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Life Beats with Sirisha
Life Beats with Sirisha
Preparing for the Unexpected: Why Making a Will and Trust is Important for Everyone: Namrita Notani, exas Estate Plan & Business lawyer
It's important for us to put our legal affairs in order to provide comfort and support to our families when they deal with loss by doing legacy and will planning. In this episode, Sirisha discusses the crucial elements of wills and trusts with her guest, Dr. Namrita Nottani, who brings her expertise as an Estate planning lawyer.
Don't forget to utilize the legal assistance benefits offered by many companies to create your will, trust and other legal documents, to navigate the emotional and legal process of dealing with the loss of a loved one. We dive into the necessity of consolidating all relevant information regarding assets, money, accounts, and passwords. The importance of proper execution, notarization, and witnessing in ensuring a smooth transfer of assets very critical. The conversation touches on the potential complications of using online wills or legal zoom, as well as the drawbacks of adding adult children's names to property deeds or joint accounts.
Sirisha and Dr. Nottani also shed light on the intricacies of estate planning for minor children, such as the need for separate nominations for temporary and permanent guardianship. Do not wait until the last moment to make important decisions about your wills and trusts.
Lawyers can help you navigate the complex world of legacy and will plan, particularly for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation immigrants. Don't miss out on the expert advice and practical tips shared in this episode by Sirisha and her guest, Dr. Namrita Nottani, as we help listeners protect their loved ones and secure their financial future.
We encourage our listeners to engage with the show " Life Beats with Sirisha" by reaching out with ideas and suggestions through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and email.
She became fascinated by how a simple piece of paper, such as a holographic will, could hold immense power in determining the destiny of one's assets. However, she also realized the potential complications that can arise from the traditional process of probate. Understanding the desire for a simpler and more streamlined approach, Namrita dove into the world of trusts. She discovered that by setting up a trust, individuals could bypass the time-consuming probate process and allow their chosen trustee to swiftly distribute assets according to their wishes. This not only benefits the beneficiaries by providing immediate access to the property but also saves them from t
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I'm a former tech executive, a podcast host and an entrepreneur. I work with Universities on Organizations to transition students to the corporate world and building successful leadership pipelines ensuring a healthy financial future.
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Hello everyone to this gorgeous, it's actually scorching Thursday. It's been pretty hot here. Many of you may be wondering and may not really talk about wills and trust. You may not like the idea of it. It's a fairly uncomfortable topic. If you're like me, it's something quite challenging to work on. And as we're all building, our portfolios, our wealth, we have children. It is something that we need to take time and invest in. And really build and make sure we are protecting ourselves, our future, and everybody around us. So today we are going to be talking about bills and trusts. I hope you're, picking up your notebooks, papers and pencils electronic devices. So you're here to chat about it. This is your host, Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi. I'm a former tech executive, a podcast host, and an entrepreneur. I host the podcast Women, Career, and Life. It's spelled W O M E N C A R E R A N D L I F E. You can find it on any of your favorite podcast platforms. It's a top 30% Spotify podcast. I give career and financial advice that we get from guests there. I hope you're ready to tune in. Call into the phone lines today. We have Dr. Namrata Notani. I am so excited to have Namrata here. She is not only a dentist in her former life, but she is a lawyer now too. And we are going to dive into not just her story, but we are going to talk about how to do wills and trusts and legacy planning, especially as a lot of us, maybe first, second, third generation immigrants, there's a lot more steps to be taken. So let's dive right in. Namrata, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me here. So why don't you tell us what made you shift from dentistry to doing estate planning and business law?
Namrita:Actually it was a forced decision of some sort because I had to go through a medical procedure and couldn't do dentistry. I have a spinal fusion surgery in my neck and basically couldn't move my neck enough to be a dentist, but I can definitely move my neck enough to be an attorney. So that was one of the reasons I, and law has always been my second love. Now it's my first life.
