Life Happens

March 16th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning, everybody. Welcome toLife Happens Radio. Are you prepared?
This is our weekly radio program forbaby boomers and their families where we address
the challenges we all face as weeage, talk about aging as a lifestyle,
the issues that must be confronted,and the careful planning that's required to
avoid crises in the future. I'mAaron Connor from Pure o'connoran Strouss, joined
by mister Frank Emming, also aPierre O'connorance Trouse. Good morning, Good

(00:22):
morning. This is our radio showwhere we talk about state planning, medicaid,
state and trust litigation, the stateplanning, all of those things.
Trust me, it's a little moreinteresting than a sound ever tuned in before.
I think I know all something aboutall those things, which is good.

(00:46):
I did, I think, wantto relate a story for me this
week? Oh good, good,go ahead. So I was summoned for
jerry duty this week. I didhear about this, okay? And I
grew up in Saratoga County, andmy father has lived in Saratoga County and
saying for my mother, essentially theirwhole lives. I don't think my mother's

(01:08):
ever been called my father, Ithink, has been called one time.
Wow. Right, this is thethird time that I've been called once when
I lived in Albany County and Iwas in law school at that point in
time. Didn't get into the boxor anything, but I had to sit
through the wheel of them pulling numbers. Yep, and then they got a

(01:32):
jury picked in that one after afterlunch. And second time it was just
I just had to call in,right, And however it worked out there
was no trial that actually happened thatweek, so I got my service time,
but I didn't have to appear.That's that's usually I think what everyone's

(01:52):
kind of hoping for, yes,right, is that do the call in
and then they don't need you orwhatever, that it just goes away credit
for time served. Then you cango on your way. Right. That's
an interesting way to look at it, but yes, essentially, yeah,
and actually now they will text youif you give them your number, oh
and let you know whether you needto be there or not. Honestly,

(02:13):
I don't. I'm not really,you know, I don't do that.
You're in the court enough, theyknow how to get a hold of you
enough different ways, and then sothey it's honestly, it's on a website
now too. So that's how Idid it, right. You could go
to it's like New York juror whatevercounty, and so then I knew that
on Wednesday, jurors two through twopoint fifty two had to commit. Now

(02:38):
I don't know what happened to numberone, right, Number one didn't have
to go in on Monday. Numberone didn't go to so I don't know
if they got excused. What it'sgood to be number one? I guess
in this case it was so.But literally, I mean, I don't
know how many of the two hundredand fifty people showed up, but it
seemed like a lot. And Ispent most of my Wednesday waiting for a

(03:00):
question that would eliminate me. Yeah, which which I I would think it
would be a pretty high likelihood thatonce you got up to the part where
they would be talking to you,that you wouldn't last very long. But
it was amazing to me, necessarilythe order of questions, because first one

(03:23):
made a lot of sense. Doyou have medical procedure you cannot move?
Fair? Should not be fair?Very fair? Right? Because they said
it was going to be a twoweek trial, and if they say two
weeks, it can go longer thanthat obviously too. Yeah. The second
question was do you have travel plans? Right? And I understand that no
one's vacation should get blown up byjury duty, but is that in the

(03:46):
order of priority the next question weshould be asked? I mean, yeah,
so far, I mean, ofthe two questions, the medical procedure
or question seems more important than thederived questions. But if you're going to
ask anything after the first one,that isn't interesting choice to be the next
question. Third question, here arethe people who may be testifying. Do
you know any of these people?Right? And I thought for sure,

(04:11):
many many years ago I defended anumber of cops as a as part of
my job in nineteen eighty three suits. But no such luck. Okay,
So fourth question it was you know, do you have friends or family and
law enforcement? Blah blah blah.Sure, And not to get too into

(04:32):
the weeds, but my wife worksfor the court system, so that at
least gave me a reason to getup yeah right, yeahah. And then
when I got up there, Iwas able to be disqualified. Yeah,
which in this case was exactly whatI want. Yeah, I don't think
we were like kind of joking inthe office that we didn't like your chances

(04:55):
to get selected. Now, Imean I picked Jerry's I would never want
to lawyer on a jury. Butthat that's and that's kind of the point,
right, It's not it's nothing aboutyou specifically, It's that I think
typically attorneys don't like the idea ofother attorneys on their jury. Well,
then, I really think for themost part, you have one finder of
fact because everybody looks to the attorney. Yeah, like you say, well
you know this, what do youthink? Right, it's not a good

(05:18):
it's not a good luck for theprofession, no, or for or for
the system to do it that way. So, and in this case,
I had appeared before the judge beforethat was doing this trial, and lots
of other things too. So butI did my civic duty. Get your
job, and I you know.So, So now the question is do

(05:39):
you get called again before your parentsare called for the next time. Seems
like in the county I live in, you're gonna get it every six years
pretty much. I about six monthsago said out loud that I was probably
about due. Well there you go, and within a week. You tempted

(06:00):
fate that your questionnaire came in themail. So there you go. So
obviously this is Saint Patrick's Day weekend, big weekend in the in the Capitol
district. Rights as if you heardthe news, please party safely. If
you're partying, take an uber,you know, please make smart decisions people.

