Ep. 16—How To Avoid Family Feuds When Parents Pass Away

Attorneys Melissa Dixon and Bob Mannor discuss what to do and what not to do when your loved one passes away. Losing a loved one is difficult, but when the planning isn't clear, siblings who once grew up close as ever, are torn apart by misunderstanding, mistrust, or even greed. 

As parents or siblings, you can take steps to protect your family from unnecessary heartache in addition to losing a loved one.

Transcript

EP 16 AFYA Audio.mp3 - Transcript
 
 You're listening to advice from your Advocates a show where we provide elder law, advice to professionals, who work with the elderly and their families.

Hello and welcome back for advice from your Advocates. It's has a monthly or twice monthly podcast and we talked about all the issues related to aging and aging in place and trying to find good care. And sometimes talking about dementia care, anything related to Aging in the long-term care field. So today, I'm really happy to have Melissa Dixon. She is an attorney with Mannor Law Group. And,among other things handles is, in charge of anytime, we have a family that has a death of a loved one. 

Now, as you might guess, there are some process and procedure that you should follow after the death of a loved one. Melissa is here to talk to us about that. Melissa is also a certified Dementia, practitioner in an accredited attorney, through the Department of Veterans Affairs, office of general counsel meaning, she can help veterans with their veterans benefits.

So, as I mentioned, Melissa handles all of the issues in addition to many other things, she's in charge of any issue, where a family member has a loved one that has died and making sure we follow the proper process for that.

So, the first thing I want to talk to you about is the very common thing that everybody kind of assumed. As the case is what we see in the movies where there's a reading of the will very first thing we ever see, is there ever a reading of the well?

So, that is a common misconception but now there is not an official reading of the will funny. I see so many movies and it's always there and I think it really creates an expectation when people come into the office that when they leave, they're going to get a check or they're going to get the keys to the, to the 1974 Camaro or whatever.

It is unrealistic thinking. That's not going to happen at that time. If there's sometimes that we can, Take a small, a sad and make sure that it gets distributed quicker. But really we try to make sure that we're following all the rules and making sure that, you know nobody has a future liability or nobody's going to have problems with this in the future.

So if there's not a reading of the will then what does happened, what is some of the first things that a family should do once they have to deal with the, you know what. what do we do to take some time grave and I'll spend time with your family, but really the urgent things from the standpoint of a successor trustee, or personal representative is to protect and preserve the assets from date of death. 

So largely that is a house and a car and things of that sort. So it would be important to make sure there's insurance coverage on the house. In the car and make sure that they're secure. If there is a trust, make sure that the trust is listed as an additional insured on the policy and then they should call a qualified attorney to help with the next are very good.

