Life Happens

April 26th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
For individuals and their families. We address challenges that we
all face as we age. We 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.
We're here to provide you with tools to educate and
prepare yourself for events like preparing for retirement, protecting your
income and assets, planning to pay for a nursing home

(00:20):
and home, cares for special needs, for wills and trusts,
planning for an untimely death, and then resolving disputes in
and out of court. As the laws and necessities for
planning and care continue to evolve, life happens. Will help
you make smart decisions to assure that your goals are
reached and your needs are met for both yourself and
your family. So again, I'm Frank, coming from Pier O'Connor

(00:40):
and Strauss. Thanks for dealing with the few technical issues
we're having on our end. The crews working hard. They're
doing a great job. I am sitting alone in the studio,
but thankfully that does not mean that I will be
not joined by a guest. So I believe on the
line is our one of our great associates, mister Tommy Morasco.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Tommy, good morning, Yes I am. Thanks for having me,
Frank Man.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
You sound great coming through. Like how you doing, Tommy.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm doing well this morning, Thank you, Frank How you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's wet up here. It is gross, it is rainy,
it is dreary, it is cloudy. I would not spend
a lot of time outside so far today I was
down there with you.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Now. We got doused last night as well, so not
not looking too wonderful at the moment, but let's see
if that changes during the day.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, And obviously if you're if you're driving around in
your car, you're staying inside because the weather's not so
great today. Obviously, we enjoy having you here. Thanks for
spending your Saturday morning with us, and Tommy obviously, thanks
for jumping on and you know, being here to help
me today.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
My pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So April is stress Awareness month apparently, which I didn't know.
So then I had inherent stress because I didn't know
that that's how that goes. So we have a few
topics planned of what we want to talk about of
maybe doing some things to help avoid stress and get
a plan together so that way, you know, you have

(01:59):
a way of dealing with things if something happens, or
your family as a way of dealing with things if
something happens and you pass away. But before we get there,
I always kind of like to kind of ease into
the show, So usually I like to talk about current
events or cases that we've seen in the office. I
think last time I was here, like Gene Hackman had

(02:20):
passed away, so we had that to talk about, and
we've had some other celebrities that have passed away. I
didn't see anything recently of anyone passing. The last one
that comes to mind that I know that we spent
some time talking about was Val Kilmer. So I guess
for the good of Hollywood, I don't think we've lost
anybody of note that I've seen recently.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
No, but there was one, I mean not so recently,
but some news kind of resurfaced. And the reason I'd
like to highlight it is this because that I know
that when people are thinking about age, people that are
younger might think they're impervious to life happening right as
we say, But Michelle Trachenberg, she was only the thirties
and she recently passed.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
I think I think I did the show right after
her death too, or or very close in time, because
I remember talking with with Patty who was on the
show with me, and asking Patty if if she was
aware of who she who Michelle Trachtenberg was, and if
she was like how she knew her, because I think
I remember her originally being like Harry By movie.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, and then I.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Know she did she did some co starring on like
Buffy for a while, which I think I had fallen
off watching Buffy at that point, but I certainly recognized her,
and then she was in she was in like this
like teen college comedy called euro Trip, which is one
of my favorite, like you know, bad comedies, but but
but yeah, no, so obviously you know great pull by you, Tommy.
Just because you're younger doesn't mean something couldn't happen to you.

(03:48):
And I think I think I did see recently now
that you bring her up. I think I did see
that they that they ruled her death to be of
just natural causes, but I also believe that it was
also said that she had a I think a liver
transplant or something very close.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
In time to the time of her death.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Well, it may have been natural causes that took her
life or that resulted in her death. I don't think
she might have been like the healthiest person just because
of maybe some other you know, medical things.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
No, it's absolutely right. But then as far as current
events are in the office goes, I mean, we think young,
and I'm sure some people listening on the show were
like thirty, Yeah, of course that's sung, but also in
their fifties. I had a client recently who came to
me that husband suffered from a stroke and he's no
longer capacity. He is no longer has capacity. And what
do you think they don't have?

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Frank, Well, there's probably there's several things that come to mind,
But what typically first thing that comes to my mind
when you when you talk or you lead something like that,
I'm going to say, no power of attorney time.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, so talk.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
So why don't why don't we I mean We're going
to dive more into this as the show goes along,
but why don't why don't you lay out for our
listeners what that document is and why it's so important
that that they have one and one that does the
right kind of things.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and and also I was talking to a
client yesterday who retained us. But their children are in college,
and you know when I told them, hey, by the way,
just so you know, they're over eighteen, they're their own
adults now, and it doesn't matter whether you're their parent.
You have no say over their finances, you have no
say or involvement in their health care. And they were

(05:20):
slightly taken aback. So what happens is that a lot
of the times when we think what do we need
to plan, A lot of the times people go to
that the doomsday scenario, okay, when I die, But a
lot of people forget that there's things that happen during
our lifetimes that require us to need assistance. And as
I was just saying, doesn't matter what your relationship is