Sirisha:Wow, I, and it's pretty amazing that you've got to do two incredibly hard professions. They're not easy to do. So kudos to you for that. So I am actually going to announce the phone number because today's, I'm sure a lot of people have questions. So the studio's number is 2 1 4 8 1 7, 3 3, 3 3. And we will be talking to Dr. Nata to get Advice on basically listening to how to get bills and trusts done So for those of you who are trying to figure this out wills and trusts are something we need to do. Namrita, why don't you tell us, what is a will? What is a trust? What is the difference between
Namrita:the two? A will is something that you write to make sure that all the assets that you have are distributed according to how you want, you intend them to. And it's really a, basically a piece of paper, right? You can pretty much write a will, even It can be handwritten and if you do write it correctly, it's called a holographic will, and it can be admitted in court. But it's basically just a list of rules that distributes your assets to your loved ones. The thing about a will is that it does go to court. A judge has to prove it up, make sure it's valid. There's an an executor appointed. Somebody has to basically follow. Those directions that you've given in the will, and there's a court proceeding, a hearing, and basically it's a long, lengthy, expensive process. A trust, on the other hand, is something that doesn't really require that the whole process of the court. So you're avoiding probate, you're avoiding court, you're avoiding judge supervision, you're basically bypassing all that and going directly to the trustee that you have appointed. And so the trustee takes care of the distribution without the whole process of going through probate, which really Shortens that process of distribution and make sure that the heirs can get access to the property or leaving them immediately. Almost.
Sirisha:Okay. That is completely eye opening. I didn't know my understanding of trust was more around taxes and things, but I didn't realize you circumvent the whole process legally and get where you want to go much faster.
Namrita:Absolutely. Actually, the most common reason why people do trust is probate avoidance. And then there is more, advanced planning like tax and credit shelter and, other things. So
Sirisha:the question that comes up is, do you set up the trust right now when you're living and use your whatever you're earning through the trust now or does the trust start to execute When the person is no longer there.
Namrita:So there's several different kinds of trust, but the most common is the living trust. So the reason it's called the living trust, it's also called a replicable trust, is because you're creating it while you're alive. So everything does either belong to the trust or the trust is a beneficiary of everything you own. But in general, the administration, the distribution occurs only after you're gone. So while you have that living trust. It's like a shopping cart. You're inside a shop and you can pick up anything you want from the shop and put it in this cart. Think of the cart as the trust and you can take things out of the cart and put it back into, the shelves, right? You have full flexibility until you check out and you check out once and after you checked out. Done. That's the lock.
Sirisha:So does it mean I don't have to actually use the trust name when I'm buying stuff and executing in the shopping cart? Or does the trust name show up in
Namrita:different places? So that depends on, you can buy your property in the name of the trust. If you're buying a house, you can actually buy it in the name of the trust and the trust name will show up there. Okay. But you can also have the trust name, like I said, be a beneficiary of, let's say, a bank account where, you don't want the trust name to show up in your checkbook. So then you want to make sure that After you're gone, the account passes to the trust. You have that trust name only
Sirisha:as a beneficiary. Okay. So the, so for those of you tuning in, this is Light Beats with Sirisha. We are talking to Dr. Namrata Nurtani about legacy, will and trust planning, really looking towards the future. I hope you're jotting down notes and you can call into the studio. The number is 214 817 3333. You'll go live on air with any questions you might have. So Namrata, we talked about will and trust. That is very important that it really gives you access to resources. I had a friend. Okay, we actually have a caller calling in. So let's jump right on. You'll be on air. Hello. Please go ahead and ask your question and introduce yourself. That is correct. Yes. Just, yeah, thank you for calling in and confirming that because that is a very important point. Thank you. For those of you just as Someone called in and asked, it's very important to understand that a trust executes immediately, no waiting period, everything, and then the will has to go through the court and stuff. I had a friend who recently lost their spouse and it's been very challenging, very traumatic, not just the legal issues, just so much emotional stuff to go through. And it's. It's quite hard to deal with that, and I think it's important. I know this topic is makes a lot of people very uncomfortable, even me for a lot of reasons, and I've had this conversation with friends over the years, but we need to, do everything because you're working so hard to earn money and, for your own. South your families and everybody else. So you need to protect them, especially if you have minor children. I think that there's a difference, right? If your children are under 18 and over 18. So for minor children. So one of the things, because this channel is largely for the South Asian community and a lot of people like myself are first generation immigrants. Very often people have, foreign beneficiaries for the guardianship. What are some of the things for us to navigate that seamlessly? Because how do you access information? How do you navigate that? What are some of the challenges we can avoid?
