The WAY to WOW Shows
Find Heirs & Assets
January 22, 2024
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[0:00] estate weekly I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time and we talk about all things related to trusts Estates probates um intestate succession all of those uh interesting subjects both from the standpoint of your own estate planning as well as uh professionals who either all are already in that Arena or are maybe looking to enter into it uh to expand their business or they're or they're looking for a you know a different Niche to get into and I I can tell you for example

[0:36] here in California there's there's a huge huge need for um for professionals who can administrate uh trusts in Estates we've got literally trillions of dollars that need to change hands in the next 10 years and only about seven or eight, professionals who can administrate trusts um most of whom are um over 55 years of old of age so um I'm I'm I'm very excited this morning or well this morning here I'm very excited that I I have a guest today uh Michael

[1:11] zwick so and it turns out Michael is uh um a a frequent guest in my friend Bill gross's show which is also on probate issues so um doubly excited to have him him here he's you know slumming a little bit coming over here because bill has such a huge audience um but but he's than than bill go tell I said that I won't he would acknowledge it though it's uh you know it was the way I was raised you know I don't want to

[1:46] shame my mother um and so I I want to you know jump right into to talking to to Mike um Mike is uh Mike or Michael I I should ask you is either one doesn't matter okay so Michael is known as um The Inheritance investigator and um I you know I guess maybe you should have one of those you know Sherlock Holmes hats on or something but um you um M Michael why don't you let's just jump right in talk to us about what it is you do and why it

[2:23] it is such an important aspect of the whole um estate Administration and and and probate process sure Kevin first of all great to be here um so I'm an attorney to private investigator uh I don't wear one of those hats I don't wear hawaian shirts like Thomas Magnum uh what I do is I work in the specifically in the probate field finding missing heirs and inheritance assets so we're here to help uh executiv and trustees and their attorneys where they have a case where either they don't know who the heirs are or they they know

[2:59] who the airs are but they can't find them um or in some cases where the uh the decedent has taken to the Grave the information of what he or she owned and we'll step in and we'll we'll do what we can to find those assets and get them turned over to the theirs and how often are you finding that these issues crop up I I was mentioning before um we started I have I have a situation you know where a a fellow unexpect ly died in testate um and you know it's it's it's going to be

[3:35] a challenge you know finding all this stuff getting it all we we know some things because he had a business but um how often do you find that you know an estate or you know is missing this kind of Vital Information um it's I mean it doesn't happen that often but when when it does happen it's a big headache and can really slow things down um you know when it comes to finding missing errors for example uh some states are pretty LAX in terms of just proceeding and taking the the shares of those missing errors and putting in with county treasure to hold

[4:12] for the people uh but other states it can really slow down the process add months and months to the uh process before uh you can even go through with you know start the process of getting appointed as an executive and stuff like that so it really it really depends if find the assets obviously um again it doesn't happen super often but when it does that's a big issue U you know and sometimes we do it where the executives could find the information themselves but uh it's just it's difficult you know you alluded to before how um professional fiduciaries in California

[4:47] are starting to age out of the profession um people who are non uh professionals who we're handling for a family tend to be in What's called the sandwich generation uh they because they the ex tend to be the children of the deceased with the average death or age of death of a deceased being somewhere between 75 and early 80s that means the children are going to be often in their 30s to 50s those people generally have jobs or businesses to run they have families their own kids and they're just very stressed out by everything going on

[5:22] in life to begin with and they've lost a loved one and now you're piling on top of that the role of being being an exor and that can be really challenging so what we strive to do is to take some of those uh headaches off of their plate and um what let's say that um an executive you know or an administrator uh proceeds without having a clear picture um as to whether um all of the erors have been identified have been

[5:57] notified what could be the con consequences of that with respect to you know the administration of the estate so said that can really slow down the process in some some States before you proceed the the court might say we want to see that you've that you've done everything you can to find and identify or identify and then find all the heirs so uh that first of all can become much more expensive uh if you don't find them um but also Court might say we're not proceeding with this until we make sure we have everybody who's a party to the