And so I think sometimes folks, just assume that it's all pretty much straight forward. Simple, the key on this is that if you're listed as the executor, sometimes we call the personal representative for the trustee. Successor trustee if you're listed as executor, you're the one your neck on The Chopping Block here. And so the family, the rest of your siblings, the rest of the Bears might not care, so much about it, cuz they're just like, just give me. The money is just doesn't mean, you don't need a lawyer and I don't need to go through all of this will lead. They're not going to be liable. They're not going to be on the hook for it. But if you're, you know, I think most of us if, if our parents were to make us the executor to fill B on Earth Trust me, that's great. X mom and dad and you don't realize you're making sure that now you're going to be acting as if you share it and you have a responsibility. And if things are Done, Right, sometimes even from the standpoint of just paperwork, you can be liable. You can be a lot about for a long time longer. Now, I'm not saying, don't do it. I'm saying it's important to seek good, legal, advice, and follow through with that legal advice. And it's not going to come out of your pocket per say because it should come off the estate and that's possibly why. Some of the family members are saying, you don't need a lawyer because everybody's everybody's hair will get a little bit smaller but we try to keep our fee is really you know, very very reasonable and it's going to be a drop in the bucket. Typically compared to what the distribution is and they probably won't notice it. And it's important for the person who's in charge not to be Held liable for many years, even if there turns out to be no additional liability, knowing that's hanging over your head for several years, to be very problematic. So I agree with everything wasn't that I didn't want to highlight one issue with that and she said this I just wanted to put emphasis on it and that is many people have a trust. A revocable living trust is a very popular option. That's something that we recommend for a lot of clubs and if you have a trust, one of the things that you're going to want to make sure after the parents die is that the homeowners insurance is listed as an additional insured on the house because Mom and Dad are the insured. And if they're deceased, then they're not an insurable interest cuz they're deceased. But we want to make sure the trust is listed as an additional insured Mom and Dad should have done that during their lifetime, but do we know that they did that? Do we know that they called up the insurance company and listed them as an additional insured. It's very rare that people actually follow through with that. That we would try to help people with that process but a lot of times it's not done either, you know, if it's done in a different law office or they just didn't follow through on our instructions. And so it's really important because there's a case out of it. I think it was Wisconsin, was it I think or somewhere over there in the Midwest and the idea was that house burned down about six days after somebody died and it was a lady bird deed not even a trust. In that case, and the insurance company was able to get away with not paying on the house. Even though it burned down because they were notified of it, they weren't notified or listed. The trust is an additional insured in that case. It was a lady bird deed. But so people think a phone call might be a signature, those texts things make an online form but just make sure the trust is listed as an additional insured at the house, is going to try. So, was I know, this is something that you and I talked about a lot, and you've mentioned it to me that a lot of families are very eager to start Distributing the assets, which makes sense to me now. Don't need them anymore, they passed away. Let's go ahead and fill out those beneficiary. Designations, let's distribute the house, whatever it is. And so, is there reason to wait and not immediately start Distributing everything. One of them being expenses. So the family has a hard time sometimes forecasting. What kind of expenses they're going to come in their spells are not aware of tax returns are bad ones, but this time of year sometimes, you know, they very clearly recall. Yes. I need to take care of Mom and Dad's taxes for last year, but they forget that there's going to be another text. Next year, so there could be liability. There could be tax, filing fees. So from the standpoint of the expenses, there's also just do Things with the assets and it takes a while to discover those things. Sometimes they think there's a policy but it's already been cashed in five years ago and come back later and bite you. So I always recommend, you know, waiting for the full picture to come together because once the money is distributed, there's no getting it back. If you need it for something, I forget and it goes right back to the person that's been had the honor of being put in shock that you could be enough. But what if it's a copay what if it's a copay at a hospital stay but if it's the final illness. So that I don't know about you. But I know when I go to the doctor, you know, somebody my family's been to the hospital. Some times, it's many weeks before we get that bill, sometimes it's even longer than 6 months and they got the belt. Last six months later. It's, you know, it's sometimes medical billing is slow because, you know, they go through the process of building the insurance billing Medicare maybe and then You know, they don't know what doctors with no, but sometimes they just not clarity as far as what is the the patient's contribution, or his mom or dad. What was Mom or Dad's contribution or called pay. And sometimes it takes a long time for them to send you a bill and who's going to be on the hook. It's the one that mom and dad