0:00 hello and welcome to trusts and Estates weekly I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to start off your week talking about issues related to estate planning the administration of trusts and Estates both from your own personal perspective of what you need to do in your finances and and as part of being a professional who helps other people do these these uh these tests so today I'm going to talk
0:35 about um a situation where you're going to you're you're appointed perhaps or selected whatever the word may be to handle the probate of an estate and how you can do that more easily so I compiled six tips that uh I I I think will will help you figure this out and while look I don't mean to take away business from my fellow professionals the reality is if it's a small estate um
1:12 with maybe just uh you know a few assets and and nothing particularly complex so there's really no reason to necessarily hire a professional fiduciary like myself um you can probably do this on your own and and and save some money for the estate especially if if you're the beneficiary so that that acrs to your benefit for sure um but but in any event um you know to get a professional like me
1:47 involved typically it's there's you know significant amount of money at stake and Andor there's some some complicated issues that have to be dealt with and so it takes experience and knowledge to do that well but for uh you know a typical small estate um these tips I think will help you stay on top of what you need to do and and accomplish it without you know too much trouble so the first thing that I think you need to do is
2:24 to understand the process itself so prob is is a legal process there are certain steps that must be taken in order to comply with the law and before sort of diving into it it's it's worthwhile having a basic understanding of how that works now the good news is you can go look at previous episodes of the show and and I go through at various times explanations of of different parts of
2:59 the pro probate process I I do have a show and I'll I'll link it in the show notes that talks in about the probate process um just as an overview and and I would encourage you if if you're an executive in a will or if you think you're going to be appointed as a personal representative or maybe you're the trustee in a trust take a look at that and get a sense of what it is you're going to need to do and that way you can you can determine gee does this sound like something that I'm not going
3:35 to have any problems with or not going to have very many problems with or is this something that's more complicated than I want to deal with look you know it may be at whatever point in your life you're at maybe you have you know young children you're holding down a job you're married you have a lot on your plate and and it may be that you know in in seeing what this entails you realize you know what this is not something that I want to take on in addition to everything else that I'm doing and that way you know perhaps it's your parent who wants you to be the executive and
4:10 you can you can say hey Mom Dad you know um I I I I'm familiarized myself with what I would need to do to be your executive and gosh I think I'm really GNA be challenged to to handle that so is there some different arrange ment that we can make or you know can I have the option to hire someone to help me with this so that you know I I can get it done but but it doesn't take a lot of my time maybe I can just you know work
4:45 with somebody who can handle things and and and that way it won't take away from my ability to do my job and take care of my my spouse and and children Etc so so that's a a the first step the first tip that I have for you is is to you know spend a little bit of time figuring out what is what is this going to entail and that way you can have a sense of of whether it's something you you you know really want to take on so the next tip I have is gather your documents early and and
5:22 organize your financial or organize the financial information now this can be the case on on in two different fronts so if if you're anticipating being appointed as an executive I'm just going to use the term personal representative so that entails in in Loosely an an executive as well as an administrator appointed by the court so if you're anticipating being a personal representative or a trustee so you want to make sure that the financial information that you'll need in order to
5:59 to fill that role is is Con collected in one place it could be in a notebook you know in in hard copy form or it could be in a in a in a file on U you know on a on some sort of uh shared drive like a Google drive or Dropbox that's my my favorite platform frankly or it could even be on on a thumb drive is as long as it's kept as long as that thumb drive is kept up to date although these days I don't know our thumb drive was even used anymore I know I haven't used one a long time since uh when I was in the Navy and
6:35 and the federal government uh decreed that we could not use that kind of media anymore but in any event you know you want to have you want to first of all you want to have you know a copy of the will um a copy of the trust if that you know is applicable um uh healthc care power of attorneys durable power of attorneys so you want to have copies of all these documents in in one place and then you want to have copies of all the financial documents I did and by the way I did a show last week on digital assets