(05:42):
to an individual, could be a spouse, could be a parent,
a sibling. You do not just have the autonomy or
the right to just step in and start making those
decisions on behalf of people. So exactly so with the
power of attorney. The reason why that's such a powerful
tool is that it is a means to all an
agent that you designate or agents. We'll go further into that,

(06:04):
to take financial or legal action on your behalf, meaning
they could step in your shoes and be able to
make the same decisions that you could have made. Now,
the reason why it's so important to have this is
that in the absence of one is such as in
the situation that I pointed out earlier with my client,
there's no way of going back and doing it. Once
somebody does no longer has the capacity, they can't sign

(06:26):
this document. So now I need to go to surrogate's
court petition for a guardianship, which takes quite a bit
of time and is expensive. I mean you're talking probably
at the minimum around ten thousand dollars on average, just
to get the court to say, yes, we believe you,
the spouse, the parent, whomever, that you're the right person

(06:47):
to be able to make decisions on this person's.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Behalf and not to jump on your toes there. But
that's also assuming that there are any fights among the
potential guardians who could be named to take over decision
making authority for that individual exactly. Sometimes, like we have
situations where there may be a spouse, there may be parents,
there may be children, and there might not be a

(07:11):
clear cut I don't say winner but like a good
who the best decision would be. You know, there might
be positives and negatives to several of them.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Think about blended families, people with second or third marriages,
and sometimes the people may not be the person that
you would have wanted if you were to make the
decision yourself. So that's why these documents are so important.
It gives you the ability to name the people and
also successors. Okay, well, what happens if something happens to
this individual, great, I know who I would want next

(07:40):
in line. And guess what, it's not always a family member,
which is another thing.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, yeah, obviously if we're looking at this more towards
maybe a potential guardianship situation, if the planning isn't done Unfortunately,
you know, courts don't always like kind of being the
ultimate deciders of like which family members they are going
to put against other family members, and if no one
can get or if everyone can't get on the same page,

(08:05):
it's certainly in the in the ability of the court
of the court to appoint a neutral third party and
pick none of the family and say, you know what,
like we were thinking it was going to be this,
but we're not doing that anymore, we're gonna pick this
independent person, someone that none of you know, because you
guys couldn't get on the same page. So rather than
pick and choose, you all lose. And this person's now involved.

(08:29):
So do you have a new you have a new
best friend to take care of mom or dad, brothers,
sister's financial affairs and then everything.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
And you know that that.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Person would not have been the chosen person by the
incapacitated individual.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, but the making decisions even after that point, Tommy's
still there, imb here, can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah? And then I said the problem is that he it.
Even just administering after that is really difficult because now
at single time you need approval, oh yeah, to be
able to do anything right. Yeah, And it becomes extremely,
extremely restrictive.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
And and to this point, I think I think it.
I think it. It's a good thing to dive into
since we're on the topic of the power of attorney.
But not having the document is obviously the first bar.
Right you want to have it, because if you don't,
you have big issues. That's what we're talking about now.
But I think just as just as much of an
important thing to keep mind of isn't not only do

(09:27):
you have the document, but is it? Is it well done?
Does they have the correct powers? The most common things
that we're looking for are, you know, agents who's appointed,
what their abilities are, and what their relationships are to
one another. So if you have multiple people, can they
act independently? Can they do they have to act jointly
or concurrently, because sometimes that can bring headaches and unforeseen

(09:49):
issues that like if sometimes you know people they might
have multiple children, or they might have multiple people that
they want to have involved with their finances, which is
perfectly fine, but then it they have to make a
decision of the act independently or the diact act jointly. Well,
if you have people acting jointly and they're not close
in proximity, or they're deciding they don't agree on an issue,

(10:10):
or say their whole relationship deteriorates and they're just not
talking any longer, well that really puts that person potentially
in a bad spot because now you may have agents
that are not empowered to.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Do what you need, when you need it, how you
need it.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
And then the other thing that I commonly see and Tommy, obviously,
if you're seeing something different than by all means. Certainly
I had your opinion here, but I can't tell you
how many times we see documents come in from either
other offices or that people have downloaded off the internet
and they've tried to kind of do some things on
their own, and the power of attorney is lacking in

(10:45):
the powers that it grants. So in my practice, I
do a ton of medicaid work, I do a lot
of planning work, I do a lot of asset protection work.
And the power to transfer assets, move assets, create trusts,
you know, do a whole lot of things is vital
to do many of those things, and often that's where
the power of attorney is lacking. Where people can't make gifts,

(11:08):
they can't make transfers, they can't form trusts, they can't
fund trusts. And what then we're sometimes putting this in
the predicament of is finding out whether we can do
a new power of attorney, one that's better and has
you know, better things on it or better powers on it,
or whether we're going to have to say, you know,
unfortunately we thought, just based on you having the document,

(11:30):
we were going to be in a good place. We're not,
and now we have to go the whole guardianship route.
And it's not because they didn't try to do the
right thing.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I can't tell you how many times that's occurred, and
to the point where thankfully they came to us in
a position where we could execute new ones. But a
lot of times people you know, I call them my
Google warriors, right, they go out online and they searching everything.
And I love that. I love when my clients come

(11:58):
in prepared. I love when they've done some research, when
they come in with some background, because obviously I know
that they care, they're taking the time to really understand
or to learn about it. But then there's certain things
that I agree with, you want to take in your
own hands to be proactive. But then when it comes
to legal documents, sensitive legal documents. Is there a short
form on the New York State website?

