Writing Your Will - Step by Step Tutorial!

[Music] welcome everybody to this week's episode of main street business podcast and yes the title of the show is correct we are going to help you write your will during this podcast you're welcome you're welcome you're welcome and i've got news for everyone listening you will die someday and this might actually be helpful you know what i thought you were going to say is and if you're trying to do this while you're driving you will die so that's i suggested not suggesting yes is it not meant to immediately be used this is meant to be lighter okay yes that's right this is we want you to not need this wheel for a while so let's not do it while we're driving or riding horseback or on a treadmill what do people do when they listen to our podcast they they do lots of fun things you know yeah so just be safe riding horses that's what that's i'm sure someone rides a horse and listens to our podcast anyone out there doing this please take a photo share it on social media and tag us that would be amazing oh we should ask that right now please send a picture of us of what you like doing when you're listening to our podcast of course that is in good taste pg-13 yeah corey corey's already over on his phone now you don't count because we already know what you you do something inappropriate okay uh now see like uh stern howard stern had robin i have corey yeah yeah he's my robin yeah yeah um well let me say that everyone knows in case you found this podcast we are attorneys i know you know we're we're going to keep it light here because estate planning is so boring it's one of the reasons no one does it we're going to try and keep it light we really want you to seriously complete a handwritten holographic will in today's episode and we're real lawyers we're not just like lawyers on tv we're real lawyers we want to be on tv but yes and we are on tv once in a while on news you know interviews but we haven't got a call for a sitcom or a netflix movie or i'm just waiting for them to be like hey matt swords we got a movie about you we want you to know if you want to play matt sorenson it's almost like a double compliment you're like they're going to do a movie about me and i get to play myself okay okay yep okay okay all right i'm cruising a little busy i guess yeah okay now before we get to our weekly tips uh and i've got a good one i got a doozy as one might say um as my mom might say being in the 1950s that's a doozy uh we need you to prepare so you need to get in a a well-lit relaxed space turn off all the distractions we are literally going to write your will with you here uh on the podcast uh so get a i would say a lined paper you don't want just a piece of paper out of the printer it's kind of funny nowadays line paper do i have lined paper anywhere okay if you don't we'll survive you're just gonna engineers with your graphing paper that's acceptable too that is a yellow pad would be fine uh if you all you have is printer paper just try to evaluate your horizontal flow of your writing so it doesn't end up you need to be straightened like a picture frame when you're done so get a piece of paper or two i think you're going to need at least three pieces of paper that's going to be my depending now you could write very small which is fine okay you don't need yeah i don't want any witnesses right now we're going to talk about notaries all that stuff this needs to be in pen i don't want a pencil what do you think matt any other criteria yeah i was wondering if you were going to drill down on the pen man you got all into the paper what type of weight of paper should i be using 20 pounds i'm using linen or you know i would just make it count okay all right use some fancy paper um it could have you know it can be some scrapbooking paper with some little flowers in the corner too that works also yeah and i now i would like this would be classic like if you saw the movie knives out recently uh where they read the will for the family yeah that's a big moment so yeah if you i would recommend you have an envelope ready to go and you're gonna seal it after this is completed and put upon my death open with my family present i like that because we're going to drop some bombshells baby yeah let's beat you yeah someone cut here someone's getting cut yeah we're going to help you write your will and we're going to be a beneficiary in it but that's just a small provision uh okay no all right let's get to the tips you've got and then when you get into the you got a tip you want to go first well mine's a little light-hearted do you want to give an official like more legit i have a tip that's on topic sometimes i like to be off topic but this one's this topic is so big i'm gonna this is on topic okay you're usually off base is there a difference between off base and off topic because i don't yeah it depends on who you're asking okay what's your tip we usually do a tax and legal tip folks and if you haven't gotten to our podcast oh my word we have got um close to two million downloads now and uh a lot of five star ratings and 300 plus episodes you're going to love it so get back into the history there are great tax and legal tips for small business owners uh and i'll say it now you can get over to our website mainstreetbusiness.com uh we're going to be launching a lot of new services on that site this year really excited about that but that's where you can also get to the podcast leave questions for the open forum show which i think is in next week if i'm not mistaken okay so write a question on your small business tax legal building wealth and us attorney tax nice just got nice guys we'll do our best with those yeah all right um okay i'm gonna give my tip okay this is about when i was just joking about this what if you want to cut a kid out all right and this is in my in the newsletter i wrote an article on this you have to be careful the tip is you can't just leave them out let's say you got two kids you got you know john and jane no you're too kid or cain and abel or jane and abel okay and you're like all right um abel's out yeah so maybe that's not a good example yeah maybe you had other kids than just kane and abel and abel's out now so you're like kane i'm just inheriting you what do you do yeah did you just leave him out let me let me just do john and jane okay all right all right i like john and jane let's not get too biblical here okay um john and james okay let's say that uh john turns out to be a real piece of crap all right he's your kid and you're just like you know what there's just he hates me whatever we just don't have a relationship and you're like i don't want him to inherit my state well what you cannot do is just write a will out and say jane gets my estate yeah you can't just say that you have to specifically say if you have children that you want to disinherit you have to say that you have to say i've got a kid john i got a kid named jane i don't want anything to go to john i want everything to go to jane you need to specifically disinherit a child the law presumes you forgot if you if you just say jayden gets my estate they're like oh but you had this other kid so you want to specifically disinherit that's a tip that might come in handy later as you're right in your will here who you don't want to get your estate now again your other your cousins your friends and everything you don't need to disinherit them but your kids in particular and your spouse you can it's really hard to disinherit a spouse unless you had a prenup but kids you can just say it yeah now i'd like matt's article because it wasn't just about disinheriting it was about how to deal with problem children because sometimes you may not want to disinherit a child but you certainly don't want to put money in their hands when their life might be a wreck so you say okay if they meet the following criteria boom boom boom they can have x amount of dollars or a percentage of the estate maybe it's john and jane and you're going to give him half if he gets his act together but you want to be very clear about what the criteria is and the timeline but we're going to come back to that okay now obviously you can tell in matt's example he chose john as the bad guy and his daughter in that example is not a teenager because if his daughter was a teenager he would have certainly disinherited the daughter i mean that's these are two fathers of daughters we love but we just when they were teenagers we didn't love them as much maybe is that okay to say i think that's normal okay all right we're not surprising anyone there we're not going down a limb on that one yeah now speaking of family my tip is a little more light-hearted i usually give a tax tip or legal tip and you know what i'm going to give a tax tip here too let's say that you go to the level of doing a full blown estate plan which we'll talk about a little bit today too we want everybody listening to this podcast to write your will we're doing it we're doing it here in a minute but you may want to do something a little more substantive because as we go through these questions you're going to go oh man the will is okay i'm going to finish it today but i need to put on my checklist in 2021 to do my trust um as long as you're doing some business succession planning let's say you own a business or some real estate and you're doing some planning for your business affairs i'd like to write off a portion if not a lot or all of the cost to do your estate plan because you're doing it for the purpose of protecting your business and there's business purposes for that document and i'm okay with that i like that so that's a good tax tip a little tax tip because otherwise your expenses you may pay a lawyer to do your state plan would not be a deduction yeah for your business owners real estate owners i get some legal expense over there yeah now here's a side hustle tip one in three americans now have a side hustle millions of americans are making money on the side with a