Namrita:There are so many challenges, actually, if you are a non U. S. citizen or, whether you have a visa or a work visa, like an H 1B, or whether you have a green card. Would you like to take that question? Yeah, actually. Okay, I'll hold that thought.
Sirisha:Yeah, we'll hold that thought and take the question on air. Hello, thank you for calling in. Please go ahead, introduce yourself, and ask the question directly. They're on air.
Namrita:I'm happy to give you my office number. It's 9728148620. The charge, sorry. You know what
Sirisha:we are going to actually announce Namrata's information and contact info on the end. So you can definitely get in touch with her in her office to gather this. I'll also put this on on Spotify later. So you can also take down show notes from there. But Mr. Khan, thank you for calling in. That's a very important question. We'll make sure we share that information.
Namrita:And regarding the cost of your will, it actually depends on a lot of different things, and I will go over that as well in the next 30 minutes that we have and it's basically based on whether you want just the will or a trust, what kind of distributions you want in the trust, whether you have minor Children or adult Children, whether you have assets here or outside the state or even outside the country. There's a lot of different aspects to it, and we do. I understand that. Thank you. Yeah, that is pretty much what you said. Pretty much all of those. Yes, that could be somewhere in that ballpark. Definitely, yes. It's not beyond that for a simple bill and all the ancillary documents. Okay. All right.
Sirisha:Thank you. Thank you for that question. So as we continue, yes, I know we were talking and I think his question was a good segue because we need to make sure we share your information and for everyone to understand how to get in touch. But if you have minor children, because he said he had two adult children, but if you have minor children and you're looking at foreign assets and foreign beneficiaries, What are you talking about? The challenges?
Namrita:Yes. So especially for minor Children, the main thing that people need to make sure that they understand when they're doing their estate planning is that they shouldn't just nominate the guardians for the Children in the will because they need to understand a will. Like I just said, needs to go through probate. You cannot do anything in the will. And the will is only going through probate when a person is not alive. So if a person requires that guardianship in any capacity, let's say I'm not able to take care of my minor child, you need other kind of documents. Or if I'm not alive and I need that guardianship for my child so that my child can have temporary custody, be with somebody that I trust, that I want, even for a short period of time, or for a long period of time, I need to have those nomination documents outside of my will. Especially if you have foreign guardians, right? They'll take time to come to this country. They'll take time to, make sure that your child is safe and secure and, within a family that you want to keep. And so it's important to have nominations of guardians for temporary purposes, as well as for permanent purposes separately. And make sure that those people actually have the required documents so they can show it and get their visas quickly and, or even when they're here to actually go to court and be able to manage that guardianship because you do need that
Sirisha:appointment. Yes, and for as a person doing a will not from the lawyer standpoint, I think there's so many discussion points, right? The steps that kind of I thought about it when I had to do it was you had to end up consolidating your assets Most of us don't realize how many bank accounts and investment accounts. We just open across the place and just spreads in Consolidating that and then the second discussion point which is very interesting is who is going to help pick up the assets Who's going to help? Execute who's going to take care of the Children because people have differing opinions as partners, and you know that leads to that and talking to the people who are going to be doing the work. And letting them know that they are being nominated for it because they might need a copy of these documents sealed somewhere they can access because we tend to keep them maybe in our safe here and there. And most of the time you can't find it. So even if you get to access and execute on it, people should know where your accounts are, what that information looks like, access the information so that then all of that can be executed on. And that becomes the biggest point.
Namrita:Exactly. Actually, that is a really good point that you brought up. I have to tell you that wills don't have details of their assets, right? Nor do actually trusts. We talk about distributions. All the will has is, this, these are my children and this is how I want it. I want this percentage going to this child or, everything going to my wife or my husband. And a lot of people have no idea where their accounts are and where their assets are. And any unclaimed account goes to the state.