[6:32] case involved so that they can have noticed that someone has filed a petition and wants the will admitted and wants wants to be executive so it can really slow things down and meanwhile no nobody's getting their inheritance until it all gets ironed out so it really can uh create a big big headache and a big time suck for everybody involved yeah I mean in California as I recall there there is a notice requirement to you know to all the heirs and now so how how would someone know um if um if all the erors hadn't been

[7:10] identified um what would be well when someone files a petition for probates um they are first of all signing under penalty of perjury so they they have to and they also have to list on there who all the heirs are or who all the uh or if there's a will who all the uh devis's are so they have an obligation to list everybody and their contact information that's it's pretty standard in pretty much every every state in the country is there's an obligation to list who all the interested parties are and their

[7:45] addresses uh so yes there are cases where somebody says they uh they leave somebody out um sometimes just laziness more often it's a matter of uh G greed or righteous indignation we've seen cases where someone will say well not list us they didn't think that person deserve to inherit so uh but that's not their call the law is what the law is the law very clearly defines who is an interested party for proas who's in Heir and you have to follow that right right so let

[8:21] let's switch over now to the to the asset side because you mentioned you also do um asset searches so um what what kind of um situations does that arise in in terms of you know someone would engage you because you know because because why they have a relative who's died but you know you usually it's going to happen where the deceased uh did not just share share information often lived alone uh you know recent case we had out out of

[8:56] New York City involved an individual who had divorced his first wife divorced his wife had a long-term girlfriend but they did not live together uh didn't have the closest relationship with his two adult children and when he passed away and the family went into the house there was not a scrap of paper no bills nothing he did everything digitally um but he was kind of uh but he didn't share the information for the login information stuff like that they knew he was involved in in Bitcoin and stuff like that you know in uh cryptocurrency so they turned us say can you find assets

[9:31] so we we were able to dig in and find find the crypto we found actually he had lived in Detroit for few for a few years so we found the storage unit that he owned and we went in there found some stuff um we found some bank accounts where he had he worked for the City of New York for a while so we were able to discover a pension so typically when someone comes to us when they don't know what the person owned uh we'll do an investigation we'll do an interview and say tell us about the person where did he or she work um you know where did they where did he or she live stuff like

[10:06] that they gives us a profile as to who the person was and then we can leverage our our years of experience uh to you know we can't promise that we are going to be thorough and you know totally thorough we'll be as thorough as possible but there's no magic datab base that we can search there and there are thousands of Banks and however many pension yeah not pet fund but um brokerage firms and what insurance companies so we can do the best we can um doesn't mean that things won't fall through the cracks later the later

[10:41] surface but we we can only do the best we can so I want to take just a little bit of a a a digression for you mentioned um looking for crypto assets so um my understanding is if if you know if one doesn't have the passwords with which a a crypto account was established you know you can't get into the blockchain and all of that so um would you talk a little bit about that class of assets because I I suspect it's going to become more frequent over time and yet it would seem to be a different

[11:17] uh set of of of problems if you will than say you know a bank account where you know they're heavily regulated and so you know banks have to keep records Etc so in in this case the gentleman left behind a laptop computer so we turned it over to our it people to crack into and they were able to get in it turns out that he had this gentleman had accounts with two uh respected uh crypto um investment platforms um Robin Hood and I can't remember the other one off the top of my head so they were actually

[11:54] very reputable companies that we were able to actually get somebody on the phone and we were able to get give them other information to get into the accounts but yes there are some platforms where it's you you either have the you have that whatever however many character uh chain or you don't and if you don't you're you're out of luck uh so you know that's fortunately we haven't run into that yet but yes I do see that being a problem I know I I attended an estate planning seminar about probably about two years ago about crypto Estate Planning and the one

[12:30] takeaway was you better leave behind that key for somebody because if you don't that money might just disappear and you'll never be seen again wow wow um so in in a case like like this and and there's kind of two parts to it one is you know going into the computer um and and the other is you know getting in touch with the the crypto um you know companies um do you do you have to go and get Court approval to do that how how does that process work so typically uh the there someone