small business well do you want to include your side hustle and your will in your estate and go hey this little side hustle this little trademark or this little product or service has some value and i want to leave it to this particular person family or not and my will is protecting the value of that business by doing so well now your side hustle can pay the legal fee of the document i'm okay with that i like that i did not think you were gonna go with that one that's a new one i mean sometimes i've heard mark's tips a couple times and he's heard my a few that was a new one i liked it yeah well thank you man i was trying to wow okay now here's the tip i okay now many of you know if you're a regular listen to the show our studio here in idaho is right next door to a main street hair salon just quintessential main street america hair salon so sometimes because i want to look good for the show for those that are watching on youtube i go over to the studio and i go hey ladies i'm going on the air can you help me out and we kind of have fun with this you know i'll sit down they'll give me a little you know bouffant you know i'm sitting there next to all those blue haired babes that are in there they do a blowout and you're like there we go i need a brazilian blowout in 10 minutes let's go so i went over there just to do my hair quickly for the show and they go oh what are you doing today and i go we're recording the podcast and they go how's life and i go oh good in some areas the rough on others and she goes and one of the ladies goes i got a tip for you and i thought i might share it here on the show just quickly she said okay here's what it is she goes mark did you know in the spring and fall there's more family drama than usual and i go i didn't know that i just have constant trouble i don't know if there's any ever flow of this but she goes yeah no in springfall you because it's a time of renewal or change spring and fall and so you're thinking you know you're thinking school's starting or school's getting out and maybe there's just more emotion on the brain i don't know so she goes here's what you need to do i go okay she goes you need to take your wife and or kids one by one and go find a quiet spot and give them your undivided attention and just let them talk about what they're upset about and she goes it's going to be hard because it's mostly going to be about you and you just need to she had all these good words about this safe place you're just going to listen all this stuff and i go i had this face through the whole thing and she's like what's wrong i'm like uh what's this what's in it for me besides i just ruined my day uh why am i doing this and she goes well they'll feel better i go the hell with them what am i doing who's gonna listen to me and she goes well this isn't about you i go what you ladies are all crazy in here yeah they're like well i wish my husband did that i wish and i all these ladies are popping off going you need to do that mark just go listen i'm like you know thank you thank you for yeah wow anyway i i don't know i just i said i'll be back after the show you ladies better come up with some good reasons because i'm not i haven't bought what you're selling and they're like all right yeah you know mark's tax and legal tips are much better than his self-help i agree all my tips you know i mean you can't be great at everything i mean just maybe darker salon ladies have their thing and their tips all right yeah but that's that what they know that's true because they know the drama they hear the stories i mean yeah probably some of the females on this listening show are like well mark absolutely that would make your life so much better i'm like not seeing it yeah maybe it's like ripping off the band-aid just get it out there just let them get it out there and they're getting over there they feel better yeah they're going to get it out there anyway why do i just find a place to sit there and take it all right okay all right so will are we ready okay yeah let's hit it okay now what we're talking about here mark's gonna rattle off some states we're talking about doing a holographic will which must be handwritten you're not typing this sucker up okay yeah people this must be in your handwriting all right you can do cursive that's not required you could do regulation okay i know some of you techies out there are like i don't even have a writing utensil in this house i can't use mine i know and i know someone's gonna say could i write it on my ipad and then print it no don't do it not good the laws in your state are not as fast as technology is developed okay we're talking a handwritten will okay where you're going to indicate your name okay hold it start okay at the top of this paper in big size 24 font imagine your computer yeah right last i'm going to do this with everybody last will okay everybody and you could probably do that on the first line last will and testament okay all right let's get the legal requirements out and then let's start writing okay you don't mind okay well okay so people know what the hell has got to happen here okay well i just wanted to get something on paper sorry last one testament now put the pen down matt's going to tell you where we're headed okay give us the road map okay okay i'm going to be i'm going to lecture a little bit okay okay all right you're going to it must include your name all right the date and you must sign it i actually had a probate case of someone who did a handwritten will that committed suicide right after writing it didn't sign it he wrote the whole thing out it was in his handwriting he said who he wanted to get what he basically disinherited a child and we went to court and fought over that thing and everybody eventually settled but i mean it was a sad story all around but didn't sign it okay so but that's the requirement it's gotta have your name obviously you're gonna put in the details of who gets what um but you're gonna sign it and date it okay now let's deal with while we're here this is good i'm going to go through a list you know where i'm going probably okay right okay in approximately 25 states you don't even have to have it witnessed or notarized i'm going to read those 25 states right now so if i say your state then you can just um be fine with it today after the podcast you may give send a copy to us so to put in your file give a copy to your mom dad spouse whoever keep it you know make sure it has a copy we're going to come to some of these protocols after but you're going to be done today no more to do but in these other 25 states they can be a little different but but i'll just say this most of them want two witnesses that's it and you don't want to get it witnessed after you sign it you're gonna those witnesses are gonna watch you sign it they don't need to watch you write it but they need to watch you sign it now you could go to your state what just google uh let's say illinois illinois is not on the list people so just i'm giving an example of illinois as a problem child when you say not on the list you mean in illinois you're going to need witnesses you can't just find it yourself what what the the 25 states we like are the ones where you just get to sign it don't even stress about the witnesses but there are the ones like illinois that are the problems yep so one of these problems i'm just telling you this in advance if your name is if your state name is not read off here in a moment illinois being an example of what i'm not going to say uh just google it illinois holographic will and go to the it'll take you right to the state website or statute and 99 of the time they're gonna say two witnesses you're fine some may say notary some may not so we're giving you a we're given a disclaimer here that it would not hurt before you sign it to just double check if you're in one of these states we're not going to read off if it's one or two witnesses and if you should have a notary or not okay let's stay with this witness thing for one more minute the witnesses cannot be someone that's getting something in your will that's a general rule because they're they're they have a conflict of interest yeah there's state variations on that sometimes they can sometimes they can't but to be safe and since we're making this a very general podcast yeah don't have them be the personal rep or someone getting something in here even um and they got it but they got to be 18 yeah or older in most states so you and so you want to be careful your friend who thinks they're getting something okay come over and witness my will and all of a sudden they realize they're not getting anything they may not mow that part of the lawn you know that part of the lawn where you wish your neighbor would mow and when they're really nice to you they do but then sometimes they go straight down that line just to yeah just jerks okay i don't get mowing lawns in arizona i just don't maybe they uh you know spread the wrong weeds in my rocks true matt does not have lawn okay now um they have to be 18 and not receiving something in the will to be a witness and they need to watch you sign it okay now here's the list without any further ado if i list off now this is today may 19 2021. the laws can change by tomorrow so it never hurts to double check with a quick little google search but let me just tell you right now you're go everybody on the show by the way everybody today you're going to write out your will it's just if i don't name your state you're going to wait to sign it until you're in front of two people okay that's our guideline today all right here's the states where you don't need to get your neighbor to come over alaska arizona arkansas california colorado now if you've noticed this is in alphabetical order so so you can real quick figure out you're not on the list here in a moment okay so we go from colorado to hawaii to idaho kentucky louisiana maine michigan mississippi montana nebraska nevada new jersey north carolina north dakota oklahoma