June 2, 2025 • 23 mins
Estate Planning Laws Wills estate Planning Probate Laws
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Ask The Experts Florida is broadcast live Mondays at 9AM ET and Thursdays at 5PM ET on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Ask The Experts Florida is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Ask The Experts Florida Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to the Ask the Experts Show on W four
CY Radio and Talk for TV, where we bring you
educational information from top local experts in the fields of legal, health,
financial and home improvement. Now sit back and listen to
experts in family law, association, law, hearing laws, business brokers,
(00:47):
home care, along with many other topics. Now Here are
your hosts, Stevo and Sophia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, good morning, South Florida, my home. Welcome to an
up Asked the Experts show, where we bring you the
top experts in the field of legal, health, financial and
home improvement. I got a letter about a week ago,
and it's one of the reasons why we do a
show like this. This is our fifteenth year with Asked
(01:16):
the Experts, and I got a letter from a lady saying,
you do a show on a state planning and I
am so surprised at no One where all my friends
are all retired, that there is a show like this.
And she said, you know, I've never written to a
show before, but I wanted to thank you for your
(01:40):
attorney Andrew Rosenberg, and for bringing this show to our community.
We are in a gated community in Delray Beach, and
my friends and I all listen to this show. We
are so glad we found it. I got to tell
you that's the whole reason we do this show. And
(02:02):
good morning, Attorney Andrew Rosenberg.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Hey, good morning Steve O. And good morning everyone out there.
You're having a good second day of June.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Hey, you know, I gotta tell you, Andrew, we live
here at you lawsoor are here in South Florida like us.
I'm out of Coral Springs where your office is, and
we have so many retired people who live here in
South Florida, whether it's Palm Beach County or Broward County
(02:34):
or Dade County, and the area of law that you
cover is so important and sometimes we just kind of
take it for granted. But your area of law, whether
it's wills, whether it's trust, whether it's elder law, no
(02:55):
matter what the case is, what you do is so
important here in South Florida. I want to want to
thank you for being part of this show.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Well, thanks, Steve. It's my pleasure, you know. I I
really try to make sure people understand the importance of
what I do and what the types of attorneys are
that are out there that like me, that what we
do it's really really important. And unfortunately what happens, Steve
(03:25):
O is most people don't like to do this stuff,
and I understand it. I mean, listen, who the hell
wants to talk about a will or anything of that nature.
You're facing mortality. I mean, no one wants to talk
about when we pass away. But it's more than that,
and that's what people need to understand. It's not And
when I do my workshops tell people all the time,
(03:45):
I go, Listen, I don't care if you have ten
million dollars or you have ten dollars in your bank account.
Everybody needs a state planning. And it's not just about wills.
There's a lots about things. So a lot of times
I tell in my workshops and my client tele I
tell them, I go listen, you got kids there. I
(04:08):
got two kids, right, they're a little bit older now
because I'm getting old. I'm now fifty seven, almost fifty eight.
But when my kids went off the college, the first
thing I had them do was I made them sign
a durable pal of attorney in a healthcare surrogate because
do they have money?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
No?
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Do I pay for all their college? And gradually asked
my wife and I paid for all that crap, But
God forbid, something happen to them. One was down here
at University of Miami. One was in George Washington University
in DC. Something happened to my son up there, Jason
in Washington, d C. Why he was in college. They
(04:46):
wouldn't the doctors wouldn't talk to me. The financial intuitions
institutions would not talk to me because they're eighteen years
of age. Now does that mean that they're adults, Yes,
it does. Does that mean they have a pot to pissing?
Absolutely not. They have nothing. But estate planning is more
than just the will, and that's what I'm trying to
(05:07):
really educate everybody out there is that it's not just
about the will. It's very important, obviously, but there's more
to a state planning than just the will.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know, we do estate planning shows across the United States,
and I got to tell you, every time somebody passes away, Andy,
just an example, Bernie Carrick who many many of you
might not know who Bernie Kerrick was, but one of
the key figures in New York when the bombing happened.
(05:40):
He was a police commissioner and he it's just I mean,
people respected him. He was only like sixty two years old,
and he passed away this weekend. Of course I didn't
even know he was sick. But you know, you never
planned for anything, and sometimes you can think, you know,
(06:02):
here's a guy who was the police commissioner, looked like
he was in great shape, but you'd never know. And
that's why the planning is so important, because you don't
ever know.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
No, you don't, And that's that's the whole point. I mean,
I always use myself as the example. Steve, and we
talked about it in earlier episodes. You know, I was
forty eight years old when I had a heart attack,
and you know, I didn't expect the heart attack, and
I was lucky enough to survive the heart attack. But
(06:35):
the point is is that when when I was at
the hospital, I was very calm and cool because I
knew everything was in place. And unfortunately, there are times
when things happen in our lives and we're not we're
not planning, and we're not we don't have things in place.
