[music] Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey. Over a decade ago, attorney Michael Bailey turned his attention to a state 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. [music] Good afternoon and welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560KLZ, so we can do something just besides just leave your family alone. You could also be listening on 100.7 FM or in the KLZ 560 radio app. Or if you are Luke, you’re listening live and sending this out everywhere else. And today my tie has a grim reaper on it. So if you’ve been reaped by the grim reaper and you are in fact in the studio with me as a ghost because it is Halloween time. I welcome the Halloween ghosts. Hopefully their friendly ghost is supposed to unfriendly ghost. Because last week as we learned from Mr. Luke, if I’m apparently a grim reaper today because last time I was a haunted house with friendly ghosts and things like that, since the tie apparently reflects what I am internally. It’s true. We’ve learned this so we can do that. Scientific? Yeah, right. That’s a lot of evidence backing up that claim. That’s what we call junk science. Okay, and we’ll go with it. So if you want to talk to me on the air, phone number is 303-4775-6000. And again, that’s 303-4775-6000. And my direct line is 720-3946-887. Once again, 720-3946-887. So that is the number to call. If you want to talk about your own situation and all of those types of things. If you just want to talk to me on the air about something in general, I’m happy to do that as well. Just need to plan for all of that. So today was a big day. Not necessarily for everybody, but it was a big day. I have some pictures of my 15-year-old daughter. And she’s smiling broadly. And there is nary a piece of metal to be found on her teeth. For the last two and a half years, she’s had braces. And she had what’s called a Herp’s device. It was like an internal thing that rearranged teeth and jaws. And it was very uncomfortable. And she was told that she would be done with her braces in spring of this year. Well, it is fall of this year. So it took a little bit longer than she thought it would. But she got her braces off this morning into this afternoon. So she is now braces free. She will be — she got fitted for retainers. And she’ll have retainers that she needs to wear for a fair amount of time. But braces free is kind of nice. It’s always interesting as kids, you get braces. It’s like the most awkward phase of life. So she’s 15. She’ll be 16 in February. But so from the ages of, you know, right around 13 to 15, which everybody thinks they’ve peaked in life is. I wish I could go back to be 13, 14, 15. Or if you think that — I don’t know. I really don’t know anybody who thought that 13, 14, 15 were the greatest years of their life. Maybe there are some people. I just don’t know who they are. If you’re out there listeners, please call and tell me why a 13, 14, 15 was the best ever. And I will listen because it has not been my experience. But for her, she is now braces free. And you know, last night we went and she was playing a volleyball match. You know, I just don’t — but at the volleyball match, the team that they were playing against, they had eight seniors on the team. And the seniors, our school does it too. The school will take pictures and they have a big poster of the senior, you know, kind of hung up against the wall. And so, you know, my daughter, you know, she’s in the team poster. She’s there. She has her braces. But in her senior photo, which we assume that she will get in a couple of years as she keeps playing, she will no longer have braces on her teeth. She will just be have her beautiful smile. Now my wife is like, oh, she looks so grown up. And I’m like, well, at least she doesn’t have braces. You know, she’s always kind of looked grown up. She just had braces, which made her — seem as if her teeth needed to move. And you know, my wife never had braces growing up. I did. So, you know, the braces coming off, I was like, this is a — I’m like, this is a pretty darn cool day. I remember the day that mine came off. And I was pretty excited about no longer needing to have braces. I mean, I was a trumpet player. So, you know, press the trumpet against your teeth or your lips and your through your teeth. And it was less comfortable. And, you know, the braces came off. I’m like, look, I can play the trumpet without — this is it, mashing my lips into braces. This is awesome. My daughter also plays the flute. So that will be a slightly different thing to play the flute without braces. But you know, she’s happy to be there. So, the whole braces thing, it was — you know, again, I don’t think anybody loves braces. They’re like, yes, do you know I really want to do? I want to have braces. This will be the coolest thing ever. Luke, have you always been jealous of people who had braces or did you have braces? No. Never had braces. And was