pennsylvania south dakota tennessee texas utah virginia west virginia and wyoming if you named your state you're going to have a completed valid will in the next 30 minutes 40 minutes yeah welcome i like that list that kind of sounds like the ncaa college basketball tournament list right there got north carolina and the number one draft pick goes to westfield all right well i okay um okay that's awesome i think all those there's a lot of big states there a lot of states where we have clients and many of you may be listening like mark said you're gonna be done here in 30 minutes so okay all right all right now let's work our way through that list we got last will and testament up at the top okay you know and here's what i like to do at the beginning you tell me your style you know this is there's some style and part to this okay you know and there's some just legal requirements the first thing remember you got to put your name okay now i like to throw it in there you know i'm at sorenson of soundmind i like that everybody write that i'm going to write this i mark kohler should i write who thinks i'm of sound mind or starting to say of sound mind yeah okay i mark color okay write this out everybody i have sound mind being of sound mind so write your name so and so beat comma being of sound mine okay do your babe do hereby make this last will and testament do hereby all prior last will and testaments okay do hereby so eyes name comma being of sound mind do hereby make this last will and testament and one more comma comma and revoke all prior wills and last testaments do i have to say in last testaments okay all prior wills and last testament a little style now by saying all the hereby stuff and everything it makes it sound very official it's not necessary that's really filler language but you know us lawyers we like to throw that stuff in and sound very well there's a reason why too some of you go i hate legalese i and we're going to do this throughout we're going to make sure you write it in certain legalese the reason why is because when you say it in a casual manner sometimes it can be misinterpreted so legal language is there for a reason it's not to bug you or to sound like we're smarter than someone it's just because you know hey this is mark yeah you know we just want to stay away from common language if possible okay so that's number one i'm mark kohler being the soundmine. okay all right can i keep going are you here you wanna okay i wanna see this okay i wanna say article one okay i want to have sections can we do article one now yep article one okay so right in the center of the page a little smaller font than your last will and testament put article one if you're watching on youtube here's mine so far so you guys can all see it oh that's a little out of focus but you can see right there okay on youtube that's what mine looks like okay article one now the first thing i think you want to identify is whether you're married and have a spouse and whether you're whether you have children and let's name them all okay so my family can i just say my family is or should say i would say i am married to blank okay i am single i'm not married just say i am not married okay now here's don't we gotta digress from well i'm gonna digress right now some of you may be in the middle of a divorce does that mean you can't do a will no let's still do it and you we're gonna i would say at some point here in fact i might even suggest it in this article say if i die before the divorce is complete here's what i'd like but you can't disinherit your husband or wife until you're divorced but some people you're in the middle of the divorce you're getting legal advice right now you're not doing this i'm sorry i'm just like that's asking a little much to complete in this handwritten will here yeah that's probably true yeah because we do it we do it we'll say here's my will and if once i'm divorced here's what i want you to do you could say something like that so i'm just going to throw that out i would get legal advice but i would say i am currently married but getting a divorce i want this will to go into effect upon the divorce proceedings being final so here's what mark's getting at too and this is a important legal point if you don't have a prenup or a post-nuptial agreement where you said my assets are mine my spouse's assets are theirs if you're married your spouse has a entitlement to half of your estate in almost every state so you can't say i'm married and i want my spouse to get nothing you can't say that so we need to identify up front whether you're married or not and i think in the flow of this it helps later on as we start to say who gets what so if you say i'm not married easy you know what to do later when we say who gets what if you're like i am married then we you're normally going to say my spouse is going to get all of my estate when i pass or maybe they get half and my and if i have kids they get the other half there's things we'll work through in a minute here but i just think we gotta you gotta you're gonna have a lane there you married people versus not married yeah yeah and and i'll just say in summary take a breath everybody if you're in the middle of a divorce i'm sure you're talking to a lawyer and if you say can i write a will they're going to say not while you're married but while you're on this podcast you can write a will and right here you'd say i'm currently married getting divorced i want this will to be effective upon the finalization of my divorce and then just keep writing let's keep doing it but you this will you don't have to worry about because a lot of people get divorced and then they procrastinate again they don't have anything written down so you get to this is your wish list any of you getting divorced this is exciting because you're like i'm going to write this will because when i'm divorced this is what i would want to happen so we're going to do it okay but that's a side lane let's get back to trash okay i am married to so and so or i am single yep just write that people i am married to dot dot dot i i would just say i'm married or i am not married okay okay i am married i think you should say who let's say i'm married to someone yeah yeah i'm married to blank yeah but i if you're not married i don't know single again i just like oh yeah you're married or not okay i'm not yeah okay i'm married to people no i'm not single i'm in a relationship no we're not talking about that yeah your boyfriend or girlfriend doesn't get anything yeah you're married or you're not yeah this is not a facebook option you know right yeah and when you say dot dot dot yeah in a relationship i'm not going to go into an an abba song with dot dot dot even though i'd like to oh that's a good one could you actually yeah from mama mia dot dot dot dot she's reading mom oh corey we're getting a shout out from corey that's very cultured of you to see mama mia corey okay yeah all right i am married to or i am not married okay and then i would say next i have the following children and then list your children and listen yeah that'd be helpful i like birthdays so i have children of course those that have you'd say i am not married i have children or you'd say i'm not married and i have no children if that's the case okay okay now some of you may i'm gonna digress here one more to some of you that are younger are going i don't need a will i have nothing well you have something you might have a car you might have a little life insurance you might have a 401k from your old job you might have a piece of crap guitar you might that's stuff that's what a wheel's for people okay i am not married i have children their names are as follows i have children comma their names are as follows now some of you are already realizing you're going to just scratch this down and you're going to probably rewrite it when we're done with a little better penmanship so if you're scratching some things out and you're sticking back you know junior high you you do your rough draft you turn it in and then you do your final draft and then you know that's what you're getting graded on so their names are as follows okay now if you adopted children you would say i have adopted this child because you want to be clear if you have yeah and if you if there's a kid in the mix like say you've you're married and you've got stepchildren you want to say i have the following children and maybe be clear here and say the following are not my children and they're not included in this will yeah if that's the case yeah so your blood children or children you have adopted are gonna presume to be heirs that you're gonna have to specifically write out step children not but it is good to be clear in case like mark said at that unveiling your family's opening up the letter and the step kid they're there and like what do i get and you got them nothing you know you want you just say that i mean don't leave it up don't leave that question out there yeah and because what's going to happen later in a article here in a minute we're going to say i leave my children the following as defined in article 1. so right now this allows us to use the word children in a blanket statement by the way this is a whole semester in law school and we're trying to do this in a podcast this is still very ambitious okay so i have children their names are as follows i've adopted the following children and then if you have stepchildren or anything weird some kid that appears to be sleeping on your couch every night say these following people are not my children even though they think they are and they eat my house out of my what do they eat food out of house and home whatever they say eat me out of house and home they're they're they're not my kids listen it's better you list them than not like matt said at the beginning i'm not kidding okay all right okay is not mine okay okay can i okay can i hit the next area yeah everybody's asking what did arnold schwarzenegger put in his will that's