Trusts, Heggstad Petitions and Funding Your Trust, with Attorney Colette T. Davis

0:00 To Probate Weekly where we get together we can talk to attorneys Professionals in Real Estate Investors vendors trying to be more effective in our real estate probate business I'm Bill Gross I'm your host and we typically interview attorneys one of the reasons why and I think what we don't want to do is look at this as all of us are now going to gang up and ask this attorney for business because I think you're going to find something the opposite way that when you learn how to bring value to your customers and learn how to bring value to attorneys the business that actually comes to you rather than the prospecting themselves approach and so I know that to be true I've had the pleasure of working with Colette I discovered that we had met and I guess it's just me being older years ago pre-coveted in real life we met at coffee at the coffee bean in Corpus has to meet one-on-one and talk about probate business NHS we catch up with talking about specifically conservative so I'm really excited to have with us local probate attorney and conservative attorney and garden attorney called Davis Club thank you so for joining us today oh my pleasure how are you doing I'm doing great now another thing I know that you're not looking to necessarily build the business in North Carolina but you also are a member of the bar in North Carolina as well correct that's correct yes and so that's because of your personal business and geography it's not because it was a marketing decision as a second market right yeah no yeah no I happened to move there some years ago and I wasn't going to practice law but then the recession hit so I decided I'd go back to practice tomorrow it's worked out and I think you've been quite busy so how did you get into a law in the specific how did you get into Estate Planning and conservative specifically well I you know I started off actually with a big firm in doing corporate work but after a few years I just didn't sit with me very well and at the time I was married my ex-husband was a probate lawyer and he needed help and I ended up walking into that practice to help him out but in addition to that I actually

2:03 Loved the area when I was in law school but that just was not something that the large firms were hiring for so I managed to get here anyway you know which was great so yeah now the practice of probate law and I look at website the state planning trust Administration is a broad practice how do you describe the portion of that market that you address Estate Planning in Probate in primarily Administration so I do most things under the probate code which includes decedents Estates conservatorships guardianships and trusts and I also do trust Administration so those things I don't do some of the other areas but I do those that group and so those newer on the call a conservatorship is a case where the court appoints somebody to manage Affairs for somebody who's not competent to management Affairs maybe medically or mentally not able to is that for description that's pretty good yes and guardianship would be somebody who's not able to because they're too young they're children and so they're Guardians until they become adults and so these are different forms and these are all handled in Probate Court in California and there's different names form in different states Family Court I think in New York and other names and other states but they're basically all the same thing you have people who died people who are mentally or physically incapacitated and you have people who are too young and all those kind of fit into the court process that we call Probate so let's first talk about the business side of it because even though you're an attorney and I think Alternatives aspire to practice the law the reality is you're running a business you got to bring this from my business you got to pay the bills does the business just come in at this stage of your career or do you have to do certain things to develop the business or there are things you've done in the past that have built the business that you're capitalizing on today for the most part the business this comes luckily I thank God I don't advertise or anything like that for the most part I get nothing but referrals past clients some current clients people I know real estate people you know folks in the real estate industry in one way or

4:07 Another whether it's title company or some other source I'm also fortunate enough to have been born and raised in Los Angeles and gone to school here so I know quite a few people and given my age most of them need some help I write about now so most your classmates are old you're young but they're all old and they all got oh I stayed young what do you want so I think one of the misconceptions I want to create is I think real estate agents imagine that attorneys have all these probate and related cases to hand out listings like their candy but in reality I believe in your case we talked about this before a good check your business comes to you from real estate agent just like those of us on the call today that's correct yeah a lot of business comes from Real Estate agency yes so what's that look like I know I called you recently and I could serve a ship because number one geographically number two I know that you that's the area that you work in has a trained in business yet but you never know how that works out right but you know I know that I know you to be in that field specifically how did how do Realtors® come to bring you in a transaction most commonly most commonly these give me a call and they have a question about an issue and that's primarily how it gets started sometimes I know straight out that you know some type of probate needs to be done but often and this is becoming more and more the case where the properties were in trust or a property was in trust and for some reason or another it was removed from the trust so we have to do a headstep petition most often rather than a full-blown probate which is beneficial but there still needs some need some assistance in that respect yeah so that's most of the time so I think just to Point again to the list was the call it starts with a question I think often we get those questions if we know a little bit we can ask the question take another step and then bring it to the right person so in the case of Colette most recently I had a colleague who asked a question but you know who knows an attorney in La well we all know traders in LA right what are you looking for well specifically and I talked to this age on the phone aged parents live in actually in the Westchester area not too far from you so no one reason I