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Does that mean that you should download yourself and try
to execute it yourself? I wouldn't recommend it, okay. Number
one is that there are specific requirements behind how they
need to be executed, let alone how they should be
filled out. So many times I'm missing specific provisions. And likewise,
with Frank, I do a lot of long term care
and other planning and involved with medicaid planning, but they

(12:42):
come in or some people are trying to save money
or they want to do things on their own, and
they come in with a document that's not sufficient. And
I've actually had a situation where I had a consult
with a client who did not retain on the first round.
We had a great conversation. I guess what they did
is they took the information that I provided them, and
then they went on their own and they tried to

(13:03):
see if they can do it on their own, because
you know, they wanted to save some money. Sure, what
do you think happens?

Speaker 3 (13:09):
I don't think it went well. It didn't.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
I ended up those same people. I don't think. I
don't I believe it. I don't even think it was.
A month later, came back and they said that the
individual that they were that they were worried about actually
had to go into a rehab center and was at
this point no longer had capacity. It was questionable the
first time around when they came in, okay, but the

(13:31):
person was still available, still there and I don't know
if it was a stroke or some other, but they
deteriorated further and they came in and said, listen, we
needed to do the Medicaid planning. We took care of
the other documents. Can you help us? I said, well,
can I see them? So what do you think they did?
They took the short form, They didn't have gifting powers.
This person had a lot of assets in their name.

(13:53):
No one had access to be able to transfer the
assets out. So we were as if in the same
position as though one was never executed. So this is
what we're saying. There's definitely there certain things where I'm
all for. You know, I have a family of four
of trying to say when we can and being you know,
cost conscious, But when it comes to your planning, this
is not something that you should take lightly. Definitely not

(14:15):
something you should try to cut corners with.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
I couldn't agree more. So why don't we do this.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
We're a little we've run a little lolong here, so
I know we're supposed to take a break, So why
don't we take our first break? So Tommy, hang on
the line. We'll come back right after this break and
we'll talk more about what we can do to maybe
help with your stress and do some planning for people.
So come on back, all right, guys, welcome back, thanks
for sticking through for the break. This is Life Happens Radio.

(14:40):
This is our Saturday program where you talk about planning,
aging and all the things that come with those. Again,
I'm Frank Heming, one of the partners of Pierre O'Connor
and Strauss, and joined by our associate mister Tommy Morasco.
Hello there, So Tommy, you were talking right before the
break about how we had some Google warriors, I'll use
your term, which again love that, but unfortunately, you know,

(15:02):
they tried to do a good thing, but kind of
got i want to say, maybe oriented towards the wrong
the wrong avenue or the wrong you know, the wrong
concern right, and it became a cost concern. And really
what they needed to be concerned about was was that
the documents they had were done correctly. So so just
to kind of put a bow on this, so I'm

(15:24):
assuming that then we were able to kind of step
in and and then help these people after it was
discovered that you know, while their their best, their efforts,
we were you know, well intentioned, you know, they weren't
they weren't quite carried out as we would have liked them.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, that's true. But but at that point, regardless, their
idea was, you know, trying to hopefully save But at
the end of the day, yeah, thankfully we were able
to help, but it still ended up costing them more
than it should have.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, of course. Yeah, which again it's it's kind of
just there's some irony in there, right. They didn't want
to do some things because it was going to cost
a lot, and then they cut a corner and then
wound up having it cost more ultimately.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
So yeah, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, I had a family come in to see me.
I think it was Thursday, and it was It was
great because I think I think some of the things
that we talked about in that meeting actually go hand
in hand with the topic for today, which is again
trying to reduce stress and being more mindful of stressors
in people's lives and being aware of stress and its

(16:25):
impact on your health and your well being and your family.
So I'm gonna I'm not going to go into detail
about all this quite yet, just because we can do
that later in the show. But one of the things
that they that they came that it was great to
see them again because when they came in, they were
I think they were forty seven, a married couple. I
think there were forty seven when they came in, and

(16:47):
they did wills originally with us. At that time, that
kind of made the most sense. We talked about probably
doing a trust briefly, but for whatever reason, they didn't
think that that was kind of appropriate for them. But
now it's five years later, So now they're into their
early fifties and they have one child. So their son
is a little older. He's not quite yet in a

(17:07):
place where he could be involved with with anything quite yet,
but they're you know, they're concerned about different things now
for him because he's you know, he's got college kind
of in the horizon and other things going on. And
they have family members but I don't want to say
they don't have good relationships, but I don't know if
they have the trust that's necessary there for all of it.