what everybody's asking right dean he didn't die did he no but okay i was like oh dang let's say he did his will when he was with maria and then we had the illegitimate child of the housekeeper yeah deep okay that's a probate waiting to happen okay article two all right okay article two i designate the following person as my executor okay go slow i designate go slow i destinate the following person as my executor as my executor or personal representative or personal representative or personal representative i just do period no colon colon okay i designate the following person okay now let's talk about who this is go ahead yeah little quick tip for just you know some style points on your holographic wheel if you're listing a female sometimes they're referred to as an executrix not an executor i like so right just you know you don't have to go with that you know but um okay who do you think that should be that i that you gotta think right now right you knew who your spouse was if you had one you knew who your kids were now you gotta think well crap who am i putting in charge okay now let's talk about what this person does yeah okay i'll give a couple ideas the executor or personal representative in fact it's almost easier to say it this way there's several people involved the personal representative or executor from now on we're just going to call them executor the executor's job is to hand out all your assets handle the funeral prep the eulogy pay for the funeral expenses go close your bank account transfer the car some of you that are younger saying well i got a couple grand in crypto right now or okay they got to deal with that so you gotta you who's this executor um now you may have a guardian for your children that's different yeah you may have someone yeah that's your health care power of attorney that's different you might have a trustee that's different now in my article today that came out on my blog was about prince for any of you 80s fans purple rain prince singer pop singer of the 80s died without a will and the court appointed a big bank and trust company to be the executor because if you don't do a will and you don't appoint your executor the court's going to appoint someone it's usually not going to be family because that just is a recipe for a fight and it is executors let me give you a tip can be very expensive i am sure the bank handling prince's estate has made millions over the last five years dealing with all the crap in minnesota with his probate because he had no will so you want to name someone but it can be family matt what do you like to look for in an executive well if you're married you probably would list your surviving spouse as an executor it's possible you don't have to but that's very common yeah if if you're married a lot of times they know what where all your stuff is anyways and they're going to get it anyways you know we're again we're going to get to who gets what here in a moment um i like siblings actually sometimes too here um one thing i'll say is don't list parents yeah you know like people older than you you know i just that that one just they could pre-decease you plus they get old they don't want to deal with it i i don't like listing the parents maybe you've got a friend or a business partner too someone you invest with that would know your finances and the people in your life that you've obviously trusted with to go in business with them that could be a good person too i'd like to choose someone that's local i think that helps because it's someone that needs to be around during the funeral and going through the house they're the they're the police chief of going through the house and keeping everybody at bay and some people say make your worst enemy your executor it is not a fun job it is not a fun job and there's a lot of liability if they were to steal some of your assets they have what is called a fiduciary duty to carry out your will and to make good decisions if they are fraudulent or reckless or negligent in some states they can the beneficiaries might sue him they'd say you squandered our money you idiot and you know you were supposed to be an executor and you just moved into the house and started living there that's not fair so you want to choose someone you trust yeah okay and that executor is going to have to go to court this is one of the things of a will that's different than a trust is a will has to go to probate so your personal representative or executor here again we're calling him executor in general is gonna have to take this will the original copies are tricky we want to have copies this is a backup but the original needs to go to probate court yeah and they're gonna have to take that and say hey probate court this person died here's their will here's their death certificate there's notices that have to go out for spouses and kids and everybody that have to go in the process and then the court as long as there's no issues is going to say okay executor here's an order you're the executor on this estate take this piece of paper from the court that's an order and sometimes there's other names for things you'll get and that's how the executor gets to go around and move all the assets around it for the various places you know yeah sell the house do all that stuff yeah because if you go to sell the house as the executor the title company is going to go who the hell are you well i'm the executor i got a will here it says i'm listed yeah yeah i don't care until a court you know stamps that and signs an order saying you are you ain't okay now let's move along so what you want to do i designated the following person as my executor comma or personal representative colin now write that name there right now now some of you may say well i need to think about it nope just write it down write the person you're thinking now you can come and do a new one next month if you think of someone else that's right we get sick and tired of people they're like well i need to think about this nope you can always change it later so write down this name okay now it could be your spouse or anybody young or old friend some people appoint their lawyer accountant we're very often named okay then you have another sentence if so and so the person you just you're going to start a new sentence if so and so cannot serve or is unwilling to serve i appoint dot dot dot to be backup you could put the replacement executor or the upgrade you know but to be back back up okay now in the trusts and wills we do for clients we'll do another sentence and say if so and so can't do it there's a third we want three people we want number one number two and backup number three one other nuance you can have a team of executors you can say i appoint my brother and my sister as co-executors if you but again get legal consul at that point okay so you're gonna play okay article three i'm turning my page over article three center it for those of you that have kids that are under the age of 18 you need to designate a guardian for your kids all right now if your kids have another parent in their life whether you're married or not that other parent when you pass is gonna be the guardian okay so you know you're not gonna say well if i die and when i've got an x or i've got a spouse i want this person to be guarding no the other parent is going to become guardian yeah right yep but if you're the now a lot of people particularly if you're married um are going to say if i'm you know pass away and my spouse passes away maybe you go together in a car accident or something you know then that unfortunately happens i want someone to be the guardian of my children okay and again this is for minors under the age of 18. okay now as you can see people this is why a legal consul and doing a will or trust plan with all the pieces and parts will tell you we have a special every year that's going on right now we'll tell you a little later what you may say this is too much i just want to talk through it in my situation and have you guys do it cool just hear us out this is a good podcast too so you know these terms but um i would um realize i would recognize that if it gets a little complicated here don't stress out we can do it for you but keep learning here now this is where you could write here's some example verbiage um if you have no children article 3 is going to be the next article so we're going to come to that middle but if you have children you're going to say um if my if i pass away i appoint my spouse as the guardian of my children if you're not married you'd say the same thing because your ex you can't take away what's called parental rights your ex-husband or ex-wife has the right as the biological parent to be the parent unless those have been terminated by the court and some of you may be in that situation well my ex was so crazy on drugs and rehab the court took away their parental rights well you could say that because my spouse had his parental rights taken away by the court in xyz county comma i hereby appoint so-and-so to be the guardian of my children okay you're going to say that i hereby appoint i'm going to write it down right now i hereby appoint the following person i hereby appoint the following person to be the guardian of my children under age 18. there you go the guardian okay now matt what do you want to say about parents on this one i know you and i share the same feeling on this yeah don't list your parents let them stay grandma and grandpa you know and they might be more grandma and grandpa if you pass away um but i like siblings here keep it in the family your siblings might have kids the same age and think of yourself when you were a kid you know think of if your parents passed away who would where would it have been natural for you to go you know some people might think ah my friend you know but like no really like what would have been the best for you and i think for many people it would have been maybe going to an aunt and uncle you got some cousins you're still within the