6:10 Thought of you and then second conservatorship but I thought oh well you know I know other attorneys who don't do them I know one who does and so that way I could add some value and say well here's a woman who does conservatorship I know I'd interviewed her I also know on her website and so it adds a little value to that relationship so you know the goal is to make the relationship referrals stick this one hasn't stuck yet but it you know it's a business it's how these things go so I went all the call to kind of pay attention to the content so you can be the person who gets the phone call and then you could be the one that introduces the appropriate attorney hopefully it's Colette or others but that you're the one who makes an introduction so the phone call comes to you is it you know do you take phone calls during the day do you take email you either get an email first you either have an appointment set with your what does that look like it depends it really it truly depends so I do take a lot of phone calls probably more than I need to but I like to kind of get an idea of what's going on I miss a lot of emails and sometimes I play catch up on the weekends so if it's something that's more urgent I would rather have a phone call because in that way I can kind of get to you know take care of it right away and be done I make a lot of calls after hours and luckily for me you know you guys that work long hours and so I can normally catch you after five o'clock so that part's good but I try to return phone calls all the time so I'd rather have a phone call for something urgent if it's something I can get back to in a few days or so yeah email is fine because I may not even see the email for a couple days so and I want you all to hear that I'm not saying is to knock her or you know at all God forbid but I think there's Realtor® time which we expect people to respond within minutes right maybe an hour or two and there's attorney time which is within a couple days and sometimes because they're in a court hearing all day for two or three days in a row or they're in a deposition all day for two or three days in a row and so I think we have to understand there's a little difference in that response time and make sure we set expectations appropriately to be effective with those phone calls yeah if I can't interject Bill I'm sorry one other thing I think it would be really

8:12 Beneficial in that respect is particularly if you're giving an attorney a call whoever you speak to on the phone give them as much information as you can so we can kind of assess how urgent it is because if it is something urgent I will you know pretty even if it's not a client obviously it's like I want to be of assistance and so I want to be able to get back with you because you're waiting for an answer and often I get that as an issue as well it's like they just want to speak to me but my assistant will get to me a lot faster and I'll be able to return the phone call a lot faster as well so and I think the other thing is that often it starts as a question not as a hire-a-lawyer routine use an attorney here's my checkbook it's really my mom and dad x what do I do right that's usually what starts the dialogue right so let's talk first about you know a very common case in trust Administration now is the world's greatest estate plans put together and along the way somebody refinances a property out of the estate Deeds of property I say it's like taking the gold out of the safe deposit box and sticking on the table walking away now you come back say hey we went this back in the safe box yeah so that's a Heggstad petition so what's that look like time wise and what's look like financially if everybody is on board and it's fairly administrative it still is a expensive proposition and a Tommy proposition correct absolutely yes absolutely so you still have to file a petition in court which means that we still have to draft the petition to file so there is that and there's also at least one hearing and some other paperwork so certain notices have to go out and things like that as well so from the time that we would draft it to the time that it's heard depending on the county it could be two or three months easily and LA county is going to be two or three months easily in some of the other counties that may be even longer recently I had I had requested a hearing in Orange County and it took them two months just to give me a hearing date so you know there's that there is tough and then the price it's

10:15 It's going to range depending upon the circumstances but anywhere between four and six thousand dollars somewhere in that range just depends on the complication and exactly what documents are available or what kind of arguments we have to make so that's it of course there's filing fees the filing fees are not going down initial filing fee is just under 500 dollars so there's that but yeah that's about it one of the most common errors I see of estate planning attorneys services online services document signers and do estate plans is they prepare an estate plan but they and they tell the customer oh you need to deed the property into this state but that doesn't get done so you have a good plan and you might even have in their the right verbiage to do a headstead meeting you might have in their a poor of a will and the intention and all that but if you don't deed it doesn't really count right it doesn't really count and you still have to do the headstad so the thing is I don't believe in my clients having to deed their property because they won't get done I had someone walking the other day and they had a perfectly fine estate plan but the original deed was still in the in the folder now stop for a second because I think it's so important I want to repeat that because it we all think our customers are going to follow our instructions we all believe we give them the sheet we tell them what to do they're not as walk out the door but one more time you said you don't allow the customer to deed the property because they won't do it because they will not do it so ID I send the deed into the recorder's office and sometimes that's a hassle because you know as we all know that we probably should though the recorder's office is not the easiest thing to deal with most often times you can have the slightest little mistake or the slightest little thing and they will send it back and so we have our fair share of returns but I still take the responsibility of making sure that the property gets deeded I can't obviously fund their account with their retirement benefits I mean that retirement I'm sorry excuse me but there's investment benefits or investment accounts and bank accounts and things like that they have to do

