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The Estate Planning Podcast

The Estate Planning Podcast

De: Colby Kukelski
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Expert Legal Hosts Colby Kukelski, Brought to you by Rhodes Law Firm, Augusta Georgia Economía
Episodios
  • Estate Planning Mistakes To Avoid… Horror Stories of Improper Estate Planning

    Estate Planning Mistakes To Avoid… Horror Stories of Improper Estate Planning
    Nov 18 2021
    Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Estate Planning Podcast. I’m your host Colby Kukelski. The Estate Planning Podcast is brought to you by our friends with Rhodes Law Firm. In this week’s episode, we’re going to do something a little bit different than we normally do. In this week’s episode, we’re going to talk about some of the horror stories that come with not having an estate plan, or an improper estate plan. Now remember, when we’re talking about an estate plan, we’re talking about either a Last Will and Testament or a Trust. Again, anyone who has anything whether it be just a bank account, or bank account, and real estate, should have some type of estate plan in place, depending on the type of estate plan will vary from family to family, but everyone should have something in place. Now there are times where I’ve come across clients whose loved ones did not have an estate plan in place. So think of this episode as your cautionary tale. To have something in place, I always say something is better than nothing. And when we’re talking about an estate plan, that couldn’t be any closer to the truth. The first story I want to focus on for today is a family who did have a plan in place, they had a trust in place. And if you recall from our earlier episodes, trusts avoid probate. But where they went wrong, is they didn’t periodically come in for a review of this plan. So over the years, they acquired new assets, a couple new pieces of land, some new bank accounts, and they didn’t know or didn’t realize that they had to come in to review their plan to ensure that these new things they’ve acquired is tied to their plan. So when mom and dad both passed away, the children came in to see us. And we learned that a couple pieces of their property hadn’t been tied to their trust. So what that meant is that now we’re going to have to go through that probate process. And probate again is asking the court to verify your Will. So anytime you have a Trust in place, you typically also have a backup Will, just in case just like in this type of situation. Now in this situation, to make it even more unique, is there were lots of siblings, I think six in total, and not everyone got along with each other. So when we initiated the probate process, we were initiating it over one piece of land. Again, we knew what was supposed to happen with the land. But because we were having to go through probate, we’re now having asked, having to ask all the kids to agree to that. And again, they didn’t see eye to eye on the situation. So needless to say, the probate dragged on for three years, all over one piece of land. So even if you have an estate plan in place, it’s still very important that you periodically review it so we can avoid situations like this. Anytime you have, you know, the saying is more than one cook in the kitchen, but anytime you have multiple people involved, and especially if they don’t always get along, it can very much complicate the administration of your plan at your passing. The next potential horror story that I want to focus on is another family who again, did have an estate plan in place he had a Last Will and Testament, but it wasn’t the best plan to have in place. In this situation, it was an elderly man and his nineties who never had married, never had any children. And he left everything to one nephew of his. Again, the Will stipulated that, but because Wills require probate, the nephew who was set to inherit everything has to now petition the court requesting permission to validate that Will. Anytime you have to go through probate, if you’ll recall, we’re not only having to ask the person who’s inheriting everything from the Will but also the people who could have inherited had there been no Will, or the other heirs at law. In this situation, this elderly man again was in his 90s. During his life, he had five siblings, both of his parents had predeceased him. So his closest heirs would have been these five siblings. All five of these siblings except for one, had predeceased him. And so then we’re having to involve the other nieces and nephews. So this quickly turned into what we thought should have been just one person involved, that one nephew, turned out to be about 15 to 20 people, all the children of those deceased siblings, and some children of the deceased nieces and nephews are now having to be asked, What do you think about this Will? Again, they’re not getting anything, but because they’re considered heirs at law, they have to be involved in the probate process. Again, these are people that this nephew has never met, or may have not seen in years, that we’re now having to track down and locate all because this elderly man was using a Will. Had he used a Trust, we could have kept it out of probate. And if we would have kept it out of probate, we wouldn’t have had asked all these people, what they think about this Will. And ...
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    11 m
  • How to Help an Aging Parent With Estate Planning

