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hi everybody it's me again Paul rabble a little adjustments and we'll get started okay good to have everybody here let's go through it's been just a crazy few days this is I guess part four of six consecutive YouTube live presentations I've given on various estate planning topics so we've talked a lot about Oh trust funding and trusts and this one's a little bit different this one we're talking about how to how to keep your heirs from fighting over your estate you've all heard and the statement I think it was Dear Abby Ann Landers one of them I think their sisters said you know if you really want to know someone or if you really want to get to know someone share an inheritance with them and you've all heard of the estate disputes the probate problems the people not getting along destroyed relationships so what this presentation is all about is things that perhaps you can do to make sure that your heirs you know that that this legacy you leave them can really enhance their relationships rather than destroy their relationships you know it's just weird every time somebody tells me you know since my dad died I haven't talked to my sister it's been 20 years and and to think that you know that just just an over an inheritance something that you know is probably not gonna make that much of a difference in people's worlds yes they'll consume it yes it may give them some financial stability and some peace of mind but to have it destroy the relationships just I don't get it and it's just a shame but that's what happens if any of you have any words of wisdom or experiences that you want to share in the chat box feel free get morning to you Janice good morning to you from Savannah in New York and good morning Phil as well all right so good to have all of you here real important that you punch the like button if if your computer lets you hit the thumbs-up button that lets YouTube know hey people are digging my videos and they'll keep showing them to people all right so I'm just going to jump right in and go over maybe four or five things that I think are important the last one clearly is is in my view the most important but they're all important so let me just get into this is maybe a maybe a parent or maybe parents and you know they've worked hard they've set things in motion to let enable there maybe that children have never argued or fighted fighted fought over things while the parents were alive because quite frankly I think that sometimes the parents can step in it step in and say hey you know you're being silly arguing here but when those parents are gone then all bets are off and sometimes we see disputes occur all right so my suggestion number one is and I've got to define it is what should and I'm just gonna call them parents now we realize some people they are either excluding children which could be a potential problem right there or they don't have children so they're leaving things to charities or nieces and nephews or other family members or other friends but I'm just gonna go the traditional route here what a parent or parents can do who are attempting to leave thanks to children and they want those children to be supportive and loving of each other and they don't want to you know a nasty courtroom fight to occur so I would say maybe the number one and kind of an obvious but I've got a define it thing that a parent's can do is is communicate to their children what their expectations with those parents expectations are now as far as the communication goes some parents are very open with their children about how they're leaving their estate and they'll have the big family meeting hey I'm leaving my estate to my children equally hey guys I'm leaving 80 percent of my estate to my children twenty percent to my grandchildren or I'm leaving five percent to these three charities leaving everything else to the kids oh by the way I would just want to you know let y'all know exactly what I'm doing aimed to children as the co-executors or co-trustees of my trust they handle everything and so that real open communication can be can be helpful so that there aren't any surprises when someone dies as far as how the you know the documents are structured and how things are to be divided so so that helps with that communication now some parents feel like I don't want my children to know what I've done I don't want my children to know what I have and so maybe if you're going to communicate something in an effort to attempt to keep Ayres from fighting you might just say look guys I've put some things in place I expect you to honor my wishes I expect you to take the high ground whether you like it or not and and and and make sure that I you know I expect you to maintain if not improve those relationships moving forward don't let what I've done destroy relationships that you may have with family members and loved ones moving forward so maybe if you want to keep things very private you could at least have communication about how you expect them to behave and react to whatever it is that you've done that you don't want to tell them that you've done so that way you know you're gone and they're like well remember when he said you know he wanted us to take the high ground and I used those words because I saw them on a replay of a of all things a dr. Phil show yesterday where he had I think was four sisters sitting around him and they were just all out in in war no communication no nothing and it was over like 50,000 bucks so he was like you know really somebody ought to take you know you want to take the high ground here because it's just not worth it to destroy those relationships so that communication is isn't I think an important component of making sure that there's not just this all-out war or if I when you pass away alright second thing and and all of these issues have to work together the second thing is we want to make sure and it's part it's in large part the attorneys role to do this but we want to make sure that you know the estate planning legal documents don't create difficult issues in the future so I kind of I don't know if I say I want to sell like the way when they do it this way versus there could be problems when it's