12:17 That and that's fine but I can fund their trust with their real property and that's the most important thing most often that's one of the things that's struck me about you is to me and I don't mean to cast aspersions on other attorneys I've heard reasons why they don't want to do it but as a real estate practitioner who's seen this mess over and over and over again and been in Probate Court and seen it over and over it doesn't seem to me like if you don't record the deed you've really done your whole job that's just that's how I feel yeah that's how I feel definitely and so that's why I feel comfortable you know referring you to somebody because I think it's important that did y'all get done I'm not sending it to just saw a house I want the customer to get the experience be happy and feel like I made a great introduction and says well thank you so much she's really the bomb I'd hate to have him call say six years later hey that's that attorney you sent me to didn't eat the problem and the customer assumes they're gonna they're assuming you're the attorney is doing it I mean they assume if it's necessary why would you not do it right yeah well the thing is that you know we put I put a copy of the deed in the in the in their folder and they provide for them but the original deed comes directly back to them right so I want to make sure that gets back to them either way I also have a conformed copy in my file so I can make sure that I receive one that got recorded and so forth and if I don't have a conform copy in my file then generally something's wrong the and I would say to anybody referring somebody to State planning you want to offer to verify the recording as real cities as we all have access to public records there's no reason why you should put your to-do list three days later to go online to see if the D is recorded if it is send them a copy hey by the way I went online I saw you recorded it's a simple email everybody appreciates if it's not hey notice it's not recorded you sure you took it down and got it done and I think it that thing as a real estate agent or investor whatever kind of closes the loop and makes you valuable as well you meant you mentioned the customer with the folder right

14:21 So how many times does somebody brought a estate planning something else didn't they opened the folder they're so proud of all the documents and there's the original grant deed so many times yeah right here yeah it's a regular thing it's a regular thing I don't get it I don't know why between that and all the billing pages that are inside as well but you know normally the clients they get the folder and nine times out of ten they're going to take that folder and stick it on the shelf and that's it and so if the property hasn't been recorded or the deed hasn't been recorded as part of the trust it's not going to get recorded in all honesty and the person's going to die and it's not going to be in the trust and that's all there is to it I mean and that's it just happens I give a long explanation about what you need to do and how you need to do it and so forth and so on but I make sure that the deed is you know is put into the trust because they're not going to follow any of the rest of the instructions anyway let me do a little housekeeping here real quick this is Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday at 4 P.M Pacific Time 7 P.M Eastern we live stream it on YouTube and Facebook and Linkedin if you're watching on the live stream you see a bunch of people right now excuse me on the YouTube and Facebook feel free to put comments in I'm watching the comments here as well and along and we'll answer questions you have questions for Colette during the live stream we'll get them live if you have them on the recorded side either I'll be able to answer them I'll send them to her we'll get them answered afterwards so they'll have to participate and just kind of a quick you know where are we and how do we get here this is the Probate Weekly if you want to come into the zoom live we'd love to have you Probate Weekly.com you can sign up and join the zoom call live if you want to participate ask questions live otherwise you can watch on the restream on YouTube at episodes dot Probate Weekly.com we also have a Facebook group who can continue the conversation there we have questions content if you have probate related content love to have you post it there we have referral requests for attorneys for Realtors® around the country love to

16:25 Help have you participate we have about just under 3 000 members in the Facebook group if you want any information about me my link tree has all my links to different programs I work on it's Link tr.e Bill Gross and you can see the different programs that I'm working on as well after we're done taking kind of a special for those of you who are looking to build your marketing as a real estate agent or investor you may know that I have a pretty active YouTube channel and I've created some shorts YouTube content we've all my assistant has created some using AI some avatars that take the content we've done and will allow you to customize it either with a generic Avatar you could pick male female dark white blue green or whatever or you can even have your picture put on and we'll talk about that a little bit at the end after we're done with Cloud we don't abort her with the details I see Celeste MacGyver is watching from Phoenix Arizona shout out to you Celeste thanks for joining in on the YouTube live stream Okay so let's look let's talk about the process in a trust of selling real estate generally speaking it's a pretty straightforward process right the property is needed in a trust there's really no unless there's some sort of litigation threat or issues like that it's a fairly straightforward process yet there they do need to get the proper documents oftentimes we find that customers have can't find the trust yeah lots of trust have an unsigned undocumented you know ends executed copy of the trust so let's talk a little bit about that when customers or people come to you and say hey you know Mom and Dad did a trust but we can't find it and the property is deeded in the trust what are options at that point well it depends of course I'm a lawyer so I would be but you know so you're going to try to obviously find a trust or some semblance of the trust that you possibly can if you have a copy of it you might be able to argue even if it's not executed if the property is in the trust and they have similar dates for the same date you can

