Dive into mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey where legal expertise meets a light-hearted approach. This episode sheds light on the intricacies of family dynamics in estate planning, explains the legal language used in wills, and the tax implications of varying trust types. Through Michael’s engaging storytelling—featuring tales of ducks, turkeys, and even antelopes—listeners receive a comprehensive understanding of how estate planning can be both vital and engaging. Tune in to discover how your choices today impact your legacy tomorrow, with practical tips and plenty of laughs along the way.
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.
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All right, good afternoon. Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. You’re listening to 560 KLZ AM or 100.7 FM, possibly on 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 again, that’s 720-394-6887. So here we are to talk about estate planning. It’s the most exciting and fun and dynamic topic in the entirety of Denver radio. You know, some people, you know, they listen to classical music, classical music, pretty exciting, pretty fun. I mean, I remember a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where he was listening to the 1812 orchestra or the 1812 overture by Josh Hosky. And, you know, Calvin’s like, I don’t know, this is kind of boring. His dad’s like, no, listen very closely to the percussion section. Calvin’s like, wow, that is an interesting percussion section. He’s like, well, it’s cannons. And Calvin goes, he had cannons in crowded music halls? This is so exciting! Well, I think all of us know that there’s not actual cannons shooting people. There are actual canyons in the 1812 Overture, but they weren’t like shooting cannonballs or a grape shot or trying to actually kill people in the audience. My son’s middle school band performed the 1812 Overture at their end of year concert a couple of months ago. They did not have any cannons, but the kids, the eighth grade kids went and found some fireworks that you could like pull a string and they would pop and be nice and loud. So they had their own indoor cannons and apparently fired off confetti and stuff like that. So as the other kids are trying to play their instruments, there was a cannon fire and confetti raining down. I’m like, okay, this is entertaining for a middle school band concert. Because in middle school band concerts, sometimes you’re just trying to avoid… at all being squeaks and incorrect notes and things like that. Anybody who’s ever been to a middle school band concert knows what I’m saying, and all of us who have middle school band kids are very proud of them and tell them they did a great job, but it’s not quite the same as a professional orchestra performing the 1812 Overture. Now, I’ve been to the 1812 Overture performed in northern Colorado by professional musicians, and it was an outdoor venue, and they actually had the National Guard brought in some cannons that were quite loud. But, yeah, it’s kind of fun. But, you know, estate planning, not as much fun as cannons in classical music. Now there are other radio stations out there, I believe that do sports talk radio. Now sports talk radio can be fun and exciting. I mean, right now, if we’re discussing the, the, uh, the teams that are currently playing professional sports here in Colorado, we’ve got the, uh, Colorado Rockies and the Colorado Rapids, I believe that are currently playing. And the Rapids, they’re kind of a middle-of-the-road type of team. The Rockies, I hear they won two games in a row. So they’re on a roll. They’re doing great. Except for they’re still on pace to be the worst team in the history of modern Major League Baseball. They’re on pace to win like 31 games now as opposed to 29. That’s out of 162 for anybody who doesn’t follow sports. And there’s only so many times you can talk about um you know the the broncos and how their off-season organized team activities are going and you can talk about um you know the nuggets and you know what they need to do to try to become a better basketball team and the avalanche and you know how they should have done this that or whatever to be become the stanley cup champions unlike the uh you know in place of the florida panthers who won a stanley cup championship last night So, you know, sports talk radio can be exciting right now. It might not be as exciting as estate planning because everybody loves estate planning. It’s the most exciting topic ever. Now, I mean, I’m not cool enough to be a popular music person, to be producing popular music. I have some musical abilities, but I don’t know that I could put together a hit song or a hit record. It’s just not part of what I do. And so, you know, I’m really not competing with music. But there are other… There are other radio stations out there playing music, and they’re playing different types of music. So, you know, whether it’s popular music or country music or oldies music or kind of soft rock or hard rock or, you know, rap or any number of different genres of music. You know, I don’t have a whole lot of genres of music that I play in the estate planning world. But the estate planning world does account for all of those different things and all of those different tastes. And people who have different tastes all are able to be served by because everybody needs an estate plan. What I do is not fun and exciting, but it is important and necessary. And those are kind of different things. And I get that what I do is not fun and