Why Your Health Plan's Advance Directive Isn't Enough, with Jennifer Sawday

0:00 And go from there. You know, some attorneys on this podcast I feel like I have to drag stuff out of. Some of them are like walking billboards for the importance of great legal services and advice. Jen Sawday, I met her actually on I think it was a LinkedIn post or LinkedIn group really lamenting on how bad how professional many real estate agents were. And it kind of got my attention. You're right. Let's raise the standards. What do we need to talk about? And really one of the things I like about her is she's so clear on the mistakes that are made and gives us some practical advice on how we can move forward. So Jen Sunny, partner TD Law in lobby, thank you for joining us again on the podcast. So let's go to the very beginning of the topic. I asked you I asked you a question. I got some great material. It's too bad we record the pre-record. But funding the trust, you know, so many people make a stay plan of some sorts, including a trust. It's kind of like buying a safe deposit box and they bring the safe deposit box home and they wheel it and put in a safe closet, but they forget to put the stuff in the safe deposit box. That's pretty much what an estate plan without funding the estate plan looks like, isn't it?

1:10 Yeah. So, when you open up the trust book, just because we risk bank accounts and property, it doesn't mean that it's in the book. We have to look at the bank statements. And so, I had a client just now, what do you mean? Well, if you bank at Bank of America, bring me the statement. Let's look on the top. Look at the vesting of the bank account. Does it say that it's in the trust on top? And if it doesn't, you have to call the bank or go in. Same thing with credit union, Vanguard, wherever you have money. Just because you put in your book on a schedule, oh, this is in my trust or you make a note, it's not. You have to confirm it. I spend so much time arguing with clients. You've given me no proof. Have you gone to the bank? Does the bank have they ever seen this book? No. Do you ever put it in the car and take it to the bank? No. Well, then the account's not in the trust

1:59 And all you're doing is creating nightmares for your loved ones later. Bank accounts are easily fixed. So, you can go online and call and go in. But property is another one that we need to talk about.

2:10 Well, before banks, it's easy to fix ahead of time, but afterwards, it's a nightmare to get them. At least in my experience, I have customers who have Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and you know, they want the actual letters. They want an actual wet signature stamped approval. If it's a probate case, for example, if it's in a trust, that's a whole another trying to convince them to do the job is difficult. And so, I think that people may underestimate how difficult is when you need the money is when it's important, right? It's not about upfront. Let's talk about though in addition to funding the trust with bank accounts real estate because as a Realtor® the classic is I pull the prelim I meet the customer I say hey by the way Jen I noticed you hold the property as Bob and Jen Smith have you guys considered an estate plan oh we have one and they run back and they get this beautiful notebook it's about that thick I get on the camera about that thick and you open up the nice nogahide or leather notebook there's tabs and pages oh here's the paper the attorney told me to get done which is what dees the property and the trust is not filled out, it's not signed, it hasn't gone together. Classic case of not finding the trust. Talk about the problems that creates for people who maybe have a trust but haven't put the property in the trust.

3:24 Yeah. And real estate even more so when you look at the deed for the real estate, it has to mention the exact name of the trust. So my husband and I have a trust called Donald and Jennifer Sawday as trustees of the Sawday family trust. So if you pull title to my home and it says it's owned by Jennifer and Donald Sawday as trustees of the trust that's incomplete. You have to put the name of my trust. Well, first you have to name the trustee, but the actual name of the trust, you can't truncate it. You can't use initials. You can't shorten it. And you have to put the date. And if it's missing any one of those, the title company, the county recorder, or the assessor is going to put their hands up and say, "This property is not in the trust. So now I've got to go to court to solve it. But when you're arrive, we can fix it."

4:14 Right? Today alone, my 9:00 and my 10:00 appointment both came to me with properties that they thought were in the trust, but the trust name was incomplete. Two in a row. Blew me away. Toe this morning. So now the clients have to hire me to fix the deeds because they're still alive. So they're taking it from their name into the fake trust name into the proper name. So when they do pass away, we can show intent to put it in the right trust name.