    How to Help an Aging Parent With Estate Planning
    Nov 11 2021
    Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Estate Planning Podcast. I’m your host Colby Kukelski. The Estate Planning Podcast is brought to you by our friends at Rhodes law firm. In recent episodes of the podcast, we’ve been discussing various estate planning tools and some of the most common questions that come with estate planning. But in this week’s episode, we’re going to focus on how you can help an aging parent. I have many people who come to us who have parents that have been recently diagnosed with some sort of illness, whether it be dementia or Alzheimer’s, and they’re asking how do we help mom and dad? How do we plan for the next steps of their life? The very first thing you want to consider when we’re talking about an aging parent is their use of powers of attorneys. Now in previous episodes, we talked about the importance of having both a healthcare power of attorney and a financial power of attorney. What these documents enable is for someone to act on behalf of an individual. So when thinking about your parents, you want to make sure that your parents have a power of attorney that authorizes you or sibling or trusted family friend to be able to make those financial decisions and medical decisions on their behalf, should they be unable to. These are very important documents to have and really everyone over the age of 18 should have one. But when we’re talking about an aging parent, it’s important for them to have one. So that way if you know we need to make sure their bills are getting paid or their taxes are getting filed, that financial power of attorney is in place or they’re unable to make a health care decision for themselves, someone’s named to be able to make that decision on their behalf. Without these powers of attorneys, what we’re left with is having to get guardianship or conservatorship through the court. And speaking on guardianship and conservatorship, there are some well-known cases happening in the public eye that deal with a particular type of conservatorship. But for our conversation, today, I’m going to focus on guardianship and conservatorship, based on Georgia and South Carolina law. Guardianship is the legal process of obtaining the ability to make decisions on behalf of someone. So in order to make medical decisions for them or their health care decisions for them. Conservatorship is the legal ability to make financial decisions on behalf of someone’s property. So the ability to access their bank account and pay their bills. They are two different types of things. So in order to obtain guardianship or conservatorship, someone will have to petition the probate court and request the court’s permission to be able to make those decisions. For most people. A quick and easy way to avoid this is to have those powers of attorneys in place. So when dealing with an aging parent, the first question really should be, are these powers of attorneys in place? Are they up to date? And are mom and dad still comfortable with the individuals who they’ve named? The next question you should consider when dealing with an aging parent is then looking at their estate planning documents. Now in previous episodes, we’ve discussed the importance of having some type of a estate plan. When we’re talking about estate plans, we’re talking about either having a last will and testament or some type of trust in place. This is the time to make sure mom and dad have these documents in place. And these documents are still adequate, adequately reflecting their decisions. I would always recommend while mom and dad are still with us and are able to that you visit an estate planning attorney to revisit these documents. In doing this mom and dad will be able to review what they currently have in place. They’ll be able to consider if there have been any changes in the law, any changes in the family, and then if they’re comfortable with it, you can be involved as well so you understand your role in the process, if you have one And finally, the last crucial step that you should think about when helping an aging parent is, if there’s a need for long term care, there are a couple of different types of long term care options. There’s the at home care where someone comes to your house, there’s the assisted living where mom and dad live in a facility, but they’re still able to live on their own. And then there’s the nursing home care or full skilled nursing with each different type of care. The next consideration has to be the cost of that care. Now, a lot of people have heard that you will spend everything you’ve ever saved if you need any form of long term care. And this isn’t necessarily a false statement. These different levels of care are fairly pricey depending on where you live. But there are ways to strategically plan for these types of care. So having the conversation ahead of time can help you and mom and dad prepare for if they need these ...
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    9 m
  • Estate Planning Case Study with Hal Coleman