[13:09] has has been appointed as the executive or the estate or as the trustee and then that person will have given us a power of attorney uh so and we have to obviously prove first of all we we document everything so we have to show that a the owner is dead B that there's an executive that has been appointed OED by the court or there's a trustee and see that we have power of attorney to act on their behalf okay okay so there there's a whole document Trail in other words that that gives you the The Authority you need in order to do it yeah and that's not just with the crypto that's with

[13:45] anybody that's with a bank or sometimes if the if the our client is the heir but has not been um appointed yet then we might have to document the relationship so for example if the the client is the daughter uh we might need her birth certificate or if but if she's listed for example on on the death certificate as the informant if you're just to kind of back up for those who are not familiar on every birth on every death certificate there's a sto of information about the deceased of where he or she was born on what date uh parents' names um education level sered the military

[14:23] whatever they usually comes from an informant the informant typically is a family member so uh if the informant is also the person who's hiring us most places will and we'll explain to them the pro probates in process but it's going to take a while Most states will most organizations will still deal with us at that point gotcha so um in in some cases and i' I've dealt with this a couple of times um while the person left a pretty robust estate plan they had a trust and you know wills and everything and yet yet um we found that

[15:01] there was still missing property um because either they somehow they lost track of it and and I like in one case for example I found it through um the the state had a sort of um not not but like an abandoned property you know register so um what do you think about um you know routinely having um you or someone like you do a search for for assets that you

[15:37] know for whatever reason may have fallen through the cracks so that's something we do and something I would recommend to every executive or trustee do is both when you're starting the process and also before you wrap things up check the state on Clan property Division and so that's that's my original uh forign being a private was dealing with unan property we still do a lot of that work um and money does pop up there um it can and it can be sometimes decades after someone passes away so um and it's not

[16:12] anybody's fault sometimes it's the person forgot that he or she bought a life insurance policy decades ago whatever there could be a variety of reasons why some person even know they own the asset we've had a number of times where um person a opened up a bank account and listed person b as the beneficiary upon death but didn't tell person B that so person a died however many years ago person B became the the beneficiary of this account but never even knew that he or she owned it and meanwhile passed away so it's

[16:48] something I would recommend that that everybody should do when handling an estate is to check the unclaimed property division for every state where the deceased lived even if it was 20 34 years ago okay so every state where they live wow okay because uncan property is supposed to be reported to the state of the last known address that the holder of the asset has on file so for example I moved from Michigan to uh to Florida a little over three years ago and it is uh you know possible that five years from

[17:25] now Michigan might someone might they have my Michigan address still and they and they owed me unclaim prop owed me something they turn over to Michigan un claimed property MH okay got it got it um going back to the The Heirs side of things um I'm not exactly sure how to ask this question um so let's say you know the the deedon he's he's gone now um and maybe he had

[18:02] um a couple of children um you know those those children turned out to maybe pred deceased him and and so now you know are their grandchildren around are their you know parents uncles cousin me how deep into the search for erors do you go um when you know when presented with that particular situation so um first of all we go we go as as deep as we have to go till we find

[18:38] the people but also within state law so different states have different limits on how far someone is uh how far in the family trees someone is be be air and some Most states it's the descendants of the deceased grandchildren so we're talking first cousins and their descendants but some states might say it's the descendants of the great-grandparents so we're talking second cousins and their descendants and some states say that after a certain point I believe California is like this that initially that's to the airs are

[19:14] but if no if there's nobody within that it's basically however far distance somebody might be related they're if they're the closest one they they get to inherit it okay so so really you'll look at the laws of descent IND dist tion for for for each state and and figure that out now in in that case if someone has lived in multiple states do you have to deal with multiple sets of of state laws in determining errors or no it's the the the jurisdiction over someone's estate is the where they where the state where

[19:49] the person last lived um where you know with with the intention of I mean if someone for example moved to another state just to to live in a nursing home and and live there for the last number of months or even years but never really thought of that as their home then it would go back to where they actually lived okay and generally speaking will the state be the state in which the state is being probated or or being administrated is is that how is that how it works in other words well except the state the state is going to be where the person last lived and uh in