done this way but the simpler you keep the estate legal documents the less likely it is that there's going to be bickering over those documents so when dad says I leave everything to my three children equally you know that that's hard for somebody to interpret those documents into anything other than hey you know if there's $300 everybody gets a hundred dollars and so so you know having all of those documents done correct very clear of course follow all of the formality requirements so so none of that can be challenged which frankly is difficult these days because people are trying to get estate planning legal documents done and they're not going to law offices they don't want people in their homes so complying with all of the notary and witness requirements to meet the formality requirements is is a little bit of a challenge for a lot of people these days and if you don't follow the formality requirements a disgruntled heir or someone who's excluded who may benefit by having those documents rendered invalid may challenge things based on either the own perhaps the invalidity by failing to follow the the formality requirements hey there show you again from good morning in Dallas we saw you yesterday and glad to have you back okay so having those that you know where it gets difficult is and things subject to interpretations is when people who write their wills and trusts in a way they they try to overanalyze things overdraft things you know I want my house to be for my wife but if she gets sick I want it to be for this child only if he's taking care of her when she gets sick but if he's not taking care of her I want my house to go to these two people but if they're divorced I don't you know and then home and then if there's not good relationships among all of those parties when the person dies you just you're asking for trouble so simple is good but sometimes simple doesn't get the job done so when we have to be you know complex we still want to be clear and structure things in a way that it's not ambiguous it's not vague it's not subject to different interpretations we want to be clear so number one was was communicate to the extent that you're comfortable communicating what you've done with your heirs number two make sure the all of the legal documents and the beneficiary designations and all of those things which are part of a comprehensive estate planning program are consistent and done without ambiguity and as simple as they can be number three is to and I think this is a big one is to communicate the why the why you've done what you've done know if you've if you've left the bulk of what you have to your children let's say 80% left 20% to your grandchildren the legal documents are going to just say just that but it won't say why so typically the why is not put in the legal documents it's either it's done in a separate communication and that communication can be just a conversation an oral conversation that you have with your kids and your grandkids this is what I've done this is why I've done it I left 20 percent to my grandkids because I wanted to make sure my grandkids got a college education and if they got a college education and then there was money left I wanted them to be able to get a head start on life I wasn't able to get a head start I want my grandkids to get a head start that's why I left them 20% if they go to college and use these for that and there's some leftover out of their share for them to get married or put a down payment on a house or even buy a car I'm good with that that's what I want to do that's my intention that's why I'm doing what I'm doing or you know what I have three kids I named Fred as the executor of my will as the trustee of my trust here's why I've done it because Fred lives here and fred is you know Fred's very in tune with what my wishes are with what I own fred has a good relationship with his two siblings my other children I just think a you know fred is the right person for the job nothing against you two other children and if you have any issues please bring them up now either you know before these things get edged in stone but here's why I named Fred as the executor of my will and the trustee of my trusts so so telling them the why now that why like I said can be in a conversation or it could be and what I commonly call a side letter so you have all the formal legal documents and you have your will and you have your trust and you have your powers of attorney and you have your healthcare documents and then maybe even in your own handwriting here's this side letter that doesn't have an a legal effect and it's all of the lies you did what you did and don't put all that stuff in the legal documents because you may want to add to your wife or you may want to change your why and if you just want to change those informal communications you don't have to quite frankly go back to the lawyer and change all the legal documents you're just changing these informal sign communications so I think that you know when the time comes and the kids and the grandkids are dividing money and they see you're why you did what you did it may make them less inclined to argue when they know what your lie was okay so there's your third one and I've got one more which is the big one so we talked about communicating what you've done with your survive verse now we're number two we talked about structuring the documents in a way that they're not subject to different interpretation number three we talked about communicating the why what you did the fourth one may be beyond your control but in 30 years of settling estates it is to me kind of the magic potion to keep survivors from arguing and bickering over things because when when things go south among heirs it's often because either there's a lack of communication or you know one person is in charge and the others don't know what's going on there's concern that that something may be done behind one of the heirs backs there's concern that money may be maybe being drained from accounts people just don't know and the longer that goes the longer that stress builds up that suspicion builds up and then it gets to a boiling point where the you-know-what hits the fan so I I am confident and you're right