?

Speaker 4 (12:17):
Right?

Speaker 1 (12:18):
So that those are hard choices too.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
But we're gonna come take a little break, and when
we come back, we're gonna get on with the estate
planning side of this. Because when we talk about a
labor of love, we're talking about working, building, protecting. How
do you protect yourself? And as Frank said, you know
it strikes you at different points of time. Good parents

(12:41):
have their kids signed health care proxies and powers of
attorney when they go away to college. Yeah, and we
do that for a lot of parents.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
We do.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
You might not think about that, but then certainly when
you have that first child, there are a lot of
planning options that we'll talk about. And then as you
go through your career and you start building, you start
looking at Okay, we're going to buy a house, we
might buy a rental property. I'm going to invest in
my retirement account. I might invest in the stock market,
the bond market. I might buy other investments. How do

(13:08):
I put enough money away so that when I retire,
I can live comfortably and my money's going to support
me for as long as I need it.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
And then the real key, and Frank, this.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Is where we get very intricate, is how do I
protect that money in the event of things like long
term care, which is a major issue. So we're going
to tackle all of those topics as we go. You're
listening to Life Happens Radio. Thanks for being with us
this morning. Happy Labor Day. We'll be back right after
this and we are back. Welcome back to Life Happens.

(13:42):
I am Lupiro, your host for this morning. Thanks for
joining us on the radio here at WGY. This has
been a great run. We've been on the air over
fourteen years now and we really enjoy it. We hope
you do too. We try to bring information and ideas.
I'm here with my partner, Frank Hemming, and we're talking
about a labor of love, which is how do you

(14:03):
work to protect yourself and your family? How do you
build wealth and protect wealth? And we're going to focus
now on the protection side of wealth, because the name
of the show, folks, is life happens. It's a derivative
of another phrase that may be more commonly used, and.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's sh happens.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
Yes, can't say it on the radio.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
You can't say it on the radio, but this is life.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And in our practice, we do a state planning, we
do elder law, we do business planning, we do a
state and trust litigation. So we are working with families
and we sit across the table with families and get
right into their lives.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
How do you.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Protect how do you put a plan together? You know,
all of your children, I'm sure are wonderful, but they're
not all the same, and treating children all the same
very often is not the best plan.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
You might have to tailor the plan.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
For each of the kids so that when they inherit,
you want to have it go to them in a
way that they can best manage and utilize the things
that you've worked a lifetime for and that's your labor
of love. We're going to start at the very beginning
where you're in that delivery room you have that baby,
the first baby, and your eyes just get big and

(15:22):
they hand you that baby, Frank, And I'm sure you
remember this moment and.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
This little tiny baby is in your arms and you say,
oh God, I'm now responsible.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, and now what do I do?

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Now?

Speaker 1 (15:34):
What do I do?

Speaker 4 (15:35):
So?

Speaker 2 (15:35):
What were your thoughts and what are the things that
we do for clients at that moment in time, because
you know, life is up until that point fairly uncomplicated,
but once you have.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Kids, there's a whole range of emotions.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, I mean the first the first thing that I
remember feeling was was relief. Without going into a lot
of details, now your wife felt or two, well, she
she had a very difficult pregnancy and then we kind
of had an emergency situation with the birth and my
daughter arrived five weeks early, so so it didn't really
go according to plan. So we were kind of just

(16:11):
in a whirlwind situation when it all happened, because I
thought we had another five ish weeks until we'd have
a baby, and then we didn't. So the first thing
was just I was glad she was okay, and that
you know, everybody was going to be okay. But right
after that, once every the kind of the adrenaline war
off of that, it was like exactly what I said,
it's now what now?

Speaker 1 (16:29):
What do I do?

Speaker 4 (16:30):
Because I'm an only child.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
My wife is an only child, so we didn't grow
up with siblings, so I can't say that I haven't
spent any time with like babies and younger children, but like,
I never spent a lot of time with them because
I didn't have them in my house all new. I
was the young kid, right, and that was it. So
a lot of it was like, okay, now that we
have a baby, now what do we do? And luckily
we were very fortunate that the people had already met.