never jealous of those braces. You were never jealous of people with braces? No. You didn’t feel left out? No. It seemed rather uncomfortable, I thought. Well, just when they tighten them and you’re — then you’re teething your jaw hurt because they’re trying to move them more. And cleaning them is a big hassle. It’s true. It’s true. Yeah. Never jealous. No, never jealous. You’re totally normal, you know, reasonable human being. What’s up with that, Luke? Why you got to be totally normal, help, and reasonable? I don’t get it. I don’t know. Someone’s got to balance you. Fair deal. Well, me being unreasonable and unhinged, is that what we’re saying? Complete loon. Fair deal. I can live with that. You know, that’s probably true. Anyhow. [laughs] Or terrible. But at least I’m making fun of myself and I know it’s make fun of. So I’m good with that. But nobody is like, “Oh gee, I really wish I had braces.” Well, yeah. But it’s important and necessary. And, you know, I mean, I had braces, the forefront teeth on my bottom, on my bottom drop. The two front ones were just fine, but on either side of it, the other ones were like, they came in at like a 45 degree angle, sticking into my mouth instead of, you know, standing upright like they were supposed to. So I could have gone through life, always chomping my own tongue whenever I was biting down, or fortunately my parents were kind enough to help me have the braces. And kind of pull those teeth up where they were supposed to go. It took, again, a couple of years. But now my teeth work like they’re supposed to. Every time I floss, I feel like I have slightly, you know, smaller gaps between my teeth than a normal person because they had to be pulled into place. But I still can floss them, you know, they’re not. They weren’t fused together because that would not be fun. I don’t think. I’m like, “Yep, I can still brush and floss my teeth.” But it was important and necessary. An important necessary doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fun and exciting. And I believe we’ve talked about this before, Mr. Luke, that a state planning may not be fun and exciting, but it is important and necessary. So you know, braces, state planning, both not exciting, but fun and, you know, important and necessary. Now that’s not entirely true though. I mean, you are listening to mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 AM or 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-4775-6000. And again, that’s 303-4775-6000. And my direct line is 720-3946-887. And once again, 720-3946-887. So we have talked about how a state planning may not be fun and exciting. That’s just the wrong words for it. But we’ve also talked about how it is important and necessary and that we need to do things the right way, we need to do things the way that they need to be done so that our estate plan is in place. And, you know, state planning doesn’t have to be painful. It doesn’t have to be completely, you know, like braces where it’s hurt and we tighten things down and then you have a sore jaw for another, you know, for every month they’d adjust something. And so you’re like, “Wow, we’re going to have a week or two or a month or two there of being of unpleasantness.” And, you know, kind of, you’re like, “Okay, well, you know, like, okay, things got adjusted. Okay, now my, you know, week and a half of it, not feeling too bad, cool, I’m good.” And then, of course, you go and the next thing you, you know, you’re like, “Hey, so we had, we got adjusted, we can have a half of it hurt. Now I’m fine for another couple of weeks and it gets adjusted again and now it hurts again.” You know, we’re less about pain in estate planning than in braces. We don’t like to have, I don’t like to cause pain to people. Maybe I’m weird like that, but I try to avoid causing pain. It’s one of those things that, you know, we’re trying to make things as painless as possible. And oftentimes I’ll meet with people and they’re like, “Oh, that was mostly painless.” I’m like, “Yep, it was.” Like, “Oh, I thought it’d be so much worse.” I’m like, “Well, we could make it worse, but I’m not sure what that, you know, what would that would accomplish.” You know, and every once in a while I get people where I will send out a draft copy of something and they’re like, “Oh, well, you know, well, what does this mean?” And how can you didn’t explain that the first time? And I’m like, “Well, I covered it, but I’m not in the time that we meet. I’m not trying to give you a legal treatise on everything that could ever possibly be there. I’m not trying to address every single, you know, possible contingency that might come up in the documents that I write and why it may or may not be confusing to one individual.” I mean, I write plenty of estate plans and as I send them out, some people will write back and they’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, you know, this looks all