OK Senior Law Podcast
This is the podcast from the OK Senior Law firm in Tulsa Oklahoma. The hosts are the partners of the firm Jorjana Marx, Blaine Frizzell and Todd Whatley. They cover by themselves all the topics you need to know about Elder Law, Estate Planning and Medicaid benefits. They also have guests from around the Tulsa area talking about their businesses that can also help you succeed as a senior or the family of a senior.
OK Senior Law Podcast
Ep 3 Mastering Special Needs Trust Management with Samantha Shepard and Exploring Assured Trust's Unique Approach
Unlock the secrets to effectively managing special needs trusts with the guidance of Samantha Shepard, a respected elder law attorney and this week's guest on the OK Senior Law Podcast. We tackle the nuanced topic of selecting a trustee who brings both expertise and empathy to the table, especially for those with limited assets or complex, frequent needs. Samantha sheds light on the unique service model of Assured Trust, a company that breaks the mold by offering personalized care that often exceeds the norm for corporate trustees. From coordinating transportation to overseeing home sales, discover how Assured Trust prioritizes the well-being of its clients, ensuring they don't have to worry about managing their affairs or compromising their public benefits.
Embark on a journey with us as we examine the unorthodox yet highly beneficial approach Assured Trust adopts, allowing clients to maintain their financial relationships while ensuring their funds are managed responsibly. Delve into the real-life implications of trust management, including the hidden fees and self-serving investments that can plague conventional trust services. This episode is not only an eye-opener but also a source of comfort for those facing the daunting task of preparing for incapacity or estate planning. Whether you're a senior, a caregiver, or anyone involved in elder care, you'll find valuable insights and practical advice, along with the essential contact information to connect with Assured Trust for expert assistance in your trust management journey.
Welcome to OK Senior Law Podcast, your guiding light through the complexities of a state planning and elder law, right here in the heart of Tulsa, oklahoma. Join us as we demystify wills, trusts, tax planning and elder care with insights from our distinguished legal experts Blame Frazzell with his advanced LLM in tax law, georgiana Marks with her passionate advocacy, and Todd Watley, a certified elder law attorney. Bring their wealth of knowledge and experience to empower you with the tools you need for peace of mind in planning your legacy. Let's navigate the intricacies of a state law together, ensuring your future and that of your loved ones is secure. Here is Blame, georgiana and Todd.
Speaker 2:All right, this is the OK Senior Law Podcast and I am appreciative of everyone who downloads our podcast and listens and we really appreciate. When you subscribe, that means you get notified every time there's a new episode and we would love for you to share. So hit that share button and send it to your friends. And today we have a very special guest, one of, I think, one of the nation's leading elder law attorneys. Her name is Samantha Shepard.
Speaker 3:Hey, samantha how are you? Oh, very happy to be here and flattered by that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's true. And so Samantha is joining us today, not just because she is a certified elder law attorney, but she is a seawah who has taken her passion for clients and particularly for special needs and, I think, field of void that has been out there forever and that is having a competent, compassionate and passionate trustee for trust.
Speaker 3:Okay, Well, well, that's enough said. I think I'll go home now, but it's nice to see my friends Georgiana and Blaine, so we'll socialize a bit more before we say goodbye.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, all right. So just off the top, tell us basically how assured trust came to be.
Speaker 3:Assured trust stepped into, as you said, a void. I was taking one of those risky steps of being a lawyer who, individually, was serving as a trustee, and mostly out of desperation, because there were certain clients and I'm sure you guys all know who those clients are that no one else really wants that. They're going to be frequent fliers. They call often, sometimes 60 times a day, and I'm not exaggerating there if there's mental illness that has happened or their assets are just not high enough to be appealing to the local banks and that number seems to be increasing. Are you guys finding that as well?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:Does it bother? Them Are?
Speaker 5:you yes, so we'll find someone for a lot of the smaller situations.
Speaker 3:What are you finding is small Georgiana.