(06:21):
Yeah, as the most Irish personin our firm, I'm not really
sure why I'm doing the radio showthis weekend instead of not drinking green beer.
Okay, yeah, I green Beer'strash. Let's let's get that out
of the way, all right.I was I was drinking regular beer.
How about a Guinness? I waslike, I would not have put money
on it. But if you ifI had walked in and you said,

(06:43):
I have some Guinness in the car, right for like what the show's over?
If we could go have what theparking lot, I'd be like,
it's not out of the relevant possibility, it's not a likely scenario, but
it's also doubt like a zero forsaid shit, I think that my days
of parking lot drinking are pretty muchover, especially now that that's pretty much
frowned upon its back, because thatwas like the number one place to have
some drinks in the parking lot,because then they were going to charge you

(07:06):
twenty dollars to have a beer inthere. But take it easy today,
be mindful, have a plan.I like a good segue, yes,
or at least good tease. SoI think we had a pretty I mean,

(07:27):
they're all interesting, and to me, it's wild in a factual sense.
Consultation. So Frank and I metwith some people over this week,
right, that's always interesting. Butwe met with a gentleman in his upper
nineties. Yes, yeah, justyesterday and sharp, Oh man, I

(07:49):
think I take him over me goodpart of the time. I think I
might too. Actually, yeah,that's I'm saying, like I'm not not
making it up, like we mighthave a new seniors you know. Nice
good for him, I hope hegets it. Put a good word for
but still driving still very like onehundred there. Yeah, I asked really

(08:13):
good questions. Clearly was following,came prepared, had a question of his
own that he just wanted to makesure he remembered to ask. So,
and I mean, we we seepeople at all areas of age and mental
acuity and all of those things.So this this one stuck out to me,
I don't think I've ever seen someonethis old, this sharp. Yeah,

(08:37):
I think I which is great,I said, I said to you
afterwards after we were done. Ithink he might be the best I've seen,
just of someone his age. Notto say we haven't seen other really
impressive people, yes, earlier nineties, yeah right, yeah, I can
think of a couple. Yeah.But what was most wild is fourish years

(09:03):
ago, maybe at least a fewyears ago, they decided to just do
a will. Yeah, I thinkit's I think it was in twenty twenty
one, I think, but threeyears yeah, ballpark, right, Yeah,
And I'm not sure that necessarily Iwould have given different advice at that
age. I mean, we wouldhave talked it out right and let the

(09:24):
person make the decision. But herewe are now. If they had done
a trust plan, they'd actually bethree years through to five year look back.
Yeah, And I mean, unfortunately, anything can happen at any time,
but as you get older, justthe likelin of something more severe happening
very quickly obviously increases. So that'snot to say he wouldn't make it through

(09:46):
the five years. You know,still, even as well as he's doing
now. But I like his chances, right right, Like, I mean,
didn't seem like anything major was goingon right now. So I I
think I've often told a story.A woman came in at ninety five.
This was several years ago now,back in the teens. Yeah, and

(10:13):
she was ninety five, and shesaid, I want to run my five
year clock. She thought, youknow, it's optimistic. It's optimistic.
Okay, we'll give a shot.She got two and a half years through
her five year clock, yeah,before she needed care yep, right,
so she could have come in atninety one, maybe even ninety two.

(10:33):
Yeah, at ninety she was sittingpretty she didn't know it, right,
But I mean these are outliers.Yeah, yeah, certainly not encouraging people
to wait that long. No no, no, no, please please don't
take that as the point, becausethat is not the point. But there
My point is, I still thinkthere's always an opportunity to do something.

(10:54):
The later in the game it gets, the less opportunities you have. You
may have lost some tools in thetoolbox. Yeah right, But the only
time that we really can't help peopleis if they've spent all of their money.
So I know we're coming up onthe break. I have a story
that kind of goes with that that. If you don't mind, I'll talk

(11:16):
about when we come back. Okay, all right, I think that's a
good time. Take a take ourfirst break. This is Life Happens Radio.
We'll be right back after this tocome back to like that. This

(11:37):
radio with a little feeling pretty mellowso far. Luck, I like it.
I like it. Nice job,Zach, you should pretty good on
the music. Yeah, give usthat credit. They I don't like the
hatties wearing but I like Zach.You knew that coming in. Oh yeah,
more than like I would have been. Honestly, I would have been

(12:00):
as he wasn't wearing something like that. Interestingly, they just put out at
least a single, but I thinkthe whole album of Wings where they took
a lot of the background dubs outand it's I mean, if you're a
musical person, it's very interesting justto hear the difference. It's a it's

(12:20):
a different approach for sure, ButI digress. So welcome back to Life
Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, FrankKemming from Pierre o' connor and Strouss.
We have a seminar coming up.It's a w g Y seminar. They
it'll be myself, mister Piro oras as his very old friends call him

(12:45):
Louis, but we call him louYeah, nobody, nobody calls him Louis
in the office, so please don'tdo that. Not in the office.
And Dave Kopek, who has ashow also on WGY, we'll be doing
a seminar about how to protect yourmoney, how to invest your money,
what plans you need, how toretire. Well, that's on April sixteenth
at the Crown Plaza Hotel at fivepoint thirty. You can register online at