4:45 Oh, I realize if they deed it into the wrong trust name, then the wrong trust name has to deed it to the right trust name. And that can be challenging with title insurance. Meaning even though you can deed it and record it, when it comes time to ensure the transaction, the towel companies still might say

5:01 Title, this is the same trust. It's like this morning it was the Roger and Maryanne trust and they put it in the R&M trust. There is not a single person in this world in terms of title, real estate, and the assessor and the recorder that's going to say Roger Marian is the same as R&M. You have to match the trust name. So, however you've named your baby, you're stuck with it.

5:27 And I find particularly in California where I operate that there are two types of estate plan attorneys or services. One where they do it for you, right? And not to say that attorneys don't make mistakes or that parallegals don't make mistakes, but by and large they get done, the deeds done, and some even record it, which I think is really important, and then it's all done. And there are other ones who say, "Well, you're going to save a lot of money, but you have to do the deeds on your own, or you'll save the money, and here's the deed. Go ahead and get it notorized and recorded." And, you know, good luck getting that done. And I find so many of those people are ones that come back to me as a real estate agent and say, "Oh, well, it didn't get deed. It's no big deal. We can just get a, you know, they'll learn the term heep petition. We can just do a petition to put it in the trust." Well, it's not like, you know, going online and ordering from Amazon to get a trust. It's a whole So, talk about imagine a trust was done improperly. What does the aftereffect process look like to move it from outside the trust to inside the trust, commonly California exit petition,

6:35 We're having a hard time convincing the court in LA County that is the same trust. The court may just say, "I disagree with you, Ms. Sawday." Let's talk about an interesting fact. So, the Dodgers won the royal series, right? Yes.

6:47 Guess what's not open today? Oh, the court closed. A lot of courts. All the hearings that I had set today in Stanley Mosk downtown.

6:58 Me too. Well, I'm going to get minute orders tomorrow or later this week. So, all the probates that I had going on today, boom, gone. Going to court is not an absolute. When you go to court for a Heggstad petition, my hearing days in Orange County are about 12 months away. It's not an emergency. Say it again. County is about 6 months away.

7:17 So say it again. Now that's a critical piece because people say, "Oh, it's no big deal. You can just get a Heggstad petition." Yeah, you can get it if you get the hearing and get it approved. And how long in LA and Orange County? 6 and 12 months.

7:30 Depends on where the property is, but the different courts have different deadlines and time periods. They don't consider a dead body owning property any emergency. There's no rush. Not at all. So, this goes back to the point of if you have a trust, check title or ask your agent to pull title. Pull the deed, make sure everything matches. And if the deed is not in the trust, then go back to your attorney and get it updated.

7:55 Yeah. And this is also a case for the real estate agent to, you know, as soon as you list a property, right away, pull the prelim title report. It's usually free if you're working with a good title rep. I've interviewed some on my channel, and it's just no excuse not to get that ball rolling. You're going to need it. And it has information on it and if it's if it's wrong and needs to be corrected the earlier you start the better off you are because again you can't just get a head petition it's not like ordering a box of Cheerios in Amazon you got to get it ahead of time and get it done in a Tommy matter

8:24 I mean you know when you talk about wrong today I had a career a probate note in a trust matter where we spell the name an wrong so instead of being a n we spelled it a n and our hearing been continued. So everything is so important. But the whole point is that if you're alive and well, double check and let's do the clean up now. The mistakes that I'm fixing aren't mine. They're from someone else. Everyone has good intentions. We just got to keep on it. The chain of title needs to be smooth. No blips.

8:59 I had a real estate listing in probate, a big commercial property where the father and son had the same name. One used the mill initial. Often one didn't. One used junior sometimes and not all the time. And so you deed from father to son and that was the contest and the difference between a deed versus a probate. And if it was a probate it went to other relatives and if it was the deed then the son got everything. So you're talking about millions of dollars over an initial and junior not junior and it wasn't consistent throughout and obviously could have been resolved and money spent on attorneys fees. Not that we don't like paying attorneys, but you rather pay them for planning than for correcting deeds after the fact, right?

