Probate Process Overview, with Connor Inlow

0:00 Oh, there Welcome to Probate Weekly where we interview weekly different attorneys, vendors in the probate space. If you know me, I love my Trojans. Well, excited to have today former captain of the USC volleyball team as well as happens to be a probate attorney in one of the top firms here in Los Angeles, TLD Law. Connor, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Bill. Happy to speak with a fellow Trojan this morning. So, you know, I went to USC and I was in a competitive area myself but I was in Division I sports. You played Division I volleyball. USC has been traditionally one of the top programs in the country, if not the national champions over some of the years you were there. How does the competitive spirit of becoming a Division I athlete at that level translate into the business world for you? Yeah, I think it translates nicely. I mean, it's you know, being a D1 athlete, it's it's a full-time job just like being a lawyer. And I think you learn a lot of the soft skills or hard skills of just competition and the ability to work hard. I think, you know, you wake up every day and maybe you don't want to play another 3 hours of volleyball that day, but you have to do it and you got to figure out a way to always wake up and come in the same person every day and bring your best and make those around you better, help your teammates, listen to your coaches. And so, I think the discipline, the hard work, the competitiveness, it I mean, it's things you need every day and basically every industry. And so, I felt it helped me a ton in the classroom, helped me a ton in transitioning to law school in the business world. So, I think the things I learned through volleyball were just as important as the classroom in undergrad. So, really appreciate it for my time.

1:36 I think one things I see if I was giving career advice, which I'm not, to you, but to people I start out is the points of being in a organization or team. I know I played not your level, but competitive sports, you know, through high school and you learn so much lessons about interaction and like you say, the soft skills of communication. And I imagine working at a larger law firm like TLD and you know, both the breadth of the practice as well the depth of expertise must help somebody be more I would think help you be more effective as long as you can work within team environment. Yeah, no, absolutely. Hit the nail on the head. I mean, you know, you learn throughout the [clears throat] course of a season and then as you get into an office, you know, people communicate differently. People send emails differently. They talk to you in person differently. and people need different support from you. Some people, you know, need a bit gentler approach. Some people kind of you need to be firm with and you know, you learn different communication and leadership styles to kind of personalize fit with each person in your office and you know, it also helped going through the ranks. you know, when I was a freshman I wasn't a leader of the team. I was new. I didn't know what I was doing and so I tried to find my role as how I can help the team as a freshman and as you move up, you know, by the time you're senior everyone's looking to you on how to act and how to behave and so you kind of get to figure out how to find your voice, find your leadership, find your communication style and how to help the team from a bunch of different roles whether it's just the freshman trying not to make mistakes or the senior who's the starter and the captain. I mean, you know, you learn how to help a team organization from a lot of different areas and I think that that's a skill that's difficult to recreate in the classroom because a lot of classes don't give you that team organized, you know, group projects and so it's a skill that I think I was fortunate enough to practice every day.

3:23 The nature of my business is I work with a lot of different attorneys. [clears throat and cough] and as a result, I they all are completely different. Like you say, emails are different. Their rhythm is different, right? Some will get back to you that day. Some will get back to you in a day. Some in a week. how they work with their staff, what they delegate, what they don't delegate, what they want you to talk to them about, what they don't. And then you have the additional layer of within your company or within your firm how they operate. How would you describe if there is a distinction, how your firm operates amongst colleagues differently than say working with attorneys at other firms. I mean, you've I'm sure you have cases where you have colleagues you're working with and other cases where, you know, you're working with attorneys who are maybe at other firms and operate differently. How What's the difference in the procedures and systems of communication? Yeah, no, it's a great question. I mean, I you know, I think there's some people, you know, in the firm you can kind of once you've had a rapport with someone you've worked with them for a long time, you can be a bit more direct and shorter in some of your emails cuz you know there's no, you know, bad intent. You're just being efficient with your emails, whereas, you know, the first email to an opposing counsel or to clients, you'll be a bit, you know, longer-winded and trying to be polite and you know, establishing a rapport with them and trying to be patient and things like that. Whereas, if it's something you need quick, I mean, I'll communicate with the attorneys that I would, you know, work with daily here over Teams, a quick question to them and they'll get to me when they can rather than sending, you know, a long email or something like that. So, it's really about efficiency internally once you've established the rapport that you know each other, like each other, trust each other. Whereas, with clients and with opposing counsels, you know, until you establish that rapport, I like to be a bit more formal, a bit more professional, and courteous to them and, you know, give really long, detailed explanations of everything I'm looking for and everything I expect from them and what they can expect from me.