18:27 Pretty much argue that it is in fact a true and correct copy of the trust that the person has seen the trust they see an executed version they just simply lost it they don't know where it is that might be able to use it but utilize it that way sometimes believe it or not and this is really bizarre is that sometimes people record their trust I don't know why in the recorder's office but I have had several clients able to reach the trust or find the trust having been recorded the recorder's office I think often that's not something that has been drafted by an attorney that's generally drafted by someone with using like LegalZoom or something like that or doing it themselves but that does happen as well and then of course you can always see if you can find the attorney who drafts did all the attorneys would have a copy of it if you could find the attorney who drafted it and sometimes you can do that based upon the deed because we will put our indication on the deed so we the recording was requested by and I always put my name there so that's another way that you could possibly find a cut or find the person who drafted the Trust In order to obtain a copy now you do that I think again because you're kind of above that's why we're talking to but you know you know we do all the ones that don't and I find particularly kind of self-help Deeds there's a notary or the older attorneys who did it years ago you know perhaps it wouldn't be anonymous didn't keep a copy of the trust so if there's not one available at all but you know it's deed in the trust at that point what are your options there's not a lot to tell you the truth I mean you can go and argue you know you can argue almost anything in court right and if you get if you can make a good argument it might be able to make it sick but the bottom line is that if you cannot prove the trust you can't prove any terms of the trust or anything like that you may have to remove the property from the trust and something probate it that may that ultimately that may end up happening and is the default then to whoever had deeded into the trust meaning if you know Joe Smith deeded to the Joe Smith trust and there's no Joe Smith trust we assume it's Joe Smith we probate we start to probate there yes yeah it would be Joe Smith's probate yeah

20:34 Well you know it's an interesting case I mean you know yeah if you can avoid that you definitely want to do that and you want to avoid it's a shame when something like that happens but it does happen well because the person spent the time to do it I think that's you know I know we're going to talk about this a little bit but I know that so many customers won't even get started in the process here they did it and deeded the property right and then you can't find it I know it's unfortunate it is unfortunate I mean I've been able to actually I've actually once or twice I was actually able to find the attorney through the through the notary and so I was able to do that and you know and find and find who the attorney was because the notary either worked for that office or perhaps it was even the attorney who notarized it so it just depends very nice shout out Matt sings a new Realtor® watching from New Jersey shout out to New Jersey thanks for joining in Bryce first time viewer thank you from North Carolina excited to be here you had a question how often does a do you Colette run into clients needing a conservatorship bond a conservatorship bond if there's an estate they're going to need a conservatorship bond so if it's of the person only then they wouldn't need a bond but if it's of the estate they're going to be bonded for whatever's in the estate so anybody who's going to be the administrator of the conservative yeah a family of this state oh the state of the conservative that's correct so whether they be a family member or I guess even a professional fiduciary we'd have to have some sort of a bond of some time yes absolutely and then so what sometimes they necessary we answered every time how do you approach these situations so does the same bond company do these conservative bonds that does the probiot bonds I think that's just yes it's a fiduciary Bond yes and is your preferred vendor that you use as Bond Services I use Bond Services most often they seem like the most common company for that in here in LA area good okay good and for all those are called feel free to put your contact info in that we're welcome in network

22:36 Here we're all real estate agents or attorneys or whatever so love to have you participate shout out to Winston thanks for being on the call today let's see here if you want to mention the car I should not oh okay yeah thank you Jess so Jess is pointing out that we have a program for Realtors® I think I will I will shut that out at the end as well so we'll leave that for now Tesha says there should be a secured database for trust documents wouldn't that be nice if there was a date like a state of California depository trust document database yes yeah the notary the attorney yes check mark you record the Deeds yes wouldn't that be great yeah that would be wonderful yes the only problem with that is of course people would deposit it and then want to change their trust and not redeposit it there you go oh it's always something thank goodness that's the key okay so let's shift a little bit because I do know that a good party business is estate planning what I would term avoiding probate avoiding conservatorship litigation by putting it by planning ahead of time the closing the barn door before the cows get out so let's talk about estate planning just describe a little bit for your like what's your most common estate plan that you work with I'm sure there's a range but what's the fat Middle look like of the client clients that you work on a regular basis you mean as far as like assets well how are you yeah however you would described if it's by asset type or personality type I mean no yeah often it's just a you know regular you know kind of a mom and dad situation you know Mom and Pop situation and they may have their residents and another real piece of rental property or something to that effect sometimes maybe two and they want to leave it to their kids but I get a lot of single women particularly and you know they have either they have a child or they have a grandchild that they want to make sure to take care of most of the time it's they're older so they're more in they have grown children and they also want to make sure that they cover their grandchildren so

24:39 That's generally the case but yeah just a regular everyday person nothing outlandish truthfully shapes and sizes true or false anybody who has a house in California should probably have an estate plan yeah if your house is yeah yes I'm gonna say yes across the board if you have a house in California you should have an estate plan a lot of people come to me and say oh I only have this one little house but one little house in California is going to be a half a million dollars plus right pretty much anywhere so it's certainly well worth it I mean the thing is that if you don't do anything and you go through probate even a half a million dollar house is going to be some about 15 or 16 000 statutory fees all that so everything in it could easily be approaching twenty thousand dollars just on a half a million dollar house right and true or false anybody with children that they want to take care of when they're not able to should also have an estate plan I do believe so and particularly if they're minors most definitely yes because the thing is that if you leave your child an asset directly and your child is below the age of 18. That is going to create another Court incident so to speak so they're going to have to go to court and get a guardianship even if it's a surviving parent and that's what most parents don't understand even if it's a surviving parent and say for instance you know Dad dies at least half of the assets to Mom and half of the assets to Junior right in the in the form of a life insurance policy or whatever the case might be Junior's assets have to go through a Guardianship and Imam does not have an opportunity to utilize those assets at all for junior for the basics and chances are dad wanted you know to Simply supplement whatever was necessary for junior but Mom can't even use those assets which is something that parents