(13:09):
WGY Seminar dot com or you cancall our seminar hotline at five one eight
six two eight four two five five. So, mister Frank, I believe
that you said you had a storyyou wanted I do. I do it
actually fit into kind of really wellwith what you were what you were saying,

(13:33):
So you kind of teed me upand didn't even know you were doing
it. So good job. So, as you were saying, we're we
usually have a lot of tools availableto us, but we are limited in
certain circumstances, and unfortunately I didrun into a circumstance very much like that,
like where they had kind of takenit too far without seeking better advice

(13:56):
or at least getting different advice,let's put it that way. So,
uh, I think I think Aaron, you were you were scheduled to meet
with them with me, but thenbecause you were out on DREE duty,
I think I wound up by myself. And I met this guy. He
brought in his brothers and they camein to talk about their dad, and
they're very, very nice, andI honestly felt very bad that, like
I didn't really have better news forthem. But essentially the scenario that that

(14:20):
they brought was that dad had beenat home for and I think receiving care
for I don't know, year anda half or two years something like that.
They'd been paying out of pocket,and uh, they were going to
run out of money in like June, you know, and it's already mid
March. And the unfortunate part wasthey they his main asset was a little

(14:43):
bit of cash, but again thatwas going very quickly because they were paying
aids essentially around the block to takecare of him, right, and then
getting pretty late in the game,right, And and that wasn't gonna that
wasn't going to stop, Like,well, we were doing whatever we would
if we were to do something thatwould have to be continue because their dad
would still need the care. Well, the legal planning was going on,

(15:05):
and then the only real other assetthat he had was his house. But
they had already gone to a locallending institution. They'd already taken out a
either a verse or a line ofcredit or whatever, and they'd basically like
used up all the equity in thehouse as well. Wow, so there
was like thirty or forty grand leftof equity in the house, and there
was cash that was below the medicaidlimit because they had just gotten to medicaid

(15:30):
approval because they were told by Idon't know, a social worker or you
know, someone right that they hadto spend down all dad's money and then
they could get on medicaid. Sothat's essentially what they did. And not
to belabor the point, but onceI kind of went through everything with them
and we were kicking around options,you know, I think everyone kind of

(15:52):
agreed that placement was probably just whatwas going to be needed. Unfortunately,
just because there wasn't going to bethe financial means to keep Dad at home
any longer. And I said,you know, guys, if it makes
you feel any better, I cantell how hard you worked for quite a
long time to keep Dad where hewanted to be. I just don't really
see a safe scenario to keep himcontinuing there given the situation you have,

(16:15):
because there's kind of two factors herethat we don't have much control over it.
It's time and it's money, andneither of those are on your side,
right, you know you're burning moneyand you don't have a lot of
time. And one of the sonssaid, well, you know, that's
kind of what we thought you weregoing to say, but we wanted to
hear it from somebody who clearly hadsome knowledge about this kind of thing.

(16:37):
And he said, the unfortunate partis you know we couldn't have done anything
differently. And I said, wellsee, I said, well that's really
where you're not, right, Isaid, And I don't want to beat
you up about it, right,it's not going to make you feel better.
It's not going to make me feelbetter. I was like, but
if you came to us two yearsago with whatever one hundred and fifty or
two hundred thousand of cash and thevalue in the house before the loan or

(17:02):
the line of credit, whatever itwas. It's like we could have saved
I'm not gonna say we could havesaved it all, but like we certainly
could have put it in a muchbetter position to preserve what we could have
and keep Dad where he is,and then we didn't. We did,
we wouldn't be having this conversation.It's unfortunately, and that's not a conversation
we have daily, but it's aconversation we unfortunately have more often than I

(17:26):
would like to have it, right, I mean, if I feel like
as my time with the firm goeslonger, I think we tend at least
I think I mean less and lessof them, which is good, right
that that's very good. It meanswe're get out. But the fact of
the matter is like we're still havingto have them, yes, and that's
only the people that obviously are sittingdown with us that we're coming into contact

(17:48):
with. So, you know,I wanted to relate the story just because,
you know, as the theme ofthe show is, you don't leave
things to luck. I don't justhope that everything's going to work out.
How you want correct, and unfortunatelythis family had some options. Again,
it doesn't sound that they knew them, but there were options that were available

(18:08):
to them that if they had donethings differently, maybe the outcome turns out
to be different too. Yeah,it's it's sad and unfortunate. But what
we can't do is put things thegenie back in the bottle, to paste
back in the tube, whatever youwant to say. Yeah, I mean,
if we I say it jokingly becauselike you have to have some humor

(18:30):
about this kind of thing. Butlike, if we could just make magical
money up here for people, right, right, Like, maybe we'd be
doing something different, right, Ithink we'd be retired. Let's say it,
like now, I'd make the moneyappear for me, right. I
mean, I'm sure you're great,right, But like in this case,
I'm gonna worry about me, right, I'm gonna make the money up here,

