Chattanooga's Estate Planning and Family Immigration Lawyer Priscilla Castlebary

Join us on the Build Something Media Podcast as we dive into the world of estate planning, asset protection, and family immigration law with our esteemed guest, Priscilla Castleberry from Revello Castlebary and Associates Law Firm.

Priscilla brings a wealth of knowledge, demystifying common misconceptions about wills, trusts, and the importance of a comprehensive estate plan. Learn about the various branches of immigration law, the significance of having difficult conversations about estate planning with your family, and the invaluable peace of mind that comes with being prepared.

Whether you're a small business owner looking to safeguard your assets, or someone curious about family-based immigration, this episode offers critical insights into ensuring your family's protection and harmony.

Priscilla also shares personal anecdotes and professional advice on navigating the complexities of these legal fields, emphasizing the importance of continuous dialogue and updates to your estate plan. Don't miss this enlightening discussion on the Build Something Media Podcast with your host, Justin Bethune.

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Transcript

  So here's to the dreamers, the builders, the fighters, the leaders, the people in the trenches.  Y'all are tired, I promise I am too. Fewer words have been more true.  Welcome    

Ladies and gentlemen, stand up and put your hands together for the Build Something Media Podcast. And here is your host, Justin Bethune.  Welcome to the show, guys.  Today, our guest is Priscilla Castleberry and right before the show, I wanted to double check the name of her business that she is with and I'm definitely going to mess that up.

So I'm going to let her introduce herself and the name of her business. Okay. Hi guys. I'm Priscilla Castleberry  and the name of my business is Ruvalo Castleberry and Associates Law Firm. All right.  Thank you. Yeah. That was long. It's long. That's a mouthful.  Yeah. So tell us a little bit 10, 000 foot view of kind of what you do.

Okay. 10, 000. Wow. So I am an estate planning. So Wilson trust asset protection and family immigration attorney. Family immigration attorney. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So immigration has like three branches and it's like.  There's a humanitarian one, which are like asylums and new visas. Then there's like the work one, which is work, you know, permits and anything, employment.

And then there's family based, which is petitions between spouses or parents asking for their kids or kids asking for their parents. Yeah. You know, fiancé visas, as you know by  90 Day Fiancé, right? That, that kind of stuff, yeah. Cool. Will you pull your microphone just a little bit closer? Yeah. You can, you can move it as close to you.

You can sit back and everything. Okay, there we go. This is perfect. Yeah. Yes. So, kind of, who, who do you work with mostly?  So I, it's kind of like 50 50, but I'm trying to grow more my estate planning part of it. There's a, I think like with immigration, right? People know what they need. They already know that, you know, I want a petition for my spouse.

So I'm going to find an immigration lawyer. I feel like with the state planning, there's a lot of education that needs to happen. Beforehand, I feel like it's a topic. That people know enough to think that they know,  but there's actually a lot of misinformation out there. So can you, can you give us some examples of what, what, what, what misinformation there is that that's common that you run into?

Yeah. Like,  like a will is enough. That's like one of the big ones. I have a lot of people calling saying like, I need a will and. You know, I try to explain to them, okay, estate planning, it's called estate planning and not just like wills and For a reason, it's because a will alone will not work. It's like a group of documents that work together.

So you have the power of attorney, you have a health care directive, you have HIPAA forms, you know, all of that together with a will and sometimes with a trust.  Then they work together to, you know, achieve your goals, whatever that is. And so if, if someone weren't to do something like go into a full estate planning type thing what kind of problems could they potentially run into?

Like the most common problems that you run across when someone doesn't take care of everything, they just maybe do one of those documents that you just spoke, you just talked about. I mean, the biggest and most important one is like their family is unprotected and in court and a lot of times in conflict.

With other loved ones, there's a lot of like blended families now, which I was talking to somebody else, they're like, that's the new normal, you know, so that brings a lot of conflict because death does weird things to people and you add money to that. And so there's a lot that could happen and somebody or some family dynamic that is working okay right now could turn into a huge mess.

