Smoked Brisket, Estate Planning, and Elder Law

Finding the Right Tools to Reach Your Estate Plan Goals

Many people believe that having an estate plan simply means drafting a will or a trust. You may ultimately find yourself left with a lot of questions before you even start. Acknowledging that it is high time to get your legal affairs in order and finding the right firm to prepare your documents are the initial actions you need to take.

In this episode, I’ll talk about the next steps that can help you cover all contingencies and make sure that your estate plan is complete.

In this episode, you’ll learn…

Chris’ positive focus for the week
Following a plan and picking the right tools for state planning
The big dirty secret of estate planning
What is the advantage of Castle Wealth Group from other firms
Four ways assets can be transferred to your name
Certified Elder Law Attorney gold standard in estate planning and elder law
Elder Law for asset protection
Estate planning 10-point checklist
What is Castle Trust?
Estate planning 101 webinars
Funding a trust
Investment and tax planning advice to coordinate your full plan
The macro approach in terms of taxes
Three big law changes as it relates to taxes
The brisket analogy
Viewing an estate plan as a parachute

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Episode Transcript

This is the Chris Berry Show, expert information on wealth, estate, and tax planning for the second half of life. Information that you can understand. Here’s your host, Chris Berry.

Welcome everyone to the show. This week we’re going to start with the positive focus, just like we start every week of the Chris Berry Show. And today my puzzle focus is that I watched through this program, it’s called Masterclass. You can watch experts do whatever they do. So there is, Steve Martin has a class on comedy, but I was watching one on grilling, more specifically smoking. Not smoking cigarettes, smoking meat like brisket and ribs, and that type of thing, because I have one of those Traeger grills. And so, I watched a whole masterclass from Aaron Franklin who is thought of as one of the best barbecuers right now in the nation and his approach to barbecuing and cooking briskets specifically.

It was interesting just how much thought and planning and understanding that a brisket cooked by Aaron Franklin is different from a brisket that you might pick up at your local barbecue place. And one of the reasons is all the thoughts that go into it. One of the things that I took from it was that he started when he wanted to take the brisket off the grill. And if you haven’t ever cooked brisket or don’t know, this is an eight, nine, 10, sometimes a 12-hour process. And so, he starts with an end in mind of, “Okay, I want to take the brisket off at say 4:00 to be able to serve it at 5:00.” So then he knows, “Okay, well working back, I need to do this at this time, this at this time, this at this time.” So then he has a whole plan in place all to cook a brisket.

And so this weekend I cooked a brisket. This isn’t my first time cooking it, but it was more of Aaron Franklin style brisket cooking and it turned out wonderful where I followed his process of starting with the end in mind and putting together a plan. Before I’d kind of wing it off just, okay, I’m going to wake up early and throw it out. But this time, I followed a plan, a process, and the brisket turned out great. And it reminded me of planning. Planning, it’s very similar. You want to start with the end in mind, what are the goals? And you work backward from there to figure out, okay, what are the strategies that we need to achieve the goals, and then pick the right tools to help you achieve the goals.

And especially when it comes to estate planning, that’s what I want to talk about today is understanding that not all wills and trusts, not all firms are created equal. I was talking to a client, or actually a prospect I should say, someone who was considering utilizing our firm and we walked through our process. We were going to set up the next step in the process, which was to design the plan. And then I got an email saying, “Oh, thanks for your time. Our nephew-in-law is going to put together an estate plan for us.” And what I realized is that I just didn’t do a good enough job helping that person understand that their estate planning is not necessarily a commodity. That, sure you can find anyone that can draft a will or a trust or power of attorney. You can even find them online. Go to LegalZoom if you’re just looking for a document.

So what that did is help me solidify the idea that we need to clarify really what makes us different at the Castle Wealth Group. When we’re talking about legal planning, what makes what we do different? It’s similar to food, right? You can have a cheap brisket that’s cooked very poorly or you can have a brisket that’s cooked by Aaron Franklin. And there’s a big difference in that. And granted, that’s just food, at the end of the day what is it in experience? But when it comes to your retirement planning and your legacy planning, you need to understand that there’s a difference. Not everyone has the same level of skills. Not everyone has the same knowledge, and there’s a variety of reasons why that is.

But what I wanted to talk about today is the advantage that we offer our clients. This might sound a little bit self-serving but understand that this really is to benefit clients. And with this type of planning, retirement planning, legacy planning, unlike being able to bite into a brisket, it’s hard to tell good planning versus bad planning if you don’t know. And that’s what I find is a lot of people just don’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know. So what I did is I listed out the things that a lot of other firms do versus what we do, so understanding it’s not always an apples to apples comparison. And I understand it’s hard because legal services, financial services, it’s not something that you can taste. It’s not something that you can touch or feel, so you have to look to other signals.

What we did is actually created, I created a sheet of what most common firms do, kind of run-of-the-mill firms or attorneys versus what we can offer. So, the first thing is the service offered. And so the first thing is, can other firms draft a trust or will or a power of attorney in a deed? The answer is yes, and it’s important, just like we can. Now, what’s different is the types of documents that we’re drafting, what’s actually inside of them. So yeah, you can get a trust or will if you call up a law firm or attorney, you go online. You can even go to staples, back when the quarantine wasn’t going on, and download or pick up a will and trust package.