7:10 and I and I looked at that very broadly I encourage you to take a look at that as well because it talks about the need to have passwords access to uh social media accounts that sort of thing and how you might want to do that so all of that should be gathered in one place and and and that way when it comes time for you to assume the role of personal representative you're not you know searching around to find everything that you need um by by the way having had to do that I can tell you that's among the
7:46 most timec consuming parts of administrating an estate uh you know is is trying to figure out you know do do do I have I found all the assets you know do I have all the records are these the most up to date is this the most upto-date copy of the will all those kind of things so the better organized that is upfront the easier it will be to administrate down the road now if you're dealing with your own estate plan so then it really behooves you to put those records together gather all those documents have them in one place so that
8:23 whoever you have appointed to be the P your personal representative they don't have the burden of having to find all that stuff so you know again this is this is part of our responsibility in putting an estate plan together now let me add that typically when our lawyer puts together the estate plan so they'll create a whole package of documents and that's that's great and so all those documents will will be together you can put them into a folder on your computer or like I said on some
8:58 kind of shared Drive but that's just the beginning so if they're you know statements of assets um uh um a list of real estate if that exists um a list of valuable personal property jewelry art okay now by the way you don't have to list every single thing that you have um most of the time most of the personal proper we have doesn't really have any significant value so you don't have to worry about it but if you do have have maybe you have a you know a particularly valuable car for example um or maybe you know
9:36 again you have a valuable piece of art maybe you have a coin collection something like that so in those cases you do want to have information about that and have that all together in one place with all the other important documents third third tip is create a timeline so that you can stay on top of deadlines and regularly review the your your progress okay so when you know when somebody dies you know there at from that moment forward
10:12 there is a series of deadlines that in general you'll need to comply with so first of all uh you you're going to have to get you know copies of the death certificate that's you know that that should have been done automatically um by the you know physician who determined that the person in fact was deceased okay so it it it may mean you know um contacting the county recorder's office and and probably paying a fee sometimes it can take a while for that to be processed and sometimes there are
10:48 expedited ways to get copies of the death C of death certificates and by the way um just a little tip on that when you go to get a the death certificate get multiple original copies okay because there are circumstances where you will have to submit an original uh for example if you're cancelling a passport you'll need to submit an original um some of the credit card companies may require an original copy so if you only have one copy you can only do those things one at a time that can be frustrating so a lot of times
11:25 they will return that original to you but in the me time if you only have one copy you can only do you can only handle one account at a time so I recommend getting you know five six even even 10 depend again depending on how complicated um the the estate is um you know if there are you know lots and lots and lots of accounts so then you may want more if there's just a you know handful of accounts so maybe you know two three four is enough okay but but but you know that's so that's you know
12:00 that's step number one on the timeline and you know depending on how big your county is though that can take um let's see I I I applied for a death certificate for a friend a few months ago here in LA county and I think it took close to a month for the county to um process that request and and you know send out the the death certificates whereas in a smaller County I think it would probably happen much more quickly and in fact in a small County you it you might be able to just go down to the county recorder's office and get it right then and there okay so that you
12:36 know that that will that will depend on your jurisdiction so once you have the death certificate there are other deadlines things like reporting to the county assessor there's been a change of ownership the deadline for uh submitting the estate tax return okay or the final tax return for the deedon all of those things need to be plotted out now keep in mind that most of these deadlines are going to relate to the city or county in which the person either died or has
13:12 property or the state again in which they died or have property now with respect to the estate tax return that's a federal issue it's one of the few Federal issues dealing with with trusts and Estates and that return is due um nine or 10 months after the date of death I'm I'm I'm going up on on on that let me think about this for a second I think it's nine months after the date of death check with your accountant to be sure about that but in
13:48 any and and by the way you like with other types of tax returns you can apply for an extension but you don't want to miss the deadline even if you are planning on applying for an EXT ension um and by the way unlike with regular Tax Returns on an estate tax return there is um the ability to apply for an extension to pay the taxes okay now that doesn't mean you get that extension for free it just means that uh you avoid paying certain penalties which you're going to pay uh typically you'll you'll