(17:30):
You know, they love their their siblings, but they don't
necessarily want them involved with their financial or health care
decisions if something were to happen to them and their spouse.
So they wanted to potentially talk about redoing their plan
a little bit. So we talked about redoing a power
of attorney and health care proxy and some of the
other documents that we typically do when we do a plan.

(17:51):
And then we started talking about doing a trust because again,
some of their wishes have changed. And one of the
things that I think really resonated with them was, you know,
as much as they don't want to think about what
happens when they are both gone, they're they're you know,
they're becoming more concerned I think as they get older
and their son gets older, of what life will look
like for their son, since he's the only one and

(18:14):
he's their sole beneficiary right now, and he may get married,
he may have children, he may have may have multiple children.
I mean, who knows. Right his whole life is in
front of him. But the idea of them working so
hard for so many years and then just having it
all dumped to him and then having it be at
risk potentially for him to do divorce, health issues, bankruptcy, creditors,

(18:39):
you know, you name it. They're worried about that now
a lot more so than they were five six years
ago when they originally came in. So luckily, we talked
about updating their plan, updating their documents, and then one
of the other things we started talking about was, well,
the inheritance and how do we how do we do
something for your son, And the way we typically do
that is we do some trust planning. We do some

(19:01):
additional trust planning in a lot of sense where we
leave a trust for the son in this sense, or
we could, right we could design a trust where the
son can get his inheritance, he can have everything flow
to him, he can have access to it, he can
use it for essentially whatever he needs or wants. He
can take all the money if he wants it, but
it's protected from all those bad things from creditors, from bankruptcy,

(19:24):
from a divorce, from medicaid, if God forbid, he needs
care as he gets older.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
So that was a.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Really big selling point to them on our on our
part from the attorneys, But I think the biggest thing
for them was I could tell immediately once we kind
of got through the conversation of like just how much
better they felt about the whole situation just knowing that, like, yeah,
if and when the time comes when we're not here,
our son is going to be protected as best as
he can be.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Absolutely, I'm I'm glad you've mentioned that because I had
a similar situation too, And honestly, this happens a lot
of the times. So most people look listening to this
radio at the moment, you might be thinking about, well, oh,
you know, I have concerns about myself about acid protection.
What happens when we get older if I need long
term care planning? And everyone's concerned with acid protection for yourselves.

(20:14):
Now think about what you're going through to try and
acquire that protection for yourself. The biggest gift that you
can give to your loved ones you pass on to them,
is that they don't have to worry about it if
you put it in this trust that Frank's mentioning now.
In our office, we call them beneficiary controlled trusts. They
inherit it in an asset protected manner. So as Frank

(20:37):
was saying, whether it's judgments, lawsuits, divorce which is a
big one for a lot of families, bankruptcies, or even
if they one day need some type of government based needs,
anything that's in that trust is going to be protected
for them. So that is that is an invaluable tool.
And I had a client too, who you know, unfortunate

(20:58):
cancer diagnosis and right now the future is a bit
uncertain for them. But She came into the meeting extremely
racked because her daughter is also in college. She's like, well,
I just want to make sure that she has what
she needs if anything should happen. You know, her father
passed away when she was young. He's not in the picture.
And when same thing, Frank, the peace of mind that

(21:19):
she had by the time we got out of the
meeting and I said what we were able to do,
how we were able to do it, and how it
would benefit them, I could literally see it in her face,
like how relieved she was to just be like, Okay,
at least that's one less thing that I need to
worry about. And I said, this is not something that
you should worry about. And the whole purpose of coming
to us right is to take things off of your plate,

(21:41):
especially when you have a loved one who's in a situation. Right,
even if you're in a crisis, somebody's in a nursing home,
everybody is in chaos at that moment. Your brain is
not functioning the same way when it's under stress. And
we're talking.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And that's exactly why
we want to have these conversations when you can hopefully.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
When you get out in front of it. So Tommy,
I'm gonna I'm gonna have you again hang on the line.
We're coming up to the news, so we are going
to break for the news in just a few seconds.
When we come back, we're into talking more about avoiding
stress and doing some things to help maybe make you
feel a little bit more at ease a bit about
all this stuff, and then we have some other seminars
that I want.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
To talk to you about. So come right back after
the news.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
All right, guys, welcome back, Thanks for sticking through the
news again. Welcome to the second half of Life Happens Radio.
I'm still Frank Hemming and Tommy, you're still there hanging
on from I'm still here, love it. I would I
would feel very bad for our listeners if they had
to listen to just me talk.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
For the twenty seven cut it out.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
So, so again, thanks everybody for listening in on this
not very nice Saturday morning. But we're very glad that
you're here and we're hoping that that you're taking away
some some tips here from from the conversations that we've
had thus far. So before we get back into kind
of the topic of the show, Tommy, I have some
things I want to plug both. You know, some firm