exciting. That’s fine. We talk about estate planning. I’m like, all right, who’s going to get your stuff when you die? Well, okay, that can be exciting. I have a client who she changed her mind on a will, and she wants to give X number of dollars to one of her daughters and not to a different daughter. And the different daughter, I was like, oh, well, I think you might want to – And she’s like, well, you know, I don’t want to leave her anything. But, you know, the language of, you know, not leaving something to somebody can be really harsh. So what can we do about that? And I was like, well, the language that we use is exactly what the Supreme Court and the state legislature tell us. And I’m sorry if it seems harsh, but that’s the language we use because that’s the language that’s approved by the people who make the laws and tell us what to do. And I realize that I’m not actively trying to hurt anybody’s feelings when I write an estate plan. But I’m also trying to make sure that there’s no terrible things that are going to go on. Now, this particular client, the child that they’re thinking of excluding was one that they haven’t had a long relationship with. It was a product of a kind of like a high school romance that turned into an unwed, unwanted pregnancy. And so they gave the child up for adoption. you know, the discussion of, oh, what do we do here? And they’re like, well, you know, do they have any claim to the estate? And I said, I can’t give you a 100% sure answer. If they are your child, then probably. If they’ve been fully adopted by somebody else and you don’t have any legal responsibility to them, then probably not. But I don’t have, I can’t just make that determination for you. And, you know, that’s not something that I had full enough information to say 100% one way or the other. 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, 720-394-6887. So as you’re… As we’re talking about fun and exciting stuff, and this particular lady, I don’t – she’s – and I get it. I’m not trying to actively hurt feelings when I’m doing estate plans. I don’t think anybody is. Well, maybe some people are. But they’re meaner than I am, and that’s hard to do because I’m pretty darn mean. Huh, Luke? Pretty darn mean. That’s just – That’s what people say about me is he’s pretty darn mean. Famously, a tyrant, cruel and cynical and terrible all around. I maintain my story is that I’m a mean, ornery cuss. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. And just because not too many people use the word cuss or cur in everyday language, but it sounds somewhat… Sounds a little bit cowboyish, like, you know, we’re on the range driving cattle across the, you know, the open plains. I don’t know that there’s a lot of open plains to be driving cattle across now. There’s usually county roads and there’s fences and, you know, sometimes there’s freeways and… No one wants to be driving on a freeway when a cow is trying to cross it. It’s no good. Actually, I’m sorry. A couple months ago, I was driving home after work, and I was in I-25 in between like 92nd and 104th, and like the whole, it was like 7 o’clock at night, and like everything slowed down, and I was like, what in the world is going on here? And as I was driving by, there was a turkey. The turkey was running across I-25. There was also a cloud of feathers because one of the turkeys had not made it across I-25 and been hit by some sort of car. So I’m like, well, the one turkey made it. He’s probably sad he or she lost his turkey friend. But I’m like, that would be a sad thing to be driving along and suddenly there’s a turkey in a cloud of feathers that goes poof and explodes. I’ve never had the occasion to hit a turkey. I didn’t even know that turkeys tried to cross I-25. You know, I’ve seen other animals try to cross I-25, usually a little much smaller. They’re, you know, like squirrels or rabbits or something like that. But… Never a turkey. You know, I have been driving in the mountains when a deer or an antelope or something like that will cross the road. I mean, we were down in Walsenburg on Memorial Day. We were driving out to the land that we had purchased out there and there was an antelope that was bouncing across the road and then jumping across our land. And it’s unimproved land, so there’s not like a house or anything that I was worried about. But I’m like, hey, this is kind of cool that we’ve got an antelope just kind of bouncing across our land. And we thought it was nice that they were antelope. And as we walked the land, there didn’t seem to be any snake holes or anything like that. So we’re like, hey, even better. Because since we’re going with cowboy theme, you can be home, home on the range where the deer and the antelope play. where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. Well, the fun part about that is if you mess with the punctuation, where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, seldom may be the discouraging word that you’re hearing. So, you know, somebody says seldom, you’re like, oh no, I’m discouraged. It can be terrible. But You know, this poor woman today was discouraged by the fact that there was language of someone’s intentionally disinherited and, you know, shall not receive anything under the will. I’m like, I’m not entirely sure how to say that nicer. I’m like, well, you know, we know you’re there, kiddo, but we’ve decided it would be better to give money to somebody else. So we’re really not going to leave anything for you. And so, you know, you’ll get zero, which is unfortunate. We’re very sorry about that. But we