5:16 And then, you know, once you've had some clients for longer periods of time, it can become more informal because you have a developed a working relationship and you figure out how they like to communicate and you'll adapt to them. But, you know, I always like to start as professional as I can. So, you work quite a bit in the probate space. This is where the I guess the team within TLD that you're working focuses on trusts and estates and in probate. I imagine some of your business must be people starting their own and come you kind of [unclear] oh my gosh I'm overwhelmed. what are the most common mistakes that petitioners make starting on their own that you wish they come to you beforehand that you could help them correct? Yeah. Yeah, [clears throat] I know. I mean and I understand why people, you know, want to do it on their own. It's, you know, it's their families' money. They you know, they don't want to have to pay any money to an attorney. They don't trust attorneys and you know, I get it, but it's difficult. I mean there's a lot of filings, there's court supervision, there's a lot of mistakes that can be made. Not giving proper notice is one, you know, trying to especially when you're the personal representative, you know, there's there's liability potentially to you personally if you don't act in accordance with the probate code or in accordance with the beneficiaries' wishes. I mean, you know, we deal with it a lot. I mean, beneficiaries, even family members, they'll sue each other, they'll sue the personal representative, they'll sue the trustee if they don't like what they're doing. And so, you know, going through the proper notice procedures, getting all of the assets appraised in a timely manner, and then commu- like, you know, active communication before big decisions with the beneficiaries about what your plans are, why the proposed distributions and why. And you know, it really depends on the estate, both how many how much assets there are, how many beneficiaries there are, and then the liquidity of it. You know, there is a lot of difficulties when there's, you know, not enough liquidity in one property and there might be emotional ties to this property. And so, people will kind of fight over it and, you

7:20 Know, getting lawyers involved early to try to give the notices out early to let the statutory, you know, timelines come and go, getting the appraisals out and getting it over to them to establish trust and showing competence that you're moving the administration forward in a, you know, in accordance with the probate code and giving the transparency to the beneficiary goes a long way to creating trust and creating a working relationship to you know, hopefully close out the probate without any issues and then, you know, let everyone get back to their daily life because being a trustee, being a personal representative, I mean, it's a full-time job. It's so difficult. It's a thankless job. and so, you know, ultimately they trying to take it on your own, especially when you have a family, whether you have your own job, it can be costly. It can weigh on them and cause strains in their relationships and letting, you know, professionals who do this every day take on that work, take on that stress, and communicate with them on your behalf, typically leads to better outcomes. You know, you used a good word, which is it's it's a job. I think people don't realize that being the executor or administrator of an estate, you know, [clears throat] quite literally is a job or business where your main job is to liquidate. It'd be no different than being hired by a company to liquidate a company. You know, there and that happens all the time, right?

8:37 Companies go out of business, they need to sell the equipment, sell the inventory, sell the IP, sell the property, and then close things down legally. And that's really all the administrator or executor is doing. and if they don't experience with it, you know, who would hire somebody who's never had experience to do a, you know, million to million dollar liquidation of a company. It really becomes a job. So, part of the challenge I see is understanding the line where the attorneys' legal consulting and legal work ends and where the administration and executor work begins. I see oftentimes, you know, clients assume that attorneys to do a lot more than they're going to do. And I think that's fair if you haven't defined those lines. So, how do you try to set up your clients to understand the distinction between what you expect them to do and what you're going to do? Yeah, no, it's a good question, you know, and we try to give all the help we can, but we have to, you know, also respect our ethical obligations and respect our limitations of our knowledge. you know, we're not CPAs, which I think is a big one that we try to [unclear] and we try to give the information we can about what tax benefits we have, especially property taxes we have a lot of work on, but ultimately we do consult them talking to a CPA earlier than later. And then also