But will that meet your goals? Maybe, maybe not. And that’s where we need to first start with not the right tools, we need to focus on what are your goals? What’s important to you? What are you trying to accomplish? But yeah, if you’re just looking to check the box to say you have a trust, well, understand you might not even need a trust. And that’s something a lot of people don’t understand either is that there’s a lot of attorneys that are just out there pedaling trusts to people when they don’t need them.

And so, we’d like to take our approach to education, and that’s why we just did it for our clients and friends. We did a webinar. So we’re doing a lot of webinars and we call it estate planning 101. Just everything you need to know about estate planning, and we recorded it. And if it’s something you want to watch, the webinar that we recorded, you can watch it from your own home. Just shoot us an email at contact@castlewealthgroup.com or give us a call at (844) 885-4200 and we can send you a link to watch that estate planning workshop.

But yeah, other firms, they can create trusts, wills, powers of attorney deeds, so can we. So what’s the difference? Why does it matter? Well, let’s keep going down the list. One thing that we offer is what’s called the probate free guarantee. So if you’re considering other firms, if your nephew can draft an estate plan, ask if they offer their probate free guarantee. We do. Now, why is this important? It’s because many estate plans and trusts still end up going into probate court because of lack of funding or coordination with financial assets.

And this is one of the big, dirty little secrets of estate planning, as there’s a lot of wills and trusts and estate plans that are drafted with the idea that we’re trying to avoid probate. But at the end of the day, once someone passes away, the assets do end up going into probate. And you might be asking, well, why is that? Well, you need to understand how the estate administration works. When someone passes away, there are only four ways assets can transfer out of their name. The first would be joint ownership. So a husband and a wife joined on a checking account. One spouse passes away, it goes to the survivor. The second would be through beneficiary designations. You have a life insurance policy. You have a checking account with the transfer on death payable on death, goes to whoever you’ve named as a beneficiary.

Third, we have trust and there’s different types of trusts. Think of a trust kind of like a suitcase. While you’re alive and well you’re holding onto the suitcase. God forbid, something happens to you, you pass that suitcase on to a successor trustee who then distributes the assets wherever it’s supposed to go, thereby avoiding probate. But if an asset doesn’t pass through joint ownership, beneficiary designation trust, then it ends up going into probate. And that’s what we want to try to avoid at the end of the day.

So you might be asking, well, if I have a trust, how would my affairs end up going into probate? Well, here’s the dirty little secret. Most of the trusts out there that we review aren’t funded properly. So again, think of a trust like a suitcase. We need to make sure that these assets are titled in the name of the trust. Have you named the trust as a beneficiary of your IRA, of your 401k? Have we done a lady bird deed saying the home is in your name, but then upon death it ends up going into the trust. Because just by having a trust, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to avoid probate. And that’s what we find a lot of times, even if you have a trust, it’s not funded properly.

So that’s why one of the things that we offer is what’s called the probate free guarantee. The probate free guarantee, what is this? Well, what it is is if you set up an estate plan with our firm and participate in our client care program where we review your documents on an annual basis, we review your assets on an annual basis, make sure your trust is funded properly. If you have a trust, we’re going to guarantee you that your affairs will not end up going into probate. It’s important because that’s one of the basic rules or reasons why most people want to set up estate planning is because they want to keep their affairs out of court.

So my question to you is if you have an estate plan or you’re considering someone to draft an estate plan for you, does that firm offer the probate free guarantee? And then if they don’t, you might ask why. It’s probably because they’re not fully integrated. They’re not helping fund these trusts. They don’t have confidence that your trust is going to avoid probate and serve your goals when you pass away. So that’s something that we offer our clients who participate in our client care program is the probate free guarantee because again, many estate plans and trust still end up in probate because of lack of funding or coordination with financial assets.

So we’ve covered two things so far. So, does the firm draft wills, powers of attorney, trusts and deeds? We do most likely, other attorneys do as well. Does the other firm offer the probate free guarantee? We do. Does the firm you’re considering to work with do? You’ll have to ask them. Number three, is a Certified Elder Law Attorney, which is the gold standard in estate planning and elder law, is the attorney that you’re working with, are they a Certified Elder Law Attorney? So, any attorney can say they do estate planning or elder law, or any attorney can say they focus on any specific area of law, but the CELA is the gold standard when it comes to estate planning and elder law.

And the reason I can say that is to become a Certified Elder Law Attorney, and this is accredited through the American Bar Association. So again, anyone can say they’re an elder law attorney, or they specialize in it, but this is the only way to prove that they actually know what they’re talking about is the CELA designation, Certified Elder Law Attorney designation. To become a CELA, you need to be peer reviewed, meaning other attorneys need to have singled you out for your contributions to the area of law. From there you have an opportunity to sit down and take a six hour exam. This exam is offered only twice a year and I think the last statistic I heard was that only 12 to 13% of the attorneys that sat and took the exam actually passed it.