(16:54):
We were fantastic in the ICU because my daughter unfortunately
had to go to the ICU for a few weeks. Yeah,
like it was very helpful to us from a parenting
perspective because they're really good at caring it for babies,
and they taught us how to be really good parents
to take care of her when we got her home.
But first thing was what the heck do I do now? Yeah,
we did the same.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Our youngest went through the NICICU, Yeah, the Neonatal Intensive
care unit at Albany Med and it was spectacular.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah, they're the best people on earth.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
On incredible doctors and nurses. And our son had, as
we found out, spinal meningitis at three days old.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
We got him home from the hospital a very.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Pink, healthy baby, and within twenty four hours of being
home he was like a limp noodle.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
So it took him to the er and they did
a spinal tap and it came back negative. And you know,
the three day old baby I was holding well. The
doctor did the spinal tap, which is just like, you
know what is going on here, right, And so they
didn't find anything, and they were running batteries of tests
and ekg's and all kinds of things, and they're giving

(17:57):
us worst case scenario. Could be a tumor, could be this,
could be that, and we're thinking it was just from
church to the niki, from church to the nikia.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
That was you know, that was the trick, the trip
for four days.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
And then the doctor just said, you know, I'm not
happy with the negative result.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Maybe it was too soon.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Let's do another spinal tap, so they did a second
spinal tap and they found the spinal.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
Meningitis, which, thank thank goodness, they did.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, and by that point they know what kind it is.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
It's not bacterial because they had been feeding him antibiotics
and it didn't help. So it was viral spinal meningitis.
And we just had to sit and wait and there
he is like a bag of French fries under the
heat lamp and just waiting for him to move and
wake up. But they were so good about it. And
then from there you say, Okay, now I really have
to work. I've been given this gift, the gift of life,

(18:47):
and I've been given a child, a son to go
with my other son and my daughter, and now I
have to really work hard for them and to protect them.
So what are the documents, what are the legal issues,
and what are some of the financial issues for new parents?

Speaker 4 (19:03):
All right, so I will get there.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
And just second, just I had one other thing pop
into my mind that kind of goes right in hand
in hand with us. The other thing that I did
early on, right when I got married, was I bought
life insurance. There it is, I was leading you there,
I say, which I'm sure we would probably get into
in another way, but just before it leaves my brain.
That was one of the other things that we did
because I had that thought of what if I'm driving

(19:24):
home from the office on the Northway and somebody decides,
you know, they're taking me out, because that could happen. Well,
if my wife has a house and possibly a kid
or two, and she's got to worry about paying off
the house and putting a kid through college and stuff.
I didn't want her to have that financial burden of
trying to figure that out if I wasn't going to
be there to help her. Sure, So one of the
first things we did was we bought life insurance. And

(19:46):
now I can tell you I'm worth way more dead
than alive.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
We all are. We all are.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
But that is one of the first financial things that
you need to think about. Yeah, either when you get married,
because you have a mortgage. Of people buy enough life
insurance to cover their mortgage so they don't have the
burden of that for the surviving spouse. But once you
have children, you have to price out college education. And
we haven't had Dean Scarlett on. I got to get
Dean in for the fall semester he's the college advisor

(20:15):
of New York, and we talk about college tuitions, and
I have clients coming in and saying, Yep, they're going
to this college. And I'm not talking about Ivy League
even but it's ninety thousand dollars a year and it's
going up ten percent a year. So by the time
your newborn is eighteen and going to college, you could
be looking at seven or eight hundred thousand dollars as

(20:36):
the cost of education.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah, she's not going to go. If that's what the well,
there are state schools, and there are I do it.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
But when you start looking at how much life insurance
is enough, you want to make sure debts are paid,
and then the kids are taken care of, your spouse
is taken care of, and education is the biggest.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Chunk of that.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
But at the ages that you're having newborns, typically life
insurance is fairly inexpensive. So we don't sell it, but
we certainly counsel on it, and you can buy a
term policy, which is what most people do at that.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Point in time.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
That's what we did.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
If you have enough cash flow, you may want to
go to a permanent policy, but just to get coverage,
you can buy a nice amount of term insurance for
a very modest premium at you know, twenty five, thirty,
thirty five years old when.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
You're having kids.

Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yeah, and you're especially too when like while you're healthy. Right.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
One of the things we have to frequently counsel clients
on when it comes to and you know, more retirement
age type stuff is long term care insurance. And one
of the benefits or one of the downfalls of that
is you have to qualify for it. And unfortunately, by
the time that you get to the point where either
you realize you need to worry about long term care
or that you're worried about it, you're more advanced in age,
and it's possible that you may not be ensurable because

(21:47):
you might have medical things.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Going on you're looking at them.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
I say not to speak for you, lou, but like
you know, I wouldn't want to be the uh. I
wouldn't want to have to be trying to promise you
we could find you a policy given you know, your
health stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Well, I was the poster child for this because I
had a term policy. And the key to the term
policy was that it was convertible, okay, And it was
a twenty year term level term policy. And I was
in year nineteen and I found out that I had
very bad blocked arteries and I had to go for
open heart surgery a quintuple bypass.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
I had a valve replacement.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
And when I went to look for life insurance after that,
the company has just said no, rather yeah, So I
converted the existing policy term policy that I had into
a permanent policy. But the premiums were a heck of
a lot more than had I bought the permanent insurance
on day one. And the other type of policy that's

(22:42):
become very popular, and we work very closely with a
number of insurance agents.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
But I've had on.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
The radio here mister Bob Vandy, who's an expert in
this area and he works his company works with many
of those agents too. But we're looking at having an
ability to buy a permanent policy at a very low
premium covering life insurance, and if you're still alive when
you're in need of long term care, you can access

(23:09):
the death benefit on that policy to pay for long
term care. It's looking way down the road, fifty years
down the road, but buying a product that is going
to stand by you and provide the insurance coverage you
need if you die in the long term care coverage
if you live with the need.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
So we had about thirty seconds last word on the planning.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
At this point, we're going to get back to wills
and powers of attorney and healthcare proxies.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Just I would say, make make smart decisions and go
seek an advisor. If you don't know enough about this
to make your own decisions yourself, get some good advice.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Having a good team as you go through life and
you want to fulfill your responsibilities is one of the keys.
So we're going to take a short break. We're going
to come back after the news and stay with us.
You're listening to Life Happens on Talk Radio WGY and
here we are back on Labor Day weekend. I hope
you're enjoying it. The weather looks good throughout the weekend,

(24:07):
going to get warmer each day. Monday looks to be
the warmest, so I'm planning on getting out on the boat. Frank,
I have in studio here with me. Frank Hemming. I'm
Lou Piro. Welcome back and enjoy your weekend. I hope
it's great for you. I hope you stay healthy. I
hope life doesn't find you the way that it does
some folks. And we're talking now about a labor of love,

(24:29):
which is planning, working hard, building wealth, building retirement, buying
a home, doing the things that people do during life.
And we started with a newborn baby. Before we get
back to that, Frank, I want to talk about a
couple of events we have coming out because at Piro'conoran Strauss,
one of the things that we like is to have

(24:50):
educated clients.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, we did some seminars recently. It was really good
to kind of get out and go do that again.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
And you know, rub elbows with the folks. Yeah, and
we have another webinar coming up. And you've become almost
a celebrity I wish in the long term care world.
So this draw us folks two to three hundred people.
Every second Monday of the month, we do something called
Medicaid Monday. We've been doing it now going on two

(25:17):
years I believe, maybe three Yeah, closer to three years. Yeah,
And it's an intense thirty minute education on a particular
issue dealing with medicaid. Frank has been the star of
this show. I've been on with him, Aaron Connor has
been on with him, and we have had some really
great guests from Rebecca Prevy at the State Office for Aging,

(25:38):
to Valerie Bogart, to a number of people who really.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Are the experts in this area.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
And we consider Frank that expert in Medicaid and long
term care planning. So our next session is September eighth,
which is the second Monday Labor Day being early this year,
So September eighth, at twelve noon, you can join us.
It'll be Frank and I to talk about Dedicaid and
how to stay at home not a nursing home. And