great. I’m good to go. We can just get it signed.” I’m like, “Cool.” Other people, I send out pretty much almost the exact same document just with their distribution pattern in there and they go, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m confused about section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Subsections, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G and each of them. Could you please explain that to me?” I’m like, “So basically you want me to go line through line, line by line through the document and explain everything to you. I can give you the general overview and I could go line by line, but if you want me to go line by line and spend 10 to 12 hours, you know, explaining every single sentence to you, your $500 will is now going to be a $5,000 will or your $2,000 trust is now going to be a $20,000 trust. So we don’t necessarily, I mean, I can use those numbers because I paid $30,000 a year to go to law school so that I could learn all of those things or actually I could learn some of them so that I could then go off into practicing so that I could learn what I do now, post-leaving law school. But, you know, I’m not, I am not a law school. I am not a legal education professional. I don’t, so I can teach people, “Okay, here’s the level of what you need to know, here’s how this works, but we don’t need to go into the level of detail of everything that we did in law school.” You know, I can say, “Hey, you know, a trust is a legal device that holds on to property for the use and enjoyment of another.” And they’re like, “Okay, what does that mean?” I’m like, “Well, think of it as like a corporation.” So, you know, Walmart is a big giant corporation. Well, Walmart holds on to stuff and they sell it so for other people to enjoy. So a trust is kind of like Walmart. They’re holding on to stuff. They don’t, they’re not going to sell it to you, but they’ll give it to you as you go through life. And you know, then they’ll, but they’re holding on to it to use it for you. I’m like, “Okay, that makes sense.” You know, it’s, you know, a trust isn’t, you know, people get caught up on what a trust is and, you know, “Oh, well, you know, is a trust a physical place or a physical thing or is a trust, you know, some sort of, it’s almost like they think it’s a vault at a bank or a safety deposit box.” I’m like, “Nah, not quite.” The trust is a legal device. It exists. Mostly, I mean, there’s a trust agreement, which we write and so it’s written down on paper and that’s the terms and conditions of the trust. But a trust itself is not like a, it’s not like a safe where you have a combination of safe and you can open it up and put your stuff in there and you close it up and you’re like, “Ha, now it’s all locked up in my trust.” Nobody can use this. Whoa, I’m like, “Well, and tell somebody has like an acetylene torch and can, you know, burn through the hinges and take it off.” It’s, you know, not quite what we’re doing here. But a trust isn’t necessarily something where you take it and lock it up and you’re like, “Ha, I will never see it again. I’ll never use it again.” You know, most trusts that I write people are still using those assets and living off them or using them for different things. You know, if a person writes a trust and they put a house in there and then their investment assets and like, “Oh, but I still want to be able to access those investment assets.” I’m like, “Well, I have really good news for you. If you create the trust and you’re the trustee and you’re the primary beneficiary while you’re alive, then you can do pretty much anything you want with it. You just might have to sign your name as a trustee from time to time.” But then upon your death, the assets stay inside the trust and can be passed on to your kids as the beneficiaries. And if you do that, then your kids as the beneficiaries, they can receive property out of the trust, but they don’t necessarily receive that property until such time as you’ve passed away and it’s no longer for you. Because there appears to be a concept out there that I’ve heard from multiple potential clients, but they think if they put their assets in a trust, then it’s all locked up and if they ever want to do anything, then their kids need to agree to distribute assets to them. And I say, “Well, we can do that if you want.” And sometimes that’s a good idea. Sometimes you have parents who are as they’re getting older or, you know, mom or dad is starting to develop memory loss and maybe not making the best of decisions. Then it’s not the worst thing in the world to say, “Hey, we’re going to create a trust. We’re going to put your assets inside the trust. We’re going to put your kids in charge of that trust so that if you need money out of the trust, you can go check with your kids. But if somebody calls you with a scam type of story about how you need to donate a million dollars to the rescue, the poor