Estate planning doesn’t have to be a daunting task if you have the right knowledge. In this episode, Michael Bailey emphasizes the key factors individuals must consider when writing wills and managing estates. From legal paperwork to the nuances of probate, he highlights vital steps and potential challenges, helping listeners avoid common mistakes. Michael shares his personal experiences working with clients, highlighting the mishaps that arise from poor estate planning and how banks and legal systems require specific documentation for accessing assets. His stories serve as a cautionary guide for anyone unfamiliar with the details required to efficiently navigate
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 :
All right, good afternoon. Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. You are listening to 560 KLZ AM, 100.7 FM, or possibly the KLZ 560 radio app. I believe those are our choices. So, you know, I’m just trying to make sure that everybody gets taken care of here. And 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. Once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So if you’re wanting to talk to me on the air, go for it. If you’re wanting to talk to me directly about your estate planning, you can call the direct line. I just probably won’t answer it for the next half an hour or so because, well, life gets in the way. So I’ve had a bunch of people call me this last few weeks, and they’re like, oh, you know, I have a will, but I’m the power of attorney, and my dad died, and I went to the bank, and they won’t release any money. They said to me, I can’t. get anything under the power of attorney, and so now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. How come the banks are being such jerks? How come they’re being such, why won’t they honor my power of attorney? And I usually say something along the lines of, so did anybody ever tell you that a power of attorney ends when your dad dies? And they’re like, well, what do you mean? I’m the power of attorney. And I’m like, right. But power of attorney allows somebody to make decisions for you while you’re alive. After you’ve died, then that responsibility and that authority switches to the personal representative under the will. Now, if you many times an individual who’s acting as an agent under a power of attorney will also be the person named as the personal representative under the will, then So they just have to switch which role they’re acting in to be able to access bank accounts and things like that. But not either people were told that and forgot over the course of however many years. I always tell people, I’m like, well, I’d like to write you an estate plan and not have you use it for 30, 40, or 50 years. And during that interviewing 30, 40, or 50 years, if you forget that a power of attorney is not going to give somebody the ability to act on behalf of, you know, it ends when somebody dies, you know, that happens. I’m like, okay, well, that can be problematic. I can see that, how that could be an issue. Um, but yeah, sometimes just people need to be reminded of that. And then I, I did have one client once who, you know, she, I went and I wrote a will for her husband and her husband had some sort of throat cancer from he had been the smoker or, you know, chewing tobacco and, you know, they just, you know, I hear that those things are not great for your throat and your lungs and your mouth and being cancer-free that, you know, tobacco products aren’t exactly, you know, at least from what I understand of the scientific research, they’re not great for such things and can raise your risks. So her husband ended up dying and And then she called me, and she said, well, I went to the bank, and I took the will, and they won’t take it. They won’t let me access his bank account. Why won’t they do that? And I said, well, here’s the thing. Did you take the will to the probate court, and did you apply for probate? And did you get the proper authorization in the form of a letter of testamentary or letter of administration that says that you now have proper legal authority to act on behalf of your family? husband and access his accounts and get his assets. And she says, well, wait a minute. Why do I have to do that? I’m like, because that’s what the law requires. You can’t just take a will and say, ha ha, look, I have a will. Now you have to believe me. Because one of the, you know, probate is, you know, it’s kind of taken from some Latin words that talk about the part of the process of probate is proving the will. So the will has to be, you know, approved and approved by the court to say that, yes, this person is the proper person to be acting on behalf of the deceased individual. Now, oftentimes a will is written so that it’s self-proving, so it’s signed, it’s witnessed, it’s notarized. You take it into the court, you fill out the proper paperwork to apply for probate, and you go, oh, okay, this makes sense. We’ve got the way to get things done here, and we can go ahead and we see that everything’s in order. So we’re just going to approve this and give authority to the person who’s named as the personal representative to act on behalf of the named individuals. So, hey, that’s good. We’re done. Cool. Moving on. And there we are. There’s usually not a huge fight over, oh my gosh, mom and dad picked John. Why would they pick John? I mean, John’s one of their children. Oh my goodness. And And John works with different estates all the time. Why would they pick John? This makes perfect rational sense. And that’s the kind of conversation you have. Somebody needs to get picked. Now, every once in a while, there’s a family member who feels like they got slighted and they didn’t get