Join attorney Michael Bailey as he discusses the ins and outs of estate planning on ‘Mobile Estate Planning’. Discover why it is vital to have a proper estate plan in place, and explore the common misconceptions people have when engaging with attorneys. Michael delves into interesting stories from his own practice, shedding light on the collaborative nature of legal representation and the importance of understanding your attorney’s role.
00:23:37 Probate and Estate Administration Guidance
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey. Over a decade ago, attorney Michael Bailey turned his attention to estate law after he recognized the unacceptable number of adults without proper end of life planning. Michael recognizes that many of his clients have difficulty finding the time for making a proper estate plan. That’s why he became the Mobile Estate Planner. He will go to wherever you are to assist you with your estate planning, including writing wills, trusts, and giving you the information you need to avoid probate. Now, ATX, Ask the Experts, presents Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon. Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM, also on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 app. We are here to do things besides just leave your family alone. The phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And again, that’s 720-394-6887. That’s my direct line. That’s the one that comes right to me. If you want to talk to me on the air and you call me on that number, I’m probably not going to answer it for the next half an hour. But if you call me on the… studio line. Um, I also will not answer, but Luke will answer and Luke will probably, you know, ask you what you want to talk about. And then he’ll write me a little note that shows up on my computer, the computer screen in front of me. And then I’d be happy to talk to you because Luke is much more adept at, um, running the board and sending things out there and answering phone calls. And And, you know, sometimes he runs off and he comes back with a sandwich or something like that. I mean, when he’s really feeling cheeky, he’ll bring a cinnamon roll. He’ll eat it right in front of me. And I’m like, Luke, you couldn’t buy two cinnamon rolls? He’s like, there was only one, man. There was only one. So, you know, I have to talk on the air. He gets cinnamon rolls. It’s a fair trade. And I don’t think the sandwich or the cinnamon roll is a true story. But it sounded funnier. So we’re talking about estate planning. So, you know, people, you know, estate planning, what it is, what it isn’t, you know, estate planning, what do people need? What do they expect? Estate planning, you know, and sometimes there’s this concept that like, once you hire an attorney, the attorney is going to do absolutely everything for you. And as much as I’d like to say that, um, uh, that’s always the case. It’s just not. Um, and you know, being an attorney and representing people, I’m happy to represent people, but I’m, you know, I’m not going to be, I mean, I’m, I’m connected to a bunch of different attorneys through like, you know, just that I know personally, or we went to school together, we worked together. Um, Uh, and, uh, so just as we do that, um, and, uh, so as I’m talking to people and then, you know, I’m connected to others on LinkedIn and sometimes I see attorneys who will talk about how they’ll, there was one post on a LinkedIn as soon as like, oh, well, you know, I had this kind of, um, I had this kind of case go on, and this person was doing this, and I referred it to somebody, and they said, well, how come you didn’t do this, and how come you didn’t talk to them, and how come you didn’t tell them what we needed to do? I think it was something… I’m trying to remember the particular, sorry, where they had referred somebody to something for like a bankruptcy and then they had to… And then there was some sort of other thing that went on and the attorney they referred to didn’t file a certain something so that the person would be able to… preserve some sort of thing that was important to being able to file a claim at some point in the future. And so basically they’d done something that had accelerated a statute of limitations or had it run or had it go short. So it didn’t work out the way that the original attorney thought it would because the next attorney didn’t file something to preserve an extended filing deadline or something like that. And so this attorney was talking all about how it was a betrayal of trust and it was terrible and it was horrible and they would never want to work with this other attorney again. And they actually asked the attorney, well, why didn’t you do this? And they said, because the client didn’t hire me or ask me to do that. Like, oh, well, you know, as an attorney, we’re supposed to jump in and want to do this and solve this and you never leave your client hanging. And you tell them about everything. And I thought, huh, that sounds like someone who has kind of a general retainer policy and practices kind of, you know, as a general practitioner and practices all sorts of different areas of law and wants to be the point of contact with on anything legal for that could ever happen and i it seemed a little bit harsh to me for the general person to be like oh i’ll never refer to this person because they can’t be trusted i’m like well the i wasn’t hired to do that as a perfectly reasonable explanation you know I’m an estate planning attorney, so I do wills and trusts and powers of attorney and all those kind of things. I cannot tell you how many times I have people who call me and say, oh, well, you know, my daughter’s ex-husband is being stupid and, you know, can you go to court and, you know, stop him from asking for, you know, more visitation with a child or, asking for more money for spousal support. And I’m like, okay, so I don’t do family law. It’s not part of my practice. I don’t know enough about it to give competent