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Why Estate Planning is for Everyone

Why Everyone Needs Estate Planning, Not Just the Very Wealthy

Transcript:

Jordan: I'm Jordan Flake. I'm an attorney with Clear Counsel Law Group, and I do a lot of estate planning in my legal practice, and one thing that people are starting to catch on to is that estate planning isn't just for the elderly or the rich. It's really for everyone because we all have an interest in protecting, for example, what happens to us if we become incapacitated, and so as we start to cater our services to a younger generation who see the need for estate planning, we're getting a lot more questions about why does this costs so much or how much is this going to cost, or am I going to get additional bills?

Let me tell me you a little bit about how the marketplace generally charges for estate planning services. On the extreme low end of the spectrum, there are non-attorney solutions to estate planning, and those non-attorney solutions can include, for example, drafting your own legal documents, and that's something where oftentimes you can go online and purchase the form for maybe a few hundred dollars. I would caution against putting too much confidence in that situation. Obviously, I'm an attorney, so I'm the one who sees a lot of the times that those documents don't work out, but at the same time, I'm willing to say that that's better than nothing. In that scenario, you'd be looking at a few hundred dollars and working on it on your own. You wouldn't really have the backing of a law firm with respect to those documents, and so that's something you have to consider.

Kind of moving up the line, you have what are considered the simple estate planning documents, which often just include a will and power of attorney documents, and power of attorney documents are those documents that say what happens to me if I'm incapacitated. Who's going to make medical decisions on my behalf. Who's going to make financial decisions on my behalf, and if you're just doing those, you might be in the $200 to $300, possibly $400 range just to prepare those documents.

If you really want to do a comprehensive estate plan, then if you own property, it may likely include a revocable living trust, and once you do that, then you probably in the marketplace are looking more along the range of $1,000 to $2,000, and in terms of how attorneys actually bill for this, most firms know what preparing a trust entails because they've possibly done a lot of them like our law firm has, and so we know that we can simply prepare these documents on a flat fee basis because we understand what work will be involved in preparing the documents. That's how most lawyers are going to charge, is just on a flat fee basis.

That being said, you do have to be cautious because there is a tendency in advertising to want to bait and switch and say $499 for a trust, and then you go in and find out it didn't include other documents, such as a power of attorney document. That's just a brief overview. Different marketplaces can be different. If you want obviously the most accurate quote, please reach out to our law firm, so we can let you know exactly what it is that will work for you and how much we would charge you on a flat fee basis. Brian, do you have any questions on this at all?

Brian: Is there an age which would be too young to form an estate plan?

Jordan: Obviously, you'd have to be an adult to be able to sign those with any type of legal authority, but every estate plan that most lawyers are going to recommend will include a statement that says this is what I want to have happen to me if I'm incapacitated, if I pass away, and so there's no age at which there's no risk of incapacity or death, and so the answer is 18. If you're 18, you can use an estate plan. Now, whether or not that actually happens in practice, I would say certain life events would more determine the real need to come in and get an estate plan done. These life events could include, for example, marriage. It could include having a child, owning your first home. Those are some types of things that I would say definitely should trigger more urgency in your mind in terms of getting an estate plan done. Any other questions on that, Brian?

Brian: You're saying that if someone calls Clear Counsel Law Group, you'll be able to tell them up front what the cost will be for the trust.

Jordan: We will with a lot of accuracy be able to tell you after the first phone call because really it's just a question of what you're trying to accomplish, and if you have property, a house, life insurance policy, children, we're going to know pretty well. We've seen situations that we can let you know with a high degree of certainty exactly how it's going to come out. Now, in terms of exactly what it'll cost, we would like to do a free consultation, sit down with you, complimentary consultation. The reason we do that is because that'll allow us to get to know you better and get to know all the different circumstances. At the end of that free consultation, we will tell you exactly what we're facing.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 11/27/2015

How Does Legal Capacity Affect the Ability to Bequeath a Home?

What to Know about Legal Capacity in Order to Bequeath a Home

Transcript:

Jordan Flake: I'm Jordan Flake. I'm an attorney with Clear Counsel Law Group. I have a question here. My sister has agreed to care for my mother and her home. Is there a legal way of ensuring that the home will be given to her after mother passes so that she'll not have to sell it before then? I think the idea here is they want to be able to keep the mother in the home during the course of the mother’s life.