put in charge if you've already distributed the asset. So it's really starting to kind of take a step back. And there's also most going to talk about this and this and this is the really cute. This is the key thing. I want everybody to take away from this was a good talk about it. You can put a time limit on coming forward with those outstanding bills also going to teach you how to do that in just a second here, but the idea is, if we follow the process will put the limit and after a very short. Of time, do medical bills can come in and have any legal to be on for stability. No. Bills from anybody else? We can shut down liability. A very short. Of time, just died following a relatively straightforward process. Now we're going to talk about how the lawyer can help you with that process but I just want to make that key point. You don't have to, if you're the executor, you don't have to have this Cloud hanging over your head because there's a process, which shuts this down and makes it. Where after a short. Of time, you have no liability. Even if they get a bill later, we just say I hate you should have brought this bill to our attention sooner. And but that only works if you follow the process. So one of the things that we here often and we do obviously Manor Law Group, we do estate planning wills and trusts and things like that. We do the long-term care planning, and dementia planning, and things like that. So do they were talking about what happens after someone dies and the estate Administration planning, but some people think and it's true in some cases that you have to go through probate after somebody passes away, does it? Tired to go to probate when someone dies. So, that is another common misconception. It is not always required. It is a legal analysis, though, to look into the person's individual situation. And look at the assets, how are they titles and make that determination if her probate is needed? So, no, it is not needed in every situation. This is something that's very valuable. We, and our office will do that analysis for free. For our clients, where we did their estate planning, it's something that we've done for many years. So, if we did a trust for Mom and Dad, we will do that analysis for free and will give you some guidelines and rules as to what to do next and you can ask for our help to do it or you can do it yourself but we at least one point in the right direction. So for those that we did the estate planning to take you later specifically if we did a trust for them we're going to have that first meeting with the executor at no cost to you so that we can do that analysis. Is everything. What it? What is the process of transferring everything? Because if you make the wrong decision and you don't make the analysis, right? It could come back and bite you again. So I'm going to give you a quick example. The car off in the car, we can go down to the Secretary of State and transfer the car, but if you do that and it turns out that there are some probate assets. Then you're in trouble because you shouldn't have done that at Secretary of State. But if you don't know that, you haven't taken the analysis and take another step back and say, okay, I need the lawyers to come in and just do an analysis. What needs to be done here? Before we start Distributing assets, are going to the Secretary of State are filling up beneficiary designations and things like that. So it is really critical in for like, I say, for our clients were, they were a client of ours and we drafted, we prepare the trust for them. We had prepared their state, planning for them, we will do that in this, she'll stop and will cost. You were happy to help all the others to there's a small cost for us to do that analysis. If He did not drop the legal documents. Okay, but what are the steps to talk about the steps when they don't have to go through probate in a minute? Then I'll kind of asked you what you have to add to that if there is a probate. So what are the steps when they don't have to go through probate? Just kind of the highlights of the of the main ones we start out with making sure that the successor trustee has access to everything that they need to get access to giving them the appropriate, documentation tax, ID's and things of that sort that they need to be able to go in and start accessing assets. From there. We want to get that clock started right away that Bob had mentioned earlier with our unknown Predator. So we will go through the process of dealing with creditors that we know about. But we also start that clock for creditors that we don't know about by publishing a notice in the newspaper, in the county where the decedent live. And so we put them on notice, they have 4 months to make a claim. They send it to her office and if they don't make the claim in that for months, there bar. So that cloud can move out of the way and then we can continue. But while we are waiting for that for months left to run, we're Gathering up the assets, were making sure we're giving them the appropriate data. Value. We're looking into the troughs making sure the trust benefits are being given to the beneficiaries so far, across have benefits like Sachs savings or the Creditor protection for making sure that all the beneficiaries are aware of those things and that those things are being taken advantage of. So then we start, you know, we're keeping records at the end of the part that everybody's excited about. We do the accounting and Reporting and distribution. So those are the high points, I would say. I think it sounds like we're being a self-serving here, but the reality is, I think it's really helpful to the executor to have a lawyer's assistant, or assistance or another lawyer, assistance through this process. And what Isn't into it, it necessarily. So when you say there has to be a publication notice, is it typically published in the big local newspaper? Not