9:40 Yeah. I mean, people actually don't mind paying my fees because they understand that the problem they can't handle the weight,

9:49 Right? And you can't speed it up. You can't You can, but you really can't. I mean, there little things you can go to court early on, but in general, the probate process is going to take the time it's going to take. It's just And nobody's happy with it. Like no customers ever said to me, "Wow, that was great. That year and a half I spent probate was like the best year of my life. I learned so much. I enjoyed it. I've never had that experience." Okay. One of the things I want to get to before we go kind of kind of go back to the beginning with you, Jen, is you have, you know, I feel like you're really one of the thought leaders that I look to. I read your posts on LinkedIn. I read your blog posts and I always learn something. I think that, you know, for somebody who's in this business and wants to be an expert, you must be constantly educating yourself and learning. And I don't know the law. I learn it from people who study it like you. Recently, you had a great blog post and this really hit home to me personally and it was it's on your website titled why your health insurance is advanced healthcare directive is enough. And what is saying is that let's say you're a member of Kaiser. In my case, my wife is a patient at Cedar Sinai. So, we have our own estate plan with health directives that we worked on intimately. And then I was in the hospital with her and I discovered, oh, she without me knowing signed some health directive that Cedar provided.

11:07 Now, good for Cedars that they make people have one. That's a good thing. I guess good that she signed one. I guess that's a good thing. But now all the work we put into ours doesn't really apply in your blog post. Point you make you the point you make one is that if you're let's say you're in the health the Kaiser system and you do one and then for some reason you need medical care at some other facility they may not recognize the Kaiser health directive so in essence you don't have one at all so talk a little bit about the importance and what people should do in their planning process

11:39 Yeah when I meet with clients they want to save money right so they want to knock off my drafting list my drafting list is wrong they want to knock it off and I think if they cross off something they're going to save a hundred bucks or 500 bucks. And so one of the things they always want to cross off is I don't need a healthcare director. It's because I have one.

11:56 I said great. Where is it? Open the book, show it to me. Oh, it's lodged in the portal at Kaiser or Cedar Sinai. Girl, you don't have a copy. It's not out.

12:06 Right. The health care directive isn't just for your doctor at that medical facility. It's for any doctor anywhere where you may get sick or injured. You may not get injured at home. You might be in Vegas. You might be in Hawaii. You might be on vacation. Or you may need to get airlifted and go somewhere else. But also the health care directive is not just for that doctor. It's for any doctor that might be treating you, an orthopedic surgeon, whatever, right? But it's also used to give to crematoriums and funeral homes to make funeral arrangements. They need to see it too. So if you pass away and your healthcare directives in someone's portal, no one can go back and print it out and say, "I'm the agent."

12:43 Right? So we want to do one. Now, with medical decision-making documents, you can have multiple documents. They can work together. They don't have to cancel each other out. So, you can have one inside your portal, but you still need a standalone where I can take it out, whip it out, and use it. You just don't know.

13:02 Well, I also have the opportunity to download mine from that we did with our estate plan and send that to Cedars in my wife's case and they have it and then they'll use that one. That would be ideal. And the other thing is that you know the health directive is one in particular I'm aware of but all these legal documents there are often important legal changes that come up and just because you went to Kaiser 10 years ago and did a health directive may not cover important medical changes of the last five or 10 years or legal decisions last 5 10 years. So I guess the question is obviously when you get married, divorce, somebody dies, new children, you have to redo your estate plan from a financial point of view, but isn't there also kind of like a legal process where maybe every three or five years enough laws probably change that you should redo it anyhow? Is there is there some of that as well? I never hear trans talk about that.