26:41 Don't understand and they'll have to be bonded they'll have to report on an annual and then biannual basis to the court until Junior gets to be 18 and then they get 100 of everything so it's just ugly if I have every probate court and see guardianships it's just ugly it's just ugly you want to avoid now that specific requirement to your speaking is really California is it similar or the same in North Carolina basically yes it's exactly the same it depends upon what the age of majority is of course in some states it's a little bit lower than 18 but whatever the age of majority is when they if they're under that age there's a guardianship is going to be required if they're oh and when they reach that age and over then they get a hundred percent because the court loses jurisdiction they're now considered to be an adult and so now Junior's going to get that hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy right so I hope it'd be good could be bad yeah but on drugs yeah who knows what yeah exactly maybe he's got a nefarious girlfriend or family member right I mean those things that happen that never know yeah you never know so that's why we do these things okay so that so let's go back to estate planning just I see shout out to Joyce hey Joyce dunno see so estate planning is one of those things that you don't need it until you need it's kind of like life insurance right I'm gonna live forever so I'll need it right the odds are I won't live forever I don't know it's this is a very good chance so and I know you're not selling people to get a stay planned but here's your chance I'm gonna put you in a soapbox right now and maybe you're not selling them this way to your business but in general the concept would you what would you like to say to people and I know you've met prospective clients who meet with you and they talk about an estate plan they go

28:43 Home you never hear from them again right that happens you know they never really take the steps or felt the questionnaire give the documents whatever to get it going but you know they should yes what would you like to say those people that we as real estate agents who deal with them daily or in our own social media our own conversations with our customers when they're buying a house and dating it not in a trust right good opportunity to talk about everybody on the call what would you like to say to those people to maybe get them to take a little more seriously well you know I think I always like to have an opportunity to explain why it's important right but you may have that opportunity they may not want to hear about it the one thing I mean I and I'm going to say this somewhat in Jess but I am very serious about it unless you know when you're going to die and you know that you're going to be competent up until that point there's no reason to not plan in all honesty because the reality is of course that we're all going to pass away at some point and we don't like to think about it I understand the one thing I find is that people have a comment oh I'm not ready for it yet oh it's not I'm not old enough yet well if I knew when I was going to die yeah sure I would buy life insurance the day before as well as do my estate planning but the fact of the matter is we don't know and so from that perspective I think that people really need to think about it because those hard tax and those Strokes they come with no warning right and when they come chances are that person is going to be out and not able to do in any kind of estate plan if they survive it in the first place or any or give any instructions to do an estate plan and that's the thing that's the most you know really most heart disheartening because you thought about it you thought it was you know too soon for you know whether it's you your grandmother your husband whomever you know has that incident whatever it is and now you're thrust into the court system with the conservatorship in order to be able to handle anyone's Affairs it just makes no sense you're gonna pay more in just filing fees alone than you would for a

30:47 Trust over the course of a conservatorship it makes no sense I like to pass a law that says if you own a house or you have kids and you don't have an estate plan you have to go to Probate Court one day and watch hearings because you just sat there for like half an hour you go whoa gave me those documents give me the heck out of here right it's sad it's just so sad it's so sad you know and I don't think we pay attention to understand the intersection of those issues I had a an aunt who was who was divorced and had a long time equivalent of a husband but it didn't marry him because her divorce settlement stopped giving her spouse support she remarried and is in her first husband was very wealthy so she lived with my uncle whatever for 30 40 years like he was a husband but she goes get sick goes to the hospital that my uncle her boyfriend or kind of like husband is talking to the doctor they won't they can't find record of insurance she has in her bank accounts but he is a bachelor Bank house because they're not married right and they didn't do any paperwork to cure that they do paperwork to carry it and he calls me to panic and like I do a podcast on this every week you know my family members have no excuse I've sent them all copies of this I wish I'd watch my video I wish they'd like it and subscribe too yeah you have no excuse if you're my family member not to have this day planned in my book and I also was a court once when a parent who had retired out of the country their son was in I'm a bill accident like 22. It was like life-threatening you know comatose in the hospital and they can't get power to do whatever they wanted to do because he whatever reasons didn't have the name change or was it steps whatever the story was yeah heartbreaking like that's terrible it is it's really terrible and I get those kinds of stories daily I mean in all honesty it's daily and there's one that fuels me to do this for everybody listing on the call please