thanks Janice you're right thank you for your comment that side documented always save a lot of questions for some folks there right before this live YouTube presentation I had a about a 25 minute call that started at 9:30 with a family and there was it was a family where the husband had his children the wife had her children and then they got married and they did some things you know for each other for their respective children and there were some things that by the look of the legal documents we didn't we didn't know why he had done it even though I had prepared it it was many many years ago and I didn't remember or have good notes on though why he did what he did but as soon as I brought up that thing that was a little peculiar his you know surviving wife said well he did it that way but because of this that in the other and I think that made everybody especially me feel a lot more comfortable okay so this this number for no important if every estate settlement did this I think the most difficult estate settlements would not be difficult they be simple and they'd go fast and they'd go easy and all these nightmares would go away not all of them but most of them so and I just do this from experience because I am one who I am NOT an adversarial person I want everybody to get along I it's probably why I do estate planning because I can be a lawyer but I don't have to file lawsuits and fight people I can work in an environment where it's really when when for everybody and there are no losers like there are in lawsuits so because I'm so adverse to adversarial situations I've kind of grown over 30 years and and just here's what I do not that I'm the the king of estate settlement but I just feel very strongly that that this works and it takes some education and it takes some communication very quickly on the front end but it's like the magic pill so and let's say let's say dad died and you know he he left the house to one daughter he left these of the business to a son he left some things to grandchildren and then he you know whatever was left went to the three children equally and so dad dies and you hear about the formal reading of the will in the movies it's it's great for movies and I got to say in 30 years I'm handling maybe thousands of the State settlements never done one kind of formal reading of the will where I sit at the conference room table with the paperwork and just start reading the will it's never doesn't happen quite that way but what I do is is relatively close so often what happens when somebody dies it's often that executor or that trustee or that one family member who's kind of the take charge who calls our office and says you know hey we got to get my dad my mom we got to get that estate settled I got a bunch of questions can I come in and talk to you and so here's where and I do in a very professional way but I I say no come in and talk to me I don't say it that way but I'm just saying it as to kind of surprise you as to what the answer is so but what I do say is something might be like this sure sure be happy to help but you know here's here's what works best is let's get all of these participants together and let's have a very open and transparent conversation on the front end right at the beginning let everybody be involved what I'll do is you know we'll get everybody a copy of the will the trust and in that one conversation we'll we'll go through that the terms of the documents will go through to the best of our knowledge what all of the assets are and their values and then I'll be able to lead you through a conversation of all of the steps that are necessary to go from where things are now to everything being completely settled and as part of that conversation if anybody has any questions any concerns they can raise them right there at the beginning and get all of those initial concerns addressed really in front of everybody because if one person has a question it's likely that another person will and if everybody's in that conversation then it's the start of having things go the right way and then that person says you know I don't know you know three of the people live out of town I have a sister in Pennsylvania a grandchild in California and I got a I got a rather in Florida great let's get them on the speakerphone so that solves the first objection and and then if you know if that person who called me really objects to that something's wrong and because really it's it's all about being open and transparent and even if some of the heirs are coming in with suspicions with I don't trust my brother I think he's doing something with the money well one option for all of those people is to question those things right there in that first conversation and I've had those conversations the day after someone died I'm sure I've had them the day someone died and I've had them you know two weeks after someone died or a month after someone died but at the beginning when when things are in the process of hey let's let's start a process of getting this estate settled from a legal standpoint that's when we have to have that conversation with all of the participants involved but that's not it just that one conversation doesn't do it it's it's not enough it's a great start but it's not enough hey we got Bridget from Toronto Canada that is amazing that we're international now that one conversation is not enough it needs in order to eliminate suspicion and m'g you 'ti fighting we got to do better than that so we have that initial conversation and maybe somebody just didn't express one of the concerns that they had because maybe they were uncomfortable in that group setting but at some point they're gonna have to address it hopefully the relationships aren't so bad that at the beginning everybody feels like they got to get their own lawyer because if the relationships are that bad you're just you're you're just in for a war and a battle and they nothing I can do about it but if there's just you know it's it's not a situation where where everybody feels like they got a lawyer up immediately and start you know filing lawsuits against each other as long as everybody's at least open to to exploring the possibility of getting this thing done you know jointly then you