10:05 [snorts] when there's real property talking to a broker is often helpful because we don't professional property appraisers either. So, as to, you know, we draft the contracts or purchase agreements, we help clear the title for real estate, we help make sure all of the assignments of any leases and any tenants who are in there are communicated with effectively. But, as to the pricing and as to, you know, understanding the local market because, you know, we get you know, clients who have properties all around LA, all around Orange County, all around in California and the country, and we aren't able to give them a local you know, broker's perspective of how the market is, when to sell, when what the rent is, and so these things like that will require, you know, professional appraisers or local brokers. And so, we the sooner we can let them know that this is a this is a team effort. And like you said, you know, they inherited a business and they need to dissolve it and liquidate it and get the money out to the parties entitled to it. I mean, it's it's not a one-man job, it's not a two-man job. So, you know, it really marshaling the assets is the first thing, and then you figure out what we're looking at, and then we can tell them pretty early on who they're going to need to consult with. And if they don't have people, we have brokers, we have CPAs for, you know, every different type of estate, small, medium, and large. And so, we're able to get them those recommendations and get them in touch as quickly as we can.

11:33 One of the underutilized pieces of the puzzle I find [snorts] are independent fiduciaries. Talk [clears throat] a little bit about when you use them, when not necessarily, and when you recommend them. Yeah, it's a great question. We use professional fiduciaries a lot. really it comes down to trust, and then how much any of the you know the personal administrator executive trustee is willing to take on. when there's already turmoil amongst the family and the siblings don't communicate well, don't trust each other, there's you know sometimes past experience of you know distrust, that's a good opportunity for a professional fiduciary, or if none of the you know beneficiaries are willing or able to do the job. And like I said, you know it's no it's no judgment. I mean this isn't something you would know unless you are a professional fiduciary. No one else has had to do these tasks before. It's It's difficult no matter how competent you are in whatever your area of expertise is, it's brand new. And so if they don't have the time, they don't have the ability or willingness to take it on because, you know, the trustee fees or fees for an executor administrator, it's it's not big. It's pretty nominal amounts, and the other beneficiaries fight you for those fees often, even the small amounts you're willing to take. And so it is often worthwhile to bring in a professional fiduciary who doesn't have all of those emotional ties, does this for a living. And so they do take a fee, but you know, if this can allow you to focus on your family, your job, and keep the relationship with your siblings or, you know, parents intact, it's often a good route. And we have good relationships with professional fiduciaries who we work with a lot. And so it does sort of create, you know, a team where we have a rapport with them, we know how they work, they know how we work. And so it can create like I said the team environment. You start putting together the team quickly and it takes a ton of stress off of the beneficiaries.

13:34 At least the one or two, or however many it is, who were appointed to be it unless they decline. I know that you work with some larger estates where there's commercial property involved, property is being leased, and corporations such. Talk a little bit about what's unique when you get commercial property included in the property as far as both managing [clears throat] the property as well as, you know, the structure of the how the property is held. Yeah, that's a good question. So, I mean, most commercial properties, people will own residential real estate in their in the name of their trust or their own name, but typically people don't own and this is my advice to them is to not own commercial real estate in your own name.