picked. And they’re like, oh, well, why didn’t they pick me? How come they get to be in charge? And I’m like, well, hold on just a minute. They may be in charge and they may have the authority to act on behalf of the deceased individual, but they have to distribute the assets according to the dictates of the will. They don’t just get to act willy-nilly and just do what they want. That’s part of where people get themselves in trouble or people get upset with a personal representative is if the personal representative is not doing what the will says. I mean, I got to… I got a call from a potential client this morning, who I referred to my friend who handles probate, who was told that the house was supposed to be sold, and then he would get a certain percentage, but now it’s been several months, and from what he knows, the person who’s acting as the personal representative has moved into the house, and the person who moved into the house is now not selling the house, and so he… Wanted somebody who would look into that and be able to represent him and seeing what’s going on. So he’s apparently very concerned about that the named personal representative is doing things improperly and is not acting in the best interest of all of the beneficiaries like the personal representative is supposed to. And so he needed somebody who would represent him as the beneficiary in appropriate proceeding. And since I only do the planning part of things and not the administration, and I don’t represent people on the back end, I was the wrong attorney to help him. I referred him to a friend of mine who I went to law school with. who he does probate and can help represent there. There may very well be good reasons that the personal representative hasn’t sold the house yet. They may have moved into the house just because they’re there supervising work of… fixing the house before it can be sold. Because there’s plenty of that that goes on. So 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. The studio line to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And once again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And once again, 720-394-6887. So about… So people are like, oh, how come it’s taking so long? And I’m like, well, let’s take a look at, you know, you’re trying to go sell a house, right? Well, if you’re trying to sell a house, there are lots of things that go into that. We’ve all been to houses where we look at the house and think to ourselves, yeah, this might not be the house that, Someone’s going to want to buy right off the bat because there are, you know, the carpets are, you know, there’s dirt ground into the carpets or there’s mold in the bathroom. Or my father-in-law, for a while there, he lived down in Phoenix. and he would buy houses from people who, so like, you know, people move down to Phoenix to retire and they live, you know, 10, 15 years and then they die and now the house needs to be moved on to the next person. But if you go into the house, I don’t think a single decorative item or carpet choice or things like that have been updated in those 10 to 15 years. And some of the people who had those, their decorating choices, you walk in and you’re like, so this could be a house. straight out of the Brady Bunch sitcom or, you know, 60s or 70s. And it looks like, seriously, it looks like it was just taken from that time and moved to the year 2025. Well, you know, I mean, the 70s were a pretty awesome time for decorating. You could have shag carpet that was like three inches long, that was, you know, avocado green flavor, you know, colored. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong with the avocado green color. I just like the avocado green color when I eat an avocado, not when my shag carpeting decor. It’s just not my style. And so, you know, these people who were, so they would pass away. My father-in-law and his brother would go in and they would, is there an uncle-in-law? Is that a thing? I have no idea. That would be an interesting question that we could look up at some point, but still. But they would go in and they would usually pull out the carpet and probably pull down some of the wallpaper. When the wallpaper looked like a paisley tie, you’re like, yeah, that may not be the style of somebody who wants to come by the house. So they would kind of rehab the house and then get it ready and sell it. Well, it takes time to actually do things like that. I’ve replaced some carpet on a landing with laminate flooring. And you’d think that an area that’s eight feet by six feet wouldn’t be that hard to pull out the carpet and put down laminate flooring. But I remember that project took me about six hours. Now, part of that is I was working by myself, and I’m not exactly a… Flooring repair, you know flooring replacement. You know, it’s not what I do all the time. So I was probably slower than me you know the person who would who does that for a living but You know, it takes time and sometimes You know, it would be you know, two three four months before they could get everything fixed and then you know flip the house and get it sold and you know, we’ve all anybody who watches HGTV or any of the flipping shows understands that it takes time and But in a probate type of situation, people can get very upset that it takes time. Because all they hear is, somebody died, we just need to sell the house and get the money. And they’re like, great! Well, if you have a house that has significant structural or safety or ugly issues… You’re probably selling that house to somebody who’s like you drive around town and you see that we buy ugly houses dot com, you know, advertised. Well, those are people who are willing to buy those houses and then they take and