(18:52):
and then I'm gonna go on myway, Yeah, and just keep
making the money up here. IMean, I like what I do,
right, But if I didn't haveto do it, I wouldn't. It's
a different scenario, right, Imean, And I think that's a big
difference probably between LEU and I right, he he would continue to do it.
He probably would, right, Yeah, I think you're right. But
yeah, I mean, as wesaid, it's it's I really thought the

(19:17):
home equity was like if there wasone avenue they could take, then maybe
they hadn't considered that was going tobe it until like I looked at more
of the financials and sell like,oh, they'd already used that resource as
well. That's just waiting way toolong, right, And that's I mean
maybe I can see like where peoplewant to make a bridge. They don't
know how long this is gonna goon. Yeah, it's not. Still

(19:38):
the best decision is to get allhave a consultation, get the information,
yeah, and then make a justmake it decision at that point. Right,
But part of me can understand whypeople kind of wait maybe a little
bit, but two a year waytoo long. Yeah, I mean,
if you want to wait a coupleof months to see if things normalize,

(19:59):
I can understand that. Or Imean, Aaron again, you can you
can kind of correct me here ifyou think that I'm wrong here. But
I mean we hear a lot like, oh, well so and so they
weren't doing well for a long time. Like we had. We did not
think they were going to be herestill, or they we didn't think they
were ever going to get better,or they didn't we never thought they were
going to get out of the hospitalor right whatever it was. And that

(20:19):
I understand right like that, thatagain, it doesn't always mean that the
right tactic is to do nothing,but at least if it's not looking like
things are going to go in apositive direction from a medical standpoint, I
do understand why maybe people don't seethe need to, you know, gain
the information with the hope that maybethings turn around. Right. But again,

(20:41):
if it's been two years, right, things have been obviously improved from
the bad stuff for a while exactly, So I think that's important. And
I understand what we I think whatgets lost sometimes and what we do is

(21:03):
the emotional baggage. Right, Solots of times when people come to us
that they are well beyond there theirbest time, you know, certainly dealing
with sick family members or failing familymembers or that kind of stuff. Yeah,

(21:26):
that no one, no one wantsto see that. And obviously there
are different ways to handle it,and there are going to be some people
who maybe handle it better or differentlythan others, but like, no one
enjoys that, no matter how muchmaybe you think it doesn't affect you.
Correct, it's not easy on anybody, and it doesn't make your thought process

(21:48):
at its best. No, no, right. And I so we understand
that sometimes we're delivering good sometimes we'redelivering not so good news. Also true,
right, It's part of the job. I mean one of the big
avenues of bad news is when peoplecome in and they say, well,
I gave my son or I gavemy daughter X Y or Z right,

(22:14):
and they're like, but there's away around that, right, And most
of the time, yeah, it'snot. It's it's never it's it's not
just no, but it's in mostcircumstances it's most likely no, correct right.
Right. And that's why we alwayshave to ask the other like the
follow up questions, because sometimes it'slike, yeah, that's a problem,

(22:37):
but maybe here's an avenue maybe wherewe can fix it, or we can
make it better, or we kindof just roll with it and we just
put the plan together knowing that wehave a bad fact or some bad facts.
Part of being a lawyer is mitigation. I mean, you might want
to look at it as damage control, right, but that's another mitigation sounds
better, I feel like, yeah, and it's a way of lessening.

(23:03):
You know, in the criminal world, people either are guilty or not guilty,
right, your options are go fornot guilty or mitigate, right,
maybe get a lower sentence, thatkind of thing. And while we're not
talking about jail, obviously, westill have the smooth sailing case, let's
say, where you know, everything'sgone as planned or most everything we've gotten

(23:26):
out in front of the problem.Or we have the mitigation case, where
we're trying to do the best wecan under the circumstances. And I really
think that for the most part,they really divide into those two two types
of cases. I can't really thinkof another type of case. Yeah,
I mean, I guess unless youreally want to look at the scenario where
again the money's already gone, likeat that point, like there's I'm not

(23:49):
even sure you're really mitigating it toit. It's kind of just it's it's
not going to be good. Andthere's really no avenue around this, right,
But it's a traffic circle. Youjust go around, you come right
back to where you were. Yeah, it's a traffic circle, but there's
no in our outs, like onceyou're on, you're just stuck. So

(24:11):
obviously we want everyone to avoid that. Certainly, if you have questions about
planning, we're going to be comingup on the news, but you can
give us a call at w gY. That's one eight, two,
five, five, nine four nine, and when we come back, we'll
talk about why don't you don't wantto wait to be lucky. You want
to get done, you want toget it done right. Life Happens Radio

(24:33):
Aaron Connor, Pi O'Connor and stress. Wow, we come back to Life

(24:56):
Happens Radio, Aaron Piroconorance, Trouss, Frank Hemmick, still Perro Conorance,
Trouss. Nice. We are talkingabout not leaving your planning to luck.
And you know, we have somegreat marketing people in our office and they

(25:19):
were they were able to give mesome things that we might want to discuss.
Oh, love it right. Soin a two thousand and twenty two
survey, the top reasons people gavefor not tackling estate planning were survey says,
too expensive, no, okay,nice, two main ones. The