13:54 Yeah, there's well there was an overhaul for durable powers of attorney for healthcare in 2006. The California changed to the advanced healthcare directive model. So if you have what's called a durable power of attorney for healthcare, in theory, it's not valid anymore, although your hospital may still take it. So if it's older, you need to have a new one. Yes, you need to keep track of your changes over time. Usually we want your healthcare directive now to be a permission for you. Otherwise if you have strong feelings about things then we can put in there how you feel about nutrition hydration and the device but in the beginning if you're alive and well we just want permission the right people to make decisions for you in the right order it's easy to update we see the thing that I'm seeing right now people this lady she came today she was cute I go where's your stuff she pulled out the smallest purse I've ever seen and she whipped out a folder here and then she whipped out another folder I go how much do you have in this purse and her husband just burst out rapping was like a crown car and she kept pulling out documents and documents and documents and she had a big stack in this tiny little purse. I said, "Lady, you need to staple everything, punch hole and organize it." She had old documents from the early 2000s. She had late documents from last year. She had documents that were duplicate. You got to organize, put it together,

15:21 Throw away because you don't want the kids to pick up the wrong set of documents. You make it easy, right? And I'm finding people just don't organize their own documents themselves. They're afraid to punch holes. Punch holes. Now everything that we do with the course, we scan it in. We're no longer blue backing, no longer sending in the original. So just whole punch, put in a binder. Four tabs. Trust, will power of attorney, healthcare director, and then you can have another tab where you have all your schedule of what you own in terms of assets, what you own in terms of insurance, maybe passwords, crypto, whatever. All the useful information putting in your book.

15:59 So, and how much of this now is being moved to online? I mean I the rest of my life everything I have is online. The only documents I have though I have them scanned and saved and a direction given to a key person are my estate plan and I have a friend who I'm his successor trustee and I'm thinking there's got to be some way out of this. Do you still require customers to have a hard set and that's the primary set or has it moved to online or do you see it moving to online at some point?

16:32 Yeah, you want a hard set because if something happens, the first responder is going to come into your home, right? You're going to call 911, you're not feeling well, that paramedic is going to come in, you know, looking for that book. They know what it looks like, right?

16:46 It should be on the bookshelf on the day. They want to open it, open it up, call your wife, call your son. All that stuff's in there. They know what they're looking for. If it's online, the first responders can't find it. You have to print out this document. You can do both. You've got it.

17:01 I also imagine being in a hospital. God forbid. I'm having some sort of major medical problem. What's your Google password, Bill? It's I mean, really, how would you possibly I don't know about you, but I have so I have a master password. So h how drugged up would I be? And then I can't come up with a master password and then everything's locked up. So all the online stuff

17:23 Is you got to look at how we work as a society, you know, some something happens, you call someone comes running in, it's a stranger, they want to be able to figure it out. So my dad died in 2001 and he had a heart attack. He had called 911 the minute he had the heart attack. So the ambulance broke into the home. They broke into the bedroom window because he had a list of emergency contacts. My mom had already passed. Here's my daughter's number. I got phone call right away.

17:51 Wow. Wow. Your dad's on the ground. We're going right to emergency. I was able to get fly out of bed and go. I mean, he died, but they knew.

17:59 Wow. And I had gotten married. I wasn't home anymore. I saw him maybe once a week. So, it wasn't a case of a missing person. You have to make it easy. And online is only easy for you. It's not easy for anybody else.

18:11 Right. Right. You have to have some paper. That's a good point. I've seen people really push having everything online and I feel like it sounds good but I just know at the wrong time it would be impossible to get access to. I mean even for me especially because at the same time all this important information I'm trying to keep it secure. So on one hand all my bank account numbers and passwords and all that I keep secure on the other side I want I want the right person to access it. I guess it really has to be in paper. There's no other way to

18:38 You don't have to put your bank account numbers in there but you can name your bank. You could put the last four digits or the last two digits. You can put in that document where the account numbers are there. There are things you can do,

18:50 Right? You don't want to hide it because when you hide it, I can't find it later because I tell the clients, "Somebody passed away. Bring me a list of what they have. These bank statements don't come in the mail every month anymore."