or proper legal advice on it. So I don’t give any legal advice on it. That’s not 100% true. When people come to me, they’re like, oh, well, I want to have my brother and sister be the guardian and not my ex-spouse. And I’m like, okay, so what does the family law court say? Oh, well, we have court orders. And I’m like, okay, so has your ex-spouse’s parental rights been completely cut off? Well, no, but they’re just not that great. I’m like, okay, so I can’t undo what the family courts have done. I don’t have the power to tell a judge, hey, I know that you set this up this way, but now that I’m writing a will for this client, they want to change or ignore what you’ve done in your family law orders. So that’s how it goes. I’m not that powerful. I’m just not that cool. I’m not that capable of… changing a court order just because I’m an attorney that prepares an estate plan. But that’s kind of the extent of my foray into family law of saying, hey, we can’t change what the court says and you can put your preferences down. But, you know, I mean, I have run into people who’ve, they’ve had parental rights have been removed from somebody. I had one client who the ex-spouse was serving time in the state penitentiary for attempted murder of the spouse that I was talking to and the kids when they were married. I’m like, yep, that’s a really good reason to not give your kids to the ex-spouse. Oh, your ex-spouse tried to kill you and the kids? Yeah, maybe we don’t want to… send them to that person to raise the children. You know, I mean, you would think this would be obvious, but, you know, and to me it was, and I’m like, yep, that’s a great reason. I totally understand that. And so, you know, in that case, yeah, we’re not going to give the kids to an ex-spouse who could do harm to the children. That’s just a bad idea. But otherwise, I can’t really change a lot, and I don’t have a whole lot that I’m And I’m not able to overcome family law court orders. When a court orders something, we say, okay, we’ll do that. Not, nah, I think I’m no better than the court. It’s just not how it works. I’m not that powerful. But you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM. Also heard on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And once again, 720-394-6887. And I totally get that. And I’m not saying that as an attorney I should just throw up my hand and say, oh, they didn’t hire me to talk about that. When I’m talking to somebody about a trust and they want to talk about a trust and what are the options in a trust. And, you know, many times I’ll be sitting down with somebody who’s, you know, like if they’re newly married and they have, you know, maybe they have like a one-year-old, so they’ve been married for a couple of years. They’ve got a one-year-old and they’ve come to me for an estate plan. I usually don’t have a long in-depth conversation with them about a Medicaid asset protection trust and how we’re trying to preserve assets for long-term care. And we don’t want to have their assets be encumbered or picked up by Medicaid. And so we need to set something up. Now, most of the people like that, they’re just worried about who are their kids going to go to and who’s going to take care of the kids if they die and who’s going to handle the money if they die. or the concerns about long-term care and who’s going to be preserving assets so they’re not picked up by Medicaid if somebody goes into long-term care and things like that. Those are conversations that I can have with my clients who are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s and 90s, or the handful of them that are 100 plus. Those are certainly conversations that are much more relevant to have with that person. And, you know, it’s not like I’m saying to the people who are in their early to mid to late 20s, hey, don’t worry about this, because clearly we do want to worry about them. But I also don’t want to say, oh, hey, we now need to have, you know, we don’t need to have a long conversation about everything. I think a little bit about – it’s not that I’m trying to avoid talking to them about something that might be important, but it’s also – the kind of thing that we want to say, okay, well, we can’t just have – we can’t talk about – not everything is relevant to everybody’s situation. And so I’m not trying to avoid having an in-depth conversation and an overall conversation. But when there’s something that’s – yes, this is a legal opportunity – I have a friend who all he does is offshore asset protection trusts. So he does like Cook Island trusts and things like that. And that’s his entire practice is offshore asset protection trusts. He doesn’t do basic wills. He doesn’t do Medicaid planning. All he does is offshore asset protection trusts. I don’t do offshore asset protection trusts. It’s just not part of my practice, not part of what I’m trying to do. So people who are trying to protect assets from lawsuits and all that kind of stuff. I’m more than willing and happy to refer them to my friend that does the offshore asset protection trust. It’s just not something I do. And so, you know, do I have lots of conversations with people about asset protection trusts and offshore asset protection trusts and how they should consider it and what they need to do? Not really. if somebody brings it up, I’m like, okay. And they’re like, Oh, well, you know, we have this business and you know, our new business is we’re starting a, um, an indoor shooting range on the fourth floor of a eight story building. And we haven’t really, you know, we’re just, we’re just counting on everybody to shoot straight and not up or down. And, you know, there’s a daycare right above the shooting range and there’s a, um, a doctor’s office right below but we’re not worried about that well you know you should be and uh you know up or down are not safe directions to be firing a firearm if you have you know a daycare and they’re not generally safe directions if you’re on You have a floor