And unless you have staff already decided or said specifically what I want, what, what you want, then it could be like a huge mess with, he said, she said that he told me this, or she told me that. And then there's, you know, fights.  You have to go through the grieving process and then also deal with court and also deal with fights.

And it's just, you know, not fun for anybody. Yeah. So, so, so it's kind of a product that gives you peace of mind right before, before you go about what's going to happen with your family after you go. Exactly. As a, as a one way where you can kind of set out like, Hey, this is what I want to happen. You'd write, you have no control of when you die.

But you can have that peace of mind of knowing, like, I know exactly what's going to happen afterwards because I, I said it in, I have a plan and, and talking about it, it's also like a huge thing that I'm trying to get my clients and other people to do. I know it's a weird topic. Some people don't really want to,  you know, disclose that to their families.

But if you want there to not be any conflict, people need to know what your wishes are. You need to be very open about that. And so I'm not saying like in the middle of Christmas dinner, start talking about this, right? But have like little conversations. And he doesn't have to be heavy. I give the example of like my father in law. 

Every time we go to visit them, they live back in California.  He will show me something like a couple of months ago he showed me. And he gave me a watch that his grandfather gave to him and he skips that generation. And so he was like, I want this to go to his grandchild, my son, and he told us a story.

And you know, it's not like a heavy thing, but it's so important. And now not only does my son get like a random right watch that we found out, you know, at his death, but we have the memory of him talking about how important that watch was and how it was when his grandfather gave it to him. So those are the kind of conversations that I want my clients to have and other people to have.

But that needs to be in writing.  Yes, no, yeah, no. So what you're saying is people  expect, just because they told their family, this is what I want done with this stuff, that it's actually going to happen that way. Right, huge myth, too, that, you know, when we're talking about myths, yeah, like I spoke, especially, this comes about that and also guardianship of minor kids.

Right. Oh, my aunt knows, or my sister knows that she gets my kids if something happens to me. If it's not in writing, somebody else will make that decision, and it's not you. So, yeah, very important to have stuff written down. When you start doing the estate planning stuff, right? Do you typically bring in just the, just the single person, or do you try to bring in the family so they can have those conversations a little bit more openly, or?

So if it's a couple and if they have minor children it's usually a couple together, they make those decisions and I do give them the opportunity of later on bringing in their kids once they're old enough and also inform them of like, these are the decisions that we made. And this is why, and the, you know, estate planning, I don't know if you guys know, what's your experience with estate planning, but it's usually very transactional.

You go to an attorney, you tell them what you want, they draft it, you sign it, you pay, that's the end of that relationship. You then in your mind have, okay, I did my estate plan, you know, so it's checked off of, in your mind that you got it done, and then, and then, But you know, you have an old house that's been around for twenty years.

Pass you die and then turns out that you bought and sold, you know, your old house, bought a new house and in your documents, there was like the old house listed and you never, you know, updated it. And so now that has to go through court. And so there's like all of these problems, which is why. I want to be the attorney for my clients that they go to every time they have like a life change.

You get divorced. Okay. Now, you know, your ex is in all of your, you know, life insurance or retirement accounts. Well, now you need to change that or when you pass away, your ex is going to get that money. So yeah, those are the  type of. Relationship that I want my client so you want your state the state planning to be more like going to the dentist and and and having the being maintained over time versus just a one and done thing because Situations change assets change all these different things and the law changes Yeah You know to a state tax changes with you know Every every five year four years five years So depending on the president that's there in charge at that time, it's how much, you know, state tax exemptions are.

So yeah, it's, I do complimentary three year reviews but usually you should sit down, especially if you have minor kids sit down every year, you know, and look at those like guardianship nominations that you did and say, You know, what's my relationship with these people now? Are we still good friends?

You know, is it still okay? Or should I change this? Right.  So what is we hear nowadays a lot of people talking about a trust. It's like kind of what's, what's the main difference between a will and a trust? The main difference between a will and a trust.  Is that it doesn't go through probate. I mean, there's three big ones, I guess I would say.

