Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Delaware County, PA (Delco"") and the surrounding Philadelphia Metro Region.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Estate Planning With Steve at Gratman Law: Trusts, Wills and Deeds
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Estate Planning With Steve at Gratman Law: Trust, Wills and Good Deeds
What happens when life takes an unexpected turn? Attorney Steve Gratman of Gratman Law PLLC shares the sobering reality that proper legal planning isn't just for the wealthy or elderly—it's essential protection that every person and every family needs.
In this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast, the dedicated estate planning attorney serving Delaware County (Delco), PA and beyond, Steve Gratman is interviewed by host Bob Blaisse and brings his warmth and accessibility to what many consider an intimidating legal process. The conversation quickly dispels common misconceptions about estate planning. That handwritten will you consider enough? Probably insufficient. Thinking your family will peacefully sort things out after you're gone? History suggests otherwise. Steve explains how professionally prepared wills, trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives serve as your voice when you can't speak for yourself.
This Good Neighbor Podcast episode goes beyond the subject of preserving wealth for inheritance and informs how legal instruments protect vulnerable family members, including children with special needs, and ensure your healthcare wishes are followed during medical emergencies. Such careful consideration is what truly sets Gratman Law apart, with Steve's commitment to service of others, particularly his community, and does so by offering free consultations, even visiting his clients in hospitals or nursing homes. Steve has created an accessible online system for self-serve document preparation that combines affordability with his professional legal oversight and expertise, which extends beyond estate planning to real estate matters through his title search company, Abstract Shop.
Protect your family's future with a trusted local attorney who lives his firm's motto, "Trust in us, we Will do good Deeds," and get ready to meet Estate Planning Services Expert Steve Gratman of Gratman Law PLLC.
Gratman Law PLLC
GratmanLaw.com
267-968-0569
info@gratmanlaw.com
--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast
Speaker 1Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Lacey.
Speaker 2Thank you, michael, for that introduction. Everybody, welcome again to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. And if you've listened before, you know that the Good Neighbor Podcast comes from Delco. Now, where's Delco? You might add. If you're a local you know, but if not, delco is short for Delaware County, Pennsylvania. We're the southeast, most southeast county in Pennsylvania's 67 counties, just north of the state of Delaware, just west of the state of New Jersey and just south of the state of Delaware, just west of the state of New Jersey and just south of the city of Philadelphia, in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania. Delaware County, lovingly referred to as DELCO.
Speaker 2And this podcast, the Good Neighbor podcast, is meant to bring to Delaware County and beyond the world even good neighbor businesses that come out of Delaware County and should be known for their good neighbor practices. And today we're happy to bring to you a lawyer and listen. We all know lawyers and there's lots of lawyers that could be guests on the Good Neighbor podcast. But tonight we have a special kind of lawyer. It's not a criminal attorney, it's not even someone you might read about in the news, but it's someone that probably has the kind of legal services that you've used or will need to use, because I think we all do. Let me bring to the stage welcome attorney Steve Gratman. Stephen, welcome to the program.
Meet Attorney Steve Gratman
Speaker 3Thanks, Bob. It's really great to meet you. It's a pleasure to be on the Good Neighbor podcast.
Speaker 2Thank you, stephen, and thank you for agreeing to be on the podcast. Your firm, gratman Law, is named after you, the attorney, the Esquire. You have a practice in Delaware County that serves Delaware County and beyond, but your practice is a little bit unique and, as I said to the listeners as we began here, it's the kind of practice that I think we all need in one way or another, and probably maybe the most common form of legal professional skills that most people need at some point in their life. And I'll give the listeners a hint Steve Gratman's law firm, which is Gratman Law P-L-L-C. Stephen, has a kind ofa trademark tagline. It's fun, I love it, and it will give it away a little bit and then we'll let Stephen explain it. It says trust in us, we will do good deeds. I love it, stephen. It's a great saying and it really brings across a lot of trust. Is that part of what you do?
Speaker 3Absolutely, bob. You know we are a boutique law firm and we deal with estate planning and we do wills for individuals that need them. Sometimes you don't think you need them, but it's a necessity I mean, nobody wants to think about dying and it's a part of planning for your life and we also do various types of trusts and people don't know. There are different types of trusts, like insurance trusts or living trusts, and there's power of attorneys for financial needs that people have, and there's also health care directives or living wills or possibly a deed that somebody might need to fund their trust because they transfer property into the trust in order to protect their assets and protect their family. And that's what's important is family?
Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning
Speaker 2Certainly Well, Stephen. I think let's back it up, because everything you said there is kind of understood by most of us, but not from a urgency point of view. A lot of us don't think we're ever going to pass away that quickly and some of us don't think that it's all that serious because my loved ones will all get along when I'm gone. Not true, Not always true. And certainly when we're talking about protecting a spouse or the interests of children that might have a deceased parent at a younger age, we've got to make sure that finances are taken care of. Directives are known whether or not we're meant to be on healthcare, medicines and what if we're in a coma, all that kind of stuff. So let's start with some of the most basic aspects. People think that maybe they can just write out on a napkin what they want their will to be. Not true, right?
Speaker 3Well, I think you could take that into court and possibly try to prove that's what your final wishes are and that you've memorialized them. But it's better to plan and plan early. You know that you would have to write a will, get it notarized and have your wishes finalized at your death, where they couldn't be changed, and that your family knows what your wishes are. And there might be some witnesses that get involved, you know, such as the notary. And same thing with the trust. It's a more complex instrument that you would fill out, but it is a necessity for certain people that have a lot more assets, or there's some that are changeable and there's other ones that are irrevocable. Well, let's go.
Speaker 2Let's go further down that path, stephen. Let's talk about trust for a moment, and we and if we talk about wills I know we hear the term living will. Some people want to understand how that is different than just leaving a will. But Stay on the trust for a moment, because that is something that not everybody deals with. Is it really mostly people that just have more assets, more financial risk around their estate, or is it really for tax saving benefit in the way that your, your, your inheritance goes to others?
The Value of Professional Legal Guidance
Speaker 3Well, it absolutely. I mean, for instance, if you have a trust, you may be able to avoid a timely, long, drawn-out process, probating a will. You're still going to have to pay your inheritance tax possibly You're not going to avoid that, but there are other things that are capable. I mean these wills. I mean people don't know that Benjamin Franklin's money is in trust and it still exists still today, so they carry on for a long time and it's possible to use that type of instrument to protect your estate plan and thereby protecting, say, a special needs child. Or if you have maybe a complex family structure where you want to give nieces and nephews or a charitable organization and you want to spell it out in a trust.
Speaker 2Are we thinking of a trust as kind of a living instrument in itself? When you're deceased, your wishes kind of per door and go on for a longer period of time than just settling a will absolutely.
Speaker 3I mean in a will. You might put that it's going to roll over into a trust, a pour over will, and the same thing with a pour over will and a trust that anything that didn't get captured in the original trust would pour over. But yeah, the the will, you know you might, might probate your will and be done in nine months, but the trust, it might carry on and continue through your children or your grandchildren's life and you might have a trustee there that continues as a successor trustee and continue to make payments to your beneficiaries for their life continue to make payments to your beneficiaries for their life, right?
Speaker 2Well, look, the key is to be aware and to become informed, and you know that old saying, right, stephen, that only the fool has himself. As a lawyer, there's a lot of information on the internet, people talking about wills that subject I brought up writing your own will out on a piece of paper, maybe even getting a friend who's a notary to notarize it. Is it really the right way to go? The best way to go, hey, the best way to go is to talk to an attorney, and I think what we. The reason your business was nominated here as a good neighbor podcast episode was because Grattan and Law is a local firm in Delaware County, pennsylvania, with a local lawyer who answers the phone and is willing to talk to people. This is what I'm told Talk to people as a consultant, with kind of a first free consulting call Is that correct? To help people understand what they don't understand?
Speaker 3Absolutely. I'm in Newtown Square, I'm a Newtown Square resident, I go to St Anastasia Church as a parishioner right there on Westchester Pike. I frequent the stores, I talk to people all the time and I know all the employees that work in these locations and I'm willing to go out of my way to visit people in the hospital in a nursing home. I'll come out to your house and that is a free consultation and that's what it's all about is being a good neighbor and exactly.
Speaker 2Well, your brand preceded you here to get you onto this program, stephen, and I want to kind of help our listeners understand how they can get in touch with you. Of course we're talking to Steve Gratman, the attorney, steve Gratman of Gratman Law, and you could reach Stephen by calling him. His number that he'll pick up and talk to you on is 267-968-0569. Or if you want to just email Steve to get a kind of a communication going, it's easy to remember just info at gratmanlawcom and then I'll reach to Steve.