Speaker 5:Oh, specifically, I've seen like 150,000 or even 250,000. I think one of the bigger places around here. Their minimum is 2 million, so С.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I have been noticing. I would say a million under a million is a challenge and there are some smaller entities that are stepping, stepping back.
Speaker 3:They were stepping up and now they're stepping back, and I think it's because they understand the level of expertise that is needed in the Medicaid arena and it's daunting and can cause liability when decisions are made about distributions that impact SSI or Medicaid. So, sadly, rather than stepping up and digging in and getting a special needs attorney on the team, they're saying that the cost benefit analysis leads them to step back. So there is definitely a dearth of the corporate trustee in the special needs arena allowing assured trust to step on in. So I had to learn a lot about what being a corporate trustee means.
Speaker 2:I'd say had no idea before I embraced it writing a trust is different than being a trustee, correct?
Speaker 3:oh gosh, anything more humbling than administering your own trust. So have you ever had that experience where you wrote a trust and you thought it was clear as can be?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, I'm like uh, note to self, change this paragraph exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, note to self what were you thinking when you didn't clarify that they should never be able to change the trustee without going to court? Because that bad husband is just going to convince his wife to forum shop, basically, but because you're not making every single distribution that they want. Well, if you.
Speaker 3:You don't give us what we want, we'll just go to another trustee. Um, I've gotten a little tougher about that kind of thing as well. I'm just going to say that the primary focus has to continue to be maintain public benefits if it's appropriate, and try not to push and push and push the limits, because it really doesn't help the beneficiary in the end. So some of the things you and I were talking about this morning about starting a short trust, let's go back to that. Is that okay? Sure, uh, so. So we, we're licensed to work in all of the states, but we're actually stepping foot into oklahoma and in a real way we are working with georgiana mites and blaine frizzle. Do I say that right, bruh blaine?
Speaker 3:uh, frizzle yeah, but let me say frizzle, like miss frizzle and the magic school bus so I'm gonna just exactly what I hear a lot frizzle but we are, uh, working in this law firm on the ground, so having legs in oklahoma is really important because the the kind of service that we want to provide. A short trust is definitely more hands-on, so it might be quite common to find that someone from a short trust is making transportation arrangements and helping sell a house and make decisions about whether a mother should go into a memory care unit. So that's a lot more hands-on than is typical. I I think most people think their kids can do the job. The kids will be great trustees. Do you find that as a a quick fix? You guys are nodding your heads. They're blaine, is that?
Speaker 4:oh yeah I mean that's, that's the go to when, when parents are creating trust, their first thought is their children, if, usually, if the children are adults, they they want to name their children as the trustees, despite the fact that they never had any experience at it it's a job and it's a taxing job on those children.
Speaker 3:The first thing I see is they want to create a sense of equity and fairness with their children, so they name all three of them as trustees.
Speaker 2:That always works out well.
Speaker 3:No, well intentioned, but no. If you name all three of your children to act together as co-trustees, then nothing will get accomplished. Certainly nothing will get accomplished quickly. And the last person that you want to go to, if you're a beneficiary, is your brother to ask whether or not you can have a new car or whether or not it's appropriate that you have this particular piece of adaptive equipment in your home. So your brother loses his relationship with you as brother and becomes your police.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, one thing I mentioned this morning was and one thing I may start telling clients is do your clients, do your children a favor and name a corporate trustee. Give them the gift of not having to worry about this. Let someone else who's trained, licensed, bonded, does this for a living. Let them do it and let the kids just enjoy the money you know. Give them the gift of naming a corporate trustee.