(25:44):
top two yeah, consists of seventythree percent. Wow. Right, So
those are pretty consistent answers. Iwould say, okay, number one,
haven't haven't gotten around to it.Okay, we do have a call Mike
and Troy. Good morning, Mike, how are you good morning? Doing

(26:07):
great? Thank you for taking mycall. Sure question I had is my
wife and I are looking at doinga medicaid trust. And as I just
heard you say, getting around toit. We should have gotten around to
it a while ago that we aregetting around to it now, so good
point with it. We're looking atwhether or not we need to establish one
trust for the both of us.And just quick background, we've been married

(26:29):
for forty years. We're looking toshare our assets. Basically, something happens
to me, everything goes my wife, something happens to her, everything goes
to me, and we're looking toprotect it from Medicaid and then also it
will be to pass our assets ontoour three kids equally. So with that,
do we need to establish one trustfor both of us or should we

(26:52):
each have separate trust? Generally speaking, I would say one trust for both
of you is the way to go. There are times when we do too.
Most of the time that's because husbandand wife may have different beneficiaries and
different assets they want to go todifferent people, so that isn't present here.
If you were over six and ahalf million dollars, we would do

(27:14):
two trusts. If you had anasset that was only could be in your
name, like maybe a business interestor something like that that you wanted to
put in trust, that might engendera separate trust, but predominantly we do
a joint trust. And I guessthe other thing that would factor into that
would be health. Right, Soif we know that someone's health is not

(27:37):
very good, we tend to puteverything into the other person's name and then
put it in trust to try toprotect it. But most often we're doing
a joint trust. Okay, Idon't know if this would change that at
all. I had property that Ibought before I was married. It was

(27:57):
basically a renal property, you know, worth maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars,
and with that never ended up puttingit into an LLC, never ended
up adding my wife's name to it. But the intent is clearly to you
know, share it with her,no one else. I'm ready to put
it in a single trust where weboth you know, agree to everything goes

(28:18):
to her, everything goes to me. Those are the kids with that.
I guess any implications at this pointin changing it, you know, either
just simply adding her name or ordoing the LLC and moving that into this
single trust. So generally what wewould want to do is put it into
an LLC and then assign that LLCto the trust. That way, you

(28:41):
can remain the manager of the property, so you can still do everything that
you do, and you know,you're entitled to the net proceeds obviously from
the LLC, but you're still gettingthe protection, you know, if if
something happens to you, she couldthen manage it if that's the plan,
or one of your kids, whateverit may be, or sell it,

(29:03):
you know, I don't know.But also because you've had this rental property
so long, I assume your basisis very low from depreciation, so it
would be a thing that you'd reallywant, if possible, to hang on
till onto until you pass away,so your heir is going to step up
in basis and there's no capital gainstax doing on it. Now if we
put this into the LLC, let'ssay, and you know, one of

(29:27):
the things I was looking at isdoing ten thirty one tax free exchange.
We could, I would need thetrustees permission to sell that, and you
basically do the exchange to a tenthirty one not if it's in the LLC
would control that first. So ifyou're the managing member of the LLC,
then you can do the ten thirtyone type exchange. Okay, Hey,

(29:51):
could we set it up to bejoint managers, both my wife and myself
as managers. Yeah, that's onehundred percent up to you. We generally
would do some kind of basic operatingagreement, so if there's two, that's
that's yes, absolutely, okay,And I guess my last question just with
the LLC. Now, you know, I've for just a small vacant lot

(30:11):
that I own, I've set oneup and really never did the operating agreements,
and you know, so we haven'tsaid owners. But with an LLC
we should have, you know,and I know we need help of an
attorney with this, but an operatingagreement and basically saying that we both are
the primary owners or remain consider puttingour kids in that LLC as well.

(30:34):
Yeah, you know, how dohow do? Sorry? You go ahead?
I'm sorry I didn't real issue Okay, now, I just I guess,
how do we ensure that LLC?That would say it's either in both
our names my wife and I wereboth are equal partners, or you know,
we got the kids in wealth andas well, we got you know,
basically five owners, or you know, one president, two presidents,

(30:56):
co presidents, you know what,whatever titles we right, that's okay,
we can do that in any numberof ways. I certainly don't think it
was a bad idea not to havean operating agreement for a vacant lot.
Right, it was just you,so you could have done whatever you needed
to do. The operating agreement becomesmore important when you have multiple people and

(31:17):
when you're trying to set up astructure if something happens. So I don't
think that was in any way amistake. If I personally, if I
owned a vacant land, I don'tknow that i'd have an operating agreement for
an LLC either, although I'm sureLou would say differently, But I don't
see the utility in that. Iobviously see it. When you have multiple
people or you're looking to do somethingelse, you absolutely need one at that

(31:38):
point in time. Okay, AndI have filed my bi annual statements.
Well you're ahead of the game,then, congratulations. Many people do not
do that. Okay, all right, well great questions. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much.I appreciate your help and your answers.
Thank you. Absolutely have a goodweekend. So that that was a great