they rehab them or flip them or make them look nicer and then they sell them off. Well, if you buy a house to somebody like that, you’re probably not going to get the absolute top dollar that you’re looking for. If you’re like, hey, well, this house in awesome, perfect condition would be worth $500,000. But it needs $100,000 worth of new carpet and new cabinets and repainting and new toilets and fixtures and all those type of things. Like, well, if I’m going to buy a house that would be worth $400,000 in just kind of mint condition, but it needs $100,000 worth of work, at a minimum, you’re only going to get $400,000 for that house. And if a person, so if you’re a beneficiary and you’re expecting that you’re going to get 50% of a $500,000 house, and then you get a check for $200,000, and you go, well, where’s the other $50,000? And the person says, well, the house had significant issues. We sold it off to a a repair company, and they’ll take it, and they’ll fix it up, and then they’ll sell it, and they’ll make the $500,000, but we don’t have to put the time or the extra $100,000 in, so that’s why this happened. Now, if somebody who’s counting on the $250,000 is going to be like, well, I need my full $250,000. You should have taken and repaired the house, and then you could have sold it for $200,000. I’m like, yeah, but you still had to put the $100,000 in, so one way or the other, the money was going to come out of it. But if there’s a kind of thing where if the house in mint condition was worth $500,000, but repairs, you’re like, well, if we do $50,000 of repairs, we can get $475,000. as opposed to the $500 instead of selling it for $400 to the repair folks who will put the full $100 in so they can get the $500, however the numbers work. There are certain things that might be fixed that would be the right things to do. So all of that goes into the… the considerations and what you need to do there. And the personal representative could very easily be trying to do something like that. And that’s why it’s taking time. Now, the best way for the personal representative to avoid people getting all angry and bitter and things like that is to, and this is super complex solution here, communicate with them. tell them what’s going on. I know, all of you driving, if I’ve just blown your minds, I’m sorry. Eyes on the road, keep driving, you’re good. But the fact of the matter is that A lot of people in that situation, they have their own lives, they have their own things they’re doing, they have their own families, and then they’re trying to do the, a lot of them are probably still working, and then they’re trying to do probate and stuff on top of that everywhere else. But you really do want to communicate, especially if there’s a delay or especially if there’s going to be a sale for less than what people think something is worth. You really want to communicate that. My parents, I don’t think they still have it, but they used to have an old… the Trolla record player, where it was like one of the, you could hand crank the record player and, you know, it was kind of old timey and cool. And, you know, at some point, I mean, I think I thought that it was, you know, super rare antique that you would be worth lots and lots of money. Well, apparently we didn’t have the collector’s top-of-the-line one we just had the one that was the you know inherited from grandma who had it for a long time but it wasn’t necessarily you know as we learned from tv shows like pawn stores pawn stars just because it’s old doesn’t make it valuable now if it’s really old and really rare there we go it’s different but in this case so it’s if we my parents had died we’re like oh we’re gonna take the victrola we’re gonna get you know fifty thousand dollars out of it and you get it there and they’re like yeah it’s worth 500 bucks Well, then you go back to people and you say, hey, I took this to an appraiser. They said it’s worth $500. So somebody’s like, no, it’s worth $50,000. We’re like, you can take it somewhere else. If you can get $50,000 for it, go for it. I don’t think it’s worth that anymore. But having that communication and that conversation, in an estate plan and an administration of an estate plan, We’re not trying to hide things. We’re not trying to be all secretive about things. We’re just trying to get things taken care of. And I do understand that life gets in the way sometimes. But a quick text or an email saying, hey, Heather Victrola appraised. It’s only worth 500 bucks. So we’re not going to get nearly as much out of that as we need. Then, you know, if you get the freak out text, what do you mean? What kind of appraiser did you take it to? Did you take it just to the flea market and the pawn shop? Do they not know anything? I’m like, well, I took it to the universal music store who knows such things. And that’s what they told me. Then at least you can have that conversation instead of people being in the dark and not knowing what’s going on. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 KLZ 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 once again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So when you’re picking the person to act as your personal representative, somebody who’s going to be able to access the assets, they distribute them out, you want to pick somebody who has decent communication skills too. You can have the most brilliant financial mind in the world, who can handle all of the numbers and get everything all figured out and distributed out, if they can’t communicate with people, they might not be the best decision, the person to choose. Now, you also probably don’t want to choose the person who has the greatest communication skills in the world and can make everybody feel comfortable and awesome and wonderful, but can’t balance a checkbook. That could be problematic. And for those who don’t know what a checkbook is, they’re in a check. Most people, I guess not a lot of people write checks anymore. But of course, I used to keep track of every transaction in my checkbook. Now, since the bank does that for me and I have electronic access to all of the banking transactions, I don’t really feel like I need to be keeping track of everything in my checkbook anymore. Heck, I only write a couple of checks a month anyway. One, two, make an electronic payment of credit cards. I don’t know. I write a check to probably here to Crawford because that’s how that works. And then, well, next month when my quarterly taxes are due, I’ll write a check to the IRS because I have never gotten set up for the IRS online payment system. I’m like, yeah, I can just write them a check and mail it off. It’s good. It works out. But if you have somebody who can’t quite keep track of basic things like that, that also might not be the best person to be handling that. your estate and trying to figure out your finances and what assets are where and who should get what and all those type of things. There’s just different different ways of doing things and you want to have the right person who will be able to handle the financial transactions and be able to handle dealing with the courts and probate as necessary. and then also communicate with the beneficiaries so that they hopefully don’t feel like they’re in the dark and that they have to fight about everything. Everybody’s kind of got this idea of what it’s like in the law. People are pretty sure that anything they do is going to be, you know, possibly they’re absolutely right and that everything they do is completely legal and Everything everybody does that they don’t like is obviously illegal. I’m like, well, I don’t know about that. But, you know, we’ve all watched, you know, our court shows on TV or you’ve watched, whether it’s Suits or, you know, kind of old school Perry Mason or Boston Legal, you know, all of those type of things. It’s really cool. It’s really awesome. It’s really neat that those legal shows exist. They’re not necessarily grounded in the reality of what the law is like, right? So the gentleman this morning who wanted me to represent him in figuring out what’s going on, my friend is not going to be like, oh, I’m going to go walk into the courtroom with music playing behind me and walk up and say, hey. You know, as if I’m Perry Mason and, you know, this is what, you know, here’s this and here’s this and here’s this. And you need to, you know, you need to, you know, protect my clients. And there will be a, you know, a murmur will run through the court. Oh, look at this guy. Oh, my God, this is amazing. What’s going on here? We need to do this. Suddenly, all things will be revealed and everybody will have perfect justice served and everybody will get everything they want and nobody will upset. And by the end of the movie and or episode, everything will be perfect, if only that were true. And that’s not quite how it works. My friends, there’s filings and not everybody’s standing in court. In Perry Mason, there was always the surprise witness who would show up and Reveal that they had a picture of, you know, the person who was innocent at, you know, a restaurant at the exact moment of the killing across town. So it couldn’t possibly be the person who was on trial. And, you know, that would be kind of fun if there were Perry Mason moments in life. I mean, the time that I spent in the criminal court working for the DA’s office or working for the chief judge of the Denver District Court, who I worked for, we never had that happen. There was never a moment where a surprise witness stood up and said, why, yes, I saw. Tom Jones at the Denver Public Library from 7 p.m. to 7.18 p.m. And we know the time of death was 7.11 p.m. in Lone Tree, Colorado. So I had eyes on him the entire time. So it is impossible. He is completely innocent. You must release him now. And then, you know, the court goes crazy and the judge bangs their gavel and says, order, order, you know, bailiffs release the defendant immediately. And that’s just that’s not how it works. It’s never it never happened in the time that I was in the courtroom, mostly because by that point, the police already know that there was an alibi and that somebody saw him. And so it wasn’t him. You know, it makes for good TV doesn’t make for great actual law cases. So when we’re setting up an estate plan, we’re setting it up so it can be carried out according to the more boring procedures of a law case where a personal representative gets legal authority to act on your behalf. And then they go and they go to the bank and say, hey, So-and-so has died. I’m the personal representative. Here’s the paperwork. I need to withdraw this money, put it in an estate account that I can then use to pay out to the person who’s passed away’s children. And the person at the bank looks at the documents and goes through things and says, okay, well, you know, I need to do my paperwork. Should they pull out the paperwork and do all the paperwork? And then the assets can transfer. And that can be a, you know, usually not just in one visit type of process. You know, things take a while. It’s what they do. They’re a lot more boring than the TV legal stuff. But we prepare for the boring. So thanks so much for listening. I’ll be back next week. Stay tuned for John Rush and Rush Reason next. Thanks and bye.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey will return to ATX next Wednesday at 2.30 here on KLZ 560, AM 560, FM 100.7, and online at klzradio.com.