32:49 Whenever and there's real estate agents this is an obvious easy ask you're selling it to somebody house you write the offer you say great what's your name Joan Colette Davis great I'm curious why do you guys have not have a trust to buy the title and the trust yeah oh you'll need it later great you don't have one do you know why it's important to have one before we close escrow because it'll be deeded in and insured in the trust that's beautiful right so all those on the call I don't know how else I can make it more obvious to you and I'm sure it's to another States also definitely look at getting the state plan done before they buy the house if they're selling to buy another one great time you pull up the public record you know if they have a deta to write or not ask the question then it is being a little pushy but you're also creating value for your customer and I think that's what we want to do and I think they would really value that information because quite often they don't want to come to an attorney because they think we're too expensive and so that would give them a really good value if you just explain to them why it's so important in them to see an attorney but often they just people are very apprehensive of course about coming to an attorney because they think we're going to charge for everything which we don't but we you know our expense we are expensive so well also as a real estate agent I can help minimize your time by getting the deed or getting the story together and saying to you at a time you can look at it and understand what's going on and make an assessment sometimes without a longer phone call and I think that helps the customer bridge that cap so everybody on the call this is one of my passions in life is anybody who owns a house in California anybody who has kids yeah even you're married just get it done it's way less expensive before you need it then afterwards and yeah and you're probably going to need it yeah no that's definitely okay questions comments again I've done a lot of talking and I could talk I have talked to quite a bit on the phone so glad to do it but this is meant to be participative and I think for those of you who are real estate agents who are looking to work with Realtors® again this isn't about putting a bullseye and Colette and going for a business is

34:51 Learning how to converse how to add value to your customers and using this opportunity to learn so feel free to raise your hand or ask questions in the chat box love to have it be as participate as possible and then just while just a little housekeeping while we hear Colette if you do want to if you have a estate planning client like to recommend or a trust Administration case conservatives or guardianships her website is gosh I can't see anymore Davis cdavislaw.com and there she has all the details about her company there's her picture there's her phone number feel free to reach out to her and if that's appropriate or email her I'd like to email the question before the call so they have a chance to look at it and then a reminder for me is private Wiki is this program you can register come on live on the zoom if you want to participate probateweekly.com and we continue the conversation on the Facebook group at Probate Weekly with about 2 900 members across the country feel free to put requests for referrals for introductions to attorneys or Realtors® there feel free to post your probate and estate planning related content there love to help you guys build your business and then I'm Bill Gross my link tree which has all my links in it Link tr.e Bill Gross if you want to find out more about the different programs and things and meetings and stuff that I offer or family and social media and then also just want to add your real quick new program we're launching our real estate email marketing master class so I end up coaching my team of Ages across the country on email all the time I wanted to record it I want to participate so we have a new program which is the email marketing Master classroom you're offering it on October 11th the recorded version is 97 which I think you'll get the hour content you get the recorded version if you want to buy that for an upgrade but we will do four Mastermind calls half hour each weekly to implement that an idea is that you should get 16 times more contacts with the people you do business with using

36:54 Email properly I'm going to walk through how I do that and how I built my business that way as well okay so let's go back to the chat real quick and so Winston who's from Orange County from the OC ask a good question I know you also do some work in Orange County what differences do you see besides just generally nicer words okay being from Orange County I can say that being homegrown for L.A what difference did you see in the way the business is done legally probate court in LA versus Orange County there's not that much difference I mean from our perspective there Orange County requires us to file more documents up front so whereas La does not so for instance like things like your orders and things like that sometimes they have to get be filed up front before the hearing and whereas we don't do that in LA but that's not something that anyone besides a lawyer would be concerned about one thing I did find though is that Orange County Court particularly for probate they just split it off and put it and put things in Costa I mean in Santa Ana or Costa Mesa I forget in Santa Ana yeah and like I mentioned earlier in the in the podcast that we filed a document and this is no joke this was a and you guys would all be interested in this because it was a petition to confirm a sale and you know it was hard enough you know we finally got the deal done the buyers were all on board finally everything and you know they wanted to clear all the contingencies and so forth blah great but we have limited Authority limited Authority we have to confirm it in court I filed the petition to confirm in court June 12. We did not get a hearing date sent back from the court until August 8th that was insane to me to have to wait basically two months just to get a hearing aid not to have the hearing but just to get a hearing date so that was really problematic in La we get them back inside the week so most of the time it's within a few couple few days three four days tops the date now they might be out two months but we'll get it might be out two