Sirisha:Yeah,
Namrita:exactly. We have over 3 billion in the state of Texas that is unclaimed, that the state owns because people don't know how to access them. So it is really important. First and foremost, what I do with my clients is actually make sure that they have a consolidated platform, that they put everything together, whether I need to see the amounts or not, it doesn't matter. They need to have it and they need to put it with their will. Yes, that's really important and that equally the husband and wife need to know it, a lot of times the husband knows the wife doesn't or vice versa a few times, but we definitely want to make sure that common knowledge
Sirisha:is there. Yeah, exactly. And, I, this is important as we talk about it. If you're tuning in, you're listening to live feeds, it's Arisha, we are, we want to help the community help gather experts and stuff for you to listen. And To them directly to get access instead of us having to Google and step through this. Colin definitely also reach out to me with ideas and suggestions you might have things you might want to hear on the show. You can, reach me through any of my social media platforms, women, career, and life, W O M E N C A R E R N D L I F P Facebook, mostly Instagram really. And. All of those and email at gmail. com. So that is the best way to reach me You can also check out my linkedin for questions or to ping me on direct message search for kuchimanchisirisha K U C H I M A N C H I S I R I S H A, and as we're talking to Namrata, there's Will and trust and no matter what you create are just paper documents. They don't really give anyone information on what to do with these pieces of paper that we have. It is important to have them. Don't get me wrong. But that's just a piece of paper. If no one knows where your assets are, where the money is, what the accounts are, what the passwords are. There's so much that needs to be done to get access to that information. So make sure you consolidate it. I have to go back home and look at where mine were because it's been a while since I've done this myself and look at accessing it and putting it together and make sure you're communicating to whoever is going to take care of it. So what are some of the other challenges if if your children are not minors? What is then, what do you, what is some of the advice you have for someone who might have adult children?
Namrita:So some of the pitfalls I see when people have adult children they think that they can avoid the whole process of inheritance by adding the adult child's name to their deeds to the property deeds so that they can just get them immediately. Or they try to do joint accounts, for their, with their bank. So one of the biggest risks of that especially for accounts is that you're basically Po your money to their risk, right? If they have a creditor, they have a lawsuit. Now you just basically exposed that to them. And if you have real estate like that, it's the same, right? You have homestead exemption in Texas now you've suddenly, added your child's name to it. Your child doesn't have homestead on that. You've just decreased your protection by half. And you also have made sure that when your child ultimately inherits that money and. Cells at house later. You don't get what is called a step of basis. You basically pay more capital gain taxes. You pay more taxes with it. That's a more complicated topic and maybe not something I'll put in detail here. But the thing is that there is a lot that goes, what you mentioned about paper documents. It's very correct. What you get are just paper documents. What is more valuable is the counseling with it. It's the actual advice of why you're doing this, what you want to put in that paper and how it's going to be executed later on, right? What is the actual process? And that is something most people don't realize. That's why they're like, we can do this on LegalZoom. We can just go to online wills and we'll just have this bunch of paper that we sign and notarize and keep. And they don't realize that doesn't avoid anything. It just makes, gives you more complications. I had a, one of my first clients did that and it took a year and a half of probate to get her house to her because the house, the will wasn't executed right. It wasn't notarized by the right people or actually witnessed by the right people. Because you cannot have interested
Sirisha:witnesses. Yes. You cannot have interested parties. Conflict of interest. Remember that you cannot have your friends and family who are going to be part of this execution. You can have friends and family. You can't have children. Execution practice also, right? You can't have those folks on
Namrita:it. You want to make sure that people who are actually inheriting under your will are not. Yes, or touching
Sirisha:it in any way. Yeah, very true. And the thing is the cost of the probate must have been incredibly high compared to what just off doing the will because the gentleman Mr. Khan called and asked us right how much it was. Yeah. And
Namrita:when people ask me that question, I'm very often I tell them whatever I charge you is going to be way lesser than what it's going to cost your family if you don't do it right. It'll be way lesser. That's for sure. So it is affordable.
Sirisha:Exactly. And Namrata has her own legal and a lot of you, you have to also check a lot of companies have benefits for legal assistance and legal law bills and trust that, you know, to their legal plan. So check that out also as a resource. That's one of the benefits of your company. So if you're working for a corporation, don't let that sort of The money go away and use it because it is important to have these I've heard of so many instances of people here, people back home who have struggled with not having it. And it's just, it's a lot of pain that we create without realizing for the people who are not only dealing with having lost the person that they love, but dealing with this sort of emotional legal process that no one knows, right? You have to find the lawyer, you have to figure out what to do. It's just a lot of hardship. So If we can put that things in order, then it helps us to give others comfort, a little bit of comfort in the time of
Namrita:hardship that they're going through. Absolutely. It is peace of mind more than anything else.