typically doesn't have to be the cavity but it's rare and I probably they're not really going to know how to handle it. Also can we just say hey this person died and another one is there will it meet the requirements to limit the liability? If they don't use the right words in the act, very smart, very great, a lot of things. So they said I think I can do this. I think I can figure this out and they looked into the newspaper and tried to copy something else that someone had done and it was still in. Yeah. So what we're getting at is to limit your liability and I want a high like this, I know Melissa said this but I want to highlight it, the distinction between doing following the rules by lowering the process and not following is having a four-month statute of limitations that. If people don't come forward, those creditors don't come forward with in for Versus a potentially six-year statute of limitation where they can come forward up to six years later and legally, enforced that. But if we follow the process and use the right words and publish it in the right place and in and do all of those things, we can limit that liability 24 months. That's huge for not having that cloud over your head. Do some people, not do it. Some people not follow that, makes my take the risk and they say, I don't think they'll be, anybody else coming forward and asking for money. I think I really a lot of people going that route, but without Talia is that it's breathable, not that expensive, it's not coming out of your pocket is coming out of the estate as a hole. So if you're dividing it up, among your siblings, for example, and not the final part of that is that it's really important that we we follow that precise process, otherwise we might not get that for months, change the limitations, be if you put it in the wrong place, if you publish it wrong, if you don't use the right words. If you don't follow the other instructions, I wanted to mention one thing and the law in Michigan. Status. And this is not saying what lawyer should do. This is saying what the estate should do it. If you're the executor, it says what you shall the, the statute and law section pointed this out. To me, it says you shall do these things. That hey, do it. If you feel like it, do if you want to limit their liability or 4 months, it says you shall know. Are you going to get in trouble? If you don't only, if there's some liability there that you you know that somebody thinks they're owed money by mom or dad. But if you want to maybe think about doing these things like publication of the notice and the rest of the things. So I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole but what would be the additional things that need to be done? If it back. We have to go through what's called a decedent's estate in Probate. If we did have to go through probate, then we would have to get approval from we have to get letters of Authority or is this the legal Authority from the probate court to access asset? So that's an entire other process separate from administering, the trust of state so we would have to fill out a number of court pleadings and take it to court and get the authority from the courts access. Those things out of the horror story. Typically sometimes it is a horror story. Honestly, we both have examples of horror stories in Probate Court but typically is not a horse for the people. Imagine it is, it is a lot of extra paperwork and red tape. It is not Court hearings typical. Another could be if there's fights and disputes and if even though you know, the Attorney General could come in and they felt like they did a creditor can come in. I guess there could be hearings and where you have to go to court. But the vast majority of the cases that we work on. Even if we have to go through probate, there's never an actual hearing where I can show up in court and be sworn in and give testimony or anything like that is all done by paperwork's. The vast majority of the time. So how long is this process took months to a year? I like that number and the reason I like that number is because can it be done in less than that maybe and great. But if you set out the expectation for your family, I'm going to tell you. This is a person experience with my parents died over the last few years here. So there's not a lot to administer after the death of the first parent. It's after the second pair and I'm a lawyer we set up everything very well. It's been about a year and now we're well yeah it's a year now I guess it's a year and we're now getting ready to distribute now. Part of my rationale for that is cuz I am going to insist that we follow the proper process. And you know, some of it is just the logistics of it. Some of it is dealing with life insurance company. So I am dealing with financial companies, most people never think of this, but we had to get in my parents case. And in many cases something called a mandalian signature in this is not like your typical know. This will give you a notary we can typically get you a medallion signature and so some of these things are just time consuming and so and they really don't want to skimp and not follow the rules. And so, you know, if you can get it done, a lot of times it is less than a year can be in a but if you lay that kind of foundation expectation out for your family, if you're the executor, I prefer you to lay that out and then if they get it at 6 months, if I get it at 7 last, they're happy as opposed to stay up late. You know, it's been 2 weeks, where's my money? And that's what don't you think? That's what most families expected. Executor in your brother's calling up yelling at you saying, you're not doing that, you're doing it wrong. You're clearly doing it wrong cuz it's been a month and I don't have my car back yet. Deceptively for a Corvette car or something like that. Usually, we're going to want to put a priority on that because we