19:02 Right? They really don't. Most people don't get them anymore. I can tell you as a real estate agent, I ask you all the time for a statement of the mortgage. They don't get them in the mail anymore because all these companies want to be all electronic and

19:12 It creates some security issues. Being able to access it, third party being able to access it. It's not the same. So I know I know I asked you this on the last time around but and I you just mentioned it passing but it's not coincidence that you specialize in probate and estate planning. This is something you got into you mentioned your time of your father passing. This something you got into around that time as far as specializing. I mean, your attorney, you have right, you have a license to do all kinds of legal work. You're really hyperfocused in the trust and probate space. Was that what triggered it? Was your father's passing? And talk a little bit about that experience.

19:46 Yeah. My mom died when I was 21. It was in 1993. And then I was 28 when I lost my dad. They were both young, 46 and 52.

19:56 Wow. And when my dad died, I didn't know enough because I was still in law school to say, "Dad, you need to set up a trust." I just didn't know. So we w up going through and so back in 2001 before 911 we really didn't have email. We were using AOL instant messenger. So I would visit the attorney every month and sit and fill out papers and I saw the process. And so what was really interesting is the attorney that I hired back then he was in Wilmington and he had a lovely paralegal and her name was Norma. And over the years I had always remembered how kind they were to me. And last year, Norma came and hired me to handle some of her estate planning.

20:38 Wow. And once I saw who she used to work for, she just broke out in tears. She goes, "Jennifer, I remember you. I helped you with your dad's probate." And now I'm helping her with her trust. What a what a what a what a world. So it's a blessing being able to do what I do.

20:54 Having gone through probate, I can help you go through it mechanically. That's what you want. You want me to be organized, efficient, and go? But pro exploded. Our firm had one paralegal before COVID that helped me with the cases. They helped all the partners. Now we have six girls that are helping. People are not getting their plans together.

21:17 Yeah, they're not. Well, I think there's two things. One is they're people are not obviously more people are older, more people are dying, elder age. Also, I feel like the system has gotten more particular. Like some things used to slide through like on this HEG edition some of these deed things the county just recorded them the title companies just recorded them insured them and nowadays with all this technology everything's gotten a little more particular I think even this even I've only been in this field for six years I can see the county attorneys are much more particular when they look at filings and procedures than they were even four or five years ago and so that's also part of it is doing on your own like you can do it on your own. You just can't do it on your own is kind how I look at it, right?

22:01 Yeah. How many times do you get people come to you try to do on their own and they're just like stuck in the mud? Yeah. And you know, you know the legal zoom trust that I see, they send them to you in a really nice binder

22:12 And it has the zipper. They're black and they put your name on it and it says S family trust. So they bring them to me and every time we crack it and we open it hasn't been signed. It hasn't been notorized.

22:26 Correct. These people they get these zippered binder they never bother to open it when they're done. I think 80 I heard a statistic 80% of online trusts are never executed let alone funded not even executed which means somebody paid they saved a lot of they saved a lot of money because they only paid $1,000 instead of 5,000 but they what they end up with is a collection of paper which really isn't worth anything if the seed passed away already right

22:56 Yeah and you know I get so mad when I talk to my clients about funding because when I see them I can tell they don't understand it. Sometimes I get so mad I leave the room and I grab one of my pair of eagles and I say, "Get in here and tell me your word, how to fend it."

23:13 So now they're listening to my paralegal and Britney, who's the one I use the most. She says, "You don't understand. Jennifer's trying to teach you something. This is how it works." And she says it differently. And between my conversation and Britney's, they go, "Oh my god, I got it." They take the book and they go to the bank. I spend so much time in these meetings educating and until I see that light bulb, we're gonna hammer it home until you understand.