Speaker 3:And the fees are not ridiculous, I hate to say. We have to know these things. You have to know what fees are before you commit to a plan of action. And trustee fees are transparent. They're based on a fee schedule which is published for every trust company assured, has its own as well, and it's a sliding scale. It's based on the assets and so it's the total of assets and it's typically about a percent. Now there's it depends Special needs have higher Big assets, meaning above a million, the price goes down. And is it worth it? Well, it is one mistake can be very costly indeed, and so very often those children end up squabbling in both sides and up hiring lawyers. So having a corporate trustee can often prevent that kind of approach to disrejution of mom's jewels.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I like the idea of framing it as a gift for them, because I think a lot of times people think that, oh, this is an honor that I am giving my child to be the trustee, and then I've got to somehow balance that with the other child, so what honor am I going to bestow them, since I made the other one trustee? Oh well, I'll just make them both trustees because I love them so much. Or you know, sometimes they're like well, I just have one that can handle this, the other one cannot. But they're always worried about the corporate trustee fees and I think in their head they think, oh, that's going to be like $50,000 a year on my little you know $500,000 trust. So I think they think it's like so disproportionately expensive. And it's not when you actually look at the numbers.
Speaker 3:Now. It saves a lot of time and a lot of money and on average it's right around that $5,000 mark for a year's worth of work. And I don't know when the last time you spoke to a lawyer and they bill you by the minute, six-minute increments, whereas a trust company is not going to do that. They're going to have that flat fee piece of mine, and very often there are. There's a team of lawyers behind that and behind you. So it's just smart and efficient administration of an estate. So the best people to name would be so your three children were being facetious here. So your three children together. Another would be your peer, your sister. So let's say you're 88. Yeah, you're 88. When you finally have some dementia that's impacting your ability to remember, or you're just telling those same stories over and over again. You're just a joy to be around.
Speaker 5:Not until you're 88, though.
Speaker 3:And then what? Your sister? She's 89.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it might have been an honor at some point in her life, but largely taking care of you is going to be a burden. So I like it too, georgiana, the gift, the gift of not having to do the administration, the gift of not having to prepare the taxes and oversee the finances. Make sure the fiduciaries are behaving appropriately. Make decisions about what's a good house price, how to cleaning out someone's house. There is a fun time there. Wouldn't it be nice if your family member was able to simply come to the house, walk through, pick the belongings that they thought were important and then left it in the capable hands of a corporate trustee?
Speaker 2:That's all taken care of. So sometimes people think if I name a sure trust as the successor trustee of my trust, do they charge me now?
Speaker 3:No, yeah, you're right. They do think that there are no fees to name the backup, and when I mean no fees, I mean zero. It is a zero cost proposition, so you can change your mind at any given time. But to name an entity rather than a human to be your backup, zero fees and no fees until you are either forced out of the job because of your two physicians at the time that you're incapacitated typically is what I see or you are gently guided to resign, which is the best scenario, or on your death.
Speaker 4:And I just keep thinking, as we've been talking of the number of times and I'm guilty as a lawyer I've been the one that the parents have said I want my kids to be named. I trust them, they all get along. They always say that, and so usually they'll either pick the oldest one we'd be first in line and then the second, and then the third, and then or else they will say well, junior lives right here across the street from me, so I'll name junior first and then the others, and then I get. I meet with junior 10 years later and junior says well, I need some help with this. And I say what have you done? You've been a trustee now for two years after your parents died.
Speaker 4:And junior says well, I'm just not sure what to do. I haven't done much of anything. And now my siblings are. I think they think I'm stealing from them. And I say, well, have you, have you talked with them? Have you? Have you shown them the bank balances and shown them the only expenses that you paid have been just for just legitimate expenses. And they say, no, I don't know what to do, so I don't I'm afraid to show them what I've done. And I say, well, that's just. It's creating, it's basically breaking up the family and the parents. If they knew that that's what would have happened, they never would have done it that way. So it's just I'm seeing in my mind lots and lots of clients I've met with in the past that have had that issue.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm curious to know, Blaine, then what would you say other than Georgiana's comment about it's a gift to your children, and the parents do think their children get along perfectly and will, in their death, continue to get along perfectly. What can you say that's not offensive to suggest that this is going to cause tremendous workload and friction in your family.