And that's and it's true when you talk about the
gentleman that passed away up in New York like that,
(06:59):
you were you know, you wonder did they planned properly?
You know, we just we talked about Gene Hackman who
passed away not that long ago. He didn't plan properly. Obviously,
with what's going on with that whole mess. You know,
if you're familiar with the show Cheers, remember Cheers. Yeah,
(07:20):
there's two people, yeah George. Two people passed. One of them,
the more familiar gentleman was George went. He passed away.
He was I think seventy seven, so he was young.
But you know, the course, you know, the question always is,
you know, whenever I hear something like that, I always wonder,
I hope they had things put into place so that
it's easy. It's not necessarily for you. You know, God
(07:43):
forbid what happens to you you're gone. It's it's the family.
It's making sure that the family doesn't have one yet,
one more hurdle of the face. They're facing the hurdle
of you being no longer with us. But what about
the hurdle of like gathering assets and distributing assets and
dealing with all the debts and all, you know, is
that all taken care of? And that's what we talk
(08:06):
about here. And you know, Steve in my workshops. About
a year ago, when I was visiting with my son Jason,
he's he just finished his first year. I'm very proud
of him at Duke Law School. But when we were visiting,
which a great law school by the way, when we're yea,
when we were visiting one.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Of the top law schools, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
One of the top five. Yeah, it's a great school.
I could have never gotten in there. But that's a
whole other story. But when we were visiting the law
school to see if that's where he wanted to go,
on my hotel doorstep that next morning from USA Today
was an article, believe it or not, and I talked
about how a state planning has gone downhill and people's
(08:50):
and people in regards basically the number of people that
have done the state planning has dwindled over the past
thirty forty years versus going up. And you know what,
that's true. And I always ask the audience when I'm
doing a workshop, why do we think that is? And
you know, people don't have all sorts of answers. They
don't know, but I mean, I think it's because people
(09:13):
don't like to face mortality. Number One, people are procrastinators.
They think that you know what, oh, I can take
care of it tomorrow, and then tomorrow comes in something
happens and you're not you haven't taken care of it.
Another scenario is, I will tell you that the one
time that it actually went up like crazy was when
(09:36):
COVID had Because Steve think about it. You remember obviously think, God,
we're not going through that now. But you remember every
night we'd see on the TV on national news, you'd
see the death toll just keep rising. And because of that,
I think it stared everybody at their in their face
and they said, you know what, one of them could
(09:57):
be us and that's when people said, I better take
care of my plan. And so that's the one time
in my many years of practice that estate planning went
crazy and it went up. And then, of course, once
the COVID subsided and we got the vaccines and things
started to get back to somewhat of a normal scenario.
(10:18):
If you can say that anything's normal after COVID, I
don't know. But once that happened, of course people went
back to the status quo of procrastinating and saying that
I'll wait till tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah. A lot of people think, oh, I'm in good shape,
I'm healthy. There's a lot of people. But I got
to tell you some I got the second to me worse,
I mean second worst. COVID is might laugh at this.
I ninety five in the Sawgrass area.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
Yeah, if you're driving on either I ninety five or
the Sawgrass Oh my, I mean there's so many people
who get killed excellent.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Especially in ninety five. It's like a death yeah. Oh
my goodness. Yes, I mean, so if you think about it, guys,
if you're a listen out there, whenever you're driving, there's
a risk. I mean, you know, we all have risks,
and you know, I have a very sad story. I
could tell you that happened to someone. I don't know them,
but I know of them. But this just gives you
(11:23):
an example of what we're talking about today, Steve. Unfortunately,
there was a married couple and the husband got diagnosed
with glio blastema, which is a horrible cancer diagnosis for
the brain, and he unfortunately fought valiantly for fifteen months
and passed away. And the survivor was the wife. He
(11:45):
was sixty one, I believe, and the wife survived with
two kids, you know, I think they were around twenty
four and twenty seven years of age, two daughters, and
the mom and the two daughters went away on vacation
to right after that I try and bond obviously, after
a horrible scenario where they lost their husband and father,
(12:05):
and they came back and the wife had a massive
stroke or heart attack within a week after the death
of her husband, and I heard very recently that they
had to unfortunately pull our off life support. And so
within a matter of about two to three weeks, these
two young daughters lost both a husband or a father
(12:28):
and a mother unexpectedly, or well, you could say maybe
one was somewhat expected because he had a horrible cancer diagnosis.