think it’ll work out better to leave our money to other people. Does that work? Sure. I mean, is that, but, you know, it’s very simple. It’s like, hey, disinherited, intentionally excluded. Cool. Done. You know, and, you know, like I said, I’m not trying to be harsh. Just sometimes it works out that way. And so as we go through, you know, so as we go through and do things, we’ve got to do it the right way. And so as we try to do things, there’s certain language that you do and certain things that we do and we’re not trying to have anything of why it doesn’t work or why it doesn’t go the way that it’s supposed to. But the language is set up by the by the way that things happen and by the way that things are supposed to go. And so it’s very difficult for, you know, and since I don’t make the rules, it’s not really going to be the type of thing that I can just say, oh, yes, well, we’ll switch the rules up and we’ll make it not work for you because we don’t want it to work. So there’s certain things that as we try to go through, there’s variations on things we can do and there are certain people that we can go ahead and do what needs to be done and we can switch things around and there is a lot of variation there. But there are certain words and certain ways of saying and doing things that we need to do so that they work. And just because we would like things to be less harsh or we’d like them to be set up a certain way doesn’t mean that we can’t do it that way. Now, I’ve had people who, as I write them wills and trusts, there are certain types of trusts that I write where part of what we do is we’re setting up a trust, but it’s going to be what’s called a grantor-type trust so that assets or income to that trust doesn’t get taxed at the trust level, but rather flows through to be taxed at the trust level. the trust maker levels. So if someone creates a trust, and then you still have income with it and things like that, then we say, okay, well, we’ve got, if we have income, so if we create a trust, you create a trust, let’s say you put your investment account inside the trust, and then the investment account pays you $5,000 in dividend income. Well, that $5,000 in dividend income needs to be taxed somewhere. They can be taxed to the trust. It could be taxed to the person who created the trust. Okay. Well, if we want it all to flow through, if it’s like a revocable trust and all of the income is going through the trust to the person, that’s part of what they’re living off of, then it would make sense for it to be taxed at the person who’s alive and receiving the incomes level. So we do that. And there are certain types of trusts that are irrevocable trusts where income flows through to the grantor or the trustmaker, the person who creates the trust. And there are certain criteria that you have to meet for that to work. And so I have written trusts like that. People are like, oh, well, you know, is this a grantor type trust? I’m like, yes, it is. They’re like, well, why? Well, you know, here’s the rules and here’s what degree of control they still have so that they can be considered the tax owner and, you know, be able to pay the tax. And I’ve had people be like, oh, well, you know, you need to make sure you say that in there. And I’m like, well, here’s the thing is that it meets all of the criteria. If it meets all the criteria, that’s how it’s to be set up. And we don’t necessarily explicitly need to say, oh, and this is a grantor trust because of this, because it meets the criteria. Now, some people want to have it explicitly stated. I’m like, great, we can have it explicitly stated. That’s cool. You know, there’s nothing wrong with having something explicitly stated like that of what it needs to be. But other times, we don’t necessarily need to explicitly state it because it is, you know, it meets all the criteria. So I think of it as something like this. I’m like, you know, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it flies like a duck and it lands in the water, what do you think it is, Luke? I would venture to guess a duck, probably. Are you sure? Probably. Probably, yeah. If it does all the duck things, then I think my best educated guess would be probably a duck. Right. Do I need to explicitly state that it is a duck if I named all the things that it does that are like a duck? No. No, I think it should be pretty apparent. Should be pretty clear, right? Yeah. Now, it may not be a duck, and there may be some things we need to explicitly state, but But a lot of times when we meet all the criteria, we don’t necessarily need to say, oh, well, this is in fact a duck. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey, despite the fact that we’re talking about ducks right now, on 560 AM KLZ or 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. Once again, 720-394-6887. And I think part of the reason that people want things explicitly stated is because they’re unfamiliar with the law or they’re unfamiliar with the rules. And so they want everything explicitly stated and set out for them. And I get that too. But sometimes those who are familiar with certain things will do things one way, and they don’t necessarily always go through and explicitly state everything. I think something like, so I’m a basketball referee, and maybe you have a person who’s driving to the hole, a dribbler who drives to the hole. There’s contact in a crash at the end, And someone goes up where they make or miss a shot, and so we call a foul. And sometimes I’m like, okay, well, I have a foul on the defender. And they’re