(26:04):
this is the seminar that you just presented along with
Diane Mikkel Gottabiowski at the several locations around the Capitol district.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yep, yeah, it's you know, we always pull the room
kind of. We kind of do it as a fun
kind of audience participation part. What turns out when you
ask people where you want to be when you get older,
No one wants to go to the nursing home.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
No one is. They want to be in their house.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yes, the nursing homes are full.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, or at least you know wherever home is, whether
that's your house, your apartment, you know, whatever that is.
They don't want to be in a facility. Sure, So
the idea is to do some planning and make sure
that you can stay where you want to be how
you want to be there, with the right people around
you that if you need help, you have the right help.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
To And we'll get to this towards the end of
the show, because that is long term care planning, and
that's kind of the the asset protection planning for your retirement,
making sure that your money stays with you to support
you in the lifestyle to which you want to be
a customers. I like to say, the lifestyle to which
my children have become accustomer that much better. Yeah, and

(27:01):
so you want to make sure that you protect the assets.
So Medicaid. Monday, September eighth, twelve noon, Join Frank and
I will be talking about home care and some of
the Medicaid changes that have just happened recently.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
And this doesn't get prettier, folks, It gets harder as
you go.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
So we'll talk about how to navigate the system, how
to plan, prepare yourself and have a plan in place
so that if life does happen and you need that
long term care, you have a plan that you're going
to be able to successfully protect yourself, your spouse, your assets,
and ultimately leave the legacy for your children.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
So it is truly a labor of love.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
As we get into this planning topic, and we'll stick
with that theme as we go. You can sign up
on our website at pyrolaw dot com. That's p I
e r R O l a w dot com. Call
our office at five one eight four five nine twenty
one one hundred. So that's the second part of this

(28:00):
half hour. The first part we're gonna continue on because
we talked about life insurance. The first thing that maybe
pops into your mind when you have that baby. How
do I protect my children and make sure that they're
going to be supported. They're gonna have a place to live, son,
there's no mortgage payment, that they're gonna get educated, and

(28:21):
I'm gonna have all of those things in place. And
life insurance is the only way, folks, to create that cash.
There is no other way to do this. Life insurance
is the product that you need at that stage. Term
insurance is fine, but permanent. If you can afford it
is worth looking at. But Frank, there are legal documents
that we should be talking about because you need to
protect yourself, not only financially but legally. And what are

(28:44):
the things that you put in place for clients that
make this safe.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
All right, So we got some financial stuff, we got
some healthcare stuff, and we've got some end of life stuff.
So we got however, attorney is the document talks about
financial decision making and who can help you do that
something happens and you need help, very very important that
you have that arguably the most important document that I
use in my medicaid practice, because often the people that
are needing medicaid they're not the ones that are taking

(29:11):
care of things at that point because they have their
own medical stuff going on. So power of Attorney, just
to talk a little bit about it, it's a very
powerful document. It's very important that it's drafted well, that
it has the right provisions in it, it has the
right powers on it. You can have multiple layers of
successor people on it, so we always want to make
sure you have things like that. But it's one of

(29:33):
the things that I can't speak strongly enough about how
important it is to make sure people can get at
your finances if you need someone to step in and
help you, even if it's just for a temporary situation.
So everybody should have it, whether you're eighteen and healthy
or you're in your nineties and you're not, everyone should
have it.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
A lot of the most visible cases.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
If someone who's ninety years old needs help making financial decisions,
it's not news, right, But if someone who's twenty two
needs that help, it's a different story.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Oh yeah, I mean you mentioned it before with college kids,
right we how often have we heard stories of kids
going off to college and then they're over eighteen, so
they're adults, and then something happens and mom and dad
need to help them with their banking or they you know,
they get a ticket because they got caught by the
police doing something maybe they shouldn't been doing, or you know,
anything you can possibly think of. But once you're an adult,

(30:26):
mom and dad can't just call the bank and say, well,
I want to get into the bank account or you know,
send me the bill, things like that because they don't
represent you anymore.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, at the age of legal majority, so that you know,
folks is eighteen in New York and there's a strange
twilight zone between eighteen and twenty one because your children
are emancipated at age eighteen under the law, but you
are still responsible. There's still a parental responsibility and a
parental duty of support to them until they're twenty one.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
That's awful nice, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yeah, So I'll tell a story in a moment. But
the power of attorney is the financial document. The corollary
to that is the healthcare produx.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Right, so most people tend to know what this is
when we mention it.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I always joke that I think albany Med has like
twelve of these on file for me, because every time
I go to albany Med they ask if I have one,
and you know, if I don't or they don't have
it on file, then I do a new one quickly whatever.
But essentially, it's you appointing one person at a time
to make medical decisions in your place if you cannot
make them for yourself. Now, a lot of people tend
to think, you know, I'm healthy, what do I need