23:39 Right. Right. It's crazy. It is hard to understand and people just don't get it. You know, I have a client who passed he had a $40 million estate. He had gone to estate planning attorney several times. He wrote some very big checks, but he never finalized the trust and never funded the trust. And so now I don't know the amount of legal bills. I imagine it's a million dollars, half million dollars somewhere in there between various attorneys, all types of attorneys to move the asset, sell the assets. There's contests in the assets. And so again, the book is really pretty and nice, but you're not paying for the book. You're really playing, I think, for the relationship and a clear plan. And then you need to kind of look at the attorney as the coach on how to execute the plan for your estate plan.

24:27 So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. The funding can't be done by me unless it's the business, real estate, or a promise. You know, I can do assignments and deed work, but bank accounts, you have to go to the bank. If you have your money managed by a financial planner, he or she can contact me and we can work together. Yes.

24:45 But your accounts at Wells Fargo, Chase, the big banks, and the credit unions, you have to go in. You have to take the book. You have to go.

24:53 Right. And it's hard. But once we kind of get through all that, they finally get it. I tell them try bank number one. Get a sense of the process. Everything else will fall through.

25:04 Do you prepare the deeds for the real estate to fund the trust? Meaning when they own property personally and you create an estate plan, do you create the deed from Bob and Mary into the Bob and Mary trust? Do you get it recorded?

25:16 Yeah, I do it for California real estate. If it's out of state, then we need to talk about it. If it's time shared, we need to talk about it. Do you get it recorded as well?

25:26 I do record it. We since July of 2020, we do online recording in front of the attorneys that we could just set it up, get it back in an hour and it's in the trust.

25:36 It's beautiful. It's a beautiful process. Something wrong with the legal description of the APN, they'll tell me right away and I can fix it. You know, I've done I don't know how many interviews about trusts and estates, and I've had trains explain to me why they don't want to do it. And I have to respectful and you know, people run their own business, so they're entitled to make those decisions. But for me, I would never refer a customer to an attorney that doesn't prepare the deed and then record the deed and then like you mentioned, if something's wrong, correct it and get it recorded because to me, that's what they're paying you for, right? They're not paying you for the book and they're not paying as nice as you are, Jen. Nobody's paying for your time. They're paying to get their assets funded so that when they pass, everything is taken care of. And I and I appreciate you saying that. Let me walk you through that. But I think it's really important anybody watching and as a real estate agent, all the more so. I'm expected to be a professional if I refer to somebody. Not only that, I can go online and verify the recording because we have access public records. And I find customers appreciate it. Attorneys appreciate it. Hey, I noticed that you went to Jen. You got your estate plan done. I see that your deed was recorded. Here's a copy of it. Even though she probably gave you a copy of it's also reflected online, which I think people want to know that. And so for us as professionals, I know my conversation we started about Realtors® not being professional. This is a standard that we need to meet. And I do think that if you refer somebody to an attorney, that's a minimum standard. They should fund the trust all the way through to the end.

27:00 They should not leave that in the hand of the customer who doesn't know what the heck they're doing. Yeah. But you're also in a sense paying for my reputation. See, at the end when the title company gets my trust, they know that I vetted everything. Oh, they drafted it. Oh, TLD drafted it. Good.

27:17 The same thing when someone passes away and we do the trust and the activation. You take it to the bank, Vanguard. Oh, I know the firm. F&M. Oh, I know the firm. Good.

27:27 Right. So, you're paying for that. So, it's good. You should hire the trust attorney near you. If you're in San Francisco, you shouldn't be hiring me. I'm in Southern California. I want you to drive to my office, sit in front of me, and I want to open everything up and go through everything together.

27:45 So, just because you might be watching this and thinking I'm, you know, the best, fine. But you've got to be local to me. It will help you, right? And just for the record, you're located in Long Beach in beautiful Long Beach.

27:56 Yeah, I'm in Long Beach. Yeah, I'm by the Long Beach airport. So, anything in LA in Orange County, if you live here near me, come here. We can help you.