(32:00):
call in my opinion. Yeah,no, I mean clearly has some idea
of what they're looking for already.Right, it's good. And those are
things that we commonly go over.Yeah, because people get tripped up on
especially they had this rental property andthey've had it forever and they're getting older
and they come to us and theysay, I want to get rid of
this rental property and we understand whysure, but then we have to explain

(32:23):
to them from a tax perspective whatthat's going to look like. And they
still may want to do it right, right, but sometimes maybe you don't.
Yeah, So you just need tohave all your information right if you
want to pay taxes, extra taxes. Hey, for some people, it
might just be easier just to literallyget rid of it. It cautious some

(32:44):
money to have it off the ledger. If you will then do that.
Yes, So back to our survey. Yeah yeah, forty percent said I
haven't got around to it. Nice. Yeah, So, I mean we
all love to procrastinate. I thinkmost people anyway about certain things. But

(33:08):
that's the number one. And thenthirty three percent of people said I don't
have enough assets to leave to anyone. That's I would if you gave me
another guess. That's what I wouldhave guessed was I don't have enough money
to do anything, like I don'tneed to do anything because I don't have
enough, which is such a missbecause we this is a battle that we
do fight sometimes. Look if youif you don't if you don't own a

(33:34):
house or property, and you don'thave I don't know, more than thirty
thousand dollars in the bank, rightyou, you're basically Medicaid eligible right there.
There isn't much to There isn't muchof a need to shelter things because
correct what you have, you cankeep them. You're still going to need
a power of attorney in a healthcareproxy, Yep, and probably it will

(33:55):
because who knows. Yep. Okay, but we all and run into people
who think that they don't need atrust because they don't have millions of dollars,
I would say, I don't know. I mean, putting a percentage
on is ride different. But I'mdifficult, But I don't know. Eighty
to ninety percent of the clients Ithink I work with most often have less

(34:19):
than a million dollars all in,right, that's included, and then it's
including the value of their house.And so I read some interesting statistics online.
Yeah, in America to be consideredupper class, so top twenty percent.
Okay, okay, do you knowwhat you need to have in assets

(34:39):
to be considered that? I mean, this is America wide, not like
New York or Northeast or anything.I mean, I don't know, seven
hundred and fifty. It's very close, frank, like eight hundred and two
thousand. Okay, I was inthe ballpark for sure. Yeah. So
I don't think that most people whohave I think they think they're doing fine.
I don't think they're like, yeah, killing it, richie rich you

(35:02):
know. If anything, I thinkpeople tend to be a little more self
deprecating about that kind of thing.Correct. I've had people that I would
gladly trade bank accounts with and they'rejust like, we don't have that much
and I'm like, you have plenty. Yeah, right, you have plenty
to do something about, right,And I think that part of that is

(35:22):
the perception that everyone walks into thefirm and they're just like, oh,
I have five million dollars. That'snot true. Yeah. Sure we help
out a lot of people who justown a house. Yeah, I mean,
or a house and some money.You know, many, many,
many people under five hundred thousand,like a huge number, huge number.
Yeah, especially older like the oldergenerations. I feel like because they didn't

(35:46):
like they got their pensions per se, right, but a lot of them
don't have retirement accounts, or atleast they don't have sizeable retirement accounts.
Now that is changing, right,yes, as you're getting more to like
the people now that are retiring orthe people that are going to retire.
You know, obviously their asset structuresare different because they don't have pensions,
but they have iras and four onesand that kind of stuff. But but

(36:08):
yeah, I mean plenty of peoplehave the standard mix of some cash their
their residents, you know, astock account of some kind or investment of
some kind. It might be anIRA, it might not be right,
and maybe maybe some life insurance anda in a vehicle or two. Correct,

(36:29):
And people often say, well,I don't have enough money to do
a trust. If you have ahouse, you have enough money to do
a trust because you want to keepyour house out of probate. You probably
want to protect your house from goingto pay for a nursing home. Uh,
this is probably a bit optimistic here. I'm not sure I've heard anybody

(36:51):
say like, I don't mind ifmy house goes to the nursing home unless
there were like other issues with thehouse, right right. I think if
we have encountered that a couple oftimes, but mostly because it was like
a hoarder fall down situation, right, that's like we couldn't sell the house
if we want. Well, that'sI have a case right now. That's
that's kind of there, and likethey kind of just don't want to deal
with the house anymore. But it'snot it's basically because the house to them

(37:14):
has no value, right right.They don't want to deal with it because
they don't see an upside to dealwith it. I it's not like they
have a perfectly fine house and they'rejust like, Nope, we're good,
let it make it yep. Nowthat's that's very true. And most I
say this a lot because I thinkit's it's true. It's hard to accumulate

(37:35):
money. M hm. You eitherhave to be extremely disciplined in your own
personal life and invest well. Yes, I mean a fair amount of people
inherit it right, that's a differentstory, yep. But someone had to
accumulate it at some point. Yes, that's the hard part. So once
you have money, you can makemoney with money fairly easy, as long

(37:57):
as you're making good decisions, oryou're at least letting pepeople who know what
they're doing management make decisions. Butit's the accumulation that's the hard part.
And so with the end of yourlife, if you've accumulated money, don't
just let it go away for noreason. Sure, and I don't think
generally that's a hard sell for people. We still encounter people who think,