And I, in case you don't know, probate is a court process in which you change. Title of an asset from one person to the next for those that don't know. But one of the, there's three bad things about probate that a trust helps you overcome. One of them is probate is public. During COVID, they were having in different states probate court through YouTube.

So anybody could log in on YouTube and see who had died, how much money they left, who they left it to. And that opens your family to a lot of like, Fraudulent claims, right, of hey, your dad owed me money, and if you don't pay me back, then I'm gonna sue you, and so people freak out, and they're like, okay, where am I gonna get the money and pay back, and so there's that. 

It's also super slow, so it's, It's between a year and a year and a half in more, in most states. And that's if there's like no conflict, right? If nobody's fighting anything, if so it's, it's like a year, year and a half where all your accounts are frozen. So if you have a mortgage, who's paying your mortgage during that time?

Your kids probably already have their own mortgage. Do they have enough money to pay yours too, you know? If you have minor kids,  who, like, do your parents have money to pay their mortgage and yours? You know, there's a lot of questions that come with that. And the, the biggest thing is that when you go through probate, it, we think it costs around 5 percent of all your assets.

That's And that includes like, you know, your home. If you have minor kids and you have life insurance, your life insurance can be, like the beneficiaries can be minor, so it goes through probate, retirement accounts. Same thing goes to probate if you have minor kids and so 5 percent of that is so much money you would be paying and you know Homes right now are like three hundred four thousand four hundred thousand dollars  So 5 percent of that ends up being a lot  and that's going to the government, you know  The other problem is that there's a lot of accounts that people don't know about.

Like if you guys were to pass away today, do your family know, like what accounts do you have?  Mine do.  All of them. Good. Yeah. Good. Most people, I mean, the majority of my life insurance is taken out by my mom.  Well, I'm worth more dead than most people. Yeah. Yeah. So it's very important to have Those things are like, you know, checking accounts and bank accounts.

So they know what those are and how to get access to them. And all, all of that information, you know, the Georgia has like 1 billion in the department of unclaimed property, just people passing away in their family, having no idea that they had like money somewhere else or, or people knowing, I know somebody that their family member died and they knew that they had a life insurance.

But now they don't know like who it was with or any, so now there's like life insurance claim that they're trying to find that they have no idea where it is. So, you know, that's why like I do with my clients, like an asset spreadsheet where both partners are like in agreement of, okay, this is what we have.

Cause I find that in most couple of situation, there's a person that knows, okay. Everything and the other one that's just like going along for the ride, right?  Yeah,  they don't even know where where the stuff is so now they get financially  Organized and they know where everything is. They're both informed about that so  That's something else that if you have an attorney you should Make sure they do know everything. 

No, they know everything, but they help you organize your accounts and, you know, and to know what to do with that. I'm more, I'm more likely to have. Two grand stuck in a wall somewhere that I forgot.  All right. Now I know where to start. When you pass away, I'm coming. I'm abolishing this whole place. Grab a shovel and just  there's no telling what you'll find. 

Look for a low spot. 

For for like small business owners, like what do you recommend how to protect themselves? Make sure that they're safe.  Their kids are going to be taken care of and stuff. If someone owns a business, since it's typically who we're, we're kind of targeting with our show here what would you say to small business owners?

So I would say to them, definitely get an LLC and make sure that when you make the operating agreement of the LLC,  that you will have the right to assign your shares. To someone else or something else, so that then we can assign them to the trust and then have things of what, how, if you have partners, how do they buy you out, right?

And then that money will go into the trust. Or if it's something like,  like in a lawyer situation, like no,  our firm, like if something happens to me, my husband can't come in and start doing stuff. I know their lawyer has to do it. So, you know, designate, like, what, what are the steps, like, can the lawyer buy my firm and pay my husband, pay my trust, you know, what will happen but definitely protect yourself with an LLC first, and then assign the, the shares to the your part of the LLC to a trust.