28:06 Right. Conveniently off the 405. I used to work in an office in Signal Hill, so I know that area real well. So, let's talk a little bit as we wrap up a little bit about collaborating with real estate agents because this primarily my channel is very heavily real estate agent focused. I'm a Realtor®. I want to learn how to work better with attorneys like you. When in a think about probate cases as opposed to state planning, so something kind of went wrong or wasn't done and now we're managing the probate process and there's real estate to be sold. What are one of the two best practices that you've seen the really good Realtors® do and maybe one or one or two mistakes? I know you have a long list. What were your two mistakes you've seen Realtors® do that prolong the process and make it more difficult for customers?

28:49 Yeah. So, it's hard with real estate agents. You know, I have my view that I love to work with. I tend to pick the right agent in that property area to handle. Most people come to me with an agent in mind or the agent does the introduction. So, I keep it.

29:04 Right. Right. But you have to run title ahead of time. Right. So, last Thursday I had a client come in. I have to open probate. My wife died owning this property. And I said, "Great. Show me the deed." "Oh, I don't have it." The agent has it. So, I called the agent. She didn't pick up. That was on Thursday. No return call Friday. No email. I don't have the deed. The reason why I don't have the deed is because the vesting was done in 1977. And it's not online. Somebody has to go and pull it.

29:33 I know he has it at home. And I know the agent has it because she pulled a prelim because it's co-owned with the sister. But no one will give me the deed so that I can say well what's best is it joint tennis is it tennis in common how is it title held is it stay on the parent trust where is it I can only do so much you have to come to me with agent with that information if you have an agent and you are the agent you know equip your client with that title report bring it to me don't hide it

30:01 Right yeah I think it's really important I think one of the things we provide as Realtors® is the information and yes they get from other sources but being convenient with it as part of the opportunity we have. And so I always feel like I can pull deeds online and what you mentioned the older deeds. Yeah. It takes two or three days for the research department to get them for me, but at least I start the process and I'll get it in two or three days. And I think that's all anybody can really ask for.

30:24 Yeah. Yeah. So best practice pull the prelim in the process of selling the property. You know, I would say it's never a problem until it's a problem. In most probate cases, right, the vast majority are full authority, meaning there's not a problem that somebody objects and yet sometimes people do object and then now you have a little bit of a problem. So, what are one or two best practices or mistakes you've seen made when we're selling property that makes things worse as far as a conflict?

30:52 Well, we can sell property easily in a probate. That's not a problem. What makes it worse is that people don't understand that property taxes are going to go up. So, I've made this sign to take pictures with the clients. Now, I know it's backwards, but it says property taxes will go up because I tell them, I've told them, I've sent them a letter. So, now I'm going to say just take a picture. You hold it up. We'll take a selfie because property taxes are going to go up and they

31:28 Love it. Yeah. I go for the weekend. I'm arguing with the client. Oh, I moved into my dad's home that I inherited. Your dad didn't live in this house. It was not his primary residence. He lived elsewhere. Here's the letter that you signed a year ago that says property taxes will go up. You got the bill this morning. Thank you, Jennifer. I understand. They keep forgetting. And it's hard because I want all of you in the real estate space to tell me how to tell the clients to remember

32:00 Property taxes are going to go up. There's some exclusions but it's very few. That's where the problems come later. They're issuing that what you call that supplemental tax bill after the property has been sold. And they think in escrow when they get the deduction for the prorated is that's the old days,

32:17 Right? That's what's tripping everybody, right? They think they're done because they sold the house. And I've had that happen many times where they get the assessment and the assessment goes back to date of death. Right? So it can be in some cases a couple years, two, three, could be longer in some cases, but if it goes back two or three years and they own the property a long time at a very low rate, that new rate would apply for maybe two, three years. It could be thousands of dollars. You're not talking about, you know, hundreds of dollars. You want usually thousands of dollars. So very important.