    Estate Planning Case Study with Hal Coleman
    Oct 27 2021
    Hello, and welcome back to the Estate Planning Podcast. Today I have us joined by our guest Hal Coleman. Hal is a longtime friend of the Rhodes Law Firm team and he is going to tell us a little bit about his estate planning journey, and how we can help others like you moving forward. Hal thank you for joining us. Oh, you’re welcome. I’m excited. Excited to be here to talk about the estate planning process. So when we talk about the estate planning process, what we’re really talking about is the importance of having an estate plan. And correct me, you and your family, have an estate plan? Well, we do now. You know, we, my wife and I, have been married for 48 years. And we have a couple of grown kids, we have grandkids. And when we first got married, and I guess my son was born after three years, we just thought we needed a Will. We wanted to do everything that you’re supposed to do. If I can interrupt you real quick, why was it that you thought you needed a Will? Somebody told me I needed one. So when you’re looking to get a Will, what were the important things you guys were looking to accomplish with that Will? Well basically just if something happened to us, where did our stuff go? We wanted our stuff. You know, it was a simple Will. It was if I died everything went to my wife, if she died, everything went to me and if we both died at all went between our two kids, divided equally. So this is about three years after your first child was born. Yeah. My second child was born by then I guess. We decide later. But yeah, tell us much. When we went to get an estate plan about two years, three years ago, finally. Actual I’m a Rotarian. And we had somebody speak at our rotary club about estate planning. And, you know, we now we own a home, we own stocks, we own jewelry, we own a lot of stuff. And so it made me realize we need more than just that simple. We’ll know my marks on I said, you know, if something happened to mama, you’re going to quit your job move North Carolina and live where you’re at. Because that Will hadn’t been looked at guardianship kids for minors, presumably, Since they were toddlers. And here they are in their 40s. And they were going to have to go live with the aunt and so when when y’all looked at this, again, you know, life’s changed, your children are much older, you have a lot more stuff. So what were y’all looking to do when you’re realizing you needed an updated estate plan? Well, to make sure that things from a simple standpoint, to make sure that everybody got what we wanted them to have, and that the government got the least amount that they could constantly get, and that that we were hit with the least amount of taxes that we’d be hit with and that it didn’t get hung up in probate or in the courts forever. And a lot of it is on my mind. I had an employee one time who was he went to work for me when he was about 18 years old. And right after that this, his parents were divorced. And his father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. An inoperable brain tumor. So they left and went on this trip, they had hunted and fished together all you know since he was a little kid. So they went on this trip out west. Just one last trip together father and son came home and that next year his father passed away. And his father didn’t even have a Will. So his father’s camping equipment, his father’s guns, the all the stuff that were the keepsakes and stuff, they’d use fishing equipment and everything. Oh, the stepmother gave all that stuff to her kids. And he didn’t get he didn’t get anything of his father’s he got to see that a lot. And that kind of hit me hard. I’m thinking golly, that’s what a bad thing. So I was thinking that you know, the importance of having stuff designated. And then when we have a financial guy, you know who manages our retirement our money and He said, You know, you really need to get an estate plan if you hadn’t had a Will done in a long time. And then when I heard the guy speak at Rotary and I thought, okay, we better go do this. And then I found out well, it’s a lot more complicated than I thought it was. It is it is a lot more complicated. But also at the same time, I would like to say that it’s probably making things easier. Yes, it’s more work on the front end. But we’re making things easier on your heirs, whether that be your spouse or your children down the line as well, because at least we have some sort of plan in place. You know, your friend that you mentioned, his dad had no plan in place. I don’t think his dad’s intent was that the step-mom gave everything to her children. But because there was no plan in place, that’s what happened. So yes, estate planning can be doing more work on the front end. But it’s also you know, saving that grief and that heartache down the line, because at least we have a plan to implement. Yeah, and when I said it was more complicated than I thought it was, it turned...
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    18 m
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