(31:28):
this for? But the unfortunate part is, like the title
of the show life Happens, you may not know that
you're not going to be healthy sometimes you might. So again,
just a personal example that I use to kind of
illustrate the point. I typically go and I have a
procedure once a year. They put me to sleep to
do it. Well, if they find something while they're doing
their stuff, if they want to ask somebody, is that okay,
they do some testing or whatever, can't ask me. I'm asleep,

(31:49):
So who would they talk to. It's my wife, it's
my mom. It's the people that I would trust to
make decisions for me if I couldn't for myself. But
you want to make sure that you've named those people
and that you put them in the correct order. Lou
just just kind of go off a point that you
said earlier too. Clients don't always think about this, I
think the way that they need to, because a lot
of people like to default to the kids, maybe in

(32:11):
like birth order, right, something that just makes logical sense.
But that doesn't always mean that. If you have three
kids like you do, Lou, like your daughter, right, she's
your oldest, she might be the best choice, but she
might not be. Just the fact that she's the oldest
doesn't mean that she's the right choice. That's why you
have to think about that kind of stuff. Absolutely, So
it's not even saying that you can't put all three

(32:32):
of your kids on the document. You just want to
think about who would be the best person to make
that decision if it couldn't be you. Now, often that's
going to be your spouse. But do you have kids
you can layer in your kids. Just think about in
what order they should serve, that's all.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
And think about the burden you're putting on your children. Yeah,
to make these kinds of decisions. So in our documents,
we're let's call it, we're.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Not supposed to say this. We're specialists. We're not generalists.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
So our power of a t or need document covers
a whole host of things that are that's not in
the statutory document. Yes, and it's it's a fifteen to
sixteen page document, and it's tailored for you. It's everything
from do you want to live at home for the
rest of your life and have your money used for
you to pay for care in your home? To what

(33:19):
if you have a dog and you want the dog
to live with you too? Is does it power attorney
to use the money to pay for your pets? All
of those provisions get drafted into our power of attorney.
If you have specific circumstances, you own a business, you
need to address the business in the power of attorney.
So there are forms for all of these things. But
the power of attorney that we draft is customed to

(33:41):
you and to your needs. And that's the love that
you want to show to your family. I've thought about this, kids.
You don't have to make these decisions for me. I'm
making my own decisions. You just have to carry them
out because I have comprehensive documents.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
That, as I say, write my script, you just have
to read the lines.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, I think that's a big distinction to make. I
think a lot of people have maybe some anxiety or
some misunderstanding about what it means to be an agent
for somebody. It's not what it's not you making the
decision that you want to make for you. It's you
acting in the place of the person you're acting for. Right,
You're standing in the place of mom or dad, or

(34:21):
your spouse or your sibling or whomever it is. And
if it's a little harder to do this for financial matters.
So let's talk about healthcare. But we've had plenty of
talks with clients about saying, well, if it came down
to taking you off life support, who would be the
person to make that decision? And they said, well, sometimes
I don't want it to be my spouse weirdly enough,

(34:41):
because I don't think they would do it.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
And it's like, well, then don't put them.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Because we want them to if you wouldn't want to
be kept alive, if something bad happened, then they are
supposed to make that decision, not because they maybe want
to say goodbye to you.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
It's because that's.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
What you wanted, and you're pointing them to make the
decision you want if you can't do it for your
And there is a distinction there.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
That's such a good point because there are all types
of instructions that you can leave. You mentioned going through
the hospital. I just went through the hospital, spend a
few days at all Bey met, Thank you very much.
But going through the hospital. Do you have a healthcare proxy?
I said, yes, I do. I'll get you a copy.