32:48 Okay. And then do you do you get much into an estate planning from a tax perspective? I mean, I'm not sure really where you know where the attorney kind of ends and the tax attorney or accountants kind of step in because obviously we're California where we have you know mansion taxes. We have changes on the exclusions on property taxes. We have just like never- ending threats of increased taxes. How do you get involved in the state planning as it as regards you know minimizing taxes or tax strategies? Is that how important of a part of your practice is that?

33:25 Yeah. Well, there's multiple taxes. So, property taxes, there's no strategy there. There just isn't. If I had a strategy to sell you, I would. There just isn't. Capital gain taxes depends on whether or not you've inherited the property and you get a step up. So, it's often better to sell mom's home after she dies instead of just before she passes. And then estate taxes is becoming a non-issue for most of us. California doesn't have an estate tax. The exemption amount for the government in terms of the federal government is going to be 15 million per person next year. So if you don't have that kind of money, we're not paying an estate tax. But with capital gain taxes, we just talk to your tax person about that. And with property taxes, I can walk you through that. It seems like oftentimes, you know, mom and dad leave a house, there's three kids, and the choice is either divide the house three ways or which then they're going to sell it or give it to one kid and then have them cash out the other ones and the kid who keeps the property then may get the exemption of property taxes and might get the exemption on the capital gains. That the distributing three-ways you're for sure going to get reassessed if you keep the property. And so, these are things at the time, do you is it something that you define when you do the estate plan or do you kind of create a, does a trust create for you the opportunity to make those decisions?

34:55 That's a tough one. If you have a house and you have three kids and you want one kid to get the house, your trust should be drafted that way. Billy should get the house as part of the equal share or Billy gets the house first. You have to give an out for the assessor not to reassess. But in theory, the assessor wants to make sure that if you're saying three equal shares, you have enough money in the trust. So if you have a million dollar house, you should have two million in the bank.

35:26 So each kid gets a value of a million. The house to run a million. A million. If you don't have enough money in the trust, then the person who's the trustee needs to get a hard money loan or an equalization loan. And that is a deep dive into a very complicated area. When people inherit homes after people pass and we're worried about property taxes, the county says you have one year to fill out the form and move in and make it your primary resident. When people pass away, a year goes by fast,

36:00 Right? You have to come to me right away if that's what you want to do. If you come to me a month before the expiration of the one-year date of death, I'm not going to help you. I need time to get my act together.

36:12 That's a tough one. Yeah. Shame shameless plug on that deep dive. I created a new podcast called Fractional Interest and I've interviewed a couple attorneys who are in that field. I don't know if that's something you'd like to we can talk about me offline if you're interested in being a guest on. But again, I think this is coming up more and more often because you're talking about a lot of money. If you're talking about, you know, not getting that equalization loan, you're talking about taxes on 300,000, $500,000, it becomes real money for people have the right strategy in place. So again, shameless plug, fractional interest podcast, wherever you get your podcast, look for that coming out soon. Jen, look, I kept a little over I, you know, so appreciate I always feel like I always learned so much. When I started this podcast, my quoter was, "As long as I enjoy talking to it, which you're a pleasure, and as long as I learn, I feel like I've always learned so much from you. I hope today those you're paying attention learned from really one of the leading attorneys in Southern California on these matters." Jen, if someone wants to get a hold of you, I have your website, tlddlaw.com is the company website, and then your personal information down below. Is that correct? And then there's your there's your blog, which is really good. It seems like you do about another post once a month or so. I would say it's byite-size. Could read a few minutes. Definitely worth checking out. But there is Jen Sai under our people. Thank you so much for your time, Jen. Really appreciate it.

37:30 Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. Yeah. And for the rest of you, this was Probate Weekly. We get together every week and interview. Most commonly, probate attorneys, trust attorneys talk about both how to avoid probate and where in it, what to do best. If I can help any way, please reach out. I'm Billgross Probro on social media. And as always, make today your best day ever.