Speaker 2Now, stephen, some people think that attorneys are just billing for everything. You talked about having a free consultation, but let's go a little bit deeper. For you to be dedicating your practice for the most part and we'll hear about other parts, but for this subject we're talking about wills, living trusts and those kind of last wishes kind of estate planning documents, maybe even deeds that are related to estates, best wishes kind of estate planning documents, maybe even deeds that are related to estates For you to be so dedicated onto that subject help our listeners understand is that an expensive part of getting our life in order? It's probably almost a one-time charge or maybe a limited charge, but it's something that heck, we all have to do it, so we might as well get through it, but it's not too expensive and I would think the reason why people are not doing it is because they think it's expensive. Help our listeners understand that this is something they need to be doing and it's not that expensive.
Real Estate Expertise and Services
Speaker 3It absolutely doesn't cost a ton of money. I mean my website that I designed. It allows people to download documents after they've typed the information in and I review it in the back office and then give them any suggestions. And that's another way they can get in contact with me on gratmanlawcom and they make the purchase there. But at least I looked at the documents, as opposed to just coming out and possibly meeting with the family.
Speaker 3You know there's different levels. I mean you could have a very inexpensive power of attorney God forbid you get disabled, or you have a child that's in college and they're away and God forbid something happens to them. I know my daughter. She went through. She went for an eye appointment and wound up having a brain tumor and we were at Children's Hospital living for three years and it's very difficult as a parent and you don't expect things to happen. But people get in car accidents and if they don't have a power of attorney or health care directives, their family doesn't know what their wishes are and sometimes these institutions require it for financial matters and for health care matters.
Speaker 2No doubt it's a simple document.
Speaker 2It's obvious to me.
Speaker 2I mean, it would have been obvious to everybody, I think, when we introduced you, stephen, as an attorney and specializing in wills and deeds and living trusts and all that.
Speaker 2Certainly, attorneys need to know this business, this side of law, and you do, and probably do it very, very well and do it very often. But I think what just came out there, stephen, is your experience dealing in this subject time after time, many different kinds of cases. You're not just there to craft the legal documents that are necessary, unbreakable, kind of ironclad reviewed by a lawyer, but you're actually there to be able to advise people. See, they don't know what they don't know, and as they talk and say what they think they need, you're there to help them understand that they really don't need that. What they really need is this or, if you think you need that, let me make sure that we're getting this done around that, because it's as important. And that's where other things come in, like property, pets, health, wishes, all those kinds of things. Stephen, is that the case that you are as much of a consultant as you are a master of legal documents?
Speaker 3I really do care and I have a lot of experience in my life and you know I feel like sharing it and I don't just do estate planning, I do consulting and entire family planning when necessary, because I do have knowledge in various areas over my years of experience working for a Fortune 500 and doing thousands of real estate transactions and everything with that is involved, with bankruptcy, divorces, judgments, liens so it's a whole spectrum that goes into the plan because it's just not cut and dry right, there's different areas of law and there's there's.
Speaker 2when you talk about assets, it's not just cash, it's property, and there's tentacles on that. With regards to you mentioned real estate transactions, can our listeners, if they want, to get some advice from you about real estate transactions as well, or titles that would pass into their estate different ways? Are you as skilled in that?
Speaker 3Absolutely. I own Abstract Shop, which is a nationwide title search company, and we do title searches commercial, residential. I also have the title search company in Pennsylvania registered with First American and they're a Fortune 500 company and we do transactions, transactions and I absolutely can consult on real estate matters. I'm not saying that every client is a fit for me, but I'm willing to go that extra mile to discuss it with them and give out the free advice when I can.
Contact Information and Episode Closing
Speaker 2Wow, we got a twofer here. Listeners, steve Grotman was nominated as a good neighbor business for deeds and wills and trusts, and all that To be able to also have a local real estate attorney to be able to talk to you about not just your properties but, you know, the properties of your life that are that are involved in all your assets. Grotman Law really is the business that I think you'd want to contact. Assets Gratman Law really is the business that I think you'd want to contact and it's proven here by the great counsel and really great free advice that we even got today on the Good Neighbor podcast. Stephen, what a great, good neighbor you are to the people of Delaware County and beyond. Thank you for being a guest here on the Good Neighbor podcast. Thank you for being a good neighbor business. Everybody reach out to Steve Gratman Gratman Law 267-968-0569. Or you can email Steven at info at Grotman Law G-R-A-T-M-A-N. Grotmanlawcom. Steven, thank you for being a guest here on the Good Neighbor Podcast today.
Speaker 3Thanks Bob, I really appreciate it. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Bob Lacey. This is Michael Barkan inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gntdelcocom or by calling Bob at 610-557-3745.