(35:22):
You don't have to sign a new one every time
you go in because in the healthcare proxy, we have
a whole section we call it a healthcare declaration that
talks about things like, well, what if I do end
up in a condition where I'm terminal and it's irreversible
and I'm not able to make my own decisions, do
I want to give my agent the ability and authority

(35:43):
to withdraw artificial life support? And if you do, then
you should address that specifically in our documents, go into
very great detail. If you want to say, hey, I
believe in miracles and I want to be kept alive
as long as possible, as long as the medical establishment
will keep me alive, because they could find a cure

(36:05):
for what I have someday. So I want to be
kept alive even if I'm in a what's called a
persistent vegetative state. That's a document that we do for
clients and have done for clients. Now most clients have
a similar thought process. If I have no quality of life,
they call it a sentient life. If I can't live
a sentient life, I'm terminal. So my condition ultimately is

(36:25):
going to lead to my demise and there's no hope
of recovery. Two doctors have to certify that under the
law in the record, then you can allow your agent
to remove that artificial life support. We have a wonderful
guide that my partner Peter Strauss, authored that we've had
in place, and I've done some work with him on this.
It's called our health Care Decision Making Guide. You can

(36:48):
access that on our website, and it talks about the
health care proxy, the healthcare declaration, living will. It talks
about something called a MOLST form, a medical order for
a life sustaining treatment. They do not resuscitate order. All
of these are variations on the theme you need to
know the differences, You need to know what document is
right for you. The healthcare proxy with the healthcare declaration

(37:11):
embedded is something that we use as our primary document,
not for one hundred percent of the clients, but for
probably ninety five percent of our clients, and that's something
you need to have. So Power of Attorney Frank healthcare Proxy,
and these are documents again that everyone should have because
you don't know when life is going to hit you
in the hit and so the next document.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Is a disposition of remains appointment or a DORA because
that's a mouthful. Essentially, it's a document that just says
who makes your medical or your burial and funeral arrangements
and takes care of your body after you're gone. And
this could be very complicated, it could be not complicated
at all. This is a very personal choice, but at
least it's again you appointing a listing of people, one

(37:54):
at a time, of who's to make those arrangements, especially
if you haven't pre arranged for them, Because one of
the questions we get all is well, if I pre arranged,
do I really need the document?

Speaker 4 (38:03):
Yeah? You usually do.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
I mean they might not have much to do, but
somebody still has to inform the funeral home of your
passing and usually sign some paperwork and ultimately just make
sure your wishes are carried out. So I mean, even
if they're just kind of keeping a watch on everything,
there's still some work to do.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
But if you've pre arranged, that's great.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
If you haven't, then they have to figure all the
stuff out of where you're going to go, how you're
going to get there, where you're going to be ultimately,
and how all that's gonna work.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
So it's important to make.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Sure that you have some of that laid out of
what you want and who you want to do all
those decisions for you, especially if you haven't done them
for yourself.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
And this is something you may not consider this a
gift to your family. But having gone through the process
of dying with my family and my family members, with
my clients and their family members, and seeing what happens
when there's no clear direction, when people have differing opinions
on what mom or dad wanted or what my brother

(39:00):
or sister wanted. In terms of do I want a funeral?
Do I want to be cremated? Do I want to
be buried in the family plot?

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Where?

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Do I want my ashes scattered? Do I want a
religious service? Do I want a secular service? Do I
want a graveside service? What do you want your final
exit from this planet to look like? And do you
want We have a lot of people that would say,
you know, I don't necessarily want awake. I don't want
necessarily a line at the funeral home for people to
see my body, but I would love a celebration of life. Sure,

(39:30):
And everyone's different. When your children are fighting over this
and saying, well, I don't think mom or dad would
have wanted that, and we shouldn't spend the money on that,
and you don't want to have them in that position,
So giving them a gift of clarity on your directions
to me is a mitzvah, as my Jewish fract would say,

(39:51):
it's a gift that you can give to your family
even when you're gone. You've given them clear direction on
what it is that you want done.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
Couldn't agree more.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
And many people, if they're kind of thrust in that position,
a lot of them don't really know where to start, right.
Like I once had a client that I helped do
his funeral planning because he literally had no one else
to do it.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
And I'm glad that he pre planned.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Because if he had passed before we did it, I
would have had no idea what he would have wanted. Yeah,
and I would have chosen wrong. And now I know
that what he wanted happened because we made sure that
it did.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
So we've talked about powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, disposition
of remains, appointments. We're going to take a short break
and come back and talk about wills and trusts. What
are the differences between a will and a trust? What
are the advantages disadvantages? When should you do a will?
When should you consider a trust. We're going to go
back and tear all that apart. We'll be back. You're