don't want to sit in there for 6 months or whatever, but so that's not a great example but cash would be a better example who has the most who has the most to lose, if we don't follow the process of administering, the trust, as you were saying earlier. So that the family has often come together and we encourage them to do that. But the siblings that are sitting there the spouses or other people, it is not them, that is the trustee and by taking an action and proceeded to act as trustee. They've, they've taken on that liability. And what I tell you is, we have sort of two, two scenarios that we Set up in our office. If everything is expected that everybody's going to get along and we're not going to be fighting about it. The trustee, the person that Mom and Dad wouldn't charge, they have the option of having other family members come to the meeting with us, we encourage that if we don't think there's going to be a dispute and that way, then we can discuss up that petitions for the family, so that it's not as though they're hearing it from you. I can imagine you know I'm the youngest of sex and so if I'm trying to tell my older siblings that they just like you had to get everybody else thinks of me is okay, and I'll need an attorney to my family. I'm just Bobby, you're saying it. Could take six months to a year, I don't believe that. I think you're stalling. I don't know if I trust you, whatever. And then idea is that they can hear it from the lawyer. Now to be clear Do not represent the rest of the family. We represent the person who's the executor. The person is a trustee that's in charge in their capacity, as the person in charge not in their capacity, as being the beneficiary. We can't favor you over your siblings as a beneficiary. What we do is we represent you in your capacity of your job that you have to do. And that's why we say, if we think there's going to be a dispute and a big fine ever hear me yelling at each other. We don't invite the other family members. Why? Because I don't want them to have an expectation that I'm their lawyer or the Melissa's their lawyer, okay? It's really important. We think there's a fight. We don't want to set an expectation because it might mean that that they could exclude us and we wouldn't be able to help you if we bring a contested party in. And they said, I thought I was represented by the then there's a possibility is not always a possibility. We might have to step aside and say you're going to have to go use another attorney because there's a conflict that has been created here. Now we try How to set up as ground rules right from the beginning. So even when we have the whole family in their will kind of lay it out and say, hey, everybody know, we're only representing this person or representing them only in their capacity as the one that's in charge and only in that capacity as the job that they're doing. And we don't represent any of your interested to visually. And so then if it turns out there's a conflict later, we're not constructed out, but that's why we try to avoid. If we know everybody's give me hiring lawyers, don't bring them into that first meeting cuz it may make it to the. We can't help you in the future. U.s. use the come up from time to time and let the one that I think is a big one that people kind of forget about is the final tax return. So it tells a lot about that and like I said sometimes they think about last year because it's January or February or March. But and they do think about filing the person's individual return now and forget that there may be one for the trust and there may be one for multiple years. So it depends on how that process unfolds on how quickly we were able to get things liquidated. Like you said, if we're dealing with a difficult to take a little longer, but we do give lots of reminders and guidance through that process to file the final taxes, make sure they're getting good advice and we do try to administer as much of the same as possible. And if we need to just go back some money to deal with that next year. Whatever the case, maybe we can do that too. Taxes when we want to hold back a little bit. In case we're surprised by the taxes. Why would we be surprised by the taxes? Could be a million reasons but one of them is we actually don't know what next year's tax law will be. They could change the wall between now and then they could change the the tax percentage. They could get rid of some exemptions. They could do, there's any number of things this happens with. So that's why if you died in March, we can't file your tax return. Their final tax return, until the following February, we're not allowed to file a tax return. So you died in March we'd like everything up in September. Know, we can't because we have to wait until we're allowed to file the tax returns. Do if you died in March of 2023, we have to wait February of 2024 before we can file that tax return. And I like the fact that you pointed out that there's likely going to be two, two tax returns one for the estate and one for your parents, final tax return. So anything any income that was earned A rebate or anything like that that we had up to the date of death and any interest or anything else that we have to report. After the date of that, those are two separate tax return, sometimes three because it could be two tax years for the NFL Something that that is gets overlooked a lot. And I'll, I have some comments on this all adds to Melissa's but 401K is Ira as qualified annuity any kind of retirement assets. So what, why are those special on my? We have to think extra about the house. So he's telling them don't make any distributions. Don't make any changes because there's a lot of times when I sit down with trustees, they've already met with their advisor, they've cashed in 401k or IRA as already where they've already rolled them over based on the advice of that individual. And it has cost