It’s been around since 1993. So now I think there’s about 18 of us in the state of Michigan, maybe 500 across the whole nation. So, when you’re working with a Certified Elder Law Attorney, it’s basically a stamp of approval. That’s one way you can know that whoever you’re working with knows their stuff, because I remember when I took the CELA, and this was almost 10 years ago, maybe eight years ago. And when I became a CELA, I was I think one of the second youngest ones in the nation. I dove into this pretty deep early into my practice.

But I remember when I took the Certified Elder Law Attorney designation… and you might be asking, what is elder law? Well, elder law, think of estate planning. Estate planning is planning for what happens if you die. Elder law is planning for what happens if you don’t, so you continue to age and face all the issues that go along with aging. So I remember when I was taking the CELA exam I was surprised because in my study preparations, I saw that on the exam they were going to break elder law, which in itself is a niche area, into 12 specific areas. So it’s like niches within niches. So it really is a deep dive into that long term care journey of understanding that estate planning is planning for what happens if you die, elder law is planning for what happens if you don’t. You continue to age and face all the issues that go along with aging.

In fact, if someone’s asking me for a referral in an area that I don’t know, the area of the country that I don’t know because I can only legally represent clients in Michigan with regards to their estate planning, I recommend them, find a Certified Elder Law Attorney because that’s the closest thing we have to a stamp of approval that this attorney knows what he or she is talking about. It’s not the fancy websites, it’s not the marketing that they pay for. It’s not even some of the awards that you basically pay for. The CELA exam through the American Bar Association is really the gold standard when it comes to estate planning and elder law.

So again, that’s something that differentiates our approach. We have a very high level of knowledge in this area. Now, you ask me a criminal law question. Unless I saw in law and order, I’m probably not going to know the answer. But as it relates to retirement and legacy planning, protecting assets, creating income streams, making money last as long as possible, avoiding probate, leaving a legacy to the next generation in the most efficient, effective way possible, that’s where you’re going to want to look for a Certified Elder Law Attorney to help you navigate that process.

So again, there’s a lot of attorneys that are doing estate planning, drafting wills and trust power of attorney. There’s a lot less that are elder law attorneys and even fewer that are Certified Elder Law Attorneys. I think I did this a couple of years ago, but I looked to see how many attorneys there were in the state of Michigan. Don’t quote me on this, but I want to say there’s about 22,000. And of those only 18 of us are Certified Elder Law Attorneys. And again, this is the gold standard. So there’s people trying to take this exam, but again, only about 12 to 15% of the people that take the exam end up actually passing.

So, if you want to work with a Certified Elder Law Attorney, which is the gold standard as it relates to estate planning and elder law and making sure your money lasts as long as you do, give our office a call at (844) 885-4200. We have a lot of educational webinars that are available right now for listeners of the show and our clients. We have a webinar that talks about the SECURE Act and even the CARES Act and the tax consequences that are going on with that. We have a webinar talking about three ways to heal your finances given what’s going on, three ways to plan and protect and preserve your estate.

So just give our office a call and we can have one of our team members send you some links to those educational workshops or webinars. We’re not doing any in-person workshops right now with everything going on. But we are sending these webinars out and we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback that people appreciate being able to learn this, take control of their retirement and legacy planning at a time where it seems like there’s a lot of things that are out of control. So being able to take action and take steps, people have appreciated the peace of mind that that gives them given everything else that’s going on right now. So stick with us as we continue this conversation talking about what makes our firm a little bit different than the other firms out there.

Hi, we’re Madison and Ryan Berry.

Our dad is Chris Berry from the Castle Wealth Group.

The Castle Wealth Group used to be the Elder Care Firm, but dad wanted the company to be broader in its scope of services.

To not only protect and preserve assets, but to help people grow their assets to prepare for retirement.

As a Certified Elder Law Attorney and fiduciary financial advisor, our dad and his team at Castle Wealth Group can help you with lots of important things.

To tell you more, here’s our dad, Chris Berry.

Thanks Madie and Ryan. Here at the Castle Wealth Group, we can help you put together an estate plan to avoid probate, work with you on a tax plan to keep more money for your family and less for Uncle Sam and protect you against the devastating cost of long term care. Our team is here for your family. I invite you to learn more about the Castle Wealth Group at our next free workshop, where you will learn the three steps to create a legal, financial and tax plan for the second half of life. Call us today to register at (844) 885-4200.

The Castle Wealth Group, formerly the Elder Care Firm.

Learn more at the castlewealthgroup.com today.

All right. So we’re talking about the Castle Wealth Group legal advantage. What makes us a little bit different and why, and this is the important part, why it benefits you as the potential client. We talked about a lot of firms out there that can draft wills and trusts and powers of attorney and deeds, creating your rule book versus relying on the government’s rule book. But understand not all documents are created equal. Not all firms are created equal. In fact, I was reviewing a situation with some clients and they had an older attorney who had drafted a power of attorney for dad. It was a power of attorney document, yeah, but there was some confusing language in there where it said, “All right. Spouse is the initial power of attorney followed by son and/or daughter.”