kids of, in search of your underdeveloped country here, the story. And you’re like, “Okay.” And it’s not, you know, UNICEF or, you know, liivate for Africa or something. It’s not a legitimate thing. And you go like, “Okay, well, I’m going to donate a million dollars to Luke’s big fund for the underprivileged children.” And, you know, Luke’s big fund for the underprivileged children may or may not be a legitimate charity. I don’t know. Luke, do you have a big fund for underprivileged children that’s a legitimate charity? No, no, I do not think. It’s possible you could set it up if you wanted to. I could if I wanted to. Right. If somewhere to donate a million dollars to Luke’s big fund for underdeveloped children, it would probably be, you would probably be the undeveloped child who would benefit from it. Yes. Yes. And if that’s what you’re wanting to do is donate a million dollars to Luke, cool. You know, we can do it. I won’t say no. No, exactly. Then we have to get a money bag just to put a million dollars in it to say that we have a money bag, huh Luke? But instead, you know, if under the guise of, oh, well, we’re going to benefit all of these, you know, poor starving children in, you know, whether it’s South America or Southeast Asia or Africa or inner city Denver or inner city Detroit where, you know, inner city Aurora since we’re in Aurora or maybe outer city Aurora or a combination of crossover city Aurora. I don’t, is there an inner city Aurora, outer city Aurora suburbs? I have no idea. I don’t know. You know, but, you know, maybe, I mean, the outer city is, you know, I think about that sometimes we’re like, oh, you know, we need to benefit the inner cities. I’m like, yeah, but what about the outer cities? You know, what about the people who live in, you know, the small towns that we drive through be when we’re driving from here to Utah or here to visit our friends in Kansas City and you’re like, you drive through the town. It’s like population 83. I’m like, I would bet there might be some kids who are a little bit hungry in a population 83 city. So the inner city is the outer city is the upper city is the downer city is, I don’t know, whatever there are, you know, if I enter the guise of that, money is being donated to Luke himself. I’m like, ah, that seems somewhat fraudulent and deceptive and we’re trying to avoid fraudulent or, you know, most people are trying to avoid being fraudulently induced to do things or being deceived. You know, maybe I’m wrong. Luke, you’re not a big, engage or in fraud and deception are you? Not really no, right no, no fraud no deception, fair deal. There we go. So you’re listening to mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 K LZ AM also heard on 100.7 FM or the K LZ 560 radio app. Phone over 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 that’s 720 394 6887. So if a mom and dad are starting to lose their mental acuity and we don’t think it would be a great idea for them to have complete access to their asset, then we probably don’t want to set up a trust where you restrict their access to those assets. And you know, under those circumstances where mom and dad are losing their mental acuity and it’s not a great idea to let them make all of their own decisions. That’s a legitimate understandable reason why you’d want to do that. But for most people, you know, myself and my wife who have our own trust included, we don’t necessarily, you know, I don’t want to turn control over to my kids yet. Partially 1815 and 12, 18-year-old is learning how to be a college student, doing very well at it by the way for anybody who’s, you know, followed that. She’s doing very well academically. She’s embraced a lot of things. She likes to go to the women’s volleyball games. She’s been to a couple of football games and, you know, as luck would have it, she went to the first football game, which was a fairly resounding, dominating victory by my college football team. And then she went to the game on Saturday, which was against a far more quality opponent and yet it was still a resounding victory for our college team. And so, you know, she’s been to two BYU football games and both of them have been pretty good victories. And I’m like, well, just so you know, Keto, that doesn’t always happen. Yeah, sports are up and down and it’s not always going to be quite as awesome as, you know, one team will dominate the other. But this year, BYU is playing very well there, 6-0. So she’s embraced that. She’s gone to the volleyball games. She’s, yeah, sometimes she’s been down to the pre-med club thing. She went in audition for the Acapella club. So she’s kind of embraced all of these different things and doing all sorts of neat things. In addition to keeping her school work going well, that’s just good because her scholarship is tied to her academics, we’re like, well, hey, we’re glad that you’re doing well academically because we want your