Whenever a client comes to us and says, "I'm caring for my mother, or I'm caring for my father and we want to do this." The very first thing that pops into our head is the highly relevant question of does your mother still have her capacity. What I mean by capacity is the ability to make decisions by herself and for her own benefit. When we talk about capacity, we're not necessarily at her prime, can she solve all the math problems that she would have been able to solve in her 20's or 30's.

We're more asking the question of does she know, if she says I want this property to go this way, or to this person. I want this person to take care of me. Does she understand the implications of those questions. Is there consistency. That's the first question that I would ask in response to this. Basically, if the mother still has her capacity and is pretty sharp then there are a lot of options for making sure that the mother can stay in the home and make a designation as to who the property will pass after she passes away. She could do a reverse mortgage, she could do a simple will, she could do a revocable living trust. There's just a lot of different options in that scenario.

If the mother does not have her capacity anymore, and again, just settling quickly on capacity, this can often be a medical question and it would fall outside the expertise either the sister in this scenario or a special interest lawyers. Often times we may wish to consult a physician in order to determine whether or not an individual, elderly individual has the capacity. But if we're on a case where the mother has lost her capacity, then yes, we're a lot more restricted in what we can do. If we want to take some serious action like selling a property, it may be necessary to obtain a guardianship order from the court to that effect.

I know I'm jumping all over the place, but the other thing you have to consider is whether or not the mother has valid power of attorney documents, because if she does then a guardianship wouldn't be necessary. There's kind kind of an analysis that we go through whenever we get these types of questions to determine whether or not there's capacity. Whether or not there are or not estate planning documents that will help out, and if not we might be looking at a guardianship scenario.

Brian, I kind of jumped all over the place during that answer. Did you have any follow up questions on that?

Brian: Just one follow up. If a person has been determined to have lost capacity, can a person regain capacity?

Jordan Flake: Absolutely, yes. I use the term elderly when we're talking about capacity, because it is often the case. I've had a few cases where there was a severe liver disorder, for example, on one client that I'm thinking about. He was a 52 year old man, otherwise fully had his capacity, but his liver disorder affected his ability to make decisions. We had to go out and get a guardianship for him. Fortunately a few months down the road, the liver issue was solved and we watched as his capacity came back fully and we were able to close out the guardianship. Guardianship is by no means a permanent situation. It's often times, though, when we're talking about adult guardianship, we are talking about elderly people who might be toward the end of their life, and that's why they have lost their capacity.

In any event, if you are trying to provide for the care of a parent, and you have questions about how the assets are supposed to be distributed, please reach out to Clear Counsel Law Group. Talk with me. We can go over the scenario on the phone or I'm happy to meet with the elderly parent and basically we'll go through this analysis and make sure we take all the right steps. Thank you.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 11/19/2015

What Estate Planning Documents Will Help You Avoid Probate?

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jordan Flake. I am a managing partner at Clear Counsel Law Group. A lot of times we get the question: what kind of estate planning documents can help me avoid the probate process? In order to tackle that question, it's important to understand that probate is the court supervised process of determining where assets go after an individual's death. When a person passes away, with assets in their own name, we're in a place of insecurity where we really don't who gets those assets and under what conditions they get those assets.

That's when the state law steps in and says, "Okay, if Molly, 87 year old woman, Molly," I'm thinking of a client of ours, "passes away, and there's assets just in here name. A house, a bank account. The bank is not just going to give that money to her kids just because they can produce a birth certificate. They need more assurance in order to release Molly's account to the children.

What do they need? They need a court order saying that these individuals are entitled to this bank account. The process of obtaining that court order is known as the probate process. It is not as simple as it may seem. You have to prove to the court, the word probate actually comes from the same word "to prove," you have to prove to the court where these assets go and why they should go there. In order to do that, you have to hire an attorney and go through a very long and costly process. A lot of what we do as estate planning attorneys is to ensure that your loved ones are not left, at the time of your passing, in a probate situation.

What documents can bypass the need for probate? The main one that you want to look for, in an estate planning attorney, is a revocable living trust. It sort of operates like a box. You can think of it as a box. You can also think of it as a living legal entity, not a human, but a legal human entity of sorts. Once you place assets into that box, then for purposes of the law, that's kind of set aside outside of your own name.