The other one was completely unexpected. And then, you know,
my thoughts go out to the entire family, But my
thoughts go right to the point. I hope they had insurance.
I hope they had things put in place and took
(12:49):
care of these young adults. But that's just a quick example.
I have another example. STEVEO, my landscaper, called me a
year ago in October, left a voicemail mess for me saying, Hey, Andy,
I want to meet with you to discuss wills and
trust and the state planning. I called him back that night,
left a message, called him back again the next day,
(13:09):
left messages and you're back. Called the next day after that,
his wife picked up. He unexpectedly dropped out of a
heart attack between between the two days before and when
he and when I tried to get hold. So the
point is, guys, you got to be thankful for every
day that we live here on earth, and we don't
take we can't take life for granted. It's very easy,
(13:32):
but you need to plan for the family. You need
to it's not for you, it's for your family. Take
care of the family. And the aftermath of and you know,
it's just it's just. You know, when I was sitting
in that emergency room with my heart attack, I looked
at my wife and I said, you know what DEV said,
If it's my time, it's my time. Everything's in order.
(13:54):
I said, You'll be fine. And she shook me, Steve,
she like literally shook me at this time and said,
I'm not ready for you. We got two young kids.
I'm not ready to be a single parent. So that's
what happened. And now fast forward almost nine ten years now.
My wife looked at me the other day and she said,
you know, if something happened, so be it. The kids
(14:14):
are older. I'm okay.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
You know, tell people what you did with Cleveland Clinic too,
that a lot of people don't know that they can do.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah. Yeah, So listen. When I do a state plan
for my clients. There's a lot of things I do
for my I tell my clients, but one of the
things I do say is listen. People always ask what
do I do with these documents? And so I tell
people listen. Normally, if you have a primary care doctor
that you go to, or I live in Weston right
(14:47):
my office and Coral Springs, but I live in Weston,
so my hospital is Cleveland Clinic. Or if you have
a hospital that you're going to go to, I recommend
that you tell your primary doctor and the hospital you
go to that you give them a copy of your
healthcare surguit, your living will, and your HIPPODOCT. And the
reason I do that is because if something were to happen,
(15:09):
my doctor will have him on file, so they know
who's in charge and who can be contacted. And if
I'm in the hospital and I get rushed to Cleveland Clinic,
they could look up my name and they store the
documents and they're able to pull up I'll give you
a prime example, STEVEO. If you remember a few a
few months, a month or so ago, I had horrible
(15:31):
kidney stones and they unfortunately were not passing, and I
actually it became serious. I had to get rushed to
the hospital. My kidneys were backing up and it was
an emergency surgery situation. I walked into the emergency room
at Cleveland Clinic. I was in so much pain, killing over, screaming, cutsing,
doing everything you're not supposed to do, but that's what
(15:52):
I was doing. And they wanted me to sit down
and fill out paperwork. And I looked up brightly the
eye and I said, are you freaking kidding? Me said,
you get me into the back and give me some
pain minutes. I'm done. And they said, well, we need
you to fill this out. We need to know what's
going on. I said, miss, and you have my healthcare, surrogate,
my living, all that, my hippop, it's all on file.
(16:13):
Here's my name. Take me back. My wife's coming in
in about five minutes behind me. She's parking the car.
And that's what they did, and so they were able
to pull it right up and then they could have
my wife deal with that, and that's why I was
being treated.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I guarantee you many people have been through that before,
where they want you to fill out papers while you're
sitting there in severe pain.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yeah, it's horrible, but it's horrible. So the point is,
if you have a primary care doctor or you have
a hospital that you would probably go to, you need
to contact your primary care doctor and give them a
copy so they have it in their system of your
health care, surrogate, living, will and hip a document. And
if you have a hospital, you need to contact the
(16:55):
hospital that you're going to go to if something were
to happen and ask them, well, you keep a copy
of this in your system so that if something were
to happen, I were rushed there, you guys have it
so that you know who's who could be in charge.