(23:04):
events coming up here. So the first one is in
our firm, we do a monthly Medicaid webinar series. We
call it Medicaid Monday because as the title suggests, we
do it on a Monday and we talk about Medicaid.
So our next one is on May twelfth, So that
is our next Medicaid Monday. If you happen to have

(23:27):
been joining us for those, that's the next one. If
you've never seen them before, then obviously we invite you
to come and do that with us. They're free. We
typically do them from noon to twelve thirty. Sometimes we
have a longer program and we go to one o'clock,
but they're usually a half hour. And this month we're
going to talk about the Elder Law Forum, which is

(23:48):
it's one of our biggest events of the year, so
we're gonna be so it's going to be myself and
then our other partners, Lou Pierro and Aaron Connor, and
we're going to talk about kind of the hot topics
and the that we're going to discuss at our Elder
Law Forum. And for those who don't are not aware
of that. Our program for the Elder Law Forum is
going to be on May fifteen, sous the following Thursday.

(24:09):
It's here at the Albany Desmond Hotel, so it's not
far from our from our office here in Latham and
where I'm sitting in the studio. Uh, it's our I
think it's we've done it for I believe it's twenty years.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
It's a great event.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's it's always staggering to see the amount of people
that we get, the amount of support that we get,
and the information that's shared. So obviously, if if you
haven't joined us for one of those and you're in
the industry, if you're in any of the industries that
that go to long term care, elder law things like that,

(24:45):
we invite you to come join us at the Elder
Law Forum. And then the other event that we have
is kind of tied to the to the radio program here,
so we're doing a joint program with a dinner seminar
with Dave Kopek. That event is going to be on Tuesday,
May twentieth. Again, it's gonna be at the Crown Plaza

(25:06):
Desmond in Albany, so same place as the Elder Law Forum,
and it's gonna be the following Tuesday, so we have
Medicaid Monday on that Monday forum on Thursday the fifteenth,
and then the following Tuesday, on the twentieth, we're doing
our dinner seminar with Dave. So if you want to
come out and see Lou and Aaron from our office
and Dave Kopek talk about retirement techniques and planning strategies

(25:28):
and things, then by all means you can sign up
to go to that event. Seating is limited, however, so
we do want to make that clear that if this
is something that interests you, please go and sign up
for that, and you can do that by going to
the website that's that's been set up for that, so
it's wgy Seminar dot com or you can call into

(25:50):
five one eight seven six seven seven seven seven four
and the event starts at five thirty, So again that's
five thirty on NY twentieth, which is a Tuesday at
Crown Plaza, Albany to see Lou, Aaron and Dave.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
So all right, enough plugs, enough about that.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
I'm excited I'm going to be coming up for the
Alder Law Forum again. And I'm excited. It's always yeah, formative.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
While I was getting ready to come down, obviously I
knew that you were going to be joining me on
the show today. And I think the first time that
we really spend any time together was last year's Old
Law Forum because you had just joined the firm right
before that. So you have to either have hit your
one year anniversary with us or you have to be
very very close.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's in three days.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
I was in the ball.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
I'm not counting, right, I'm just saying, no, that's great.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
So it'll be great to see you and the other
attendees for the forum. But yeah, so happy three days
early one year anniversary with the firm.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Time, Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, So let's get back to the topic that we
were talking about. So I have a news article here
that they gave me because they like to make me
try to sound smart on the radio, which I appreciate,
and they so this new story is talking about again
stress and why a little planning might be able to
go some way of helping you feel less stress about things.

(27:11):
So they say a twenty twenty fourth survey found that
nearly half of Americans report feeling stress, and I wasn't
quite sure what to think of that. Only I guess
in some ways, I was like, wow, only half Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Was actually I was thinking the same thing myself. I'm like,
that's actually pretty good.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
I was like, so if one out of two one
of us is stressed, the other one isn't. Like, I
don't know if that's that bad or not. I have
no idea. But then, but then the second part of
this says it's a sixteen point increase over the last
two decades. So that then does make it sound quite
a bit worse. If we were only about a third
of us were feeling stressed, and now it's half of
us feel stressed.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
So okay, so maybe not as good.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
According to this, also due to stress that leads to
sleep deprivation, which is also on the rise. So I
certainly can can speak to to probably having sleep deprivation
in my life. I don't sleep much as it is,
but depending on what's going on, I sleep less. But
and then they asked people why they felt stress, and
the number one, you know, single factor, if you had

(28:12):
to put one, if you had to narrow it down
to one factor, the single most prominent factor was financial strain,
and it was reported that eighty two percent of people
aged eighteen to thirty four had this stress due to finances.
Seventy seven percent of thirty five to forty four year olds,
sixty three percent of forty five to sixty four year olds,
and forty seven percent of those who are sixty five

(28:34):
and up had financial stress. So it seems like it's
the most common one for all age groups. But it
tends to slightly decrease as you get older, But it
doesn't seem like it's really declining, you know, as much
as maybe we would like. And again, I'm I don't
know if I'm surprised by this, Tommy, do you have