family that's that's likely what i would have where i would go okay okay matt well i'm gonna take a different approach review point if that's okay sure this never happens it's not a first it's not the first time okay um i and and i we're trying to keep this topic light but there are going to be times when there's going to be some difficult stories talking about people's death is is it it's it's tough everybody has different beliefs and experiences i had an uncle die this last sunday loved the guy he was the first one that took me on a a sleigh with horses behind it he's the uncle up in new dale idaho with the potato farms thousands of acres um really close to but he had a great life he was older and i think when you have someone that's older and has had all those life experiences you're like hey this is a it's a it's almost like a family reunion but when you have those sudden deaths unexpected uh a suicide like you referenced earlier someone in a car accident and you never got to say goodbyes and accidents those are really really difficult um i've got to be careful because this is another client of ours that um could very well be listening to the podcast i'm trying to get her to on a regular basis but she's in her early 20s i'm going to even say 21 22 and i'll just say both of her parents died and no wills went into probate and you would have thought well the oldest daughter there's three younger siblings the next youngest was in high school and she was just graduated from high school so this is a year or two ago and she was headed off to college and the debate was should she raise the kids and that would have been tragic and luckily the sister of the mother stepped up and said we really want to raise these three younger kids let's let the oldest daughter go off to college and kind of have a life and so i know there's instances where you may have an older child that is in their late 20s or early 30s they may have one child or two of their own and you might have a younger kid that's coming along and living with a sibling could be a good fit but i think you've got to be careful and look at is really that the right time and age for a sibling to raise younger siblings and it could be the worst thing in the world so it is it's so tricky but anyway so there was my take on that i think okay um i've got one other one my wife and i we had our none of our siblings were really a good choice for us um okay sometimes it's just it's not you know and somebody's geographic things and you know i mean who knows yeah right and so one thing in this will that we is in this same we're going to talk about this in an article to come up is um we chose a guardian that was a god couple and see that's a lot of a big issue too are you going to choose a couple what happens if they get divorced are you going to choose a person young or old what's their life experience and so a lot of people later in the will here we're going to say in this section who's going to raise my kids if it's not my surviving spouse are we going to keep our kids in the same school in the same neighborhood and try to create at least as much normalcy and as we can and so we chose a couple and we said we want you to move into our house they were a younger couple and they were friends of both sides of our family now my mom was ticked when she found this out i can't believe you're not gonna have our side of the family raise the kids i'm like oh my gosh my mom was just ready for a fight but and that's what happens if you don't have a will so exactly yeah exactly and she would have been having that fight with your other side of the family yep you know or this person who got thrown in the mix who was you know who may have volunteered because they thought maybe you would have wanted that but if you have it in writing everyone's just following your wishes and that makes it easy and who better would know than you so okay i like that that's a good tip yeah okay so on article 3 you're going to do the same sentence you did in article two that if this person is unable or unwilling to serve so and so should be the backup yep so make sure you have that sentence okay you got a backup guardian okay okay article four now it gets a little more interesting so so article one who i am family and who's gonna raise my kids who's my executor what do you like okay i like to outline specific assets first okay okay sometimes it's like well i own a boat with my brother and so when i die my brother is getting the boat you know or i've got that partner in a business that's a specific asset when i pass away that partner in that business gets that specific asset so sometimes it's easiest to knock out a few things that are very specific up front and then we're going to say and everything else gets split up in equal parts and sold to these people but there's these few things that are things like that are specific that maybe i co-own with someone or has certain sentimental value to one person over another maybe list any specific assets you have first here and so i would say specific big quests quest that's what we call like in china but i would say you what you could say here is i hereby um leave the following i was gonna say bequeath if i could i mean when can i ever say that word if not yeah yeah i hereby bequeath the following specific assets to the following individuals okay okay you're gonna say what the asset is and who gets it and this is a great bullet point list in fact i won't even do bullet points you want to go one two three four because yeah because it's gonna say article three or four depending on if you had children or for article three article four number one number two yep number three so use numbers or a b c d okay and let me give you an example on how to do this so then let's say let's say you know the 2012 you know whatever boat i don't even know a cool boat name i couldn't even super cool what's a cool boat what's a cool boat cory a bay what do they call them bay bay liner those bay liner well you can spend a lot on a bay liner all right okay how about let's stay no i'm going to leave the yacht the master craft oh yeah okay but you got to identify it unless everybody knows what yeah yeah you know i mean the million dollar yacht okay you know what i mean let's make this easy okay let's say it's the the 1972 corvette that's your prized possession that's in your garage okay all right okay since mark and i know nothing about boats clearly obviously okay the 1972 corvette um you know so you say that on one line and then next to it you'd say who gets it okay and and i would list their name and their city and state sometimes it's confusing who is who and you know if you have a junior or senior in your family you know or it's somebody be confused who this person is but i like in identifying them a little more than just their name um here in this section because it's not your kids it's not your parents that you're gonna immediately everybody's gonna know oh that's what you intended you know if you're like ron johnson i don't know is that senator ron johnson is that was that to be meant to write ron swanson who knows yeah let me just say matt you had me at meat tornado i'll just say that okay now okay now i'm gonna read this everybody take a breath i know we're joking around a little bit here but article four specific requests at the center right below article four i hereby bequeath the following assets to the following individuals then you're going to go a b c d now there's a variety of things to deal with it could be a i leave the grand piano to so-and-so i leave my 30.6 shotgun from grandpa jones to so and so kid i leave uh my wedding ring to so and so and these are things that could be outside the bounds of a spouse and you're not going to have a problem this is personal property if it's of extreme value a spouse that got disinherited that item could make a claim in the probate proceeding but 98.9 of the time you're not going to have a problem with these specific assets now if i could say if that asset you're giving has a debt that goes with it say it say i'm going to leave the boat or i'm going to leave the cabin to so and so and they have to take over the mortgage if they don't want to take over the mortgage they don't get the asset the assets going to go into the pool and sold with everybody else or they can keep the cabin and they can sell it if they want and keep the proceeds write as much as you want say it just like that they john gets the cabin he's got to take the mortgage if he sells it within a year he's got to give the money back to the other people and share it with so-and-so or well just write down write a book yeah yeah i like that and i think being like in in this type of structure when you're writing out just being as clear and direct as possible is is the best don't try and do an exception to the exception to the exception you know in fact well but if this but enough not that then this but if that person doesn't do this then then you're gonna like yeah it's gonna get screwed up yeah um i think in this section too this is a good time to deal with the guardian because whoever you're making the guardian of your children may not be a person that's getting any inheritance so you want to carve out a little something for them and that's what we do this is where a full-on estate plan we probably should digress to that here in a moment before our next article but but in this at this level say out of my life insurance out of my estate of my equity in my home or choose somewhere there's money say my guardian gets 50 grand of that because i they need that money to take care of the kids uh so carve out some money for them and yeah yeah and then like a trust the trust can like pay it yearly or monthly and keep it over time in the will it's going to be a one and done typically you're going to say you know now you could try and create a trust within a will that has to get probated pain in the butt so i think what you just said 50 grand pick the dollar amount that you