14:15 [clears throat] So, you'll see it mostly in an LLC, which is the recommended way to hold it. sometimes people will own it in an S corporation and in owning real estate in S corporation is typically not advised because of their tax difficulties in getting a step up in basis for S corporations as opposed to LLCs. I won't go too far into the weeds on that if but just suffice to say there are tax benefits to owning property in an LLC and easier ability to change ownership in an LLC than in S corporation, but yeah, you will inherit not just, you know, the land, but you would now own the membership interest or stock of these entities. And so the main differences then you got to look to those bylaws, that operating agreement, and figure out what It's no longer just the probate code or the trust that dictate how this succession plan works. There are, you know, internal governing documents of these entities and so you need to get copies of those quickly and you need to see what they say and, you know, I'm I'm sure you've run into this, but not every operating agreement is drafted how we would like it to be. Often, you know, we didn't draft it, and so there is often ambiguous succession plans about how to handle it when someone else passes away, and so, you know, some operating agreements will have rights of first refusal, rights of first offer for the other members or the other shareholders. Sometimes they won't.

15:40 Sometimes the process is really clear, sometimes it's not, and so you need to bring in not just, you know, probate attorneys, but you need to have attorneys with familiarity with corporate governance and the ability to read those documents and give advice about who needs to get noticed in these entities, cuz sometimes it's a sole owner, and that's easier, there's not other people involved, but if there are other shareholders, their rights under those contracts are valid and enforceable, and so you need to give them notice and go through the procedures called for in those in order to have the beneficiaries get their rights to those entities that own the commercial real estate, so. I [clears throat] think one of the things I've noticed is that you mentioned property in LLC, the decedent estate owned the shares of the LLC, not the actual property. And so now comes time to distribute, you're distributing the shares, not the property. I've seen it done both ways. I've seen the property sold and the LLC signing for it. I've also seen estates where they just sell the shares of the LLC. And in fact, I was able to arrange title insurance for one of those transactions. So, talk about how you see the transaction is done when the estate owns shares in LLC as opposed to the property. Yeah, it's a great question. basically what the decision will come down to is whether the beneficiaries want cash or whether they want to co-own the real estate. co-owning real estate in California is difficult.

17:08 If you get along well, and there's a good tenant in, and the and the beneficiaries want long-term, you know, recurring passive income, it can be a great option for them to each take let's say there's three siblings and the you know, parents passed and then they each take 1/3 of this LLC, they get to keep 1/3 of the rent that the LLC brings in under that under the commercial property. That's a great choice for them. It's simpler, you know, there's no sale process. You just assuming the operating agreement allows it, distribute a third, a third, a third. now they co-own this LLC and get to reap the rewards of it how they see fit. Whereas other times if there's not enough cash and so you just have this one big commercial property and then you have, you know, let's say it's worth $2 million and then there's only $500,000 cash. It's hard to divide that up three ways without selling the commercial property. and so as long as the beneficiaries communicate and are on board with it, you can have the personal administrator or trustee of the estate acting as the manager of the LLC and they can still sign documents to sell the commercial property and get that sold and then once it's sold, you know, you just have cash in the estate or in the trust and then the distribution becomes a lot simpler and a lot less, you know, difficult to divide up because you just take the total amount of cash, divide by three and then everyone goes on their way. And so it really creates a dialogue with the trustee and the lawyers and the beneficiaries to see who wants what. You try to you know, there's multiple ways to do it whether you just create an initial plan on behalf of the trustee and you create a plan of what you think is the best way, send to the beneficiaries, see how they react. If they object, you go back to the drawing board, but yeah, to your point, there you don't need to ever it really is just case by case.

18:59 Sometimes it's clear you're going to need to sell in order to make the distributions work. Other times there's enough property or enough cash to kind of equal it out and you just have to communicate of who wants what. and so it is able to be distributing just the LLC shares. Sometimes it's just selling the property before and then distributing the cash. And so, just requires active communication and then coordination about maximizing the value of the estate while also getting the beneficiaries what they want without risking liability to the trustee. We're we both primarily function in California and in real estate transactions, I feel like well, I know for a fact