[20:24] the county um where the person last lived um the one exception to that is if the person owns real estates any sort of real property um whether it's a house or even like mineral interests or easements or whatever uh they might have to have a second estate open so if you have someone who's for example a snowbird and lives in Michigan but owned a house in Arizona um and passed away and didn't have anything everything in a trust there would be the main estate would be open in Michigan and there would be what's called an ancillary State open in Arizona just to deal with the house now now on

[21:02] that Arizona thing if Arizona's laws are different in terms of who inherits uh versus Michigan then so you might have different different inheritance of that house in Arizona versus who inherits the rest of the stuff in back in Michigan okay okay great so that that that answered the the the follow-up question I had okay so let me ask you this kind of going a little bit farther field um what happens if you've got so I I have a friend who um she as far as I know lived in Los Angeles her entire adult life but

[21:39] her father um W lived in um I believe it was British Colombia and he was a Canadian citizen he had property there he had property in um Arizona so in in a sort of cross international border situation how do you handle you know how do you handle an investigation whether it be for heirs or whether it be for assets or or or do like maybe I should ask do you and if so how do you handle that so we do handle stuff outside of um outside of us what's what we're called assets

[22:14] International uh so in terms of how it would go for example your your exam for your example where I'm guessing the person the father lived in British Columbia when he passed away yes uhuh so so British Columbia Law would govern the all the assets except for the real property that he or she owns or that he owns here in the states um so yeah I I think my I I don't know Canadian intestacy law too much but my guess is it's probably pretty similar to the US

[22:51] to what is and like I said what's uh you know us every state has their own probate law now they tend to be fairly similar uh some of the differences you might find though are on the splitting of who gets what if the person left the spouse and and children uh in some states the the surviving spouse gets half or a certain percentage some states like Michigan where I'm from the the the if the person didn't leave a will the surviving spouse gets the first I think 50,000 of the estate and then it gets split among between the spouse and the children so it really just have to look

[23:27] at the law for various assets or or where where the jurisdiction is gotcha and have do do you do work um South of the Border as well Mexico and such or yes so we do so most most of the stuff that takes out of the country is more of the missing air stuff than than the uh than the asset searches okay um and and the answer to this may be no but you know as privacy laws and such change and develop um how does that

[24:02] impact your work and your ability to serve your clients so one of the benefits of my background is that I and other members of my staff are are attorneys so we are able to uh look at the laws stuff like that um you know there are it's ever changing in terms of what access we can get for documents and we have to just kind of you know roll with it as ter in terms of laws changing sometimes we just it might sometimes those laws changing could put up a brick wall where we can't

[24:37] find the new ear because we just can't get that next piece of information that is the is the building block for our work um so it really it really depends and also uh you know us actually has fairly open records laws as opposed to most many other countries so that does impact our work to go internationally you know if if we find out that a missing air lived in Cuba that's usually going to be a brick wall we can't just can't go any further because there's a they're they're getting information but

[25:12] also transacting business with someone in Cuba them them being able to receive money is is is an issue same thing with say North Korea or some other countries other countries though are have much more open records laws and and much more uh free in terms of communications oh and there wasn't I had a follow-up question on that and now I think I've I've lost it um oh yes so generally speaking um are you working in Your Capacity as a lawyer and

[25:47] therefore you're able to offer um you know attorney client privilege um as would you speak a little bit about that aspect of it since all lawyers so I we are we all have law degrees and are members of State bars but no we do not practice law we are a private investigation agency uh we do uh offer our clients the utmost confidentiality um you know it's never been it's never been an issue of it's never been an issue where we've been attack where we've been subpoena to give

[26:23] over records or to challenge it so that's never been an issue for us um we we do not have the legal protection or clients don't legal protection of attorney client privilege with us okay and I I remember um from my days when I did expert witness work um I I had a I had a real estate company prior to actually being in the Navy um and one of the things when I was contacted to to do some work is is I would ask

[26:58] especially if I was dealing with the principal um do you want to engage me directly or do you want to have your lawyer engage me because then what I do is the work product of the lawyer and the lawyer can hold it right essentially undiscoverable with at least within certain limits um it how how does that issue ever play into the work that you do and and and if so you know how do you how do you handle that that's never really been an issue for us uh when we're doing asset searches uh we're