What does that mean, and/or? If it’s and, then that means both of them have to act together. If it’s or, that means either one of them could act independently. But because of the sloppy language in a power of attorney, now the family had to reach out to me because dad’s incapacitated and son and daughter are fighting over what’s the best route to go with dad. It came down to this language that was fuzzy. So yeah, they had a power of attorney, but it was only like three pages. It had confusing language in there and it wasn’t specific enough where if they wanted to move any money around to get someone qualified for Medicaid or Veterans Benefits, their hands would be tied.

So understand, not all documents are created equal. Just because someone offers to do a power of attorney for you, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to meet your goals. Or if someone tells you you should do a trust, understand, first we have to figure out what your goals are. Not everyone needs trust. It depends on what your goals are. So yeah, any firm can draft the documents if they’re an estate planning firm. But then ask, second thing is, does a firm offer the probate free guarantee? So that’s something that we offer our clients if they participate in our client care program, is that we guarantee that your affairs will never end up in probate. Now, do other firms do that? Probably not. And you should ask yourself why is that? It’s because they don’t have confidence that their planning is going to work out the way that they want it to.

Next, are they a Certified Elder Law Attorney, a CELA, which is the gold standard in estate planning and elder law. This is something that I identified that I wanted to become the top of my game. If I’m going to be doing this for the rest of my life, I want to make sure I have all of the knowledge to help my clients. And that’s where we’re able to do some things that other firms just cannot or don’t understand or don’t know about.

And really elder law, what that means is it means asset protection. A lot of what we’re doing at our firm is helping clients plan, protect and preserve what’s important to them. You’ve worked hard to accumulate whatever it is you have, so I want to help you protect that. Protect that from unnecessary taxes, protect that from devastating cost of long term care, protect that from the nursing home or Medicaid spend down, protect that from probate, protect the kids from divorces, lawsuits, creditor actions, bankruptcies.

So again, elder law, it’s almost like code word for asset protection, where we want to make sure that everything you’ve worked so hard for is protected, is shielded, protected against volatility if that’s a concern so that you and your family get the enjoyment out of your hard work, not leaving it to the government or leaving it to courts or even leaving it to in-laws or out-laws. That’s why I took the necessary steps to become a Certified Elder Law Attorney, because I wanted to make sure that I knew everything I needed to to help give my clients all the options they need to help educate them, help walk them through this retirement and legacy planning process.

And along with that, that brings me to the next issue. Does the other firm provide the castle trust, which is the asset protection trust? So understand, not all trusts are created equal. A castle trust can protect your life’s work from nursing homes and Medicaid spend down in long term care costs. Most revocable living trusts or all revocable living trusts do not offer that protection. So if you’re sitting there listening to this and you have one of these old style revocable trusts that hopefully avoids probate, if it’s funded properly, which we know many trust aren’t, understand that you might be missing out on an opportunity to build in a level of asset protection for you where you can remain in control, you can decide how your assets are invested, you can receive the income, you can get access to the funds, but whatever you have inside of the castle trust would be protected from lawsuits and that devastating nursing home or Medicaid spend down.

Because understand right now a nursing home is going to cost you anywhere from eight to 12, $13,000 a month. And the question is, how are you going to go about paying for that? Most people aren’t looking to pure traditional long term care insurance for a variety of reasons, but if we can build a legal structure to protect your assets, well, that might be the route to go. And understand that your typical run-of-the-mill revocable living trust, that revocable living trust that that general practitioner or that estate planning attorney is doing, selling you on the idea that it will avoid probate even though we know a lot of times it doesn’t because it’s not funded properly, that’s one route to go. Or we could look at a castle trust that avoids probate, controls the distribution, but now builds an asset protection where whatever you have inside of the trust could be protected from that devastating nursing home or Medicaid spend down.

And again, not all attorneys can offer that deep level of knowledge, that deep level of planning, that really at the end of the day benefits the clients. I’m not doing this show today to show off how great we are at what we do just for my own sake or my own ego, I want you to understand that there’s more than just a basic revocable trust. There is more than a four page power of attorney done by UAW Legal Service. I’m not trying to put them down or anyone else down, but a lot of times you get what you pay for.

Like if you want the cheapest trust you can find, go online and go to LegalZoom and you can probably find one for $20, right? Will that serve you? Will that guarantee that it avoids probate? Will that protect you against nursing homes or Medicaid spending? Probably not. So again, and I’m not saying everyone needs that, but it first starts with what are your goals, then what strategies will we utilize to help you achieve the goals? And then, and only then, do we pick the tools.

It really is more of a counseling type educational process that we take versus everyone that comes in our office gets the same exact trust, which is how a lot of law firms work. It’s basically copy and paste. And now it’s… I’ve even seen, as we reviewed trust for clients where there’s other people’s names in the trust, like not even a family member or someone. They just forgot to copy and paste those certain sections. And that’s obviously pretty darn scary.

And so that’s one of the things that we do offer our clients is that if you already do have a will or a trust or a power of attorney, one of the things we can do is what’s called an estate planning audit. And what it is is a 10 point checklist where we look first to see what documents do you have. And then from there, we look at your current plan if you do have one, and we run it through this audit of about 10 different issues. And once we get through that list we look to see, does it allow someone to make legal decisions? Does it allow someone to make medical decisions? Has it been updated for the changes in law that we had: 2004, the HIPAA authorization; 2012, the change in the power of attorney; 2010, the change in the Michigan Trust Code; 2020, the SECURE Act.