14:25 pay interest but in any event you want to have a sense of what that timeline is uh for for the jurisdiction in which again the person died Andor has property okay and and have that timeline you know at least roughed out and that way you can stay on top of those deadlines now I know for me I use I I I'm a um Apple computer user so there's a program that comes on every apple called reminders and I use that to keep track of my to- to-do list there's lots and lots of to-do list apps around these
15:02 days I know my friend Bill uses one where I guess it's kind of like you have a contest with everybody else who uses it to see who can get the most tasks done uh you know and he likes that um you know it's it's a fun thing for him so but but I would recommend you get some sort of to-do list app or you know you can make a paper to-do list as well it's just it's not as easy to revise it um and and you can you can put in your deadlines that that you know about um
15:37 just as as kind of a um what's the word I'm looking for a template um and then you know at the time you really need to use it so then you can start filling in the details um and and that that's you know that could be a good way to handle that um but in any event I I I I really encourage you to have some method there are so many little details to keep track of when you're administrating an estate uh it's it's it's really hard to keep them you know in in in your head without you know dropping some of them okay and
16:12 then that way if you have that to-do list uh you will be able to regularly track your progress right so like I I'll just bring this up it's it's over here on this side so you know I can I'm looking at reminders right now and I can see you know for one project I have 22 to-dos I have only one on another one um on another one I have four right so depending on you know which project it is that I'm I'm I'm dealing with so that that you know I can keep track of of of
16:49 my progress and you know one of the things that I've noticed um in in in administrating Estates is there's a lot of work at the beginning so you know on on one project I'm working on I I think you know sometimes I would you know on a particular day I have a list of 20 things to do which of course was more than I was going to get done in that particular day um and and and and you know many of those items took multiple days sometimes weeks even months to get done okay but but what I've noticed is
17:25 you know that number has gone down over time so now you know it's it's rare for me to have more than eight to maybe 10 at the most on my list for any particular day and in many cases it's on the list just to remind me do you know to touch Bas with someone who is is handling something that that sort of thing okay so so again you want to being a good estate administrator does take attention to detail and it the best thing you can do is is keep an upto-date uh to-do list of some kind so
18:03 you don't drop anything okay next tip number four delegate tasks and hire professionals so just because you are the personal representative doesn't mean that you have to do every single thing and in fact there are some things you probably should not do so for example ex Le if you are not a probate attorney you probably should not be filing legal documents um they can be very complex
18:38 and it's and and so it's easy to make a mistake and no one is expecting you or hopefully no one is expecting you as a per personal representative who's not a lawyer especially a probate lawyer to have that level of legal knowledge and so you're going to want to work with a probate attorney okay I know in every case I've worked on I've worked with a probate attorney or an attorney who deals with trusts again it depends on exactly what the estate entailed um
19:14 but but in any event that I always am teamed up with a lawyer okay and that's because I'm not a lawyer okay and as long as I've been doing this and as good as my legal knowledge is um it doesn't mean that I'm qualified to practice law so part of every team involves a lawyer I've also I also always team up with an accountant again I I've done my own taxes for many many years I think I have a pretty good working knowledge of taxes but I do not have a working knowledge of
19:50 how to prepare estate tax returns that's a specialty and it takes an accountant who knows how to do that okay and and and just a regular accountant who's never done it before may not know how to prepare an estate tax return so you want to have an accountant who has experience in that area right and I have I have a few that that I work with in fact um U um few weeks ago I had Robert uh carpass
20:26 I believe on the show and and and and um I encourage you to to check out um that episode and you can you can see that that Robert has specialized knowledge beyond that which a typical tax rep preparer would have and then excuse me I think earlier this year it might have been the end of last year even Roy Gia who is very very experienced in in large trusts and Estates right so um as as a matter of fact um one of the members of of my group trust and Estates experts
21:01 who was an accountant herself had a question and uh Roy was able to answer the question pretty much off the top of his head so and this this doesn't take anything away from the accountant who asked the question quite to the contrary she knew the limits of her knowledge and she was seeking the answer to to a question because it was beyond what she knew right and so I connected them up and and Roy was able to help her and and and you know that way she can go on confidently with the work that she was doing okay so minimally you're as as a