them a lot of money in taxes. So a lot more money has gone into the pocket of government as opposed to their own pocket because they they didn't get individual advice for their particular situation. So, you know, there's not a one-size-fits-all piece of advice and that's why I recommend they wait till later. I'm going to meet with us cuz we can look into the trust and see what what benefits are in the trust for them concerning those accounts and also is it the best advice to just roll it over right away or one key exception to that. Of course. And the key exception is, if mom or dad took her dad died near the end of the year and they have not taken out, their required minimum distribution for that year. We're going to want to make sure we take that required minimum distribution for that year. So we don't get penalized for not taking an rmd, your requirements, Tree Ocean. So we always still want to double-check before December. 31st, that would take a required minimum distribution, but other than that, I'd say pause for a second. I have a friend that I've known for 20-some years and her father died and she called me. Well, after the fact and the idea what happened was, she went in, because Dad had an IRA and it was an IRA, that was with the financial advisor. Associated with the back. Nothing wrong with that. Dad was happy with that. I'm happy with that. That's perfectly good. I'm not a financial advisor. I'm never going to tell you where to invest your money, okay? But what happened was, dad's financial advisor said, okay, this is how we have to handle this. And you must sign this paperwork to settle dad's estate. And he was very insistent that we do this right away. Immediately ever so much rgency on his part. Well, my friend lives in another state. She doesn't live in Michigan. Her diet, dad died in Michigan. My friend lives in another state. And so what was happening is he was trying to roll over Dad's Ira as an inheritance on a beneficiary, designation to her. And he had already set up an account in her name. He was ready to move the money over to her and then he would become a financial advisor. Well, that's not very practical. First of all, she's done no scrutiny to see whether she wants him as a baby under the visor whether she has a good Rapport with him. Whether she likes his advice, whether she didn't can ask her about any risk tolerance. He said, I will do all of that later and she didn't realize that that's what he was doing. He was saying this is what's necessary to settle the estate will. That's not accurate, we can do it. When she could do it on her own, she can use your own financial advisor, she can use a new financial advisor but what the financial advisor Financial visor, but he was eager to keep that money under, you know, his management and set up accounts for her, so that she could, then an end without making giving any tax advice, really, thinking about the taxes at all, and really rushing into that. And so, when she called me, I called up the bedroom. So, you know, what does freeze, everything stop it. Don't do this. We're going to maybe. We'll do this baby won't, but we're going to look at it. One of the things I had talked about with her. This is something else that I often tuxpan is about is Your college-age kid and you my friend was in a fairly High tax bracket and I said, you know, when you get this money, you're going to be paying your income, not a death tax bracket, but your tax bracket, the daughters tax bracket and I said, well, what tax bracket is your kids are your kids, are they make minimum wage or something, but they're in college. And I said, you know, it's possible that we could take some of the money and unpaid taxes, but pay it at your kids tax bracket and not only is it possible to pay that your kids tax bracket, we could do it over a longer period of time like a 10-year period of time and we can do it for you but you're still going to be paying a higher tax bracket cuz you're in a higher tax breaks for the kids. And we know, at least now they're in a very low tax bracket of eight and then overtime since they're young and just starting out in their crib. Still probably be in a lower tax bracket. And she said, that's exactly what I want to do. Advisor tell me about what he was just trying to get. Make sure that he was going to get that account. And the reality is, if we had followed run that, she could not make that choice to get some of that money to her kids. It's not possible. Once we do a rollover of an IRA, and a 401k and qualified, annuity, anything like that, once that's done, she can't choose to have some of it. Go to her kids and us. We're just going to pay all the taxes, you can do it. But now we're going to pay all the taxes at the highest tax bracket in order to give the money of the kids. Well, that's not the purpose of it. The whole purpose of it was it take to go from grams to the grandkids directly, bypass the daughter and she has her choice if that's not how Grandpa set it up. But she has that choice of making it saying. I don't want this money. I want to go to my kids and by the way, when I get it to my kids we're going to get to keep more way more of the money difference between keep and someone threw between 100 and 90% versus keeping 60% of the money and 40% of the money. Go into the government. So the difference in that me saying, stop, don't do it. Let's look at this and decide what we want to do is, you know, let's say, let's say it's I'm going to make it a easy analysis because I'm just using numbers that are using that. So, that's, it was a million. I know a lot of people don't have, if we'd followed through on, what the advisor insisted, it was the only way four hundred thousand dollars is going to go to Uncle, Sam wear, as if we do a structure of late and had to go to the two grandkids, it's possible that they can pay between zero and 10%. So between 0 and $100,000 in