These are all reasons why that estate plan needs to be reviewed. So, as we’re going through the estate planning audit, those are the things we’re looking for. One of the big ones is, how do we leave things to the next generation? A lot of times when we review estate plans or a trust, it says it goes outright to the kids at 25, 30, 35. Well, you’re just launching a pillowcase of money over at what we call a wallet time, versus building in the opportunity for a lifetime of asset protection. So whatever the kids inherit from you, if anything, could be protected from a divorce, a lawsuit, a creditor action, bankruptcy.

And then if they pass away, and this is a big one and a lot of people assume it’s in their trust but they’re wrong. But if they pass away, does the money go to a spouse or an in-law or does it go to the grandchildren? Does it stay in the family? Well, unfortunately the way a lot of trusts are written, it says it goes outright at 25, 30, 35. So then the issue is, what happens if your son or daughter gets divorced at 36, where’s half of that money going? Might go to that spouse. What happens if that daughter passes away, where’s all that money going? Probably to the son-in-law versus going down to the kids.

Versus one of the things that we can do is build in the opportunity for a lifetime of asset protection through what’s called a legacy trust. It’s almost like a mini castle trust for your beneficiaries, where your one trust could split into different shares depending on the number of kids. So again, I’m just saying not all trusts are created equal and not every attorney can offer this deep level of knowledge.

So again, what have we talked about? Drafting trusts, wills, powers of attorney and deeds, can we do that? Yes. Can other firms do that? Yes. Do they offer the probate free guarantee to make sure or guarantee that your affairs end up avoiding probate upon death? We do offer that too. Does the other firm? Probably not. Are they a Certified Elder Law Attorney like we are? Yes, we are CELAs, the gold standard for estate planning and elder law. Is that other firm? Probably not. Not unless they’re one of the 18 CELAs in the state of Michigan.

Next, do they provide the castle trust, which is an asset protection trust to protect against lawsuits and the devastating cost of nursing home care? Probably not. Probably all they can provide is that revocable living trust that avoids probate and controls the distribution, versus the castle trust that avoids probate, controls the distribution, and now builds an asset protection. And again, I’m not saying everyone needs a castle trust, but to be able to offer that option, that’s important. And that’s really what our approach is, is we want to show you all the options that make sense for you, and then allow you to walk through the right door. Unfortunately, other firms don’t have the deep level of knowledge to show you all of these different options.

Next, do they plan for life, not just planning for death? This kind of goes along with being an elder law attorney and a CELA. As a CELA, we plan not just for what happens when you pass, we also plan for what happens if you don’t and you face all the issues that go along with aging, including planning for long term care. This is a big difference. There’s a lot of estate planning attorneys out there, but not a lot of Certified Elder Law Attorneys. As a CELA, we’re not just concerned about avoiding probate upon death. We’re also concerned about making sure your money lasts as long as you do, making sure that we’re protecting against that devastating cost of nursing home care, making sure that whatever we leave to the next generation avoids probate, goes to the children in such way that whatever they inherit from you, if anything, is protected from divorces, lawsuits, creditors, bankruptcies.

And we have some great webinars that go over all of this in more detail. Our collection of webinars are anywhere from 20 to about 40 minutes, so you can easily sit there on your computer and learn about this. In fact, one of the most interesting ones or most recent ones we’ve done is just our estate planning 101 that goes over all of these different tools that are part of an estate plan. Talks about the issues of avoiding probate. Talks about the tools we use, the powers of attorney, the different types of trusts and the levels of trust planning where we can go anywhere from just a basic revocable trust. We can do what’s called a legacy trust that avoids probate, builds in spousal protection, builds in protection for the kids. Or we could do a castle trust that avoids probate, can protect the spouse, can protect the kids, but now builds in an opportunity for a lifetime of asset protection for you as the person that created the trust.

So again, a lot of people aren’t aware that there’s this different level of planning. They all think that the highest level of planning or what everyone needs is a basic revocable trust. I actually cut the other way. I would say that’s probably the least popular plan that we do in our office. A majority of my clients are either doing a castle trust, a legacy trust or a will-based estate plan. And the reason for that is, we first figure out what are their goals, figure out the strategies to help them achieve their goals. And then, and only then, do we start talking about which tool makes the most sense. Versus a lot of firms out there, everyone that walks through the door gets a revocable trust. And unfortunately, everyone that walks through that door gets a revocable trust that’s not funded.

And this brings me to my next issue, provides full funding of trusts. Unfortunately, most firms do not do that. However, the team at the many firms provide a funding letter, which is a CYA letter for the lawyer. Instead of that, we create an asset table, prepare the funding paperwork and follow up on it. That’s why we have this great team with us. It’s not just me here. We have a whole team making sure that the trust that we set up for our clients are funded properly. And that’s one of the reasons why we can offer that probate free guarantee, that if you follow our process and you communicate with us and you tell us what’s out there, we’re going to ensure that the trust we create for you avoids probate at the end of the day.