(28:55):
do you have any quick thoughts about like these all
these wonderful statistics that I'm thrown at you.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I mean, honestly, if you think about current economy, current
you know, just climate, I think that it makes a
lot of sense. I think a lot of people are
living under means, you know, especially depending on where you
are or other outside factors that make us lose control,
you know, whether you have to care for a family

(29:20):
member because some people didn't take the right planning steps.
And now that's putting a financial strain or other stress
on a caretaker. So I mean to me, I mean,
especially in our line of business, Frank, that doesn't surprise
me at all.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, yeah, just kind of going hand in hand with this.
It's saying that other things that affect stress for people
is you know, difficulties with healthcare in their personal relationships,
and then the other one, which again I don't think
it's necessarily surprising. It's just I think maybe it's it's

(29:54):
place in the hierarchy here might be changing.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
And that's current events.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Right.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
So it seems like between financial stress, healthcare stress, personal
relationship stress, and current events stress, that's those are the
biggest factors leading to to stress for.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
For a Frank. And if you don't mind, if not
to interrupt you, but I think what really causes the stress.
And I think if if you look at all of those,
the common thread amongst all of it is uncertainty. It's
because when we are uncertain, that's why we're stressed, because
we feel lack of control.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
And and I don't know, like I don't know if
this is if this is good or bad? Right, I
know that I I think I'm pretty open with with
people in my life and people professionally and stuff like, Like,
I definitely have some anxiety in my life. I think
of myself kind of as an anxious person, but I've

(30:51):
worked very hard for a long time to kind of
harness that where it doesn't impact my daily life in
a negative way, right in some ways, Like me being
an anxious person, I think in some ways makes me
actually really good at my job because at least active
or at least certain parts of my job.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
So it's not always that these things necessarily or has
been always negative, but sometimes, like I find comfort in
the ability in the thought that it truly is something
that is out of my control.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
It's it's I think, just to kind of dig into
the to some of your points. Having control, I think,
or the lack of control, I think, is certainly stressful.
But to me, I think, I personally think that there's
a difference between whether I could have the control and
don't have it, or whether it's something I never.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Gets exactly exactly right. And and there's you know, you
hear all those adages, right, there's no use of you know,
worrying about things that you can't control. But I think
what happens is people think or could say, I know,
I could do more, but sometimes people are just scared
because they don't know where to start, and they're like,
I'm just the thought of starting as anxiety inducing, so

(32:04):
I'd rather avoid it. And that's what a lot of
people I find think about estate planning. It's not something
let's be real, frank, it's not really something that's pleasant. Right.
We don't really want to think about, well, what happens
if I get hurt, what happens if something health some
health crisis, or what happens if I die? Like, nobody
really wants to think of these things and they don't
want to tackle them. But the problem is is that

(32:26):
your non unwillingness to even think about that is going
to cause heartache and more trouble for the people and
your loved ones who are gonna have to step into
care for you. And before we took the break when
what our job is is not just tell you this
is what you do. No, our job is to take
that off of your plate. We give you We're gonna
give you the roadmap because when you're operating in chaos,

(32:49):
think about it. If you're anxious now because you don't
know where to start. What do you think is going
to happen when that event actually happens, and now you
have to deal with trying to figure it out after
the fact, and now you have all these other circumstances
and everything else weighing on you. I've had clients come
to the office bring me a garbage bag full of
unopened mail because they had no idea what this person had,

(33:11):
where it was, how much it was, And we literally
had to go through and open up statements to just
try and figure that out. That is not how we
want to handle things. So the purpose of what we
do is to make sure that we put that plan
in place for you. So that's one less thing you
need to stress about.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yeah, and not to be I don't know, like a
Debbie Downer here about this. But the other stark reality
is you can worry about things. You cannot worry about things.
But at the end of the day, what I think
some other points of anxiety for sometimes people even starting

(33:51):
is that they don't they feel like if they start
talking about it, they're going to speak the bad things
into existence. Right If they just don't acknowledge it or
they don't think about it, they don't talk about it,
then maybe just that those things will not happen, right,
and that just is not how life works. At some point,
something's going to happen to all of us. Yeah, hopefully

(34:14):
it's a long time from now. Hopefully it's you know,
you've made a plan or that you have things set
up to go as you want, But just not talking
about it doesn't stop the inevitable from eventually happening. As
as sad, as as depressing as maybe that sounds, but
that is the reality. And obviously, if you're working with

(34:36):
people hopefully like us, we can hopefully make that a
little bit easier for you. Because at the end of
the day, Tommy, I think you're right, nobody really likes
talking about this stuff except people like us, right, Like,
we like talking about it because it's it's what I
feel like, how the best, how I best can help people. Yes,
And that's it's why I do this job, is why

(34:57):
I think a lot of us do this job exactly.
We do it because we want to help people, right,
And I love being able to tell people that I
get to help people every day when I come to
the office.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, that's my biggest the biggest gratification I get is
it's usually after the fact, some time has gone by,
but a family member Frank, yeah, I got you. You
drop that far, I said. The biggest gratification I get
is I get contacted, you know, usually some time afterward
by a family member of someone I helped, and they say, Tommy,