Speaker 4:I think maybe try to convey to the parents that this job requires some expertise and experience in order for it to happen efficiently. Maybe to tell them that in reality, it may cost them a lot less to pay a professional corporate trustee to take care of this, because they've done it so many times and it's they can do it efficiently. They know what to do. They don't sit and wring their hands and try to think what's next, what do I do next? But they step right in, they get it done efficiently and they you know, not to mention managing the assets, if there are assets that need to be investments, that need to be managed using professional investment. I think that, basically, I can just try to convey to the client that in the long run, they're going to be saving their family relationships, maybe preserving relationships, and then also, in the long run, having a more efficient process and efficiently administering their trust after they die.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you teed me up here, blaine you said and Todd's trying not to laugh because he knows that this is something I love to talk about the family finances will be kept as they were while mom and dad were alive If they use the right trustee. Assured trust is a trust company that will allow the money to stay managed with the original advisor. Most trust companies don't do that.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:They want to reinvest it in their proprietary investments. Yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 3:And then there are fees that you don't even have a clue. Big Bank is also setting up big banks mutual funds, and of course they're using some big bank products and then they make money on those products We'll just sell you. You don't think of it that way. But even if it's CDs conservative investments that the bank is putting the trust money in, they're bank CDs. So if we want to stay true to the original course of the parents, then assured trust just allows the money to stay invested where it was. I had to find that out the hard way. I definitely didn't know, when I set up trust and encouraged the families to use the banks that they bank with on a day-to-day basis, that they were pulling the money out of the financial advisors hands that they'd worked with for a long time. I'm definitely guilty of that ignorance.
Speaker 2:Sure. So yes, for you listeners out there, I would recommend you obviously listen to this throughout and then send this to your financial advisor and say, hey, look, just so you know if you're recommending someone to do trust to one of your clients to do a trust. If they will use assured trust, they will let you, the financial advisor, still manage the money, and I think that's a huge selling point to a lot of advisors. I would hope those advisors would send them to okay senior law to let us do the trust for them. But just know that an advisor should recommend that the person use assured trust so that they can still manage the money once the person becomes incapacitated or upon their death. That's a I mean, that's very unique and you were genius in figuring that out. Well, it really was a byproduct, I'll tell you, it was 100%.
Speaker 3:Well, my brain was focused on the special needs component. I wanted a trust company that would not balk about a $200,000 special needs trust. I wanted a trust company that wouldn't say, oh my, they have 500,000, we won't let them buy a house for the beneficiary to live in. And so that was the motivation behind creating assured trust. And I'm a lawyer, not a money manager. And I didn't say, oh look, I want to go ahead and now start investing people's money. Instead, I said, let's see if we can keep it invested where it was. And voila, that's a construct, an independent trust company. So I'm not brilliant, it was serendipitous, I promise.
Speaker 2:But part of concept that you're focused solely on the beneficiary of the trust.
Speaker 3:That's true.
Speaker 5:Which is what everyone assumes, is how much?
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's a big assumption, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's more reactive.
Speaker 3:For example, if you have a classic trust department inside of Big Bank and it has 60 to 100 trust officers and those trust officers are randomly assigned the different relationships, they may have 150, sometimes 200 relationships that they're working on, they're going to get your little trust that you set up for Grandma Betty and they are going to wait to hear from Grandma Betty to see what Grandma Betty needs, whereas you uniquely positioned elder law attorneys Know that Grandma Betty is not the same spring chicken she was and she might need a little help.
Speaker 3:She might need somebody to come alongside and help Bill pay, even though she manages just fine. She might want someone to double check at the end of the month and we can do that Someone who can come alongside rather than kick around, but just to make sure that both electric bills weren't paid double or to make sure that the electric wasn't shut off because she didn't get that bill and didn't notice that a month had passed. It's just not part of the typical model of a trust company to be so hands-on. They're busy trying to invest the money and understandably, because there's a real shortage of trust companies, they are focusing more and more on the big, big dollars, some of them, you know, $10 million in the Chicago area. Under that, it's a challenge to find a trust company. Geez Louise.