So what all can you put in a trust?  You can put everything in a trust. So physical assets, everything? Yeah, so, there's two types of trust. There's a revocable leaving trust and a irrevocable leaving trust. My clients mostly do a revocable leaving trust. Because you can change it throughout your life.

And with an irrevocable it's like whatever you put in there you cannot take out, you cannot sell. It needs its own tax ID, it needs its own taxes, you know. This is, this works like you, it's you. It's you, and you can change it, you can amend it, you can do whatever you want with it, until, you know, you pass away, and there are different things that you can do at that point.

But there's like, it offers a lot more flexibility. So yeah, you can put anything into a, into a trust. Okay, so say that I have an irrevocable trust for, for me, any businesses that I'm a part of my trucks, my tools, my trailers, everything. Okay. And then I pass away and I'm not married. I have one child and so I have everything set up to go to her.

But she's 11. So what would that look like  if something was to happen to me today? Okay, so we're talking revocable or irrevocable? Irrevocable.  Okay, irrevocable you can't do much, you know, without revocable leaving trust. Okay, It becomes irrevocable once you pass away, and then you can designate at that point Well, before, right, when you created your trust, you're going to say, like, who's going to take care?

Who's going to be the trustee while your child becomes of age? And then at what age do you want them to receive that money? And it could be literally any age. You could say like 60, you know or you could designate like, Oh, if, if they want to start a business, cause you know, you started your own business this is, How much money they can use you can, you can specify, you can, you know, customize it however you want to I would say the majority of people decide to give, start giving out distributions in ages and stages is what we call, so they'll give the first one at 25, usually by the time that they're out of college and then 30 and 35 is usually what they do so they do like three and then the trustee will just manage until she comes to that age and you can even decide hey, I want her at 22 or 23 to be a co trustee to learn how to manage the money in the trust.

But it will go to her and so even at that point there are different things that you can do, right? So, let's say that you say yes, I want the money to give to her at 25, 30, and 35. That's called an outright distribution. So at those stages, she was going to just going to get the money in her bank account.

And then the, and then the, the trust is over, or you can decide to give her a lifetime asset protection trust, which is instead of the money going to her, it will go into another trust that, that it is used for her benefit, but not really owned by her. And so it protects her from divorce, from You know, somebody sues her for something you can protect her from different things.

So, speaking of lawsuits, is that something that a trust protects a business owner from? So your LLC, it's your first line of protection. Usually for that, then like whatever insurance you have on your business. So there's like different levels of asset protection. And so I trust this definitely one of them, but there's other things that preferably you would have in place before it gets to, so if I go out and getting a wreck in the company truck and that person tries to see me, if everything's in a trust, I'm more protected than if I just had everything attached to the LLC. 

Right, so usually by then, like, let's say you have an insurance, insurance, right, like your insurance would, would pay out. And if that's not enough, then I guess also your LLC. So then they might take your, you know, LLC, you know, or everything you've spent on your LLC, whatever it's worth.  And then, you know, for them  to reach your trust, they have to first find it and know if you have one,  right, and that the big  benefit of a trust is that it's private.

Right.  Because you can name it whatever you want. So, first you have to know that you have a trust, before they can try to sue the trust. Oh, I don't have a trust.  Laughter.  Just to clarify, this is  hypothetical. I don't own anything.  Oh my gosh. But Yeah, so, So, definitely, yeah, there are things you can do.

But hopefully your insurance is enough.  Your, you know, business insurance is enough to  guard off anything, especially if it's like an accident, you know, something minor like that.  So being a business owner, people are constantly threatened, threatening to sue you because they unhappy customers, I'm sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I've been sued over a paint job. Oh my gosh. Yeah.  So you never know what people are going to do. If you're, if you're a business owner you know, everybody thinks you're rich, right? Even the word.  Nine times out of 10, you're massively in debt.  Like I'm waiting to get paid. I went into my next job too.