Sirisha:Yes. Yes. And this might, this, this code is so apt, death and taxes are not avoidable. We have to execute that. As much as I hesitate to use that code on a live talk show, it is a true statement. And we can do everything to enjoy our life and make everyone else around us do that. The thing is,
Namrita:life is unpredictable and we don't want to be thinking about this when we are dying. Nobody wants to. We want to do this while we are healthy and happy and know what we want rather than, when a person is dying, the last thing you want to tell them is here, go make a will, right? You don't want to do that. I actually was at a hospital two days ago, Sreesha because I was trying to create a will and trust for a gentleman. He's 85, so he's lived a good life. His daughter called me at 730 in the morning and said, we are taking him to the hospital and he may not live. And the will and trust documents were not executed. So I actually, I took my assistant and went with, for the notarization, everything. I took the documents and I went to the hospital. You know what? The worst part was the fact that his daughter was not really completely present with him for the process of, what he was going through. All she was really worried about was the will hadn't been done. The dress hadn't been done. What about this property and that property? Is that how anybody wants to die? Yeah,
Sirisha:I know. It's heartbreaking. It is. And it's, yes, I guess totally wrong timing. And it is. And just my own personal story. I did mine when my first son was born. And then went and updated when I have a few years after my second kid. So if you're having children, I'm that's what I started to have this conversation with friends just because when you have young children, life happens so many things that can happen and you do not want to leave that in limbo. The way I look at it is I don't want the state to make my decision for me because somebody else will make my decision if I don't decide for myself. So I want if I want to do what I think I want to get done, then I have to make the decision and prepare these documents.
Namrita:Absolutely. If you don't have a plan, the state has a plan for sure. You don't like it. You won't like it.
Sirisha:Exactly. So for those of you listening in, definitely, think about will and trust. Namrita, why don't you share your number? We have a few minutes. So I just want to make sure what is the number and how did the people reach you? So
Namrita:the easiest way to reach me is actually through my website is www.nodanilaw.com. That's N as in Nancy, o T as in Tom, A as in apple, N as in Nancy, I as in India, n a w dotcom. And there is a tab there for book a call and you can just click on it and add your convenience. Just book a call with me. It's a free call. It's, it's a short introductory call, and then we take it from there. You can also just call my office to make an appointment. 4 6 9 9 2 9 9 4 3 9. That's my office number. The number that I previously even the gentleman that's my cell number and a lot of people will call me on that as well. So I'll give it to you. It's 972 814 8620 again. My office number is 469 929 9439 and my cell number is 972 814 8620.
Sirisha:Yes, and if you actually listen to radio caravan from time to time, you probably heard her advertisement, you know I didn't realize it was her and a number of time. I actually have met many years ago through our kids Being in the same age group, but it is a wonderfully done ad so classy So tastefully done which brings this right to the heart where this mom is talking to her friend and her son comes and says mom Let's go to graduation try and listen to it on the radio and then you'll remember what i'm talking about if you've heard it so We've got to dive into wills and trusts. I just want to also let you know next week as we are talking about all of these topics and we're getting ready for school. I will have a school counselor and a speech therapist coming in to talk about how do you prepare children, how to access the resources. You might have elementary, middle school, high school, etc. So much transition. So definitely tune in number two as we had just wrap up any parting words for people to think of as they're, whether they're trying to decide what should push them to make that decision to go ahead and get this thing done. The
Namrita:Only thing I can tell you and I have told you that before is, my tagline plan while you can, because honestly, if you're alive, you're over the age of 18, you should have something from whether it's basic to the most complex with you have, you all have assets, you all have an estate, because anything, even a Facebook account is something that's an asset in the state, which needs to be somebody. Ooh, they're digital assets, right? If you think about it, you don't want to know who's gonna get access to that. So everything has that. And so it's important that you please plan while you can, because this is not for you, it's for your loved ones. Just know that it's really, you're gonna be gone. It's really how they're going to be, taking care of themselves when you're not there to take care of them. So just think about that and. Don't procrastinate because it can be late. Yes. And then you won't be able to do
Sirisha:anything. And thank you. Thank you, nata. This has been very good. Do definitely reach out women career and life