taxes on that million dollars in change. That's life changing in nnnnn. We would have we almost we we're probably a day away from not being able to have that option because they do get time for it by so that's why I like having a lawyer involved having you know, I don't sell Financial products. I'm not going to try to get financial dollars under management but taking a second and saying, okay is there any urgency that this has to be done by the end of the year? The only thing I have to do by the end of the years, take the required minimum distribution. So, this is a big issue that could save a ton of money in and make a huge life-changing difference to your family. Okay. Do you recommend that in most cases? That families work with a qualified experienced lawyer to help with the settlement of yesterday? And the main reason is because Almost every client that I meet with has never done this before, you know, if they opted not to work with an attorney it's usually because they're trying to save time or money and by the time they get through to the end, I think they've gotten the opposite result, they're going for it. So having that ever been through the process before, I definitely recommend to avoid the liability. Actually save time and money. It would be best to just have a qualified attorney in your corner. One of the things I like about a lot of the work that we do, a lot of the work that we do. Our legal fee is actually ends up, saving money, in your case, for the work that you do, I know you do more than this, but this part of your work dealing with the settling. The estate Austin is going to save more money than whatever cost of the legal fee. But also potentially saved, family, save relationships, make it The people are angry at each other for the next 40 here. And that's one of the things I appreciate most about the well and we're not going to say that we're going to be the low cost, you know, attorney that's not what we do. But we're going to the vast vast majority of time, whatever charge we have. You're going to find the savings. Elsewhere are either in family, Harmony, or actual Savings of what would have been unit actually lost hadn't had. We had you, not knowing the nuances of this, if you file this podcast and you heard one of my recent podcast that we were talking about life care planning with Danielle, one of the social workers in our office. I had talked about the way I was raised in a way. I was raised was self-sufficient, you do everything for yourself. We don't need no darn expert sell, darn foreigners know. Then Corners that was the right way. But do you know people that office was wearing ties and boots to the to do the We can do it ourselves. And so, for example, my dad insisted that I change my own oil and I did many years even after I was a professional and, you know, the cost of changing oil, essence of that. Harmful to me, I get a Saturday, get under the car scrape up, my Knuckles have Bloody not to spend 4 hours doing that I can wait in line at 10 a.m. I took the Quick Change Oil and it's done and probably done better and be a no more securely and changing brakes. You know, very few people to make my dad said, if you know what, I paid somebody to change your brakes. I'm going to show you how to change your brakes and we did. And for years, I did it. And I spend four breaks off. And I'd spend the whole day changing the brakes and I realize that sometimes it's better to have the experts and this is one of those things that I'm not going to become an expert at changing brakes. I can do it. I'm not going to be an expert. I'm not going to be at At 9 to an oil changes in doing them efficiently. I can do it and I'm not going to be nice but they're going to no nuances because they do it a thousand times a day. And so but the thing is a bet swear, I think most people don't realize the nuances, they're involved in dealing with IRS and distributing those dealing with life insurance proceeds, sometimes settling the estate with regard to the house and so were you know, relatively small cost of our legal fees and and the time associated with it typically the biggest savings that you have this time because we're going to you're not going to have to stumble around in the dark. We're going to tell you exactly what needs to be done to accomplish your goals. Thank you so much, Melissa. I think this is very helpful for your tubes when they have a family member passed away. I do, I just want to say that, you know, to remember that settling, the estate Fortune is a process and it's going to take time. There are a lot of steps. And one of the things I find most gratifying and my job is one of my client emails. Me and says, thank you so much. You have no idea how much it is meant to have you in my corner and I've stood in between them in the bank, when the bank is asking strange questions or down in the title company or them in the insurance company, but a lot of times and most importantly between them and their family that are confused and, you know, solving little tips that the siblings get into, and things of that sort. So they shouldn't, they should always think about how important it is to have an advocate in their Corner helping them get through that process. So I hopefully you found this educational and interesting that we have some really great topics coming up. Some some really National experts that we're going to have We're likely to have a one of the top lawyers soon that deals with a defibrillator matter. So there's a lot of cases that were here about we're having a defibrillator and somebody trained on that saves people's lives, and he's going to talk a little bit about that. So we had a lot of great topics coming up. Please come back. I'm about Manor. I'm a certified. Elder law attorney here in Michigan. And thank you for listening to advice from your advocates. Thanks for listening to learn more visit Manor Law Group. Com.