38:56 Months but yeah but we still no actually for sales that didn't know me about six weeks something like that but at the same time and we can always if necessary if there's some urgency involved we can always file to you know make it a little bit shorter but having to wait two months just to get a date and of course we still have to send out notice and things like that so it couldn't be within three weeks of that date and it wasn't it was about a month later so it just creates a bit of a problem sometimes when the courts are somewhat slow and right now all the courts are slow because people are still working from home and they're bringing everything online now right so electronic filing uploading documents things like that and the clerks there have to pull them from the upload as opposed to when we walk them in or send them you know mail them in they would deal with them you know as they came in so it's a little different now and I think that ever all the courthouses need more staff but particularly Orange County interesting we would say that because I find the few times I've been there's like plenty of people it just seems a little more personal I always imagined I like because we're so big it's like Anonymous like you only talk to the clerk at the filing it used to be you bring the docs in the file and most people say oh go talk to the clerk they're very friendly well not in La they're behind bulletproof glass you're never going to talk to them right and they're efficient but they're not friendly that's right yes now in the courtroom I do find that at the appropriate time the staff are really from the bailiffs are really nice oh yeah polite and respectful now if you're not they're gonna drag you out of there because they don't mess around with but yeah that's interesting and I also find that let me ask you this one I find that in La there's certain things I've seen judges have certain discretion on allowing it or not you know I think I'd say particularly stopping foreclosure cells as an example where almost any judge in La will approve requests to stop a foreclosure and I've seen judges in Orange County just say hey there's the law you had your notice period you know I'm not going to help you and it seems like they've and in San Diego as well they

40:59 More follow the law rather than using their discretion is that a fair way to put that yeah no I would agree with that definitely I think part of it is like you know there's so many people in Los Angeles County and that's a huge court system you know they get about a thousand cases new cases filed a month on top of the ones that are already pre-existing so they have a incredible caseload and they have we have some nine courtrooms now I believe it's nine I lose track but I think it's around nine or maybe it's ten now I'm not sure but any event whereas most of the other counties only have one maybe two right so there's a huge difference in the way they just process things and stuff like that and I think because the sheer volume that the court receives as far as cases are concerned they use their Equitable you know judgment and it was in addition to the legal judgment and I think that they do kind of exercise some of the fairness aspects of things sometimes yeah interesting you put them I never thought about that way but it makes sense I mean it's a mill I mean La they move through fast and I have to say I remember when covert had not knowing who the presiding judge was for L.A County he was like The Wizard of Oz that's true and I saw him like he gave like a talk online to the attorneys about what the changes they made that's a big operation who is that guy how did he get that job why isn't he running the US government like I know that would be great wouldn't it like that zoom's going up and yeah it was it was pretty incredible I mean we of course as practitioners we had no idea what was really going on for a while because they just shut us all down and so for three months we just simply all of our cases were just continued and we just thought it was going to be a nightmare after it opened back up and to some extent it was but it's remarkable how they were able to get this system up and going and we've been online ever since I just changed the system again starting the beginning of this month as far as how we as practitioners actually how everyone logs into the court for probate and probate's always the guinea pig so it goes online

43:02 It went online first we're changing to this new system first but it's pretty good I think it's going to be great because you know often practitioners you may have hearings in multiple courtrooms at the same time in L.A we may have two or three hearings the same time and before we have to you know since this system we'd have to call get ourselves through a second call you know and dial in called you know you know kind of toggle back and forth between the courthouses and now they've created this new platform to where we it's all on one platform so we can see the other hearings and we can like move in and out of courtrooms off from our computer platform so it's pretty cool the old days used to see the more active attorneys that run in first call here they run out the door yeah you know or last call here they run through our first call they're coming back and forth yeah they're all skinny because it run up and down the phone the hallway they're right up down the stair all the all the privilege was skinny run up and down the stairs all the time nowadays it's they're all sitting around their desk watching on the zoom on the La core connect a little different situation yeah okay I think we're up to date on the questions you know Colette I really appreciate you know having met you and working with you and the way you handle your business you're based in is it Culver City or in West LA Corporate City or Culver City yeah you're in Culver City in Probate Administration trust Administration estate planning you also have in that domain conservatives guardianships I literally had an agent from this call I referred to you I wish they call you already feel comfortable referring you really enjoy the you know the chat with you and I feel like we all learned quite a bit oh here's the last question okay last question of the day from Winston West Colette's best advice for knowledgeable private attorneys okay so here's one again just to go back the beginning Realtors® all assume you guys all have like these magical cards of real estate listings you hand out like candy Halloween it's not that way right and I think again that most attorneys get business from Realtors® as well as refer out so his question is what's the best way to develop business relationship with probate attorneys

45:05 Ooh if you're advising let's say a daughter or a friend who wanted to build a real estate practice on probate let's say in another County what would you recommend them to do in order to build relationships with attorneys like you in their local area yeah it's you know I haven't thought about that question in a while before it used to be you know showing up at Court truthfully because we were always there you know now it's you know no probate I mean try to try to learn a little bit about probate itself because I like I use a handful of Realtors® I mean I don't use all the same Realtors® all the time but I do like the fact that they understand like what limited Authority is in full Authority they understand you know the time frame or that the fact that like you know you understand it's gonna it might be six weeks or two months before we get a hearing so that way you can really manage your clients expectations as well and that's beneficial for us and so just reaching out to some attorneys and saying listen you know letting them know you've done your homework you understand what this stuff is all about you know you may or may not have had much experience in the area but just you know just prove to them you have the chops truthfully and that's I don't know how else to do that at this point because we're not in person anymore so that would be challenging and the other thing too is you know there's still in person like continuing education classes and workshops and things like that perhaps you want to participate in some of those the more people get to know your name obviously the more familiar are they the familiar they are with you and even if you've never worked with them your name comes up to like oh yeah I remember that person right you know I know that name they were around this particular you know CLE or whatever the case might be and I think that's one good way to just get to know more probate attorneys there's tons of them out there we do have our favorite people to go to perhaps but I always have someone you know it's kind of a one-off I had it's a house up in Palmdale and I didn't have a real estate agent in Palmdale to you know to provide