Yeah. So let's take a few minutes and talk about the humanitarian side that you kind of opened with. Kind of go into that a little bit, give us some insight and background so we can explore it. Is it like the family immigration part of it? Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, that's pretty straightforward. Like if you.

Have a family member that it's from another country. You, if you're a U. S. citizen, you can pretty much ask for, you know parents, kids, adopted kids, siblings, that one takes a long time. They have different priorities. But usually your spouse, like, that's the fastest way to become a resident. And if you're a resident, you can ask for your spouse or children under 18.

So yeah, that's, so I have a, this is a question that's really for a friend of mine who lives in India and he's been trying to figure out how to come here for a long time. And if you had any advice for kind of, for him,  you know, someone who wants to come here and through, through the, I don't even know what process he'd go through to do that.

Kind of a, some, a starting point  for that Mary, are you a citizen for love?  I'll let him, I said, that's,  I'll let him know. We need an applause.

I mean, that is the fastest way, honestly. Right. And that's a huge problem. I, I have a lot of.  Family originally from Argentina and they have been trying to apply to the embassy and not even to come live here. Like they just want to come see us, you know, and it's been horrible. I had many of them like it denied and they have like their own business there.

So there, you know, they have no, they're older, like it's my mom's sisters, you know, they're older, they have their kids there in school, they just want to see their sister.  And, and yeah, they keep getting denied, so I understand his frustration because it's incredibly difficult to, to come here and have the embassy like approve you.

Yeah. It's really hard. He's a good guy. I've written him a recommendation, like it's the whole thing and it's, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy considering what you see if you turn on the news, right?  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know. There's a lot. I, and there was, I had a  friend, like it was like my dad's best friend's daughter, which we grew up with, and she had a fiancé and he passed away, and she was like in a really dark place, so I sent her an invitation letter to just come and, you know, the family was desperate, like hey, we want, we want her to feel better and, you know, maybe a change in, you know, scenery and country might help that, and And she showed proof like, look, he died, you know very badly off.

She was in school and just kind of took off school because she needed to mourn that, you know, she was like young and, and yeah, they said no. That's crazy. Cause as, as an American, like we don't think about that typically. Like if we want to go travel somewhere, we just go, go. Yeah. If, if you have a US passport, you can pretty much, pretty much go anywhere.

Well, it depends. There's the places you can, anywhere. Anywhere that you's  anywhere. Anywhere you want to go, you can pretty much go. Right. But there's so many people that want to come here and just visit. And it's, I mean, it's our government in a nutshell, if you wanna do things the right way, they make it impossible.

Make it impossible. Yeah. Yeah. It makes zero sense to me at all. I know. I mean, Disney people are like dying to go to Disney, you know? It's like, why can't, why can't they? So the moral of the story is, if you want to come to America, sign up for 90 Day Fiancé. No. Yes. I want to be one of the attorneys on 90 Day Fiancé, like giving advice. 

Sign up for 90 Day Fiancé, call Build Something Media, we'll start your social media profiles for you. We'll get you. And then by the time you get here, you'll have an income and everything there. You're done. That's a great plan. Oh my goodness. We'll, we'll make you a, an influencer before you even get here.

Speaking of influencers, we're coming up at the end of our, of our 30 minutes. Speaking of influencers, let's get your  socials, your website, all the stuff about you. You can pick a camera. There's one there. There's one there to, to look straight down and tell everybody exactly what it is where it is, they can find you and, and start working with you.

Okay. Yeah. You can find me on Facebook or Instagram under Revolo Casaberry and Associates Law Firm or Abogada Inmigrante Abogada Inmigrante and, and yeah, rcalawfirm.  com is my website. Perfect. That is much easier. Right? RCA law firm. Yeah, it is very easy. And we'll put links up to all those with the podcast.

So people will know how to click through to get to you. Priscilla, thank you for joining us. Justin. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure. 

Yay.  That's awesome. Not a, not a bad episode.