Not all hospitals will do that, most will. And that's
what I did, and you know, it played out in
my situation, completely played out exactly how I was supposed
(17:18):
to do.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
We just got a text from Palm Beach Guard wanting
to know when your next seminar is.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Ah, let's see here, I have a seminar coming up
this coming Wednesday, So Wednesday to fourth, it's going to
be a total wine in Plantation, which is eight oh
one South University Drive and it's sweet one hundred and
it's going to be at five thirty. So this Wednesday
to fourth at five point thirty. If you want to attend,
(17:47):
call the office speak to Alejandro. The office numbers nine
five four seven five five seven, eight oh three. If
you want to attend. We are looking into expanding and
doing a workshop up up in the Boca or Tone area,
So that's being planned and it may have already been scheduled,
so you can call the office and see if you
want to come to this one coming up, or see
(18:09):
when we might have one in the Boca area, because
I know that we were talking about expanding because it's
been asked by many people, so we're looking into expanding
it to that area as well.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Somebody just wrote, uh, can you explain the lady bird?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Oh? Sure, I mean that's all that's a whole show
that you and I could do, Steve, and we should
we should do from Yeah, we should do all that. Yeah,
but real, So, there's there's only five states right now
in the country that allows something called a lady bird deed.
(18:45):
We happen to be obviously one of the five states
are the other four states? I don't want to mention
right now, but there are five states, and one of
them is not New York. That of guys in New
York and New Jersey is not one of the states
that do ladybirds. But what a lady bird d does
is it's a way too potentially, if it's done correctly,
(19:06):
avoid probate court. So you know how we're always trying
to avoid probate. So let me give you an example.
So let's use my wife and I, Debbie So Debbie
and I own our house in Weston. So what I
would do is potentially do a new DED transferring the
property from my wife and I and do a new
D transferring the property to my wife and I. So
(19:26):
no different So my wife and I still own it.
If I were to die, my wife has full control.
She could sell it, you do whatever she wants with it. However,
when she dies, it's going to go through probate court
if we didn't do any but with a ladybird D
do we transferred the property from my wife and I
and we did a new D transfer in to my
wife and I, and then we have something called the
remainder interest if any and we name an our example,
(19:49):
we name both my kids. So when both Debbie and
I pass away, both my kids Jason and Alley would
get it outright without any probate court. So it's a
wonderful vehicle to use. But like I tell everybody that's
listening out there, it really depends on your facts and circumstances.
There's many situations where a ladybirdded directly to the kids
(20:13):
does not make sense, and there's concerns. I tell about
a story an example Steve O. I know we're running
short on time, but I'll talk about this for a minute.
I know someone that did a ladybirdded for a widow
and shed. They transferred it from the widow, did a
new deed to the widow, and then the remainder interest
if any, went to the four kids, said she, and
(20:35):
then the widow passed away. And unfortunately, when she passed away,
one of the four kids was in the middle of
being sued and guess what was part of the lawsuit
that twenty five So there's lots of reasons when not
to do it directly to the kids. There are other
ways to plan for that. For you to understand that,
you need to probably call and sit down with me
or come to one of my workshops so I can
(20:57):
explain it further. But the ladybirdded is a great vehicle.
I do it all the time, ste though, and it's
a way of transferring your real estate in a certain
way where you still a full control of the real
estate while you're alive. You could sell it, you could
do whatever you want. You don't need your kids involved,
and then when you pass away, it will go to
whoever you name on the deed.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Does that have anything to do with Lady Bird Johnson.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
No, it's funny, that's what people think. And the second
state of the five is Texas, which is where Lady
Bird Johnson's from. But the answer is, now, believe it
or not, it was done by a professor. It was
created by a professor, and I think it was created
down here in Florida, and he used as the example.
I think it was. Lady Bird Johnson was just the
(21:43):
name of the hypothetical, and that's how we call it. It
became a Ladybird deed. And that's so it's has nothing
to do with Lady Bird Johnson, but everyone thinks it does.
So that's why when people guess what states, they say
Texas because she's from Texas and they're correct.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well, bad news is we've come to the end of
the show. The good news is you're gonna be back
here in two weeks, same time, on two weeks from today,
and maybe we'll do talk about this Lady Bird because
if it takes a whole show. The only thing with
with Andy and I is we get off on tangents
(22:19):
that'll have a lot to do with the state planning.
So you're not going to miss out on anything but Andy,
you'll be back with us in two weeks. Andy, give
everybody your phone number and your website again. For all
those listening on radio, sure.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Phone number to get ahold of the office is nine
to five four seven five five seven eight oh three.
And the website is Rosenberg Law Firm and that's r
O S E N B E RGI Rosenberg Law Firm
dot net not dot com Rosenberg Law Firm dot net.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
We're gonna be like your wife. You better stay healthy.
We need you, bro.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
God willing I do the best I can. I can
only contry my friend.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Okay, buddy, have a good week. Attorney Andy Rosenberg. He'll
be back with us in two weeks. That's going to
do it for us today. We will be back again
with you next Monday with more SC experts.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Thanks for tuning in today to the Ask the Expert
Show on the W four CY Radio and Talk for TV.