[27:33] usually working where everyone is in the same direction we don't get involved in U disputes over uh who gets the inheritance or uh misappropriation by a trustee or an executive we do not get involved that we're what we get involed one of the first things I asked someone when they call us to do an investigation is is everybody getting along uh we are not interested in getting involved D in a dispute between errors uh we're just dealing with the one person that everybody has decided will be the will be the representative for the family or for the estate uh and in terms of

[28:08] missing errors no we're just we we you know we Find the Errors we bring them in so we're actually in those cases we're not retained by the estate we're not retained by the executive or the trustee we are simply we're referred the matter by them and then we find the missing eror errors bring them in and we actually get paid by them on a we work on a incy basis where we get paid by them to to bring them in basically in in a very simplified form uh just say for example you you know Kevin you're you're someone says find this Kevin bemel and we find you we say Kevin great news we found money for you in exchange for percentage

[28:43] we'll tell you where it is and won't get it for you that's the very simplistic way of how we present it to you um and then if you sign with us we then bring we would then bring you in we would present you to the trustee or the executive or the court if necessary and say this is not this is not Kevin bmel this is the correct Kevin bemel uh we want to make obviously everybody wants to make sure that that they're paying out the right person and then when you receive your your payout from the estate or trust you then would then give us a percentage of what you got oh interesting so so so in that case yeah the air is

[29:20] act the a is actually the one who's engaged you and wow very very interesting um I I mean it does make sense because your your interests and that of the air are aligned and so right so there there are some firms that do find missing errors that that are hired by the estate or the trust and they work on an hourly basis and then they they just prepare a written report there just there's there just two different two different business models uh we just happen to like the one we have right

[29:55] right very good well unfortunately our time is up I'm I'm I'm glancing up here in the corner where I have a clock but uh I'm this this was really fascinating it's it's a it's an area candidly that I have not had much involvement with in my practice and but but I can see that there's uh there's a a great deal here and and people really need to know about you know what you're doing and and you you you did mention you practice in all 50 states yes and and do you have to be licensed as an investigator in all the states or how I'm just curious how that um in terms of

[30:31] of doing that for unclaimed property stuff we do in some states uh not ever because you really have to be only have to be licensed if you have a physical presence in a state oh okay if I'm going if I were to go to a state to do actual on the ground investigation then I would have to either be licensed or affiliate where their work under the license of somebody else okay it's not an issue we're we're we we have more than enough licenses okay and more than enough times that throughout the year that we have to renew those licenses and whatever paperwork so not like to take out any

[31:06] more than we have to yes as someone who carries a number of licenses himself I I can certainly appreciate that I I I do have to mention that um I'm a big fan of radio detective shows um you know from Mostly they're from the 30s through the 50s maybe very early 60s but there was never like you know um Michael zwick you know inheritance investigator so you know someday you may have a second career documenting you know true cases of of inheritance investigation um it could be quite fun I

[31:42] I I imagine I've thought of writing a book or two when if I ever have the free time yeah well so that th those may be best shared over you know bourbon or you know a nice glass of wine but we'll have to talk about those offline well Michael thank you very much for coming on the show today I really appreciate it pleas I'm I'm sure the the viewers and listeners um got a tremendous amount out of it I'm gonna have you hang tight while I wrap things up and then and go offline thanks for having me yeah you're welcome so folks thanks very much for tuning in today um Michael I'm gonna put your contact

[32:18] information in the show notes so if people want to get in touch with you for more information or they've got a case for you to handle they'll be able to do that just look down below where you're viewing this on on YouTube or if you're viewing it on any of our social media channels Michael's contact information will will be there and um I'm I'm sure he's he's happy or to have him or or one of his staff speak to you about your matter and see if it's something they can help you out with so thanks for joining me just a quick reminder tomorrow at 10: am is my show business lessons from the military and then on

[32:53] Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. these are all Pacific time is people making money so thanks for tuning in look forward to seeing you later this week youall have a great rest of the day