Let's just go back to the example of Molly, whereas she passed away with a bank account in her name, the bank had this confusion about where to send this asset and basically told the loved ones, "Go get a court order saying where this goes." Let's take that exact scenario with Molly had seen an estate planning attorney in advance.

Molly puts the assets into a box, into a revocable living trust. The bank account, instead of listing Molly on it, lists her trust. When the survivors go in, at that point, then the bank says, "Oh, this is a trust account. It's not owned by an individual. What does the trust say to do with this account?" At that point, the bank doesn't need any kind of court guidance to determine what to do with the assets in the bank account. Instead, they look to the trust, which was signed previously by Molly, and they follow the instructions contained in the trust.

If you think about estate planning and how to avoid probate, it's just the preemptively declaring in a very formal and official legal sense, declaring to the whole world, what you want done with your assets at the time of your passing. Normally, by putting them into this separate legal entity or box, if you want to think of it like that, that will persist in its validity even after you pass away.

Please come see us at Clear Counsel Law Group if we can either review an existing trust or give you a consultation about your different options in terms of putting your assets into a revocable living trust. Thank you.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 11/14/2015

What is Survivorship?

What to Know about Survivorship before You Purchase a Home

Transcript:

(Editor's note: Brian is Clear Counsel's Communications Director. His prompts represent a conglomeration of inquiries submitted. If you have you have a question you would like answered in an upcoming video, email the inquiry to brian@clearcounsel.com)

Jordan: Hi, I'm Jordan Flake with Clear Counsel Law Group. One of the questions that we get a lot is what is survivorship. You hear this word survivorship. For example, in the context of owning a home you'll hear the words joint tenancy with the right of survivorship. Basically, survivorship refers to the fact that after one of the owners passes away, the asset goes directly to the other owner without the need for probate. If you own a house in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship, say you own that house with your spouse, and your spouse passes away, that house becomes yours exclusively by operation of law. The principle of law that causes that transfer to occur automatically, we refer to that as survivorship.

It's important to know about survivorship because those assets that are held jointly, with survivorship essentially, do not need to go through any type of probate process because after an individual passes away, there's really no doubt as to who owns that property. Did you have any question, Brian, or follow up on ...

Brian: Sure, could you explain how a house becomes owned in joint tenancy?

Jordan: When you purchase a home, the real estate agents will likely ask you how you want to take title to the property. What that really means is how is it that you as a purchaser want to hold that property under the eyes of the law. There are several different options. There's something called tenants in common, which means that you own 50% and the other owner owns the other 50%. Even though you own the same property, it's as if you own two separate assets because the property is split into two shares, 50% shares. That's tenants in common.

What happens in that situation, incidentally, is that if one of the tenants passes away, that 50% share just stays there until there's a court order determining what happens to it. In a way, to understand survivorship it's helpful to understand tenancy in common because basically they're just totally different in the sense that with joint tenancy with rights of survivorship, it's automatically transferred to the other person whose name is on the title.

When you purchase a property is when the titling of the property will happen. Now if you purchased a property and you're not sure exactly how you hold title to it, our law firm will do a free consultation where we will review any estate planning documents you have. We will review all of your assets, how those assets are held. We go through and say, if heaven forbid you were to pass away, this is what would happen with this asset. That's what we're getting at when we're talking about taking title, and survivorship, and tenancy, and things of that nature. Other questions on that?

Brian: Is there a type of ownership that is the default or can you opt into all of them?

Jordan: You can opt into all of them. That's the point of the realtor or the title company asking you how ... if they sit down with you and your spouse for example, how do you want to own this property. If you do not make a selection on that front and there are two owners to the property, it is presumed under the law to be a tenancy in common, meaning that one spouse owns 50%, the other spouse owns a divided 50%. Now this is where you could potentially face a probate issue because if one of the spouses passed away, that 50% is just sitting there hanging out in that deceased spouse's name. All of a sudden, the surviving spouse might run to Clark County and say, "Well that was my husband and he wanted me to have everything." Clark County says, "That may be true but in order to actually give you the entirety of the house, we need a court order." The process for obtaining that court order is a probate proceeding, which can be time consuming or expensive and fraught with some difficulty.