Tune in next week and every week to hear more
from our experts on personal injury, insurance, air condition repairs,
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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to the Ask the Experts Show on W four
CY Radio and Talk for TV, where we bring you
educational information from top local experts in the fields of legal, health,
financial and home improvement. Now sit back and listen to
experts in family law, association, law, hearing laws, business brokers,
(00:47):
home care, along with many other topics. Now Here are
your hosts, Stevo and Sophia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, good morning, South Florida, my home. Welcome to an
up Asked the Experts show, where we bring you the
top experts in the field of legal, health, financial and
home improvement. I got a letter about a week ago,
and it's one of the reasons why we do a
show like this. This is our fifteenth year with Asked
(01:16):
the Experts, and I got a letter from a lady saying,
you do a show on a state planning and I
am so surprised at no One where all my friends
are all retired, that there is a show like this.
And she said, you know, I've never written to a
show before, but I wanted to thank you for your
(01:40):
attorney Andrew Rosenberg, and for bringing this show to our community.
We are in a gated community in Delray Beach, and
my friends and I all listen to this show. We
are so glad we found it. I got to tell
you that's the whole reason we do this show. And
(02:02):
good morning, Attorney Andrew Rosenberg.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Hey, good morning Steve O. And good morning everyone out there.
You're having a good second day of June.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Hey, you know, I gotta tell you, Andrew, we live
here at you lawsoor are here in South Florida like us.
I'm out of Coral Springs where your office is, and
we have so many retired people who live here in
South Florida, whether it's Palm Beach County or Broward County
(02:34):
or Dade County, and the area of law that you
cover is so important and sometimes we just kind of
take it for granted. But your area of law, whether
it's wills, whether it's trust, whether it's elder law, no
(02:55):
matter what the case is, what you do is so
important here in South Florida. I want to want to
thank you for being part of this show.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Well, thanks, Steve. It's my pleasure, you know. I I
really try to make sure people understand the importance of
what I do and what the types of attorneys are
that are out there that like me, that what we
do it's really really important. And unfortunately what happens, Steve
(03:25):
O is most people don't like to do this stuff,
and I understand it. I mean, listen, who the hell
wants to talk about a will or anything of that nature.
You're facing mortality. I mean, no one wants to talk
about when we pass away. But it's more than that,
and that's what people need to understand. It's not And
when I do my workshops tell people all the time,
(03:45):
I go, Listen, I don't care if you have ten
million dollars or you have ten dollars in your bank account.
Everybody needs a state planning. And it's not just about wills.
There's a lots about things. So a lot of times
I tell in my workshops and my client tele I
tell them, I go listen, you got kids there. I
(04:08):
got two kids, right, they're a little bit older now
because I'm getting old. I'm now fifty seven, almost fifty eight.
But when my kids went off the college, the first
thing I had them do was I made them sign
a durable pal of attorney in a healthcare surrogate because
do they have money?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
No?
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Do I pay for all their college? And gradually asked
my wife and I paid for all that crap, But
God forbid, something happen to them. One was down here
at University of Miami. One was in George Washington University
in DC. Something happened to my son up there, Jason
in Washington, d C. Why he was in college. They
(04:46):
wouldn't the doctors wouldn't talk to me. The financial intuitions
institutions would not talk to me because they're eighteen years
of age. Now does that mean that they're adults, Yes,
it does. Does that mean they have a pot to pissing?
Absolutely not. They have nothing. But estate planning is more
than just the will, and that's what I'm trying to
(05:07):
really educate everybody out there is that it's not just
about the will. It's very important, obviously, but there's more
to a state planning than just the will.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know, we do estate planning shows across the United States,
and I got to tell you, every time somebody passes away, Andy,
just an example, Bernie Carrick who many many of you
might not know who Bernie Kerrick was, but one of
the key figures in New York when the bombing happened.
(05:40):
He was a police commissioner and he it's just I mean,
people respected him. He was only like sixty two years old,
and he passed away this weekend. Of course I didn't
even know he was sick. But you know, you never
planned for anything, and sometimes you can think, you know,
(06:02):
here's a guy who was the police commissioner, looked like
he was in great shape, but you'd never know. And
that's why the planning is so important, because you don't
ever know.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
No, you don't, And that's that's the whole point. I mean,
I always use myself as the example. Steve, and we
talked about it in earlier episodes. You know, I was
forty eight years old when I had a heart attack,
and you know, I didn't expect the heart attack, and
I was lucky enough to survive the heart attack. But
(06:35):
the point is is that when when I was at
the hospital, I was very calm and cool because I
knew everything was in place. And unfortunately, there are times
when things happen in our lives and we're not we're
not planning, and we're not we don't have things in place.