21:39 personal representative you're going to be working with a lawyer working with an accountant now you may work with other Specialists so if if there's a lot of personal property multiple residences for example and The Heirs aren't quite sure what they want to do with all the stuff right that the deed left behind so then you may want someone to help you with that so uh it sounds like a Litany of people I know but but my my friend um uh Heather Heather Cooper so her business uncluttered that's something she
22:15 specializes in okay and and and and that's very very useful now you as the personal representative you may take it on yourself to do that uh to go through everything especially if you're you're the beneficiary on the other hand if you're again very busy okay and you don't have the the time to spend you know hours and days going through all of the personal property of the decedent so then you may bring in someone else to help you with that and they can go through everything and and give you kind
22:50 of a basic inventory they can give you kind of here's a list of furniture here's a list of you know potentially valuable personal property you know what in here do you want etc etc etc okay so it might be useful to delegate that task out by the way if there's multiple beneficiaries even though you're the personal representative you may have the other beneficiaries help you with some of these tasks for example going through the personal property and decide if you know a lot of times with maybe only a few exceptions a decedent won't say what
23:25 they want done with you know their cloth and and you know all of their you know personal effects maybe dishes whatever books um and so you know what's going to happen with all of that so look you know maybe um you have a a sibling who you know they they don't have as busy a life as you do um and they would you know enjoy um kind of you know going through things maybe having a chance to sort of Reminisce about you know the decedent if it's a parent or whatever and and then sort of you know letting the other
24:01 beneficiaries know hey look here's what I found you know here's here's the stuff and you know how you know how can we divide this up so that it's you know reasonable for for everybody okay now by the way when you're um when you're delegating tasks one of the things you do want to be aware of is as the personal representative you do have the ultimate responsibility so if delegating a task is going to raise more problems than it solves um especially by you know because of whom
24:38 you you chose as your delegate so then maybe you you know you don't want to do that so you know if there's um bad feelings between siblings or those kind of things so then maybe you know it's not a good idea to have them involved um you'd be better off perhaps hiring a professional even though cost some additional money but in the long run it it may be better because it'll it'll keep things it'll keep tempers you know low and that sort of thing okay speaking of beneficiaries tip number five
25:13 communicate with beneficiaries okay keep them up to dat on what's happening in the process okay so especially and and here here's kind of the challenge with this especi especially if people don't get along okay the best way to deal with that usually is to keep everybody informed okay because if if people feel like they're in the dark left or being left in the dark that can tend to as as
25:49 you probably have may have felt yourself that think what's going on with this hey what are they doing am I being you know taken advantage of you know th those are the thoughts that that start that that start coming up so I I recommend as as soon as possible to create what I we used to call the mil well we still call the military this to create a battle Rhythm so a battle Rhythm so when I was uh deployed on the on the aircraft carrier one of the first things my commanding officer did was he set up a
26:24 schedule for staff meetings and think at first it was twice a week I want to say or maybe it's three times a week and you know he said out right away these are the times we're meeting at this time here in my office you're expected to be there if you're not going to be there I better know in advance that you're not going to be there and why you know that kind of thing and then I think over time I think we we started meeting you know once a week getting that battle rhythm going makes sure that people are working
26:59 together that everybody knows what they need to know in order to feel like number one they're being treated respectfully number two they're they're they have an opportunity to give their input and number three that things are being handled appropriately so establish a battle Rhythm as soon as you can if you're the personal representative um for an estate um because you know I mean look if if you're the sole beneficiary and you're also the per personal representative so maybe it's it's you know not any big deal but um if there
27:36 especially if there are other beneficiaries so reporting to them periodically is a good idea now it may maybe you don't need to report more than once a month on the other hand if it's a big estate very complicated lots of issues so maybe once a week and by the way it doesn't have to be you know verbally it can it can be an email email that you send out once a week so for for some for some uh Estates that I'm administrating I do send a an email out once a week usually at the end of the week to so that people know okay here's