scholarship to continue to pay for you to go to school instead of you or us needing to do so. But I also, I want my 18-year-old to experience college and not have to be like, oh, well, now we’re concerned about mom and dad and, you know, how do we take care of mom and dad? Now if there were a need to take care of mom and dad, then I’m sure this should be perfectly capable of doing that. The 15-year-old and the 12-year-old, since they’re not fully adults, my kids are great, but I don’t know that I’d want to put my 15 or my 12-year-old in charge of making monetary decisions for me. That just might not be the best thing. Now if I were in the throes of dementia or Alzheimer’s and didn’t have the ability to make my own decisions, I’d probably think differently. You know, well, I’d think differently because I’d mention Alzheimer’s, but I would also say that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to give my wife decision-making power, and if not my wife, then my 18-year-old daughter, to be able to take care of me to kind of save me from myself, so to speak. And that’s an important thing, and sometimes we need to be saved from ourselves. And it’s not that we’re trying to take away somebody’s ability to make their own decisions, or certainly not trying to do that. And we’re not trying to be mean to somebody and be like, “Oh, well, you can’t choose for yourself.” But if you have a mental capacity issue, you may not want to be left to your own devices. I mean, I, when I was, you know, 25, 26 years ago now, when I was severely injured and spent some time in a coma, and I’ve had people who were like, “Yeah, do you remember this conversation?” I’m like, “No, I do not. What did I say?” I’m like, “Oh, you said this in this?” And I’m like, “I’m sorry. I do not recall that at all.” You know, apparently I was having a conversation with them as if I was fully coherent and aware of what I was talking about, but the fractured skull and bruised brain and, you know, severe concussion that I have was influencing my ability to properly communicate with people. And it didn’t quite come across as rationally, I mean, it seemed like it was rational, but when I hear what I said, I’m like, “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t recall the having said that at all. I apologize. If I offended you, I didn’t mean to be, you know, a punk, but apparently I was, so I’m sorry. That wasn’t me. It may have been me speaking, but it wasn’t like the rational me.” So, you know, I’ve done that. It, in my case, it happened to be temporary because my brain did recover, although I did voluntarily go to law school and I still practice law, so clearly the brain damage is ongoing. And Luke would agree with that totally. Brain damage, yeah. That’s why I run into walls after you once in a while as I was remarking around the studio, right? It makes sense. And all ends up now. That’s right. But, you know, during that time, whatever I may have said or done, I’m like, “Oh, right, that might not have been the best decision. It might have been more influenced by an injured brain than a rational thinking brain, like I like to think that I have now.” I mean, it’s up for debate, but still. So when you set up a trust, you set up a will, you’re setting things up to pass things on to your kids or to your loved ones or charities or whomever you pick as your beneficiaries, but you’re also planning for how do we get from here to there? And what do we do? And sometimes it takes longer than we think. Sometimes it takes shorter than we think. My daughter had her braces for longer than she thought she was going to since it was supposed to be spring of this year they were off. They came off now and fall of this year. And we’re like, “Okay, well, that’s good. At least we got them off, you know, sometimes it just takes longer.” But as we’re going through and we are setting up your state plan, sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes shorter. And then when you get to the end of your life, sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes shorter. I wouldn’t want to have, I’ve had clients who in their early 20s have been afflicted with terrible diseases that have taken their life much sooner than they thought it would. Also, had clients who, when they’re, they would have liked to have passed away five to ten years ago because either their body or their brain has betrayed them. But no matter what our life situation is, we plan ahead. And if we can plan ahead within a state plan, we can make everything go. A little bit easier, a little bit smoother, and work out better for you. So thanks so much for listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Mike Bailey. I will be back next week and we’ll talk to you then. Thanks and bye. Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey will return to ATX next Wednesday at 230 here on KLZ 560, AM 560, FM 100.7 and online at kelzradio.com. [Music]