And that's and it's true when you talk about the
gentleman that passed away up in New York like that,
(06:59):
you were you know, you wonder did they planned properly?
You know, we just we talked about Gene Hackman who
passed away not that long ago. He didn't plan properly. Obviously,
with what's going on with that whole mess. You know,
if you're familiar with the show Cheers, remember Cheers. Yeah,
(07:20):
there's two people, yeah George. Two people passed. One of them,
the more familiar gentleman was George went. He passed away.
He was I think seventy seven, so he was young.
But you know, the course, you know, the question always is,
you know, whenever I hear something like that, I always wonder,
I hope they had things put into place so that
it's easy. It's not necessarily for you. You know, God
(07:43):
forbid what happens to you you're gone. It's it's the family.
It's making sure that the family doesn't have one yet,
one more hurdle of the face. They're facing the hurdle
of you being no longer with us. But what about
the hurdle of like gathering assets and distributing assets and
dealing with all the debts and all, you know, is
that all taken care of? And that's what we talk
(08:06):
about here. And you know, Steve in my workshops. About
a year ago, when I was visiting with my son Jason,
he's he just finished his first year. I'm very proud
of him at Duke Law School. But when we were visiting,
which a great law school by the way, when we're yea,
when we were visiting one.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Of the top law schools, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
One of the top five. Yeah, it's a great school.
I could have never gotten in there. But that's a
whole other story. But when we were visiting the law
school to see if that's where he wanted to go,
on my hotel doorstep that next morning from USA Today
was an article, believe it or not, and I talked
about how a state planning has gone downhill and people's
(08:50):
and people in regards basically the number of people that
have done the state planning has dwindled over the past
thirty forty years versus going up. And you know what,
that's true. And I always ask the audience when I'm
doing a workshop, why do we think that is? And
you know, people don't have all sorts of answers. They
don't know, but I mean, I think it's because people
(09:13):
don't like to face mortality. Number One, people are procrastinators.
They think that you know what, oh, I can take
care of it tomorrow, and then tomorrow comes in something
happens and you're not you haven't taken care of it.
Another scenario is, I will tell you that the one
time that it actually went up like crazy was when
(09:36):
COVID had Because Steve think about it. You remember obviously think, God,
we're not going through that now. But you remember every
night we'd see on the TV on national news, you'd
see the death toll just keep rising. And because of that,
I think it stared everybody at their in their face
and they said, you know what, one of them could
(09:57):
be us and that's when people said, I better take
care of my plan. And so that's the one time
in my many years of practice that estate planning went
crazy and it went up. And then, of course, once
the COVID subsided and we got the vaccines and things
started to get back to somewhat of a normal scenario.
(10:18):
If you can say that anything's normal after COVID, I
don't know. But once that happened, of course people went
back to the status quo of procrastinating and saying that
I'll wait till tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah. A lot of people think, oh, I'm in good shape,
I'm healthy. There's a lot of people. But I got
to tell you some I got the second to me worse,
I mean second worst. COVID is might laugh at this.
I ninety five in the Sawgrass area.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
Yeah, if you're driving on either I ninety five or
the Sawgrass Oh my, I mean there's so many people
who get killed excellent.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Especially in ninety five. It's like a death yeah. Oh
my goodness. Yes, I mean, so if you think about it, guys,
if you're a listen out there, whenever you're driving, there's
a risk. I mean, you know, we all have risks,
and you know, I have a very sad story. I
could tell you that happened to someone. I don't know them,
but I know of them. But this just gives you
(11:23):
an example of what we're talking about today, Steve. Unfortunately,
there was a married couple and the husband got diagnosed
with glio blastema, which is a horrible cancer diagnosis for
the brain, and he unfortunately fought valiantly for fifteen months
and passed away. And the survivor was the wife. He
(11:45):
was sixty one, I believe, and the wife survived with
two kids, you know, I think they were around twenty
four and twenty seven years of age, two daughters, and
the mom and the two daughters went away on vacation
to right after that I try and bond obviously, after
a horrible scenario where they lost their husband and father,
(12:05):
and they came back and the wife had a massive
stroke or heart attack within a week after the death
of her husband, and I heard very recently that they
had to unfortunately pull our off life support. And so
within a matter of about two to three weeks, these
two young daughters lost both a husband or a father
(12:28):
and a mother unexpectedly, or well, you could say maybe
one was somewhat expected because he had a horrible cancer diagnosis.