think would be helpful for that guardian to receive and and maybe it's the family that doesn't need the money as much but it's still a good token i think to show them thank you for taking on this responsibility and you know for my most important thing i'm leaving behind my kids you know yeah okay um now article five i'm gonna i'm gonna i think there's gonna be other articles here where we talk about funeral and burial instructions and maybe a few other things but do we wanna do the main piece right here or save it for the climate that's at the end just i think it's where you do it yeah okay article five okay just distribution of assets yeah i would i would say this all right article five here now people gotta get paid right yep the mortician the tax man okay the tax man tax man what movie is that from yeah i don't know the tax man she's in the bakery and she's yelling at him stranger than fiction oh stranger than fiction yeah okay i don't remember that okay um all right so we're gonna say um the um okay so article five okay article five payment of expenses is the subtitle payment of expenses now you're gonna write all of them go ahead do you wanna do that no no no okay we're gonna do it like acapella duet there yeah oh you say it okay all right so we're gonna say all of my assets not specifically identified above okay so that's slow everybody write that down all of my assets not specifically identified above common shall be yeah common shall be sold and the proceeds shall be used to first pay debts expenses taxes and costs of my estate love it period i don't think we should try and say that again if you if you need to just hit rewind on your podcast there's a little 10 second button do they go back 10 seconds or 30 seconds 10 seconds 30 seconds yep okay that was perfectly stated my co-host okay all right so thank you pay all my expenses sometimes it'll say i direct my executor to sell all of my assets yeah pay all my expenses and collect all my wealth into one bucket there's different ways to say it and folks if we if we say it a way you don't like and you look at other wheels online and go those guys are stupid i i could say that better then say it better we're riffing yeah that's a guitarist this is called riffing yeah we're just riffing you know so okay that's article five all right payment of debts all right article six okay the good one the one you want to go to if you're the on the if you're you know maybe a beneficiary here you want to go write article six okay this is who gets what distribution of assets that's the subtitle so article six then you'd center right below it distribution of assets okay can i say this one did i get a shot this one okay all right i direct my executor to distribute the residue of my estate to the following individuals in the following percentages okay abcd one two three four cause we already said the executor is gonna sell everything else in five and pay expenses and then the residue as you said the residue the remaining remainder of my estate yeah however you like it i mean residue works you know tomato tomato yeah uh okay cool now now this is again probably another bullet point here and where we want to put names and percentages next to those okay now again if it's a person you're dropping in here that p someone might be like who the hell is this or it's someone that's a senior or junior let's be specific on who they are you know if it's your if it's your mistress over there that no one knows who the hell she is and you're dropping this bomb in your in your will when you die um let's you're gonna have to identify who that person is you know so now this this is a great tangent timeout huh no i loved it i loved it i got i want to tell my golf course story yeah dude no no i love it i love it okay i mean i don't want the mistress dropped on anyone or mr yeah i mean just i'm just trying to keep it light you know yeah you're getting a bit of light okay let me throw this out now this let's digress here for a moment every year we do this will be the 11th year we've done our annual estate planning special for one month out of the year we provide about a 20 discount on our estate plans we try to create we bring in staff from other parts of the firm to try to create an efficient system for all those procrastinators out there to get their estate plan done just to freaking knock it out we're systemized it's like a it's a time to like come in and get her done it's that time of the year the farmer's market you can go get fresh fruit let's just do it get in there get out so this year the price is twelve hundred dollars typically fifteen hundred dollars for any individual married or single in any state to get their will trust powers of attorney living will power of his attorney for health care funeral and burial instructions a consult with an attorney for at least an hour or whatever you need typically try to keep within an hour to an hour and a half to discuss it review it approve it and it goes out to you in a binder with all sorts of bells and whistles if you'd like to get that done and say but now we'd still recommend do your written will right now and then if you're like i want to get it done right start the process you can go to any of our websites it's on all of our websites a little link for the special this year would you add anything to that yeah and remember there's other documents in here about you know if i'm in a vegetative state do i want the plug pulled okay you're going to need to do that in a different type of document than you can in this holographic will um the trust is avoids probate there's always other things that go into estate planning that make it better but we're just trying to get you the bare bones here and it gets something in place now that you don't have to pay one dollar for okay just you know we that's what our goal is here but we know many of you are thinking man i really should i mean knock out 1200 bucks it's done i want to amend it easy just you know you want to cut someone out one page amendment you don't need to redo the whole thing just amend it in one page okay now the reason why i bring this up is because i'm about to add a sentence to article six article five for some of you without children but this applies to everybody article six can get a little hairy and i was just like what do we normally say in our trust and will and so i went to go pull it up on my desktop and we i we have our estate plan is 88 pages long because we try to think of everything everything pets guns real estate businesses second marriages his kids our kids their kids grandkids i mean so we've got all sorts of bells and whistles in this and it's all one price some people go well i paid four grand for mine yours guys must suck it's got to be a crappy document right because someone quoted me three grand no we believe an estate plan should be affordable i've done the same estate plan for 10 million dollar clients same plan i don't care and so you are getting a document we have crafted over 20 years every sentence in here it's got mine and matt's name blood on it going through it and trying to like make it perfect all right so here's my next sentence so you've said i'm going to distribute my assets to the following individuals in the following percentages now here's where it gets hairy each share write this down people this is your next sentence each share set aside for a person above who is deceased comma shall be distributed in the following manner because what happens if someone is pre-deceased you that's on that list option one if they have living descendants they shall receive it per let me explain what that means in a minute who has then living descendants shall be distributed to those descendants per stirpies now if that's p-e-r sterpies is spelled s-t-i-r-p-e-s it's not herpes it's stirpies okay do you want to explain what that means man yeah so let's give an example let's say you had three kids okay you were you didn't have a spouse at the time just keep it easy you had three kids and let's say by the time you passed away you one of your kids had pre-deceased you you and you listed three of them here so you but you had two left okay well option one here is gonna say if you're gonna follow option one that's gonna say well my kid that has already passed away i wanted to go to my kids heirs all right and that that if that kid had a surviving spouse their surviving spouse would get it if that kid had children their children would get it i'm gonna disagree on one point okay let's stick with your example you had a tom and mary had three kids one of their kids pre-deceased them and they pull out this handy dandy wheel that they just did today on the podcast if that child what we're trying to define here is where does that child of theirs money go so if they were to get a third of the estate so let's say there was a million dollars and if you had life insurance a 401k an ira in a house you could easily have a million dollars so each one of your kids would get three hundred thousand the sentence i just said said that my kid's descendants if they've deceased me then has living descendants shall get their share which would be the third per stirpies so if my kid had two kids then they would get it per stirpy's 50 50 of the third their spouse doesn't get it yeah it's their kids getting so you're trying to keep it in the bloodlines because you may hate your kid's spouse so you're saying i'm gonna give my if any of my kids dies before me their share is divided per se stirpies which means equally among their kids bloodline or adopted your grandkids yes grandkids their spouse wouldn't get it did we say the same thing when you said spouse i kind of wanted to go down you're right you're right you corrected me that's that's correct that's per sturpees okay that right so this this if you just say now you know maybe you love the spouse and you want and that spouse would need to take care of i mean you could say that the their spouse would get it but per stirpies it does follow