above you and below you anyway. But you don’t want to have, so they’re like, oh, well, we’re doing this new business and it might be risky. And they’re like, if you’re counting on other people, I mean, I’m looking out the window right now from the studio and there’s a golf course that I can see. And there are some houses along the golf course. Well, I’m guessing that the houses along the golf course, their insurance for their homeowner’s insurance is probably a little bit higher because people who golf poorly, like me, might impact a house or shatter a window. And then there’s an insurance claim and they ask the golfer has to pay for it and all those type of things. But if you swing the club, you shatter a window, nobody’s home and you just kind of walk by, you’re like, I’m not worried about it. Well, now you’ve got a an insurance claim, you have to be concerned about that. So if you’re engaging in a risky business and you want, I mean, I have several clients who they own many mountain properties and they have them all, you know, they’ve got them all set up in a, and they rent them out as short-term rentals through like VRBO or Airbnb or something like that. And so, you know, they’re like, well, you know, we don’t want to have a whole bunch of liability If someone were to, you know, if they’ve got, you know, five houses in the Keystone area. And so those people go on a skiing vacation and they go into the house. And, you know, whether it’s they’ve been on the slopes a lot and their legs are tired and they slip on something and fall down the stairs. Or they’ve had a little bit too much of the… liquid libations and then they slip and fall and something like that. They don’t want something like that and then a suit against the property owner or there’s a blizzard and there’s a snowstorm and the people they hired to come shovel the walk don’t get there within the 24 or 48 hours if they’re supposed to, and there’s ice and somebody slips and falls. All of these things, you’re like, hey, you’re a decent candidate for having some asset protection trusts here and some asset protection in place. You might want to talk about this, and I might not be the right person to help you, but I’ll refer you to the person who does. And then I’m not passing the buck. I’m not saying, oh, well, I wasn’t hired to do that, so I’m not going to. I’m like, no, I’m going to still take care of you. but it may not be something that I do myself. And, you know, if somebody comes to me and they’re talking to me and they’re like, oh, you know, this and this, and, oh, well, you know, my ex-spouse is being stupid, so I’m just going to stop paying alimony, I usually say to them, that’s probably not the best idea. You probably ought to check with the family court before you start doing that. They’re like, why? Am I not allowed to do that? I’m like, I don’t know the rules well enough, but I do know if you stop doing something that the court has ordered, that tends to be a bad idea. You need a modified court order to be able to do that. Oh, can you help me with that? Well, no. So I can kind of identify things and I’m like, hey, I know enough about this that I probably ought to warn you that that’s not the best of ideas. I don’t necessarily have the solution for you, but I can tell you if you did go through a divorce and you’ve got a family law attorney, maybe call that family law attorney and ask them. And so, you know, I’m not quite a, every attorney has to do everything for everybody at every time. Or if you ever hear anything that might be something that is, you know, possibly connected to a legal issue that you have to say something and fix something. Yeah. I don’t do anything with personal injury litigation. I don’t do anything with trademark or copyright or patents. It’s just not where I play. We have a friend on my daughter’s volleyball team. And one of the moms is a corporate attorney and does mergers and acquisitions. And all that kind of stuff. And I’m like, you know, she had to leave a volleyball tournament the other day. It was before the end of the year, so she needed to go to work so that she could do all sorts of stuff because they wanted to close this multi-billion dollar deal by the end of the year to get whatever, you know, tax savings and everything switched over. I’m like, hey, cool, good for you. I don’t know the first thing about that. And I don’t meet a whole lot of people who are doing multi-billion dollar mergers and acquisitions deals, mostly because I don’t deal with people who are multi-billion dollar corporations. My client base is individuals, and they may have a small to medium-sized business, but not a whole lot of people who are in the multi-billion dollar range. It’s just not where I play. So when things come up, I try to… Um, help people, but I’m not going to be the one who does everything for everybody at all times. And I think most people understand that, but you know, sometimes attorneys get caught up in themselves and, oh, well, you’re supposed to do this and you’re supposed to take care of your clients in every way, shape and form. And I’m like, Well, if you’re a generalist, I will agree with that. If you’re like me, where I’m pretty specialized in the estate planning focus, not so much. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM. Also heard on 100.7 FM, the KLZ 560 radio app. And phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And once again, 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. Once again, 720-394-6887. But even within the world of estate planning and estate administration and estate litigation and all those type of things, it becomes a little bit of an interesting trick. I had somebody call me today. They said, oh, well, you know, they’re like, we have a mutual client. You wrote a trust for somebody back in 2015. So I’m like, cool, 11 years ago I did that. That’s awesome. They passed away. Oh, not so awesome. And now we have all these questions. Apparently, this particular person had moved from Colorado to Missouri, and they were building a cabin. And then building the cabin, it was built incorrectly. And then there was a, so they had to, you know, kind of demolish part of the cabin and rebuild it. And, you know, the cabin still isn’t all the way finished. And The cabin was titled in the gentleman’s individual name instead of in the name of the trust. And apparently he has a lawsuit going on with the original builder of the cabin. And it’s in the midst of everything. And so now that he’s died, the financial planner called me with the two beneficiaries on the line saying, Going, what are we supposed to do? I said, you know, in order to decide whether or not you want to continue this lawsuit or you want to just sell the cabin or what you want to do, you really need to be at least appointed as the representative of his estate because the cabin was in his own personal name. So you’re going to have to talk to a probate or estate administration or probate litigation attorney in person. state of Missouri where you’re at and where the real estate is located to be able to handle that. And they’re like, oh, okay, well, you know, thanks for, you know, sorry you can’t do it. Thanks so much for giving, pointing us in the right direction. I’m like, hey, I got you. Now, sometimes I mean, maybe we’ve watched too many movies where somebody dies, and usually it’s the main character, like their parent, dies. They’re very sad, but they come home, and the lawyer is waiting on the front porch saying, I was the one that prepared your parents’ will or trust, and now we’re going to do everything, and here’s my card, and I’ll handle everything. And I’m like, I’m not that… I’m not that powerful. I didn’t even know that this guy from 11 years ago had moved to Missouri. Oddly enough, he didn’t run his entire life’s decisions past me, which makes perfect sense because he’s allowed to live his own life and doesn’t need to run everything past me. and I wasn’t going to travel to Missouri and show up on his kid’s doorstep and say, Hi, my name is Michael Bailey. I wrote this in Colorado, so I can’t help you here in Missouri, but hey, here’s this for me. Now I’m going to get on an airplane and go home because the cameras that somehow watch this will now be satisfied. Well, I don’t know about you, but there aren’t a whole lot of movie cameras trying to film a scene in my life. Now, there are probably a lot of cameras that I’ve walked by today or driven by today. I entered the building here for the studio. Pretty sure there were some security cameras that I walked by. Other places, there’s security cameras. I totally get it. There are security cameras. They exist. I was probably on somebody’s dash cam as i was driving today because people have their dash cams you know i’m not entirely well i was over the weekend i was at a volleyball tournament and there were lots of volleyball girls who were doing their they were recording their tiktok dances or whatever and i’m like i’m probably starring and unwittingly starring as the photo as the video bomb of some volleyball kids tiktok and i’m like yes i’m the uncool dad in the background thank you for asking But I’m not trying to film a scene for a movie. So that’s not going to happen. I had another client who sent me an email, said, hey, I’m trying to do this. Somebody else told me I need to lodge the will with the court. Can we talk about that? I said, sure. So I called him up, talked to him, said, yep, you haven’t had to do anything now. But now that you’re trying to sell a house or pay off a mortgage, they want to know that you’re authorized to be the person who’s able to do that. So you, because there was a will involved and that’s the instrument that we have, you need to take that to the probate court and apply for probate so that you can become the properly and duly authorized representative to handle things. He’s like, oh, well, and you know, the question of, well, gee, I, you know, is that something you do? Is that something you do? I’m like, oh, it’s something you do because you’re the personal representative. Now, if you need somebody to represent you in that, I have friends who are, that’s what they do is probate, and they do probate and trust administration, and I’m perfectly happy to send you to them. It just doesn’t happen to be part of my practice. I can tell you, and the person’s like, oh, where do I find the forum? So I showed them where to do it and kind of walked them through how to search them on the Internet and find them, and then they can fill them out, and they’re like, all right, cool, we’ll do that. Sweet. Sounds good to me. And so, you know, but again, I’m not the one who’s going to show up on the doorstep saying, hey, guys, here’s what you need to do. Here’s the website. Here’s the web link. And we need you to go do this, that, and whatever. It’s just not, you know, it’s not part of my practice. Now, I’m perfectly willing to point people in the right direction if they need somebody to handle it, yes, but it’s not because of the way that my practice is structured where I’m only on the estate planning side and not on the estate administration or the probate administration side. I’m not trying to leave people hating. I’m not trying to, you know, duck out and not, you know, shirk my responsibilities. I’m just trying to help people the best I can with what I do. And I’m happy to do that. And I’m happy to help people when and where I can. And then when, you know, with people call, they’re like, oh, how come you didn’t do this? I’m like, again, because I wasn’t hired to do so. And it’s not my job. I’m happy to help you. and give you instructions, point you in the right direction. But everything to everybody, I try not to be. Helping people with estate plans, get them ready, get them executable. And then probate or stress administration be simple enough that you can do it on your own and not need me to be involved. That’s kind of one of my goals is to set everything up so that I