(38:19):
in their head, I would neverwant to be on Medicaid. Okay,
that's fine, Maybe you won't be, maybe you won't need to be,
right, But my feeling on thatis, you have paid money into the
system your entire life. Taxes,some more taxes if you live in New
York, you have and some moretaxes. Yeah, right, why not
get some bang for your buck onthe way out? Sure? Right,

(38:43):
I mean it's utilize the system it'sthere, or at least have the ability
that if you need it you could, right, don't close the door.
If you don't need it, fine, great you need it's that's great for
you. Correct, But you don'tknow exactly. So I mean I haven't
gotten around to It is a verydifficult thing because I think we found in

(39:07):
our own world that people need tohave a push, not necessarily not really
from us, right, but someoutside factor that really pushes them to do
their planning. We do hear alot of well, someone died, and
then it either it went really welland that's what I want to do,
or it didn't go well at all, and I don't ever want to either

(39:30):
have my family go through it orput anyone else through it exactly. And
I think now it's a good timeto take our last break, and when
we come back, we can kindof go over those two paths, because
those really are the two paths.So this is life Happens Radio. I'm
Aaron Connor, and we'll be backright after this good music selection. It's

(40:00):
work. How about this, Well, we'll let you come back to engineer
next week, even with the Eagleshat on. Yeah, okay, we
like him all right, he's takingreally good care of him. Yes,
I don't want to be complimentary,because that's not who I am. If
he starts complabet to Ezach few words, probably having a fugue. Yeah,

(40:21):
anyway, But so life happens RadioAaron Connor, Frank Hemming from Pierre O'Connor
and Strauss. We were talking about, and this is something that I say
a lot to people that we reallyhave two types of clients. We have
clients whose parents did everything right andwhose parents did everything wrong. Yeah.
So, going back to one ofour earlier discussion points, right, the

(40:45):
family where we met the guy inhis upper nineties. Right, his daughter
in law was at the consult withhim, and she commented that she is
one of nine children, right,and that her family did their plan and
luckily when stuff happened with her parents, things actually did go pretty well because
the parents had taken care of it. And you said, well, thank

(41:07):
goodness they did, because having nineopinions about stuff if they didn't would not
have been fun. No, Ican't even imagine what the personal property distribution
looks like with nine people, rightright. I saw it a little bit
when my grandmother died, my dad'smom, my dad's want of five,
and then there are thirteen in mygeneration. I mean the thirteen really weren't

(41:32):
part of it, right, butthirteen people had feelings maybe about what piece
of personal property they might want ornot want, you know what I mean,
And then their parents would try toto some extent, I think,
try to get that, right,But when you have even five, you
know you're not going to get everythingthe desire. You just can't sure.

(41:55):
And it's okay, But I tellpeople all the time it's easier if they
decide personal property, who gets what? Oh, definitely, because I mean
they can't be I mean, theycan be mad at you, but like
you're you're generally gonna be. Butit's different when they fight. If their
siblings are fighting, those feelings canhang over for a long right right right?
Yes? Yeah, years? Andif you decide, then well maybe

(42:17):
they're a little frustrated, but atleast it was what you wanted. Yeah,
And I think that's important. Yeah. So so by doing everything wrong,
what do we mean? Uh,Well, for one thing, right,
not doing anything I think generally isjust doing it wrong correctly from a
very like top down viewpoint. Right. Well, again, if you have

(42:42):
no will, you have a wifeand children, your wife doesn't get everything.
Yeah, this is this is alwaysone of my favorite ones to talk
about with us because unless like,if you don't have children and you just
have a spouse, then yes,your spouse will just get everything regardless of
whether you have a will or not. That's right, right, So for
some people, like if that's reallyall you're worried about, like, okay,
congratulations, you're in a very smallgroup of people where like what the

(43:07):
state would have done to your propertyis actually what you would want exactly,
But the vast majority of people,assuming you have capacity or the survivor has
capacity. Right, But again assumingthat most people have a spouse and children,
because I think most people fall intothat category or at least other people
they want to leave stuff too.Well, then think about the nightmare of

(43:29):
the spouse who dies with no document, right, no children? So then
what right? Yeah, bad stuff? Right, And yes, I always
say it won't be your problem,and it won't be. But if you
actually want your assets to go somewhereother than to legal fees and court costs
and whatever else genealogy searches. Thenyou don't want to do that. No,

(43:53):
no, So I mean so ifyou if you die without a will
and you're married and you have kids, your spouse gets the first like fifty
thousand dollars of just stuff, theyget some other exempt property that's laid out
by statute, right, and theneverything else gets split fifty percent to your
spouse and fifty percent amongst your children. And aaron like you, you certainly

(44:15):
can speak to this probably just aboutbetter than anybody in the firm. If
you've got like minor children and thathappens, that's oh yeah, Like number
one, it's probably just not whatthe person who passed wanted. But second,
that's going to be a nightmare dealingwith the having to put everything in
trust for the miners and having attorneysfor all the miners and all the things