19:46 [clears throat] we're the only state that has in the Association of Realtor forms a addendum for both listing and purchases and an advisory for clients and buyers and sellers. Other states don't have anything at all. Yet, [clears throat] it's still a particular process to get property sold. So, when you have a property and you're selling a property, are there a couple things that you look for, common mistakes that you see even with the forms addendums, things that you see that are mistakes or particular procedures you'd like to see implemented in the contract to protect your client? Yeah, certainly. you know, the forms you're talking about, you having if there's not the probate addendum attached to it or the trust I mean, we certainly always recommend putting it and then you see it a lot more on the standardized form like you're talking about, you know, the CAR or you know, the California Association of Realtors have good templates and using those templates or using similar wording as those templates is certainly recommended. But then in commercial transactions, it's typically more hand drafted contracts than it is using kind of those form based because each commercial property is a bit more different than, you know, one single family home to the other is a lot more similar. so, we look to largely concerns about title and then concerns about conditions to closing. What you want to make sure you're protecting cuz in almost every case you're the seller because the property is owned by the estate and you need to sell it. And so you want you never want to be in a position where you're contractually obligated to close, but because of some issue with the probate court, you aren't able to close. Whether that's some beneficiary has objected to it, some beneficiary, you know, there hasn't been enough time or the appraisal price is too different and the court might need to approve it. And so we will put in conditions to close and making sure there are, you know, wiggle room to protect the seller in

21:48 Case something unexpected comes up in the probate court where you're not contractually in default for your inability to close the transaction due to the probate court's, you know, and sometimes it's it'll it'll it'll it's forthcoming, but there's still time delays and so you need wiggle room in order to protect the seller from not being in a position where they're breaching the contract because of dual obligations with the probate process. And then the other parties you want to look through the reps and warranties. Sellers have to give a lot of representations and what well, you know, it's negotiable at least in a commercial transactions are more negotiable. Residential there are mandatory disclosures. And so you'll want to go through each of them carefully with your client and make sure that they're protected and not over disclosing things. And what I mean by that is you'll see often times, you know, maybe one of the kids lives up in Seattle and he's now the trustee and there's a commercial property down in Orange County that he's now having to make representations and warranties about and so he's potentially never been there or he hasn't been there in years and he knows nothing about it. And so the contract needs to be very clear who is making these reps and warranties and what knowledge they have and trying to limit the reps and warranties to their personal knowledge where unless he actively knows about some issue, they can't the buyer can't then, you know, turn around and say that we misrepresented the, you know, character of the property, the zone, anything like that. And so, there are ways to protect the seller both from the probate court and from their knowledge standpoint given that they aren't, you know, the 20-year property manager of this property where those reps and warranties are going to be completely different.

23:28 I would imagine it from like years that you've colleagues who've done these types of transactions that you can draw from like almost a library to start with as a template and adjust as opposed to starting from scratch. It seems to me whenever I deal with attorney in these matters, [clears throat] it's always a one-man type outfit and they're starting from scratch and I, you know, I mean, I don't mean question anybody's legal knowledge, but there's a lot of details you're talking about and especially in a probate, there's a lot of things that can go wrong, a lot of individual moving pieces and it seems to me that having been through that a few times is going to give you the ability to more protect your client than someone who hasn't been through that before. Yeah, certainly. And like you said, yeah, the forms we, you know, you have to customize it each case, but ultimately we do have, I mean, we have leases, we have purchase and sale agreements. I mean, drafted countless of them at this point. So, we sort of have a good template for each situation that we start from. We're not going to, you know, charge our clients for having us reinvent the wheel each time. I mean, we have the templates we like and then when they're also helps for reviewing the documents knowing what you're looking for. And so, when they, you know, cuz you send it to the buyer, they send back their comments and if it's not in line with what you've seen in the past, it's not in line with your template, you know, you know how to communicate about it, you know why it says what it says and cuz we're lawyers who are get paid for our time, I it's beneficial when seeking a lawyer to find lawyers who have done it before, not just for their expertise, but also it's going to take them less time to draft a purchase and sale agreement and to add the probate addendum if they've done it before. They have examples on their files, so it is both better competence and more cost-effective.