Most firms don’t do that. Most firms, what they do is they put together a CYA letter, they call it a funding letter, that gives you instructions on how to fund your trust. Well, it’s not specific. It just carves out different types of accounts, but you don’t have an asset table that you can refer to. They’re not preparing the paperwork to send to the bank or to send to the brokerage houses. That’s something that we do. Most firms, all they do is they write you a funding letter to say, “Hey, go off and fund the trust.”

But what happens? We know life happens. Things get in the way, other priorities take hold. We know that it’s confusing. You might get different information when you go to the bank and all you have is this letter to rely on. And then all of a sudden the trust isn’t funded, or let’s say it is funded and you go a number of years without revisiting it. You buy a cottage up North, you forget to title it in the trust and lo and behold, now you’re ending up in probate again, even though the estate plan that you set up was just a basic revocable trust whose number one goal was to avoid probate.

But it doesn’t because it wasn’t funded properly because the firm doesn’t take full responsibility for the funding process where they walk you hand to hand helping you with each and every asset so you know how it should be titled. And in the majority of the time, we’re filling out the paperwork and sending it to the financial institutions. We’ll continue this conversation of funding because it’s so important.

Hi, Madison and Ryan Berry here from the Castle Wealth Group, formerly the Elder Care Firm.

Our dad is Chris Berry.

He’s an attorney and fiduciary financial advisor, which means he helps families plan, protect, and preserve their assets.

The entire team at the Castle Wealth Group can help you with lots of important things. To tell you more, here’s our dad, Chris Berry.

Thanks, Madie and Ryan. Here at the Castle Wealth Group, we can help you put together an estate plan to avoid probate, work with you on a tax plan to keep more money for your family and less for Uncle Sam and protect you against the devastating cost of long term care. Our team is here for your family. I invite you to learn more about the Castle Wealth Group at our next free workshop, where you will learn the three steps to create a legal, financial and tax plan for the second half of life. Call us today to register at (844) 885-4200, (844) 885-4200. Or visit us at castlewealthgroup.com.

The Castle Wealth Group, formerly the Elder Care Firm.

Learn more at the castlewealthgroup.com today.

So we’re talking about funding a trust. And again, think of a trust like a suitcase. While you’re alive and well you’re holding onto the suitcase. God forbid, something happens to you, you pass that suitcase on to a successor trustee who then distributes the assets in the suitcase. But there has to be stuff in the suitcase. If you’re just passing an empty suitcase, the trust isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. The trust has to be funded, and why more firms don’t work with clients to fund the trust, it’s beyond me. Well, I guess I understand it because it’s a pain in the butt. It’s pain in the butt to get all the assets, changing beneficiaries, changing ownership, working with the different financial institutions. It’s not fun, but that’s why we try to take it upon ourselves to help our clients achieve this because that’s the reason a lot of times they’re setting up a trust. One of the most basic reasons to set up a trust is to avoid probate.

But the dirty little secret is that most trusts don’t avoid probate because they’re not funded properly. They’re not integrated properly. And that’s something that separates us is we create asset tables, we prepare the funding paperwork, and we follow up on it to make sure it gets funded. It’s just mind boggling how many trusts end up going into probate because they’re not funded properly. So that’s why it’s something that we do. We don’t charge extra for it. It’s included as part of our package. So if you’re trying to compare apples to apples, the other firm can do a basic revocable trust. We can do a basic revocable trust. Are they the same trust now? But one thing that is a value add is that, hey, we’re guaranteeing that you won’t go to probate as long as you participate in our client care program and we’re going to do the funding for you.

To me, that sounds like a better idea is to ensure that whatever you’re getting, you’re actually getting the value that you want versus you’re hoping that you’re doing this funding right and there’s no followup from the firm. And if you’re working with a friend that does the funding, that’s great. I’m sure there are some of those out there. Just in my experience, I haven’t found a lot that are doing that.

Now next. What we’ve covered, we’ve talked about kind of a little bit of a us versus them. Not to show off or showcase us, but really to showcase the benefits for you. The things that you might not know because we want you educated and you just don’t know what you don’t know. You might think that just any trust or will or power of attorney, they’re all the same. They’re not. Can a lot of firms draft a will or trust power of attorney? Yep. Can we? Yep. Do other firms offer a probate free guarantee? Probably not.

Is the other firm led by a Certified Elder Law Attorney, which is the gold standard in estate planning and elder law? Well, there’s only been 18 of us in the state of Michigan since 1993. Does the other firm provide the option for the castle trust to protect everything that you’ve worked hard for from nursing home or long term care costs? Does the other firm plan for life not just planning for death? Meaning, do they look at more than just avoiding probate? Are they looking at the elder law issues of making sure your assets last as long as you do, making sure your income lasts as long as you do?

Do they provide full funding of the trust, more than just giving the CYA letter? And the reason it’s called a CYA letter is the attorney calls it a funding letter. But in reality, it’s a CYA letter so that if the, let’s say mom does a trust with one of these attorneys that just does the basic funding/CYA letter, mom passes away, assets weren’t funded properly initially. It wasn’t kept up on and now the kids are upset and they go back to the attorney to say, “Hey, mom’s sole purpose of this trust was to avoid probate. Why are we in probate?” Then the attorney pulls out the funding letter and says, “Well, I told mom to go fund the trust. It’s not my fault she didn’t.” And we just think that’s rubbish. We think that there’s a better way to do it. We want to make sure that if you spend time and effort and money with our firm to set up a trust, we want to make sure it accomplishes your goals. And that’s why we have that probate free guarantee. And that’s why we provide full funding of the trust.