28:12 the progress that we've made you know in in the previous week here's some of the things we're going to be working on next week that's generally what I do um once a week now in other cases I I I'll report once a month um generally speaking I don't report less than once a month um BEC because to be honest that's my battle Rhythm from years and years of of being in the the management business and I think less than that you know people really are are entitled at that point to think what's going on you know what what
28:47 is this what is this guy Kevin doing you know kind of thing so so do communicate with them and that way you can manage expectations you can uh hopefully deal with issues before they become heated and and and make things go as smoothly as possible finally this is uh step I'm sorry tip number six is um set up a system to keep detailed records and for bills and expenses now
29:22 generally speaking if you're you know if you're a lay person so to speak and you're a personal representative you're not going to you're not going to get compensated having said that I highly highly highly recommend you keep track of your time okay because you never know how things may change okay so the fact that you're not getting compensated or have agreed to serve without getting compensated doesn't mean that you are
29:57 not entitled to compensation and things can change and you may decide that you are going to apply for compensation so even if you keep just a spreadsheet with the the date the amount of time you spent and a brief summary of what you did I cannot stress strongly enough that you do that you may get to it and close the estate and never use it and and that's fine what I can tell you is the degree to
30:35 which you will be kicking yourself if you don't do this and you do need it is much worse than any time you spend that you may in the end you know would you know don't don't need to have have spent because everything worked out fine okay now especially if you're going to be doing this more than once okay so if you have you know you both your parents are currently alive and one dies and then you're their executive personal representative and then the other one and and you know you you just you just
31:12 never know so I I I would be you know highly encourage you to do that number one number two do as much of your communicating in writing as possible now again emails are fine you could you can also use text messages they are harder to Archive okay so in general anything that that I'm doing that I think has any significance I boil it down to some kind of email okay and even to the point
31:47 where sometimes I will have a a telephone discussion with somebody and then I will follow it up with an email just you know summarizing our our our discussion you know here's here's what we talked about here's what we decided and you know and send that off to them and that way there's a record okay and especially if if you again you're a lay person an email is typically going to be fine you don't need to do formal memos memos to file like we used to do or you know or even you know you know conventional letters sent through the mail don't have to worry about that in
32:22 most cases uh where you where you do want to keep those more for noral uh types of uh Records is if you are filling out any kind of forms so for example the form you may fill out uh or the I'm sorry not the form the letter that you have to send to cancel a passport for sure you want to keep a copy of that letter okay for the form you have to fill out to cancel someone's voter registration any kind of documents that you have to fill out about regarding brokerage accounts bank accounts all of those you definitely
32:57 want want to keep copies of those documents and you want to keep them in some kind of logical order now I I'll tell you what what I do and that is I I start every document I archive with the date okay so for for example a document for today would have the date would start out with the numbers 2024 0729 right that's 2024 the year 07 the month 29 the 29th day of the month okay
33:35 and that way the N all the documents are kept in in date sequence okay and then a short description of what the document is after that date and then I'll break them down so for example there may be bank records there may be brokage account records there may be real estate records okay and and and I group them together in a logical way so that if if if I get audited or if if you know some I need to you know get somebody a document I can do so quickly now I keep all of my documents on
34:12 computer um although I may keep a few original documents in a file folder um 90% or more of the documents I keep are in digital form only of course they're backed up into the cloud they're backed up into a a backup hard drive so I have multiple copies basically okay um to to protect against you know a computer outage or a hack or something like that okay but but you do want to keep those um and again I use I like Dropbox now I know some people are very very
34:49 fond of of Google Drive and all that I frankly I can't stand Google Drive I find it really difficult to use it doesn't have anything like the functionality of Microsoft Office in terms of spreadsheets and such um so what what I I set up a a Dropbox folder and and generally I'll I'll have folders that are shared with different people so so for example um I have um one of the matters I'm handling um one of the
35:24 clients is is in Florida and and like me they are very sensitive about not sending things like tax ID numbers through email which is not a good practice in in in my view because email is pretty easy to hack but Dropbox is a pretty secure platform from what my technology friends tell me and so I have a sh we have a shared folder that we can exchange documents through and it's really convenient it's just sits on our you know the desktop of both our computers computers and if we need to send each other a document we just drop