bloodline essentially and so it would go like mark said to your grandkids in that example of your child that had pre-deceased you okay got nothing yep now here's option b if a deceased child has no living descendants the share allocated to them shall go to their spouse if married that's option b so you say hey my kid's married but no kids no grandkids but i want that spouse to get their share so you'd say that okay if they have no living descendants if married their spouse shall get their share okay option c is in charlie if a deceased beneficiary above has no living descendants and is not married their share shall be split with the other living beneficiaries so they lose it it's dead right so two your two surviving kids get it 50 50 now yep it's not one-thirds anymore it's just going 50-50 to their kids now if you go back to the spouse one if this is that this is from the language chairs like if you were if you listed one of your kids let's say and they've died they're not married are they technically to the the surviving spouse so they were so if they were married at the time of their death and had a surviving spouse that spouse could then inherit again if this is what you wanted maybe and some people are like you know what skip that piece i want it to go to my grandkids but if my kid's gone i don't want to go there's fighting spouse i'd rather go to my other kids you know so you can deviate here however you want but this middle piece i just think if we wanted to go to surviving spouse of a kid that died before you did say it but if not say that yeah say that and they're technically not you know they're dead they're not married i don't know are you married so when you're dead i don't know no no that's a great card so it's funny i correct i know spiritually you might but from a legal standpoint i don't yeah so yeah and i love it i corrected you on per stirpes you corrected me on b because i said some of you may have caught that hold it uh a kid that's dead their spouse no they're dead they're surviving yeah you're widowed you know so and i think that that's why we have two co that's why we have co-hosts for this show yeah now okay some of you here here's something we should have started with but i didn't want to interrupt matt's example at the beginning i'm going to call out christy parker at our firm she's one of our attorneys she's adorable she's got a fun fun personality so i'm going to joke out i'm going to joke about her and she'd she'd appreciate it um i'm going to say use christy as an example christy is not married and has no children that she knows about i mean i could say that about some guys you know but women i was like yeah i think you know i think she'd know so some of you guys out there that are single i can say you don't have any children that you know of you know but christy i think she does okay so christy has no children and is not married so i would have done matt's example from the beginning don't all of you out there that are single you would start this pair this out this sentence by going if any of the beneficiaries above you see christie's going to say i give the residue of my estate to the following beneficiaries they're not going to be children it could be your nieces it could be your parents a brother or sister so you're going to start this section out article 6 by saying i leave the residue of my estate to the following individuals in the following percentages those don't have to be kids and then you would say the next sentence if any of the above beneficiaries are deceased their shares shall what you decide go to their living descendants go to their surviving spouse get go nowhere go to charity go back to the pool and split with the other living beneficiaries just say it be as clear as you can yeah and sometimes what the word is is per capita versus instead of per stirpes when you want it to if that person's not living and is pre-deceased you would say that it the the the state would be distributed per capita yeah so they get back into the three and and you know one of them's dead and two are left the two get 50 50. it goes it goes right back and goes per capita to who's left yeah and those descendants you can say those descendants share with my other children per capita so the two kids of the deceased child child would come back up and we'd have four you know if that's what you say say i want my deceased child grandkids to get in the mix and go per capita then the the two kids grandkids would now share with the two aunt and uncle if per se that would be complicated that was right there that's a per square piece and a per capita thing so you if you're writing this out you got to be careful on that because per capita a lot of times being i'm doing the opposite of purse herpes yep yep so be careful okay um okay um all right article seven or six as the case may be i kind of like to say funeral and burial instructions here that would be my subtitle so i go article seven or six funeral and burial instructions now this can be actually a very emotional and kind of i'll be so bold as to say fun peace because i once had a client that came in and said um and by every everybody out there you might be thinking about life insurance and iras and 401ks we're going to come to that in a minute um but i like this section because i once had a client that said mark i want you to be my executor i want you to sell everything pay off my debts and i want you to buy a ticket to a cruise for the following i think it was about 10 people and he said these 10 people uh i want you to take them on a cruise and i want you to have me cremated and i want you to read the following statement as you drop my ashes off the back of the boat and i mean he was very specific it was between cozumel and uh cayman islands on a royal caribbean cruise i wanted to drop my ashes off the back kind of like the women in titanic just dope drop the diamond off the bed okay i worked it i worked in titanic here i think i just deserve some bonus points here okay yeah so appropriate for people dying i guess yeah so you just drop drop drop the ashes off the back of the boat and then he had a really nice statement he had written it all out it said hey everybody i had a great life whether i died by accident or natural causes or this or that i just i just want all of you to know you're the people that affected me in my life i love you don't be sad for me have a great cruise celebrate my life i just got chills saying that it was a really neat statement um and uh so this is the place you say this is how i want my funeral done this is how where i want to be buried how i want to be buried here's any final statements tell everybody and say you little jerk i hated you or i loved this person or hated this person yeah you'd say whatever you want they can't do anything yeah yeah the guy reading and saying don't shoot the messenger i mean he wanted you here for me to say you suck and you get nothing yeah by the way all right well i i think don't get hang up hung up on this okay yeah um this is one thing people like well i don't have a plot you know i don't know where i want to be buried i don't know if i haven't thought about if i really want to be cremated or you know just say at least what you know now and if you don't know you don't need to say anything yeah your executive's just going to figure it out now if you have an inkling of where you're leaning like i want this type of church service i want this person to speak i want to be buried or cremated like just what you've thought through or can put to paper right now just write that down you know i would like to be cremated period i would like to be buried period where your your ashes get put where you get buried you may know that and be okay with that but um if you don't don't get hung up because you want to have it all figured out because then you don't finish this thing yeah yeah you can add that in later okay now i want to say this and i've now i've got a number of little assets that i want to talk about here a minute i want to talk about pets guns uh where do you put this thing i want to talk about your digital media um your assets in your house but just for a moment let's wrap it up right now this is what i'd say next then we're gonna talk about some unique provisions you might be able to pop in there are you okay with that matt yeah okay here's what i'd say quickly yeah at the end i would say this i declare that at the time of my s at the time i signed this will comma i okay i declare at the time of signing this will comma mark kohler was of sound mind and memory and under no undue duress or constraint period and this is really required in a lot of states date and sign so for all of those 25 states we've listed off before you're done date sign it done if you're not in one of those states i think you're going to need two witnesses while you sign it look it up in your state but you're done yeah just get your herbie hancock on that and you're good yeah so you were supposed to set it up going get your john hancock on there and i go i thought it was herbie hancock uh tommy boy good call man good call yeah um yeah because that's right we hit tommy's dad with the wheel reading oh yeah man yeah that was was that farrah fawcett and uh rob lowe rob lowe oh yeah that was good yeah okay all right now you're done accept yeah okay except there's some assets you need to know now we're i'm just i'm serious you can scan it or print you know do copies old school whatever you know get it to us or for your attorney um we'll at least throw it in your file get it to your loved one but make sure this isn't a place where someone knows who probably who you picked as the executor let them know this is in my desk in my office at my home you know this is you know you tell them where it is and where it's located maybe it's in a safe or a safety deposit box you're going to have to let them know and give them instructions on how they're going to get to it if you're doing that but don't make this thing be some