Next, can other firms provide tax and retirement planning advice in coordination? So again, this is something that makes us a little bit unique is the team at the Castle Wealth Group not only offers legal advice through the law firm, Castle Wealth Legal, but we can also provide investment and tax planning advice to coordinate your full plan, to really create a holistic plan that’s in your best interest. A lot of clients see the value of this because they’re getting conflicting information from their CPA, from their investment brokerage guy, and from the attorney. But with us, if you want us to, we can just focus on the legal side of things or we can coordinate a whole plan, an investment plan, an income plan, a tax plan, a health care plan, so that you really have one coordinated plan for retirement and legacy. And collectively, we call this our fortified retirement and legacy plan, and we have a whole process we work with clients as we get them organized for retirement and beyond.

And that brings me really to the next one, offer a family office environment where your legal, financial, and tax plan can all be coordinated with the ability to prepare taxes, manage investments and legal planning, all under one roof. Clients have more efficiency in coordination on their legal, financial and tax plan. So this really becomes important when we’re talking about some of the more complicated trust that we set up when we talk about planning for long term care, and we’re talking about tax consequences of different decisions. And that’s really one of the biggest opportunities these days is looking at the tax planning opportunities where you might have a tax preparer, maybe H&R Block, or even a CPA that is really looking at taxes through a micro lens of minimizing taxes in one year.

Well, at our firm with our strategic partnerships and affiliated CPA, we really take a macro approach in terms of taxes. Trying to minimize taxes, not in a specific year but over your lifetime because we’re looking at things like the SECURE Act, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the CARES Act. We’ve just had three big law changes as it relates to taxes within the last two years that have dramatically changed the tax planning world, where if you look at it in the future, do you think taxes are going to go up or down? Well, if you answer up like a lot of people, then that’s going to have different ramifications and there’s different opportunities and actions you should be taking.

And this is something that with our team, we’re able to see this whole picture where we talk about how to fund trusts. Maybe we should look at pulling money out of the IRAs, pay the taxes and put it into an asset protection trust so now we can protect against the devastating cost of long term care. And that’s something that we can run the numbers to show numerically why that may or may not make sense depending on the situation. But we have sophisticated software to help us with that. We have teams with the actuaries as well as a CPA to be able to offer tax preparation and tax planning services for our clients.

So again, it’s that family office environment where your legal, your financial and your tax plan all comes together as one coordinated plan for you that’s in your best interest versus having all these pieces all spread about, it’s almost like a junk-chore. Yeah, there’s a lot of important stuff in the junk-chore, but it’s not organized. You can’t find anything. But if you could have a coordinated plan for retirements and planning for what you leave to the next generation, it doesn’t make sense to get that organized. And it brings me back to the beginning.

It’s like I’ve had a lot of briskets before. I’ve had a lot of barbecue. But when we plan it out, we start with the end in mind, what do we want to accomplish? And we work backwards from there, there are less variables, less chance of it going wrong. The brisket is going to taste better. Well, the same applies to your retirement legacy plan. The more effort you put into this, the more you learn from the experts. Like Aaron Franklin as it relates to barbecuing and smoking, he has this Texas, I won’t say it’s Texas barbecue that people line up five hours before they even open to get in line to try some of his brisket. You know it’s good, right? And it’s going to be very different from brisket if you walk into your local restaurants, right? Local chain restaurant that offers brisket.

They’re both brisket, but one of them tastes a lot better because there’s a lot more planning that’s going on. That’s just brisket. That’s just food. I mean, it’s easy to tell good food from bad food. It’s just based on taste. I’m sure people can disagree. For me, I hate tomatoes. It’s just one of those things I’ve never liked ever in my life. So I’m not going to be a tomato guy. In some way with retirement planning and legacy planning, you might not be an annuity guy or you might not be a stock person and that’s fine. We’re all a little bit different. But at the end of the day, it’s all about understanding what the options are.

So there’s more than just fast food brisket out there. There’s more than just a UAW legal plan or a trust you downloaded from staples or a trust that your nephew, who’s a general practitioner that does maybe one trust a year versus a firm that focuses on these types of things. And I’m not doing this to brag, but I just want to open your eyes to the idea that not all trusts are created equal, not all wills are created equal, not all estate plans, not all retirement plans are created equal. And with this type of planning, it’s hard to see good planning versus bad planning, versus like food, like a brisket. You can taste it, you can touch it, you can smell it. You have all these senses engaged.

Well, when it comes to an estate plan, it’s not as sexy as that and I’m well aware of that. We’re talking about death and taxes, incapacity, and we all just want to check the box and get it done with. But when you’re in this world, you see what happens when things go wrong. And if you know exactly what’s going to happen, if you can look into that crystal ball, especially right now and tell me exactly what’s going to happen, I’m going to tell you the perfect plan, and that’s easy. But we don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t know what’s going to happen. So that’s why we need to have a plan that takes these things into account.