The other one was completely unexpected. And then, you know,
my thoughts go out to the entire family, But my
thoughts go right to the point. I hope they had insurance.
I hope they had things put in place and took
(12:49):
care of these young adults. But that's just a quick example.
I have another example. STEVEO, my landscaper, called me a
year ago in October, left a voicemail mess for me saying, Hey, Andy,
I want to meet with you to discuss wills and
trust and the state planning. I called him back that night,
left a message, called him back again the next day,
(13:09):
left messages and you're back. Called the next day after that,
his wife picked up. He unexpectedly dropped out of a
heart attack between between the two days before and when
he and when I tried to get hold. So the
point is, guys, you got to be thankful for every
day that we live here on earth, and we don't
take we can't take life for granted. It's very easy,
(13:32):
but you need to plan for the family. You need
to it's not for you, it's for your family. Take
care of the family. And the aftermath of and you know,
it's just it's just. You know, when I was sitting
in that emergency room with my heart attack, I looked
at my wife and I said, you know what DEV said,
If it's my time, it's my time. Everything's in order.
(13:54):
I said, You'll be fine. And she shook me, Steve,
she like literally shook me at this time and said,
I'm not ready for you. We got two young kids.
I'm not ready to be a single parent. So that's
what happened. And now fast forward almost nine ten years now.
My wife looked at me the other day and she said,
you know, if something happened, so be it. The kids
(14:14):
are older. I'm okay.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
You know, tell people what you did with Cleveland Clinic too,
that a lot of people don't know that they can do.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah. Yeah, So listen. When I do a state plan
for my clients. There's a lot of things I do
for my I tell my clients, but one of the
things I do say is listen. People always ask what
do I do with these documents? And so I tell
people listen. Normally, if you have a primary care doctor
that you go to, or I live in Weston right
(14:47):
my office and Coral Springs, but I live in Weston,
so my hospital is Cleveland Clinic. Or if you have
a hospital that you're going to go to, I recommend
that you tell your primary doctor and the hospital you
go to that you give them a copy of your
healthcare surguit, your living will, and your HIPPODOCT. And the
reason I do that is because if something were to happen,
(15:09):
my doctor will have him on file, so they know
who's in charge and who can be contacted. And if
I'm in the hospital and I get rushed to Cleveland Clinic,
they could look up my name and they store the
documents and they're able to pull up I'll give you
a prime example, STEVEO. If you remember a few a
few months, a month or so ago, I had horrible
(15:31):
kidney stones and they unfortunately were not passing, and I
actually it became serious. I had to get rushed to
the hospital. My kidneys were backing up and it was
an emergency surgery situation. I walked into the emergency room
at Cleveland Clinic. I was in so much pain, killing over, screaming, cutsing,
doing everything you're not supposed to do, but that's what
(15:52):
I was doing. And they wanted me to sit down
and fill out paperwork. And I looked up brightly the
eye and I said, are you freaking kidding? Me said,
you get me into the back and give me some
pain minutes. I'm done. And they said, well, we need
you to fill this out. We need to know what's
going on. I said, miss, and you have my healthcare, surrogate,
my living, all that, my hippop, it's all on file.
(16:13):
Here's my name. Take me back. My wife's coming in
in about five minutes behind me. She's parking the car.
And that's what they did, and so they were able
to pull it right up and then they could have
my wife deal with that, and that's why I was
being treated.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I guarantee you many people have been through that before,
where they want you to fill out papers while you're
sitting there in severe pain.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yeah, it's horrible, but it's horrible. So the point is,
if you have a primary care doctor or you have
a hospital that you would probably go to, you need
to contact your primary care doctor and give them a
copy so they have it in their system of your
health care, surrogate, living, will and hip a document. And
if you have a hospital, you need to contact the
(16:55):
hospital that you're going to go to if something were
to happen and ask them, well, you keep a copy
of this in your system so that if something were
to happen, I were rushed there, you guys have it
so that you know who's who could be in charge.
Not all hospitals will do that, most will. And that's
what I did, and you know, it played out in
my situation, completely played out exactly how I was supposed
(17:18):
to do.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
We just got a text from Palm Beach Guard wanting
to know when your next seminar is.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Ah, let's see here, I have a seminar coming up
this coming Wednesday, So Wednesday to fourth, it's going to
be a total wine in Plantation, which is eight oh
one South University Drive and it's sweet one hundred and
it's going to be at five thirty. So this Wednesday
to fourth at five point thirty. If you want to attend,
(17:47):
call the office speak to Alejandro. The office numbers nine
five four seven five five seven, eight oh three. If
you want to attend. We are looking into expanding and
doing a workshop up up in the Boca or Tone area,
So that's being planned and it may have already been scheduled,
so you can call the office and see if you
want to come to this one coming up, or see
(18:09):
when we might have one in the Boca area, because
I know that we were talking about expanding because it's
been asked by many people, so we're looking into expanding
it to that area as well.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Somebody just wrote, uh, can you explain the lady bird?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Oh? Sure, I mean that's all that's a whole show
that you and I could do, Steve, and we should
we should do from Yeah, we should do all that. Yeah,
but real, So, there's there's only five states right now
in the country that allows something called a lady bird deed.