(35:31):
all I want to do is thank you because all
the planning you're able to do. Really you really saved us.
You really helped us in one way or another, and
they're extremely grateful, and that, to me is the biggest
takeaway from the job.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
That's great. So all right, why don't we do this.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
We're going to take our last break before the end
of the show, so why don't we do that? So
please again stick with us for the last portion of
Life Happens Radio. We're going to come back right after
this break. Welcome back, guys. There we go. Now, I
can hear me, Tommy, you're still there with me.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
I'm here, can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yes? We are all all right.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
There we go perfect.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Thank you again guys, sticking through the last break here
before our final or for our final segment of Life
Happens Radio.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Again.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
I'm Frank Hemming of Pierre O'Connor and Strauss, joined by
mister Tommy Morasco, one of our associate attorneys. Uh, still
still hanging with us from one So again, Tommy, I
know I keep thanking you, but again, thanks for taking
your Saturday.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Morning to be here with us.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, of course. So we're in our last segment. So
I have some other articles that I found here, So
I was thinking of maybe just going through these relatively quickly,
seeing what what you know, other people have put out
there of how to deal with stress and making sure
your plan goes. And one of the articles that I found,
which I thought was a different way of looking at

(36:47):
at this topic is the so the question that was
posed for the person writing the article is, you know it,
can my estate plan fail? And I was like, well,
that's an interesting way of viewing this because I think
we always talk about it like we want to set
you up for success, right, and we want it to
go every way or the best way that it can

(37:08):
for however it is that you want things to go,
but we don't usually I think look at it from
that negative context, So of course your plan can fail.
And then I think once we kind of make that
concession of like, sure, you can have a plan, and unfortunately,
there's no guarantee it goes one hundred percent the way
that you want, looking into the ways that maybe it
could fail, And they've got a list of factors here,

(37:34):
So why don't we go down these and see what
we think about some of these. So one is that
your trustee your executor may not be alive or willing
to serve right and depending on kind of like what
you were looking to do, I don't know if that
necessarily would mean that your plan failed, but I think
it would certainly put a wrinkle into your plan, because

(37:56):
one part of a comprehensive plan is having contingencies built
into it where if maybe the first or even second
person that you've named to fill a particular role, if
they're not going to be there, that you've planned for
that with a backup or a set of people to
back them up.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Absolutely and even I mean, and that's a way for
you to make sure that you stay in control as
far as who it is that you would want to
be in that position. But also the way that we
craft our documents, we still have procedure of way of
structuring that even in the absence of a designation and

(38:35):
default of designation. Right, let's just talk about worst case scenario.
Let's just say, even if all the backup sort of fail,
we still have ways to build into account for and
to be able to put somebody in that position.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean we have.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
I would say usually at least one to two backups
on just about every role, assuming that you have people
available to fill those successor roles. Obviously, right, if you
only have one child and your spouse and there's literally
no one else you would ever trust in those roles, well,
then you're gonna have your spouse and your child and
and that might be the only the only layers of

(39:10):
succection that you have. But that doesn't mean that if
you did lose your spouse, or you did lose your child,
or or you know, you you lost touch with one
or both of them through through the happenings of life,
that there aren't then other ways to appoint new people. Right,
Whether you can find them is a different story. Whether
you can make those new relationships, that's a different that's
a different topic. But there typically are ways to substitute

(39:33):
people in. So, again, I don't want a nitpick here,
But I don't know your plan would fail just because
you're missing somebody, but it might not go as you wanted.
Here's a big one though. You could have gotten married
or divorced, right That would that would throw your your
plan potentially into into a tailspin if either you did
not provide for now a new spouse that you have,

(39:54):
or you were providing for a spouse thinking everything was
going to go to them and now you no longer
have have them, right, that could that could throw certainly
a plan into a tailspin because then you have to
figure out, well, then who gets things in the absence
of the spouse or would you want the spouse to
get things and not other people? So that's that is
a huge change, thankfully. And Tommy, you can certainly weigh

(40:16):
in here with your experience, but people tend to want
to come talk to us if there's either been a
marriage or a divorce. That's not usually one other people
don't think about pretty pretty fast, right.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
But I encourage all of our clients, and I tell
this to every single one of my clients that are signing.
I said, don't think just because we're sitting here today
signing your documents that this is the last time you're
going to see me. I say, you're stuck with me
at this point, because the whole point is that we
need to make sure that we stay on top of
things because circumstances change, finances change, you acquire new assets,
you lose assets, you lose people, you gain people. So

(40:50):
the point is is that I always like to recommend
my clients to say, hey, even if it's a brief
check in once a year, just to say what's gone on,
anything change, anything notable. And sometimes, like you say, it's
not something that they might necessarily think of, oh, you know,
not much, but we just bought a house, and I'm like, well,
that's a pretty big deal, right, and that wasn't in
our original plan. Let's think about how what do we