Speaker 2:Well, so many of our clients say I don't want to be a burden to my child. I don't want to be a burden, I don't want them to have to come pay my bills and do stuff, but they don't think twice about naming them as the trustee of the trust. They think they're doing them an honor. Just like we said at the very beginning, you're throwing a burden on your kid.
Speaker 3:I love it when they come to a trust company before there's a critical moment. It's kind of like taking a vacation from your everyday stressful responsibilities. Or to me, think about those of us who've decided, every once in a while, having somebody else clean your house is just a beautiful thing. It's realizing that delegating out something that you're not enjoying or some people love a good toilet scrub I just don't happen to be one of those people.
Speaker 5:No, no, many other.
Speaker 3:But I do have a good trust accounting. I do love the. I do love to know where every penny went and to share that information with all of the children and the grandchildren, as the parents wanted. So a little plug for assured trust we do have. Assured is spelled A-S-S-U-R-E-D, it's that whole word assuredtrustcompanycom. But we also have a phone number of 913-521-9200. You can also call Georgiana, blaine or Todd and they will walk you through what it's like to have a relationship with assured.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let us do your and we will probably talk about assured trust. You can pick who you want, but if you ask us our opinion, we're going to probably recommend assured trust, just because we know who's doing it and it's someone like us. It's it's not some business major, it's a certified elder law attorney has created a trust company and I'm super excited about it and I think it's a really good choice for a lot of our folks. I think there's a need for it.
Speaker 5:Sorry, I think there's a need for it in Tulsa too. I think there's a definite need with the clients.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:That there's undoubtedly a benefit to being able to bring assured into the Tulsa market, and I'm, I'm, I'm pleased to see that we will have a physical presence there in your lovely venue. I think this is going to be a wonderful, a wonderful addition to the Tulsa area. We're probably going to make those people in the rest of Oklahoma jealous.
Speaker 2:True, all right. Any other final words assign Georgia.
Speaker 4:I just want one other little scenario that I find a lot that happens is in a trust you may have. We'll use the three-kid example again, and one or more of those three kids, after mom and dad die, are a little bit more maybe needy than the other. But mom and dad put it in trust Specifically with that in mind, because they knew that junior Didn't manage his money very well or maybe had some bad influence in his life that might Uh get him to, might Pursuade him to use the money in an Improvident manner and, and when you have a child Trying to be the trustee and make those decisions, to say, no, I'm not gonna give my brother money because I know it's gonna go down the rat hole, and so it's so, so nice to have this third party who can step in and say and be the bad guy to say, no, no, junior, I'm not gonna give you that money.
Speaker 3:Um, you can have a Honda, but that's the limit for the car. Yeah, I kind of imagine what that would do to the sibling relationship. Yeah, yeah, sitting around the Thanksgiving table or college graduation, you're looking at the evil eye coming back at you because you wouldn't buy me a Corvette.
Speaker 2:I wanted a Corvette, you wouldn't buy me the Corvette, but you yeah. So avoid all that. Just let the trust company be the bad guy. Y'all are used to it, all right. All right, samantha. Thank you very much, I appreciate you being here and hopefully we'll get some phone calls and Um we'll let you help some folks in the Tulsa area.
Speaker 4:Yes that'd be great.
Speaker 3:Don't wait Okay.
Speaker 2:Thanks to everyone who listens and again, please subscribe so that you'll get immediate notification when we post a new one, and then share this with your friends and Join us next time. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks. Thank you for tuning in to okay senior law podcast. We hope today's episode has provided you with valuable insights into estate planning and elder law that resonate with your life and aspirations in Tulsa and surrounding areas. Remember, planning your estate is not just about legal documents. It's about ensuring a lasting legacy and peace of mind for you and your loved ones. For more information or to schedule a consultation with our expert attorneys, blame frazell, georgiana marks or Todd watley, visit our website at wwwokseniorlawcom. Protect your future today. Until next time, take care.