25:18 You know, I deal more commonly [clears throat] in the smaller commercial, smaller non-residential properties, where you know, in some cases the CAR forms do work for commercial. I think they do a good Personally, I think they do a really good job. There's also AIR forms, which are more focused for I think [clears throat] leasing, but in general work for sales as well. and then and then there's a whole customized form. And I always feel like when we're listing the property, you know, just to get a contract from some major law firm is 120 pages. Mhm. As a real estate broker, I can't review it. I don't have the legal skills to review the entire contract. it's forcing [clears throat] my client to hire an attorney to review 120-page contract. It just seems like to much As much as I can push them to use standard forms, it just makes the process more efficient for everybody. Yeah, I understand that clients, you know, when they have an attorney, they're comfortable, you know, requiring what they require. So, how do you advise a seller who maybe isn't a client of yours in commercial property, hasn't been hasn't done contracts, maybe they just inherited this one property they're selling. do you recommend a whole customized contract if or do you kind of push to use the templates where as possible? Yeah, no, I agree with you. Especially the smaller to mid-size, I think it makes a ton of sense to use the AIR forms. We have the AIR software. We use it for buying, selling, and leasing commercial property, and it works well.

26:42 It definitely saves time when the other attorney is familiar with the form as well. It just creates standardization. It's easy to see the red lines. It's easy to see the changes, and we even have an addendum that we've created to the AIR that we like to add, but it's still sort of our form addendum to it, and it doesn't, you know, it's nothing crazy, but just a few things here and there that we think it misses that we like to add on to help our clients, and I agree with you. I think it is so much easier to do that when you're buying, selling, or leasing small to mid-size real estate than it is to start from scratch. Like you said, I mean, I review leases cuz when we represent the tenant, you're at the mercy of what the landlord sends out, because the landlord gets the first draft on a lease, and I mean, you see customized lease agreements that are, like you said, 120 pages, and you got to go through with a fine-tooth comb, and it's really expensive for the clients to have to negotiate a small book than it is to have the form that people are familiar with, and you know, the amount of arguing is typically kept to a minimum as long as both counsels are familiar with the form, familiar with what they like about the form, what they don't like about the form. it allows for really a beneficial phone call the first time with the opposing counsel. You can go through basically all your complaints, cuz you both have seen this template 50 times, [clears throat] and so you're not, you know, you just save a lot of time and money, so I agree with you. I represented an estate once where they were selling a very small commercial lot. I think it was about four or five hundred thousand dollars.

28:15 [clears throat] the buyer was very sophisticated. He was putting together a whole development project. He had one of those Century City firms, you know, with the longest tower with their name in front of it. And the guy sent me like a 120-page lease, a 120-page contract. And every single paragraph was like, "And if the, you know, seller doesn't perform, we get to kill them. And if the seller doesn't perform, we get to dismember them in front of their children. If seller doesn't perform, we're going to charge them more money than God." And then I

28:38 [clears throat] I went through it briefly, and I you know, and then I noticed it didn't even mention the word probate. And I And I talked to the attorney, I said, "Look, I You didn't even mention that we're in probate. mean, obviously we have to have some accounting for that we're in a state and we're subject to court procedures of some sort. And it's like all those 120 pages, he didn't even think about that. and yet, you know, we're supposed to you know, review in detail and reply. and I and I said to my client, you know, talk to your attorney about what costs something. I think he estimated a couple thousand dollars just to review their contract, not even to propose a counter. And I was like, do you want to be in a contract where you're spending thousands of dollars before you even start? On a $400,000, you know, vacant lot. Yeah. No, I agree with you. And you know, those if you're wealthy [clears throat] enough, I mean, you can if they want to pay for their attorney to do that, that's, you know, their choice. And I'm sure that attorney is competent at large-scale, you know, commercial real estate transactions, but you have to fit it to the situation. And that makes no sense for a $400,000 project. And you just know also when you're the seller and you get something like that, you know that they're going to be difficult in due diligence. They're going to be asking for every inspection under the sun. They're going to be coming to at the last minute for a price reduction. I mean, they're you know, it's good to have a sophisticated buyer, but if they're bringing in, you know, these tactics or over complicating things, I mean, it's going to be difficult the whole time and they're not going to work with you through the probate process. They're likely going to seek every advantage they can both in the contract and the purchase price and their due diligence and they're going to ask for, you know, really wild reps and warranties. And so sometimes it's about finding the right buyer. The right buyer is, you know, happy to use a standard form if that's what makes sense for the transaction. They're not asking for you to represent nothing has ever gone wrong at this property ever and I know for a fact that it's in compliance with every law ever existed. I mean, most buyers will understand they want to move quickly, they want reasonable reps and warranties, they'll do reasonable due