(40:44):
listening to Life Happens Frank Heming Lupiro be back with
you right after this short break and welcome back again.
I am so happy that you're with us, and I'm
so glad that you are a listener of Life Happens Radio.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
We're trying to bring you in information.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Frank and I are, you know, telling some stories, talking
about some of our life experiences, but talking about the
things that you need to think about to protect yourself,
to have a solid legal plan, to do that labor
of love and don't procrastinate, get it done, just do it.
And so many people come in and say, well I

(41:20):
should have done this ten years ago, twenty years ago,
thirty years ago.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
But the good news is they walked into our office.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
That's true. They still came.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Other people.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
We get the call, well dad's in the hospital and
we don't know if he can sign documents, and we
do that too. We go to the hospital and You've
had a lot of trips there. I've had a lot
of trips there. That's not the way you want to
do this.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
No, no, I mean, I'm happy to do it if
we need to, but it's not really kind of how
and when you want to be doing all this because
you put it better than I think just about anybody.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
When it comes to this, you.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Know, you don't want to be, you know, at the
scene of the fire with the fire hose trying to
put the fire out. At that point, you want to
make sure the plan's there in case like that event
does happen, that there are already plans in place to
deal with that situation.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Yeah, and the time to fix a leaky roof is
when the sun is shining.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah, what it's.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
I think they credit John F. Kennedy for saying, but
today's a it's a gorgeous weekend. I'm going to be
heading up to the track in Saratoga last weekend.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
Yes, as I say, you don't have much time left
to the track, you gotta go.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
So I'm going to continue my losing streak. I'm sure
I haven't had a winning day in about five years.
But we'll see what we can do on Saturday. And
we also have a seminar coming up. I just want
to give you a quick heads up. It's one that's
become very popular. We do it quarterly. It's called our
Trust Administration Workshop. So the Trust Administration Workshop is ninety minutes.

(42:41):
It's US and an accountant, and in this case it's
going to be David Wojeski, one of our leading local
accountants CPAs. We're gonna be talking about trust administration. How
do you administer a trust? If you're the trustee, if
you're the beneficiary, what are your duties, your responsibilities? What
are your rights to that trust? How does it work?
What forms do you need, What kind of accounting should

(43:02):
you do? What are the tax applications? We cover all
of that in an intensive ninety minute format, and it's
on September thirtieth. It's from twelve noon to one thirty pm.
Registration starts at eleven thirty. Lunch will be served, and
it's at the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce, five Computer
Drive South in Albany again, Capital Region Chamber on the

(43:26):
thirtieth of September, twelve noon to one thirty pm is
the program.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
You can always.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Register go to our website, go to the events tab
on the website at pyrolaw dot com. Sign up for
the September thirtieth seminar. Seating is limited and we hope
that you can join us. It's a great way to
learn about trusts. And whether and what type you need
for yourself. And let's get into that, Frank, we quickly
let's go with wills, because when you have that baby,

(43:54):
you're doing a will and there are several things that
you need to do in that. What are the common things.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
All right?

Speaker 3 (43:58):
So, for one, will is the document that says, well,
where all your stuff goes when you when you pass
and all right, So it's important that everybody puts a
plan together with a will that says where all that
stuff goes if it comes to it. So when when
when we had our daughter, my wife and I sat
down and we talked about one who was going to

(44:19):
get everything, So that was pretty easy decision. It was
going to be each other and then and then my daughter,
so that was easy. We then wanted to talk about, well,
then who would be going to court to deal with
all this fun stuff? So that seemed like, again a
pretty easy choice. That would be my wife for me
or me for my wife. And what do you call
that person that's your executor?

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, yep, So think about this, folks, and this is
one of the points that we're going to carry forward
to the trust discussion. An executor you're putting in a
position where they are being thrust into court. Yes, you
have to hire a law firm like ourson. We're happy
that you do. We do a lot of probate work,
but that will, by definition, must go through probate. And Frank,

(45:00):
if I had a dime for every client over the
last forty two years that has come in and said
well I have a will, I don't have to go
to a probate.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
It's either between that or I should have done this
five years ago. Yeah, either one.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
So will every will folks by definition needs court approval,
need a court order approving the will. The whole process
of probate goes from start to finish. They have to
validate the will, issue something called certificate of letters testamentary
to your named executor. That gives the executor the right
to start working as executor and collecting assets and making distributions,