47:08 For that so I had to call someone who gave me a referral and so forth so there's always an opportunity to refer I do want to say I think that probate by its nature is more geographically spread out because absolutely you can have customers who live near your office but the real estate they're going to hold could be all over the city county state or country oh yeah that's why I've created this platform this for referrals around the country and around California so for those who are on the call love to have you participate make sure we connect and know who you are to help in those areas that's very beneficial I've had in Ventura I've had to refer stuff up in San Francisco I've had to refer things so you know right I don't also the people on the call if you're not in LA county there are counties that they're completely back to in person only that sounds weird for us in LA but there are smaller Counties have smaller numbers of cases and they want people to come in the courtroom and so particularly I would say in those smaller counties more you know less Urban more suburban and semi-rural counties you should go to court at least find out see who is there and who's not there and you'll find the front below lonely I've had people on this call who tell me they met you know had judges call out hey what are you doing here that sounds great and walk them over and buy them a cup of coffee now in L.A the judge is not gonna buy a cup of coffee they're great no I'm not knocking the judge don't get me wrong but they're busy yeah no they are busy no that's true I mean particularly up in some of the like you said The more rural areas it definitely smaller areas most definitely at covert I would have said almost any attorney would be willing to meet you and go out for lunch or coffee like you and I went for coffee is that still true or is Cobin still kind of hung over with that or is that yeah all kind of gotten weird or how's that work you know it's kind of hard truthfully I think I actually would welcome it personally we're all super busy I don't know why we've been so incredibly busy after covet it's just crazy it's just non-stop work but we don't get a chance to see

49:11 Our colleagues we really don't see any other Professionals in all honesty unless we make an effort ourselves and so going out to talk about something other than what we do every day it would be great truthfully I think that would be great it's funny you say this because my coach forced me to host a networking event for Realtors® I do it the first Wednesday that last night first Wednesday of the month at a beer place just to meet other people and people say why you do this I don't know just to meet human beings just to talk to someone in person yeah other than my wife and my daughter and my grandkids other than that I don't really talk to anybody anymore yeah okay last question William I oh your hand was up I said I took it down I don't know if William Holmes you're still there last call on that one I went I'm sorry we went a little bit long on that okay I think I think that's it client thank you so much for your time today I feel like I learned a lot thanks for your friendship and everything we learned today yeah thank you for having me I really appreciate it thanks and then for those who are interested I just wanted to just take a minute here can I show you something I'm playing with I think it's important as real estate agents or any business person to create content that's a value to your customers so if you follow me on my YouTube channel which is at Bill Gross probate on YouTube Slash applegross probate I've created content you know I do this podcast I do some topical recordings we do and then I did some shorts some vocabulary shorts and other content shorts one thing my virtual assistant did was I'm going to show you and I'm just curious to see if anybody's interested I've encouraged her to be more entrepreneurial I think this would be a value to some of you if you're not going to record the content yourself why not buy content you like from somebody else I posted on your YouTube channel or posted on your Instagram reels whatever so we created this Avatar of the content I did now you can pick male female different types different pictures you even could put your own picture on and with AI they'll create your picture and this is what the content looks like power of attorney is a legal document that grants authority to a person the agent to act on behalf of another person the principal in legal Financial or other matters which may be

51:16 Used in probate real estate matters to manage or sell real estate on behalf of the estate or a beneficiary and so we created a series of these I think 10 of them are about 100 if you're interested I am encouraging because number one I want my team members to have something like this and two I think it's something that some of you would appreciate and would benefit from so if you're interested I'm not you know it's not obviously a big business for me but something we're playing with and love to kind of work on together if you're interested reach out to me send me an email I'm more glad to share with you and if something interested in let you follow up on okay that's all I have for today nothing other questions thank you all for being on the call today Winston thanks for some good questions Joyce always nice to see you and your newsletter and for the rest you participate thanks for the questions the comments the shout out from Arizona in New Jersey always fun to talk to the eyes across country and don't forget you heard what you said about referring out to other areas that's why I do this networking now I've not done the job with her I've had her call me for those referrals because I should be able to put her together with some of you in San Francisco and Ventura and I would probably do Palmdale through my team so just keep in mind that's the purpose of this let's connect feel free to put your contact info here if you get emails from me we're going to be creating a directory by county for those who participate love to have you participate that way if I can help anyway please reach out at Bill Gross probate on social media thank you everybody have a fantastic week thank you