like, well, why do you have a foul? And the coach will be like, well, why do you have a foul on the defender? The offense came in and crashed into them. And I say, because the defender never established legal guarding position. And a coach who has an understanding of the rules will understand that legal guarding position is something that a defender must have to be able to have an offensive foul on a crash. Some coaches are like, well, what do you mean legal guarding position? He was there. And I’m like, well, no. Legal guarding position is you have to have both feet on the floor facing a defender while the defender is dribbling or holding the ball. If they never establish that prior to the contact, then I can’t have an offensive foul on a crash like that. And, you know, sometimes coaches will be like, oh, well, you know, why did you just say that? I’m like, because that’s what legal guarding position means. And, you know, I realize that sometimes, you know, people can get silly and laugh about, you know, what things mean. I think there’s a line from… infinity war where um thor is he’s like i’m gonna hold it open and the other character is like but that will kill you he says only if i die and the other character responds Yes, that’s what killing means. So, you know, I mean, we can understand, yeah, it’s going to kill you, but only if I die. Well, yes, that’s what killing means. You know, there’s not a lot of crazy, you know, what does it mean to be killed? Does it mean that you die? Well, yes, those are kind of interchangeable synonyms. But, oh, right, makes sense. Killing might be a little bit of an intentional inflicting of death on the other person, but still, it does involve dying, so it’s not as if it’s going to be a big thing. Well, I don’t necessarily have things that are inflicted or different like that. They’re just kind of a little bit… A little bit different, a little bit strange sometimes, and all those type of things. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person’s… going to you know that somehow um if we you meet all the criteria it’s kind of like you know it’s like oh is this a will well if it has you know what happens to your stuff when you die who’s going to distribute things out and you know um you know as somebody who’s in charge of that and the time frame and you know the manner and means in which it’s supposed to be done If it doesn’t say will at the top of it, it’s still a will. We know what’s going to happen to it. Even if it doesn’t say will, last will and testament at the top of it. Now, to be clear, the documents that I write, if it’s a will, it’ll say last will and testament. And it’ll say financial power of attorney or medical power of attorney or living will or advanced directive. It’ll have a title that helps people to know and understand what it is. But especially in like the trusts that I write, I’ll have a section that says headings and titles are for reference and in navigating the trust only. We’re not saying that it’s going to be the most, you know, the heading or the title is going to be definitive on what things mean. I mean, sometimes I have people where I write trusts for them and they’re like, oh, well, we don’t want it to be the Bailey family trusts because then people will know who it is. You know, it’s like you’re Michael Bailey or the Bailey family trust is yours. I’m like, okay, great. Like, well, we would want to call it the Deep Blue Sea Smart Shark Trust. Okay, we can call it the Deep Blue Sea Smart Shark Trust if you want. Or you could call it the Jaws Just Big Scary Shark Trust. Okay, we can do that. We could call it the Marine Life Biology Trust. Okay, you know, there’s nothing particularly special about the name of the trust, but you want to be able to have it be identified. Now, when I created my trust, I did not call it the Bailey Family Trust. I named it something slightly different just so it was, you know, in fact, our trust and so that we knew what it was going to be. And we knew that it was, you know, what was going to be happening with it so that it was all, you know, in place and, you know, I wasn’t trying to be like, ha ha, I’m going to hide and nobody will know that it’s the Deep Blue Sea Smart Shark Trust. Nobody will know who that’s related to. Well, you know, if you’ve seen the movie Deep Blue Sea and the smarter sharks, then you know what I’m talking about. And Jaws being just a big scary shark, but not necessarily a smart shark. But it wasn’t to be like, oh, I’m hiding. I’m going to have this private trust that nobody can ever know what it is. I’m like, yeah, well, it’s just a different name. If I were to be sued, somebody could still come get my trust assets. That’s kind of how that goes. But… Once we set up a trust, I just named it something unique so that it would be something that we would know about. And then it would be unique to us. So there’s so many different things that go into estate planning. And setting things up in the right words, not necessarily every word has to be dictated and not everything has just one rule. But the more that we can work on getting your trust or your will set up for you to do what you want… using the right words and using the words and the forms and all of the things that the law tells us we should do, all of which helps get your assets where you want them to go. So thanks so much for listening. John Rush and Rush Reasoner up next. Stay tuned, and I’ll talk to you next week. Thanks and bye.
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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.