like goose egg you know or easter egg hunt for your family they're like do you have a will or not you know yeah i usually the one that use uh foot in my i like you don't want it to be a goose egg maybe for some people but you don't want it to be anything that was awesome yeah but not an easter egg yeah what do they call it geotracking is it geo-tracking where they're like okay everybody needs to find my will you've got to go to these coordinates yeah um yeah don't do that make it very easy for people to know where it's at and find it okay now here's one of the recommendations i give at all my workshops in fact we raffled these off at my workshops la uh before covid in 2019 is a safe you can get a fireproof document safe for sometimes under 50 bucks at target or walmart um the little more robust ones that i like that are fireproof and this and that could be 70 or 80 bucks but get one put it in a closet under the shoes put it somewhere uh make sure this person that you your executive burglars go to look though okay don't do that let's see in bernie he put it and put it in the freezer put it in the freezer there you go okay it's a good one that might not be good for document preservation though but you know if it's fire proof it should be frozen proof i don't know i don't know fire and frozen work the same way i don't know we are idiots okay now um but get your safe put in there that was a goose egg nah nah that was good i love it we're we're riffing we're riffing we're riffing okay um you want to put in there your titles to certain assets you might have your passport your will um your birth certificate marriage certificates anything of any value that needs to be documented there are a few things you still need originals for people so put those in you're safe now again if you listed an executor or some maybe the backup two they need to know what's in there and they need to know the code yes combination combination we're so old school you know what i was going to say earlier just write down your will and fax it to us [Music] [Laughter] yeah what's the facts all right i'm just happy to live in a world where there's more faxes yeah i was watching die hard the original die hard with bruce willis just doing some work at the desk the other day and when he's at the airport they fax a document and i was like oh my gosh i haven't seen that forever okay for some of you young people what's the facts um it's f-a-x look it up you might be able to see it on wikipedia they probably have one at the museum in actual history yeah yeah maybe you might inherit one from your grandma or grandpa one day and their handwritten will yeah i leave my grandson the fats the samsung 2000 and and the commodore 64 with two joysticks [Laughter] oh okay all right now here's a few other items if you have pets you may want to add an article for pets i leave the i want my the following individual to receive my dog fido or my cat sam gothi what's duffy that's right matt's dog his name cat's name duffy um guns uh we are we are on the cusp of releasing our new gun trust this year so for those who own guns you want to have a trust you can register guns more easily quickly and effective i know some of you are very anti guns don't be offended this some people love them some people love pets some people hate pets don't don't judge um you might want to leave some money to charity you might have an article of i want money to go to charity and i want to create a foundation take x dollars of my state and create a foundation for the purpose of x and you would have typically done that up in the specific bequest section you know or specific distribution section where you'd say this comes off the top i want a hundred grand to go to the you know red cross or whatever to xyz church now what's interesting okay now here's the big issue if your life is very simple and you don't have assets really not any rental real estate or a home and no real children to speak of yet or whatever a will may just be fine you could be a young person just starting to build your wealth great but i'm telling you i implore a view people if you have real estate personal home rentals llc's a small business children second marriage first marriage whatever even the single people it's can be more complicated we don't know where stuff's going you don't have some greedy spouse waiting there for you you know that knocked you off watch dateline uh so you know every dateline it's just yeah it's it's getting old you know it's like it really is who did it who did it in about 30 yeah it's the spouse how hard is it okay anyway um get a trust do the full on estate plan put it in your budget this year this was a very crazy last 12 months that if the pandemic didn't make us think about our own mortality and possibly dying it's a wake-up call so call us up get into full on estate plan and then you don't have it in court you know your will goes with it we give you a will with your trust and it's all taken care of lots of conversations about your unique situations but for some of you this hopefully was great yeah yeah now let's hit a few other things to know i want to just mention there are beneficiary designations on certain assets that are going to control even if you have a will yes that you'd be assigned that is enforceable what you put on your beneficiary designation in your bank account on your life insurance policy and on your retirement accounts those three would be the main ones that's who's getting it so if you're like well i put you know i i don't know who's on my life insurance policy i don't know who's in my retirement account i set up with my 401k 20 years ago you know go look update that don't think that your will that you just did right now solves that yeah this did not override a beneficiary designation on those three things yeah no totally and i'll add this is where there are bombshells uh there could be a a mistress or a mister um british's you know bridges over madison county you know that one okay a mister it could have been you know clint eastwood it's happy to say i don't know that movie your wife never suckered you into bridges over madison county yeah no my ex-wife nope oh thank you dodged a bullet there yeah no pun intended yeah yeah so but this is where it is you know because you could put a beneficiary on your 401k your ira your hsa retirement account of any sort or life insurance and it doesn't matter what's in the will so if you're going to drop those bombshells that's where you do it um and here's another odd one because i'm out here in idaho farm country is it's kind of been this old school route of oh i'll just put one of the keys on kids on the deed to the farm with rights and survivorship so if i die there's no probate i don't even need to put it in the will i'll just put their name on title oh my gosh now you've got five other kids standing around going uh did johnny really just inherit the million-dollar farm that makes no cash but it's worth a million dollars and what do we get you know and old farmer thought well my oldest child gets the farm and no one else gets anything and i just put his name on title may not be the best estate planning route to take so yeah be careful trying to avoid a will by doing some crazy stuff yep yeah this is easy you know you you could be done by now i mean all the the little commentary and jokes along the way was plenty of time to think it all through you are done yep yeah for those of you in those states let me say this to just you know this is not a substitute for legal advice your specific situation you can do we're just trying to educate you and help you and give you the right way to do it we're attorneys we can't give you the advice for all 50 states it's impossible to do that right now in in a one format thing like this but hopefully we gave you the groundwork mark laid out the states where you just need to have a signature have your name date and it be in your handwriting if you're in those other states remember you'll need two witnesses or in sometimes a notary in order to validate this handwritten will that you've signed yeah i love it all right okay everybody thank you we know this is a longer podcast than usual but you just knocked out your will please take care of it treasure it and you're going to need to upgrade it to a full estate plan whether it's this year or next put it on your to-do list part of your 10-year plan we're here for you no matter what state you're in we've got uh 10 attorneys here that can help you out in one form or fashion on this process thanks everybody i know yeah i was gonna just say before you did the thanks if i could okay i was just gonna say you know you can now go bungee jumping skydiving yes climb my breast any of those things because you did the responsible thing and got your will done yeah you're done you can your life you can leave live a reckless life this weekend and know that your affairs are in order so you got carte blanche to do whatever you want and uh next week open forum folks so send in your questions by going to mainstreetbusiness.com type on post a question and easy schmeezy there you go and sign up for the newsletter if you have not yet lots of good articles and information every week in our newsletter make sure you open it on occasion or some email algorithm will kick you out you won't get it anymore you'll be like where's the newsletter well you never open it so they figured you don't want it so make sure you open it every week just to see if there's any important notices thanks everybody see you next week [Music] you

Channel: Mark J Kohler

Views: 18,120

Keywords: tax, legal, entrepreneur, asset protection, wealth building, cpa, attorney, lawfirm, literature review, lit review, Will and Trust, Mark J Khoerl, Mark J Kohler, Kohler, MArk Kolher, Mat Sorensen, Writing your Will, Writing Your Will - Step by Step Tutorial!, Main Street Business Podcast, tax refund 2021

Id: -_C4NghbO7c

Length: 89min 57sec (5397 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021