We need to have a plan to make sure our income lasts as long as we do. We call that a fortified retirement score. How do we make sure that our retirement income, our fortified retirement income score, how do we make sure that our income will last as long as we do? I think that’s kind of the elder law. It’s planning for what happens if we don’t die and we continue to live, how can I make sure that my money lasts as long as I do? With the investments now, how can I… no one can predict what the market’s going to do. If someone says the market’s going up or down tomorrow, my undergrad was in finance. I believe in the efficient market, that all information is out there. But what you can do is you can put together a plan that takes into account the volatility of the market.

Then with regards to tax planning, you can just keep paying taxes the way you do now, or there’s certain strategies that could save you 3 to 4%, which could be tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially over your lifetime. And this is one of the things that I so enjoy doing is running qualified retirement tax planning reports for clients where we look at, does it make sense to do a Roth conversion? Does it make sense to look into an alternative to the Roth to maximize what we’re leaving to the next generation? And I can numerically show clients over their lifetime how much money you can save in taxes. If that’s something that you think would be worthwhile, give our office a call at (844) 885-4200. We’ll set up a short, little 15-minute phone call to get to know each other and then we can decide if we want to explore any of these ideas.

And then healthcare planning. Sure, we can just go along and pretend that we’ll never have a stroke or never need long term care. Never be hospitalized, never need a medical power of attorney. But we know those things happen, right? Especially right now, the medical power of attorney, it’s one of those most important documents to have. I have clients that are in nursing homes right now. How are you going to pay that eight to $12,000 a month bill? Medicare, which is the best Medicare plan to pick? It really depends. It’s all about having a plan.

And then legacy planning. And this is where we spend a lot of time today. How do we ensure that we put together our rule book versus relying on the government’s rule book? It’s all about having a plan. And if you’re going to plan for an eight-hour brisket smoke, you should have a plan for retirement as well. A plan for legacy. You need to start with the end in mind. Not just say, “Hey, I want some brisket,” and then find the cheapest brisket you can. But with this retirement planning and legacy planning, you only get one chance. You can’t mess it up.

I view estate planning kind of like a parachute. You never know when you’re going to need it. But God forbid, you want to make sure that there’s no holes in it when you do, right? And so, who do you want to have to put together that parachute? Someone that maybe sells or puts together one parachute a year? Someone that’s just starting out making parachutes, or do you want someone that’s certified in the gold standard of parachute making? Just like when I was kind of reviewing how I cook brisket. I’ve cooked brisket before, but I wanted to take this masterclass, it was an online class, and learn how to cook brisket from the best person possible. He wasn’t a certified brisket cooker, but you could look at the fact that he’s so well respected and he has a line going out the door. You knew he was good. And so when I cooked the brisket, it was delicious.

It’s harder to tell with estate planning and retirement planning, because you can’t taste it, you can’t smell it. It’s not tangible, you can’t feel it. So you have to look to these outside factors. So that’s why we have things like the probate free guarantee. That’s why I went through all the effort and the studying to pass the Certified Elder Law Attorney designation. That’s why we work with our clients to make sure their trust is funded; because anything that has my name on it, I want to make sure that it’s serving the clients’ goals, serving the clients’ purpose. Because unfortunately there’s a lot of trust mills out there. There’s a lot of people that just dabble in this. And unfortunately, clients are just unaware. They feel like they can just check the box and know they never need to worry about it again.

But the parachute has holes and that’s why we have that estate planning audit process to show what potential holes there are in the plan. And if this is something that you’re interested in, you want to learn more about, you want to double check your plan, you want a second opinion, now’s the time. Even with everything that’s going on, we are essential business. We’re working as virtually as possible. We have online webinars you can watch. We can set up Zoom meetings. We can set up phone calls to review your situation. So give our office a call, we’re here for you. (844) 885-4200, (844) 885-4200.

If you give us a call, I know that you’ll get some clarity in your situation. If we work together, you’ll get confidence to ensure that if you’re viewing that estate plan or retirement plan like a parachute, that there’s no holes in it. Now’s the time to figure out before you actually need that plan. So give our office a call, (844) 885-4200. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy. Make it as great a week as you can. We’re here for you. This has been Chris Berry with Castle Wealth Group. Make it a great week.

Learn more about Chris Berry and how he can help your family by visiting online at thechrisberryshow.com. That’s thechrisberryshow.com. You can also call Chris Berry at (810) 355-2584. That’s (810) 355-2584. This program content reflects the opinions of Chris Berry and his guests, not the Elder Care Firm, Prosperity Capital Advisors or the Castle Wealth Group and is subject to change at any time without notice. Content provided herein is for informational purposes only and should not be used or construed as investment or legal advice or as a recommendation regarding the purchase or sale of any security or to follow any legal or tax strategy.

There’s no guarantee that the strategy, statements, opinions or forecast provided herein will prove to be correct. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment. Any investor who attempts to mimic the performance of an index would incur fees and expenses which would reduce returns. All investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principal. There’s no guarantee that any investment plan or strategy will be successful. We recommend that you consult with a professional dedicated to your needs. This program is furnished by The Elder Care Firm.

Finding the Right Tools to Reach Your Estate Plan Goals

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