(41:13):
need to tweak anything to address that. So that kind
of a circumstance, Frank, like you said, that's a major
life event that you would hope that one of the
first things they're going to say as well, wow, I
really need to go back and revisit this. But that
goes for really any kind of life event, and you
really should just be staying on top of and keeping
an open line of communication about changes in your life.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yeah, well, to go back to one of the stories
I talked about earlier, when I had that nice couple
come in to see me just a few days ago,
right there, now in their fifties. They were in their
forties when they first did things. Well, husband on his
document's appointed wife first, and then he put his father second,
because again, their son is young. He's too young to

(41:52):
serve in these roles for at least a little bit still.
And I said, well, you know, is dad still the
right person that if you're wife couldn't do things for you?
Is Dad's still the right person to step in? Because
Dad is five years older himself than he was when
you thought this through last time? And he said, you
know what, I still think he is. I said, well,

(42:12):
that's great. Then I think we leave Dad. And I
was like, but have you considered who could maybe step
in if maybe Dad had something happen to him between
now and the you know, the event that might lead
to somebody needing to use these for you. And he said,
you know, last time we did this, I wasn't really
worried about that, But I think now I really have

(42:33):
to sit down and think of who could fit in
behind Dad. I wouldn't replace him yet, but I want
to make sure somebody else is sitting there because who knows, right,
he's in good health, he's doing well. I think he
would be in a good spot right now to help me.
But hopefully nothing happens to me for a long time,
and at that point Dad might not be the best person.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
So yeah, I want to I'm not saying I wanted
to tie one other thing in there, just because as
far as the planning goes, and something you mentioned with
parents such as you and myself who have children that
are underage in their miners, you got to think about, well,
God forbid, something should happen to me and the other parent,

(43:14):
what happens with my children? Who's going to watch over
my children? Designating guardians that in the event something should
happen to you? That's a huge deal, right, who took
care of your child? I mean, these are all things
that again not really pleasant, not things that we want
to think about, but something you really need to consider
because the whole purpose of planning is to be prepared
and to have contingency plans in place. Like you're saying, now,

(43:36):
something can fail that could be even our own plans, right,
not necessarily our state plan, but our own plans. Things
can go sideways, and you just you have to be
prepared for the different contingency.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah, I mean, I don't mind speaking a little bit
about myself here, just to kind of throw the example
out there. Right after my wife and I got married,
one of the very first things we did was we
went on we got some life insurance because I was
very concerned that in the future something could happen to
me and that my new wife was going to be
not able to afford a house that we may have,

(44:08):
or but a child through college, or you know, pay
off the outstanding bills that we had or whatever, you know,
whatever would would be necessary at that time. And that
was the step that we decided to take for that.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
And then and then the other.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Big life event that then really spurred action was when
my daughter was born. Right up until that point, I
hadn't done my documents. I didn't have my HAD, I
had a healthcare proxy, and I had a power attorney,
but like I didn't have a will and some other things.
Because at that point I had joint everything with my wife.
She was named as beneficiary. You know, I have a
very small family. I wasn't really worried about things going

(44:45):
necessarily where I'd want it to go if something happened,
because there's very limited people, and in testacy, dying without
a will would get it to those people in the
same order that I would have wanted anyway at.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
That point, right.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
But as soon as I had my daughter, we did
our plan for that, mainly because one we wanted to
structure how things are going to go to her, but
more importantly to your point, Tommy, we wanted to lay
out who would be able to essentially take control of
her and keep track of her, both her physical person

(45:16):
and will be, as well as the financial stuff that
would then flow to her if something happened to me
and or my wife. So so that was that was
easily one of the biggest reasons that I can personally
say made us do a lot of soul searching about,
like who would be the right people for this?

Speaker 2 (45:34):
My agreed same in my situation.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, I'd say, not to speak for you, but I
imagine a lot of.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Those No, that's literally, but it was exactly the way
you said it. First thing when we got married was
life insurance. Second thing, kids are born same thing guardians.
So nope, that's the tracks perfectly.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
So we have only got about another minute or so.
So the other big thing on the list, just so
we kind of put a put a bow on this
is health events. If you have a big health event, again,
it could be good, could be like a birth of
a child or or a grandchild, something like that. But
obviously if you have a bad diagnosis, or you have
someone who gets sick passes away, needs care, whether that's

(46:15):
home care, could be nursing home care, then obviously that's
a big change that Obviously a lot of people tend
to think. I hope that coming to talk to people
like us might be a good step to take, because
I can't tell you how many times people will walk
in to our office think that there's nothing they can
do to do acid protection, do medicaid qualification or anything

(46:36):
like that. And usually not always, but usually there are
things that can be done or preserve assets.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, and the time to act is always now. If
you haven't acted yet, it's not too late, but make
sure you act now.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Oh Tommy, thanks for being here so very much for
being here on this Saturday, So thank you again to
everybody listening. We are at the end of our show,
So with that, we actually gonna come back next week
for our next edition of Live Appans Radio.