If you're in that situation where either you have a loved one pass away and you're not sure how the property was titled, or you own a house yourself and you don't remember going through this conversation about how to title the property, please come see us so that we can go over those assets and help you understand what you're facing.

Probate / Probate Videos - 11/09/2015

Why Do You Need an Attorney for Probate Matters?

How Will an Attorney Assist You With Probate?

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jordan with Clear Counsel Law Group. I'm an attorney who practices a lot in probate. One of the questions that we get, when a person passes away, their family comes to us and says, "Why should I have to hire an attorney in this situation?" The answer is because it's actually pretty difficult to interface with the court. Here in Nevada we have a little bit more of a complicated probate statutory structure. The process is a little bit more difficult. I assume, in a lot of ways, that's because we're a retirement destination. I think there's a lot of exploitation in our state. When a person goes to the court saying, "My loved one has passed away and I want to get their property," there's really a lot of hoops that that individual has to jump through.

There's getting all the right notices put out there, noticing everybody who's entitled to notice that you are seeking to become the personal representative of the estate. There's notifying creditors. There's doing orders and notices of entry of order, and just a lot of different documents. There's letters of administration or letters testamentary that need to be filed. I'm all for do-it-yourself legal solutions; however, in the probate context I'm very, very confident that it's going to be much more economically advantageous to hire an attorney. Not just because it simplifies things and the attorney has the expertise to do that, but also because if the personal representative were to try to go it on their own and make a huge error, that can come back to them in the form of liability. I would strongly, strongly recommend that if you have to administer the estate of a deceased love one, that you contact Clear Counsel Law Group so that we can give you an idea about what to expect and how we might be able to help you.

At Clear Counsel Law Group, our goal, and our motto when it comes to representing individuals who have had loved ones pass away, is maximize your inheritance, not your attorney's fees. That's why we charge on a flat fee basis rather than some kind of hourly basis that can get way out of control. Come talk to us about how we can maximize your inheritance and minimize your attorney's fees by charging on a flat fee basis. We'd love to talk to you about it.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 11/07/2015

What You Need to Know about a Special Needs Trust

How a Special Needs Trust Will Help You

Hi, I'm Jordan Flake with Clear Counsel Law Group. I do a lot of estate planning in my practice and one question that I see from clients is what do I do about my son or daughter who has special needs? When we think about a special needs beneficiary, we're thinking about somebody who maybe is receiving government assistance or who can't live on their own or maybe has some kind of incompetency that prevent them from being able to handle all of their own affairs. Often times, these individuals are receiving government assistance that we don't want to disrupt. That's the really big concern. If you leave your child maybe $100,000 under a life insurance policy, that money will just land in their lap and could threaten their ability to continue to receive government assistance or government benefits.

You don't want to just list your special needs child on a bank account or list them in a life insurance policy because you might actually end up harming them to the extent that that gift would limit their ability to receive financial assistance from the government. What you may wish to consider instead is doing what's called a special needs trust. The essence of a special needs trust is that the money, all the money set aside for the special needs child will go for their use, benefit, and enjoyment. However, all that money will go to them in a way that will not prevent them from receiving government assistance. It can go to them, but just not in an outright, direct kind of way that would prevent them from receiving government assistance.

So if you do know of anybody who has special needs and their parents or their loved ones are trying to set up a trust for their benefit, it's absolutely necessary that you come see an attorney so that that special needs trust is set up properly so that it doesn't end up hurting the special needs individual in the long run. Feel free to meet with us at Clear Counsel Law Group and we'll do a free consultation and we'll discuss your different options for dealing with giving gifts to special needs individuals.

Estate Planning / Trusts - 11/04/2015

Are Children Liable for the Debts of Their Parents?

Will Children Have to Pay the Debts of Their Parents?

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Jordan Flake, and I'm an attorney with Clear Counsel Law Group. One of the questions we get a lot in our probate practice is are the children going to be liable for the taxes or the creditors of the deceased individual? Obviously, think about it. If your mom and dad were to rack up a lot of debt, or taxes, or maybe have a judgment against them, you would legitimately be concerned whether or not those debts were going to come after you when they pass away. The answer is Nevada does not hold children responsible for the debts of their parents; however, you must understand also at the same time that the assets left behind by the deceased individual are responsible for the debts.