36:00 it in the the folder and we're done with with C other clients I'll have a a whole folder with I mean a folder with a whole set of subfolders in it on different matters and that way they can keep up to date on with you know with with statements on bank accounts brokerage accounts whatever okay so all of that um is is is a good is a good system to set up um and again if there's multiple beneficiaries and and you have something like a Dropbox you can have a folder label you know beneficiaries
36:35 where you can put information in it and then everybody has access to the same data so nobody's saying well you know you emailed to George but you didn't email to me Sue and you know you get into all that kind of you know stuff um that's the other reason why by the way I like um Dropbox as opposed to emailing people documents is um you know everything is in is in one file folder everybody has access to that same folder and so nobody can claim that you know somebody else has an advantage over them okay so I'm gonna go through the the
37:10 tips once again just real quickly to remind you first understand the process second gather documents early and organize financial information three create a timeline so you can stay on top of deadlines and regularly track or review your progress four delegate tasks and hire professionals five communicate with your beneficiaries and six set up a system to keep detailed records and for bills and expenses okay so there you go if you
37:45 follow these tips I think you will find it will be much easier for you to get through the the estate Administration process having said that it is inescapable that there are going to be frustrations it may be so we had an incident here in La you may have heard about it last week where um the court system got hacked and the courts shut down right so nothing happened in the courts for about a week very frustrating
38:22 very frustrating nothing you can do about it I me you know I mean it it wasn't like the courts you know wanted to get hacked number one and it wasn't like there was anything they could do about being shut down they had to in order to make sure that they could bring their systems up safely so there are going to be these kinds of things that go on right and by the way you are going to make some mistakes right especially if this is the first time you did it you're gonna make some mistakes all right so you made a mistake so you'll fix it you know you'll the lawyer will help you the accountant will help you okay hopefully you're if
38:57 you have co- beneficiaries or the or if you're not a beneficiary you're just the personal representative you know just just be candid hey look I'm I'm doing the best I can I made a mistake here's what I'm gonna do to fix it okay that's the best thing you can do to keep tempers low and and and and to keep on track um with with all of all the things that you need to do and and and still be able to you know sleep relatively well at night all right so there you have it thank you so much for joining me if you have any questions comments criticisms
39:34 ouch I just knocked myself on the candle over here um please feel free to drop them uh or to to put put a comment in our social media all the links will be in the show notes after this show posts and i' be happy to respond to them as always if you're asking a question that's outside of my realm of expertise I will refer you to someone who can help you rather than answer the question myself I I I stick with you know those areas where I have professional competence uh so you won't hear me um
40:11 giving any legal opinions and and those sorts of things if it's a a a personal question you know something private so then my email address will be in the show notes as well you can also send me a direct message um through through you know various social media um and and again same same rules apply happy to help you out um if it's outside my area of professional expertise I'll I'll be happy to find someone who has the expertise you need to help you so tomorrow at 10 a.m. is my show business lessons from
40:48 the military and see I was not 100% prepared I don't have my list up to tell you what's going to be happening okay so um our topic for tomorrow at 10: a.m. business lessons from the military stubbornness leads to death I know that sounds ominous I invite you to join me then and find out what that's all about and then on Wednesday at 10: am Pacific time my guest is Adam wisman he's an entertainment and media attorney based in New York City a very Dynamic uh guy
41:26 and and I I really encourage you to tune in I haven't dealt with this topic before and so I'm really looking forward to visiting with with Adam and and hearing what he has to say about how we can gain success in the entertainment and media business and then on Thursday at 5: PM uh Pacific time is jigger's place and that this is my sort of end of the week show um a way for us to start
42:01 transitioning into the weekend so we sit back we have a cocktail and talk about all the things not related to um our business and professional lives so we're going to have a cocktail called a Jerusalem sour and that's as as kind of an homage to my topic which is I'm gonna talk to you about the most Jewish TV show of all time and I I'll be interested to see if you can guess what that is um I will
42:37 tell you it's one of my favorites um that's all I'm going to tell you um it's so you know you gotta got to be ready for the surprise and then a week from today next Monday will be the next edition of trusts and Estates weekly so thanks again for joining me wishing you a wonderful rest of the today and signing off Marie you are my bell courage at all times my friends