(45:32):
and distributing assets to your spouse if they're not jointly held,
and then distributing assets to your child. And that's going
to be an interesting question. How do you distribute assets
to a baby, to an adolescent, to a teenager to
a twenty something. What are your thoughts? So I can
tell you what I did. So we layered in some

(45:55):
trusts or a trust. So my daughter is set to
get a trust when my wife and I are no
longer here. And the idea behind that trust was we
wanted to protect that money, you know, whatever she gets,
whether that's a lot or a little, from anything bad
that could happen to her because she, I mean, she
was littler at the you know, she was younger at
the time. She's she's five now, uh, just starting kindergarten.

(46:18):
So things are a little crazy in my house.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
But if something happened to both of us and she
came into everything that we have, that'd be a lot
of money. And while she could tell you she could
manage it, I guarantee you that she cannot. So we
laid out a trust for her and how that's going
to work and who's in charge of it. So the
big thing with with with the will when it comes
to young kids is one you want to lay out

(46:40):
how they get stuff. So in our case, it was
who is going to be her trustee or trustees, and
then we have layers of those, and then you have
to name guardians because you need somebody that has legal
authority to make decisions on a minor's behalf. When you're
the parents, guess what you're you're them. But if you're
not the parents, right, we need to appoint someone else
right so they can live with? Right, So figuring out

(47:01):
who are they going to, who she would live with,
and who's going to manage her money if it couldn't
be me or my wife.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
And for young couples, that sometimes is the hardest decision to.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Make if they're not on the same page.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yes, and I've seen more conflict over that than the
money part. Yes, yeah, but those are the three keys.
Who is your executor, who is your trustee? And who
is your guardian? For minor children Yep. When you get
children who are all over eighteen, they don't need guardians anymore,
but they still, we think, need a trust yep, and
that will going through probate is going to put them

(47:32):
in a situation where they have to wait for anything
to happen, for money to get cleared. If you have
a minor child, there's a guardian ad light I'm appointed
by the court, which.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Delays the process even further.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
So our main alternative, Frank is our old friend the
trust and just talk a little bit about the difference
between a will and a Let's start with a revocable.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
All right, So I mean, so a trust in general
we use to avoid probate. So biggest thing with the
revocable trust is its main purpose is to void probate. Typically,
you're going to be the trustee of it. You can
put stuff in it, you can take stuff out of it,
but ultimately you have all full control over it, just
like you would if you never did the trust. It
just makes everything nice and easy when you pass that
we keep your family out of court. So we use

(48:14):
these for people that are either not concerned with long
term care costs, they have long term care insurance, they're
too young, and they're not really worried about long term
care quite yet, with the idea that maybe there's some
more advanced point than they want to do later. But
it's a really good starting place for younger people. It's
a really good planning tool for people that have insurance
or are unconcerned, and it's one of the things that

(48:34):
we use probably more often than just about any other
trust that we do.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Just about it depends on your situation, your age, and
your assets. If you own a business, a revocable trust
is something you need to consider, Yes, because you don't
want your business tied up in court. You do not,
and so a revocable trust will allow your success or
trustee to step in manage the business, control it, get
it to the people that need to have it, and
make make sure that your your spouse, your children are

(49:00):
being supported. Hey, one step further, the irrevocable trust, Frank,
we have one minute left, quickly. What's the difference?

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Irrevocable trust is somebody you put someone else in charge
of it rather than you, with the biggest difference being
while it avoids probate, which is good, it also then
protects your assets from a nursing home or from long
term care costs if you have to qualify for Medicaid later,
where a revocable trust does not. So if you want
to do as to protection, you want to do irrevocable
trust planning, not revocable trust planning.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
So join us on September thirtieth for the Trustedman Workshop.
We'll get into these very, very heavily. We'll be very
detailed in our discussion of revocable trusts, Medicaid asset protection
or irrevocable trusts, other trusts, how they work, why they work,
and also if you're needing Medicaid information Medicaid Monday, September eighth,

(49:49):
at noon, pyrolaw dot com is the place you're going
to go to register. Frank Heming have a great rest
of your Labor Day weekend. Thank you, thanks for having me,
and we hope you all enjoy it. We'll be back
next week.