30:41 Diligence. And if they're happy with it, they'll close in a timely manner without seeking a last-minute purchase price reduction because they have you stuck under contract. and so, that's the communication you have to have with the client of, you know, this might not be the right buyer and you have to have some patience rather than just taking the first offer. You know, that's so that's such good advice. You having the right buyer is so critical. You can just tell from the beginning. It never gets better. It only gets more difficult. And so, if you're really starting on the edge of agreement with a, you know, back and forth like a like a ground war to get into contract, it doesn't get better as time goes on and there's such friction it's going to fall apart at some point and sometimes you're just better saying, "Do you really want to buy this property or not?" If you don't, Right. Let's just walk away friends and good luck. but yeah. You know, I know you guys also do because you're one of the larger firms, you deal with more complicated transactions include assets in multiple states. Talk a little bit about what happens when somebody passes and maybe owns a second home in Vegas or Colorado or Texas some of those. What's that look like as far as managing the appropriate estate? Yeah. So, you know, I mean, we are California attorneys. We can't, you know, practice law in other states, but we can certainly give help and help marshaling the assets. I mean, when they live [clears throat] in California, they want California attorneys. They want, you know, the principal place of the probate administration will still take place in California if that's how the trust or the where the decedent lived. I mean, that it'll all still take place in California for the most part and so, we still will help get the get them in touch

32:21 [snorts] with appraisers in those other states. We'll help get them in touch with local counsel if it's needed, but ultimately, we're still an asset to them and we can review contracts and give advice without, you know, overstepping our ethical duties of not practicing law in other states. and so you know, we have a network of attorneys who we know from other states, and we have, you know, databases where we can help them find other people, and we have, you know, large companies we work with who are international or you know, nationwide like Chicago Title, Fidelity, First American, and so you know, they have contacts everywhere, and so we're able to help get people in touch with who they need to get in touch with in order to do the same thing that you would do with a California property, but just making the friction between state lines as small as possible. Well, Connor, now you're part of our national network. Probate Weekly, we do this every week, and we have a national network of realtors and attorneys across the country. So, if you're an attorney out state with a complicated probate that includes property in California, consider Connor as one of your people. Connor, really appreciate you taking time to join us today. I know I've got a little bit over time here. At your rate, it's going to bankrupt me here, so I got to wrap things up. [laughter] Just kidding. and then for those of you who want to get more who want to get in touch with him, I have his contact information below, as well as the website is tldlaw.com.

33:46 Tldlaw.com. Those of you who watch the program regularly, you know that [unclear] is one of the attorneys at the firm as well, one of our favorites, and actually made the introduction to Connor. So, Connor, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and explaining us on the probate process, and continued success in your practice. Thanks, Bill. Yeah, I really appreciate our conversation. I hope you have a happy New Year, and I'm excited to talk to you again soon, because I know we have a lot more we could discuss, so I appreciate it. Thanks so much. And for those of you who are watching Probate Weekly, we do new episode every week, usually with probate attorneys, or also vendors across the country to help us be better in serving our clients, whether you're a real estate agent or an attorney. If I can help, please reach out at Bill Gross Probate on social media, and as always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.