(18:45):
We happen to be obviously one of the five states
are the other four states? I don't want to mention
right now, but there are five states, and one of
them is not New York. That of guys in New
York and New Jersey is not one of the states
that do ladybirds. But what a lady bird d does
is it's a way too potentially, if it's done correctly,
(19:06):
avoid probate court. So you know how we're always trying
to avoid probate. So let me give you an example.
So let's use my wife and I, Debbie So Debbie
and I own our house in Weston. So what I
would do is potentially do a new DED transferring the
property from my wife and I and do a new
D transferring the property to my wife and I. So
(19:26):
no different So my wife and I still own it.
If I were to die, my wife has full control.
She could sell it, you do whatever she wants with it. However,
when she dies, it's going to go through probate court
if we didn't do any but with a ladybird D
do we transferred the property from my wife and I
and we did a new D transfer in to my
wife and I, and then we have something called the
remainder interest if any and we name an our example,
(19:49):
we name both my kids. So when both Debbie and
I pass away, both my kids Jason and Alley would
get it outright without any probate court. So it's a
wonderful vehicle to use. But like I tell everybody that's
listening out there, it really depends on your facts and circumstances.
There's many situations where a ladybirdded directly to the kids
(20:13):
does not make sense, and there's concerns. I tell about
a story an example Steve O. I know we're running
short on time, but I'll talk about this for a minute.
I know someone that did a ladybirdded for a widow
and shed. They transferred it from the widow, did a
new deed to the widow, and then the remainder interest
if any, went to the four kids, said she, and
(20:35):
then the widow passed away. And unfortunately, when she passed away,
one of the four kids was in the middle of
being sued and guess what was part of the lawsuit
that twenty five So there's lots of reasons when not
to do it directly to the kids. There are other
ways to plan for that. For you to understand that,
you need to probably call and sit down with me
or come to one of my workshops so I can
(20:57):
explain it further. But the ladybirdded is a great vehicle.
I do it all the time, ste though, and it's
a way of transferring your real estate in a certain
way where you still a full control of the real
estate while you're alive. You could sell it, you could
do whatever you want. You don't need your kids involved,
and then when you pass away, it will go to
whoever you name on the deed.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Does that have anything to do with Lady Bird Johnson.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
No, it's funny, that's what people think. And the second
state of the five is Texas, which is where Lady
Bird Johnson's from. But the answer is, now, believe it
or not, it was done by a professor. It was
created by a professor, and I think it was created
down here in Florida, and he used as the example.
I think it was. Lady Bird Johnson was just the
(21:43):
name of the hypothetical, and that's how we call it. It
became a Ladybird deed. And that's so it's has nothing
to do with Lady Bird Johnson, but everyone thinks it does.
So that's why when people guess what states, they say
Texas because she's from Texas and they're correct.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well, bad news is we've come to the end of
the show. The good news is you're gonna be back
here in two weeks, same time, on two weeks from today,
and maybe we'll do talk about this Lady Bird because
if it takes a whole show. The only thing with
with Andy and I is we get off on tangents
(22:19):
that'll have a lot to do with the state planning.
So you're not going to miss out on anything but Andy,
you'll be back with us in two weeks. Andy, give
everybody your phone number and your website again. For all
those listening on radio, sure.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Phone number to get ahold of the office is nine
to five four seven five five seven eight oh three.
And the website is Rosenberg Law Firm and that's r
O S E N B E RGI Rosenberg Law Firm
dot net not dot com Rosenberg Law Firm dot net.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
We're gonna be like your wife. You better stay healthy.
We need you, bro.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
God willing I do the best I can. I can
only contry my friend.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Okay, buddy, have a good week. Attorney Andy Rosenberg. He'll
be back with us in two weeks. That's going to
do it for us today. We will be back again
with you next Monday with more SC experts.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Thanks for tuning in today to the Ask the Expert
Show on the W four CY Radio and Talk for TV.
Tune in next week and every week to hear more
from our experts on personal injury, insurance, air condition repairs,
estate planning, medicare, and many other topics in the areas
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