(44:37):
that then come with the probate processon top of just the general stuff that
makes it like not everyone's favorite thingto go through. Well, we we
have one now where father died inhis thirties okay, yeah, so young,
yeah, two kids okay, married, okay, for some reason,

(45:02):
must have established his retirement account beforehe got married, because he would need
to sign off otherwise. Yeah,never put never put a beneficiary on it.
Well nope, Oh, put thefirstborn child as a beneficiary on the
account. Kay. The second bornchild never got on the account. Wife
never got on the account. That'sinteresting, right, I did not see

(45:24):
that coming. That's kind of awild one. No, you've you've already
you've surprised me. So that minerinherits the entire ira. Maybe he would
have wanted that to go to thisbeus or some of it to the other
child, or there's no ability todo that that you can't right, right,

(45:45):
So in that case, we hadto get a guardian appointed for the
minor, right, and then momhas to elect against the miner's share to
get some portion. Oh, talkabout feeling awkward, right, But they
need money to survive this. Butso they're essentially having to take money from
their child, like for their ownwell being, so that they could probably

(46:07):
help, right exactly. And theyou can't just give the other kid a
portion of their retirement account, right, Yeah, that's not in the other
one's interest and right now it's notin distribution status. And you know,

(46:29):
it's not taxable, and there's allof those things. But right, it's
really from the get go a disasterbecause there's a proceeding to get the guardian
appointed, then there's a proceeding toget the estate open. The estate has
to be open for seven months ata minimum, so I mean probably two
years all told before all of thatis, and their loved one passed in

(46:49):
his thirties, exactly emotional day.Rights. I mean on top of all
this, like, the whole reasonthis is happening is because probably something unexpectedly
bad happened. That's right. Yes, So not only was that bad,
right, but all this other notgreat stuff happened to Yeah, that's awful.
And for whatever reason we seem tohave five or six cases right now

(47:13):
where we've had to get the guardianof a child appointed because the child was
the a minor child would have beenthe person to be the administrator of an
estate. Oh, they have priority. Yes, that's strange. They have
it before a parent, believe itor not, you know, a parent
of a decedent. Yeah, whichmakes sense when they're adults. Doesn't make

(47:36):
someone else when they're not, whenthey're miners. And we've tried to do
it the other way and been toldyou can't do it that way. So
yeah, like I had a case, and I know we're coming up towards
the end of the show, soI will make this quick. But like
I had a case, or Ihave a case right now. Where Mom
is in a nursing home unfortunately,and she married her I don't know.

(47:57):
He might have been her first husband, but it's the second marriage for the
husband. Husband's now deceased, SoMom and the nursing home. She had
two biological children, both of themhave died, have predeceased her, but
the husband brought two of his kidslike to their marriage, who are very
very very young, So it's stepchildren to mom. But she raised them

(48:19):
right, She became their stepmother whenthey were two or three or something like
that. Right, So for allintents and purposes, she has four kids,
but biologically she has two. Right, And if she didn't update her
will and do the other things we'redoing right when she passed. If she
died without a will, step kidsdon't get anything, correct, they don't
mean anything legally legal, right exactly, And that's not what she wanted.

(48:43):
Well, and honestly, this wasa discussion we had the other day too,
was there was a desire to leavespouse's some money, right if children
were not there. And the personsaid, I've been told that that's unusual,
and I said, yes, itis. It is right. It
doesn't mean you can't do it.You can leave to anybody you want to
leave to. Predominantly, though atleast well more than ninety or ninety five

(49:07):
percent of the cases, people arenot doing that, I will say,
though, that goes hand in handwith that. When we do see it,
it's usually the situation that we werediscussing in that meeting, like where
it's the children don't have any childrenof their own, there's no grand children
there, so they were going tobring in the in law because there were
no grandchildren to take. And theseare these are generally not situations where we

(49:31):
have younger people, right. Thisis a situation where mom or dad is
ninety, these kids are in theirsixties probably. Yeah, the spouse has
been the daughter in law son inlaw for forever, thirty forty years themselves.
Right, They're not new to thefamily. Right. This isn't like
your sixty your kid just got marriedand I want to cut the wife in
right, although occasionally we do hearthat we like the in law better,

(49:55):
but oh most of the time wedon't hear that. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it's not certainly not unheardof, but you know, all it's
all depending on circumstance. I justdid a plan for a for a very
nice family. They only have adaughter, right, They have a daughter
who just got married. They lovetheir son in law. He's the ultimate
beneficiary. If they lose their daughterand they never had grandchildren, they have

(50:15):
limited choices and they'd like it,that's right. So as long as he's
married to the daughter, he takes. But that's essentially because he's kind of
the last one in the family ifall that bad stuff happens, which I
can understand. All right, Justone last brief reminder. We do have
a seminar coming up with Dave Kopikon April sixteenth at the Crown Plaza at
five point thirty pm. You canregister for that at wg Y Seminar dot

(50:37):
com or at five pine eight sixtwo eight four two five five. This
has been Life Happens Radio. I'mAaron Conner. I hope you enjoy your
Saint Patrick's Day. Weekend safely,safely, have a plan, get home
and then come see us and makea plan for your future. Have a
great weekend, everybody,