Let's say that there's a creditor. Let's just take VISA, a VISA card for $10,000.00, and your mom passes away, and she has a bank account that has $100,000.00, then that $100,000.00 bank account, if it goes into probate, would be liable for the $10,000.00 debt; however, that mom's actual children wouldn't themselves be expected to take money out of their pocket to pay off that debt. Just kind of a simplified answer is an estate is responsible for the decedents' deaths; however, the children are not. If you have a loved one who's passed away and left debts, Clear Counsel Law Group can help you resolve those debts and handle the probate so that, hopefully, we can maximize your inheritance and not the money that goes to the creditors. Feel free to give Clear Counsel Law Group a call.

Probate / Probate Videos - 11/02/2015

How to Learn the Status on Your Probate Case

How do you check on the status of your probate case?

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Jordan Flake. I'm an attorney with Clear Counsel Law Group.

I do a lot of probate work. One of the questions that we get from time to time is, "I have a will that is being probated for a deceased loved one, but I really want to check on the status of that."

There are different websites in Nevada court systems that basically will tell us what the status of the case is. We can go on those websites and look up the case and see where they are in the probate process.

This is really important sometimes, especially if you have a personal representative named under the will who maybe isn't doing all the things they need to be doing or who is not maybe doing them as quickly as they need to be done.

If you're in a situation where maybe you're not the executor of the will, or maybe you're not the personal representative of the estate, and you want an opinion about whether or not the personal representative is actually doing their job, that would be a great reason to give us a call.

We will happily look up the case, let you know what has been done, what hasn't been done, the time frame that you're looking at, and the different elements that should be there.

That's something that we'd be happy to help you out with. Give us a call.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 10/31/2015

How Much is a Personal Representative Paid to Administer an Estate?

How is the compensation of the personal representative determined?

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jordan Flake with Clear Counsel Law Group and I practice a lot in probate. One of the questions we get is, what kind of compensation can a personal representative expect to receive for acting in that capacity? Basically, the question here is, when someone passes away the court often has to appoint a personal representative to deal with that individual's assets. Of course that can be a difficult job sometimes. It can require ... It could be as easy as maybe liquidating a few bank accounts, but it could also be as difficult as cleaning out a house or notifying a bunch of creditors. There can be a lot that goes into that. The question is, what does that person get paid for all of their work?

In Nevada there's two ways that a personal representative gets paid. There's something called ordinary kind of statutory type fees. These are determined as a percentage of the overall estate. You could expect on maybe a $100,000, $200,000 estate to get paid $2,000 or $3,000 for your work as a personal representative. However, if you think you've done more than that, and you've had to do what's called extraordinary work such as cleaning out various storage sheds or a house. That would be covered under extraordinary work and the court basically just looks at what's fair and reasonable under those circumstances.

In any event, if you're listed as the personal representative on a trust or on a will, then feel free to give Clear Counsel Law Group a call so that we can help you with those responsibilities. Definitely if you've gone above and beyond just the statutory bare minimum for the kind of work you put in, then absolutely we're going to make sure that you're compensated fairly. If you're listed as the personal representative under a trust or a will, feel free to give us a call and we can help you out with this.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 10/29/2015

Does a Trustee Have the Option to Exclude Beneficiaries?

May a Trustee Unilaterally Exclude You as a Beneficiary?

Transcript:

I'm Jordan Flake with Clear Counsel Law Group. One question we get a lot in our probate practice is, can an executor of a will or a trustee of a trust unilaterally exclude a beneficiary from receiving their share. This is obviously a big concern if you're a beneficiary and you feel like the personal representative of an estate or the trustee of a trust is just kind of arbitrarily saying, "Yeah. I know you're listed in the will, but I don't like you and I don't want to give you anything."

The answer is that's not allowed. If the individual who left the last will and testament or the individual who wrote the trust leaves a beneficiary something through that document, then the executor or the trustee has to actually comply with those wishes. They can't just decide on their own not to give that gift. If you are the beneficiary of a trust or a will, and you are concerned that maybe you're not receiving everything that you're entitled to, then feel free to give us a call at Clear Counsel Law Group. We'll sit down with you and review the documents, and review your options.

Estate Planning / Probate / Probate Videos - 10/27/2015

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