Inflation has reached a historic high, and inflated home values risk dropping by 20-40% over the next 24 months. The good news is that there are protections that a Trust provides to help provide peace of mind during uncertain times.
Tune in this coming Tuesday, July 12th, as attorney Stephanie Garces explains the benefits of a Trust and basic asset protection through Estate Planning.
good afternoon everyone this is stephanie garces donat here back on pink mic legal confessions where we're talking really important things today despite what's happening in the world we have a lot of things to talk about hurting the recession so that's really some of our topics today i always want to thank you guys for watching and like i said oh and i always tell you guys i'm the owner of garces law firm and we are in palestine we actually help individuals couples parents etc create legacy plans build wealth by investing in real estate protecting your assets and really just securing your legacy which we work so hard for all of us so during the times of uncertainty right now and protecting your assets through estate planning during a recession is really our focus today but i want to just kind of mention to you some of the things that we've been dealing with as a country nationwide as you all know concerns are historically there are historically now high high interest rates with regards to mortgages for sure i mean people always say oh the interest rates are going up which they are but there is some speculation about how severe the recession is going to be especially around all of us renters are getting priced out i know out of certain neighborhoods things are changing what used to be affordable and now is completely unaffordable and property values have skyrocketed during the housing boom which many experts are predicting are going to drop about 20 to 40 percent in the next two years i think some of us are seeing it slow down but there is still a good amount of people selling and buying although i think with what the feds have done with it increasing the the interest rates there's been a decrease in the in the heat of this market so you're starting to see that i think already but today i wanted to go back to the basics i wanted to explain to you why protecting your assets with the proper estate plan specifically with a trust is so important and one of my favorite ways to explain this is through our coverage of our topic today it's going to be estate planning recession planning really estate planning is recession planning if you really think about it because we never know what's going to happen with regards to the economy our jobs our health i mean there's so many things in our life that are unpredictable so i always love to talk to clients about this because estate planning is really a way to plan for the future especially when it comes to a recession so in today's episode i'm going to cover why it's critically important to have a trust in place during uncertain times like the ones we're in now and to encourage everyone to listen and not wait to the last minute to put together your estate plan there is no reason to wait other than procrastination which hey we're all guilty of procrastination so i'm not going to pretend i haven't procrastinated but in this department it's not something you want to wait on especially if you have a family or if you've done really well for yourself and you don't have a family think about your assets and everything that you've worked so hard for so our agenda today we're going to be diving in to talk about what is a trust and what are the different kinds i know a lot of people love to throw the word around but there are so many types of trust that exists just so you're aware they're not just one size fits all everyone's situation is different and depending on what you own we would basically recommend one trust over another now when we're talking about trusts there are generally speaking there are a lot but trust as a general matter is one of the most effective methods of all times of managing money assets and property and this isn't just you know real estate property it could be any type of property so we'll go in depth about that however just so you're aware there are different types of trust based on what you want and your needs i mean everyone is different and depending on your family dynamic or even the health concerns one may be facing there are different types of trust there are what's called irrevocable trusts there are revocable trusts there is special needs trusts there's testamentary trust there's a lot of different trusts yeah that exists so we're recovering that another thing we're going to cover is the protections a trust offers to individuals to families and to business owners specifically ones that have started their own business and everything is under their name or they're liable if anything happens to their business so those are people that are really great to kind of gear this towards so when you consider estate planning in general it's sort of a way of like ensuring that you're okay that your family is taken care of many will argue and say it's a form of insurance but it really essentially is a legal way and it's illegal because it's you know the only thing you can do that's that's put in writing that's valid that depending on what kind of trust it may or may not be something you can change or you can change over time but the point i'm trying to make is that it can really protect you individually your business your family and not only just in regards to you know your other family members coming after what you have or if you're trying to make sure certain people get certain things but also there's ways especially with businesses to kind of create silos or protections from predators from lawsuits that sort of thing to really protect what you have especially if you're concerned about anything coming to bite you a little bit later so there are ways to essentially assist you with that goal and there's a lot of people that will come in to me and with those concerns so when i speak about this we're not just talking about individuals we're talking about people that have businesses that have assets families that have more than one home or just one home and a lot of children or no children at all really can be for anybody so when it's one of the things i preach about a lot on pink mic legal confessions to make sure that you understand that the trust has its advantages for all of us other types of assets that can really be protected in a trust just so that you're aware is that there's the financial accounts depending on the type of financial account there are ways to basically fund what they call funding your trust or basically assigning things so that your financial assets are protected same with retirement accounts there's recommendations we give as far as that goes when it comes to estate planning medical savings accounts life insurance real estate these are other assets that come up a lot are in conversations with estate planning it's not just what's going to happen to what's in your checking account or to your house it's a bigger picture so i'd like to just make sure you understand what that includes there's also something we're going to cover is the process of how a trust is set up and the timeline of events and activities so a lot of times well when people come to us for estate planning you could be at a certain point in your life and we always think about the president in the future when it comes to estate planning because that's really what it's about the other thing that we're going to talk about lastly is what does establishment trust really look like the process and what does it cost to do this type of work so i always get this question and i really really want you to consider what you could lose if any of your assets are jeopardized so even though i can tell you that yes the standard price is this and there's different attorneys that'll charge different things you really have to put that aside because what you really are concerned with about is your assets you know what's going to happen if they're not protected you know i always tell people we work so hard and we just don't want things to go astray that's why you have an estate plan so let me recap really quick for those of you that are just joining my name is attorney stephanie garces donat i'm the owner of garces law firm welcome to pink mic legal confessions where we discuss a lot of interesting topics on our platform to try to help you be more informed we help individuals couples and parents secure their legacies especially when it comes to their financial future and really building wealth through your own life so today's topic just so you know is how to prepare for a recession ahead of what's going on and really just strategic asset and protecting all your assets with the trust so that's really the topic today and we welcome you to join us on tuesdays at 1 o'clock where we discuss again different topics every time we share tips and legal guidance for anyone looking to really just dive in and learn a little bit more about what we do but really about what you should be doing if you haven't thought about these topics yet so every time we do these shows we do get questions along the way so i'm going to dive into some of the questions that we've had on this topic so far the first question we have is what is the difference between a will and a trust now this question is one that we get all the time there's plenty of things you can read on the internet about this but really just to make it super simplified and to get it directly from an attorney that kind of explains it a little better than what you see on google is that oh will everyone should have a will okay i always say that no matter how much money you have or don't have no matter if you're renting buying everyone should have a will the will is really good because it basically is a standard document it really just says your last wishes it puts in charge what's called an executor in the event something happens to you a will also allows you to add guardians for those of you that have children and this would be in the event that you can't are no longer here really to raise your kids you can name a guardian so we'll cover some of the basic things in that regard a lot of tangible things too if i want to leave this necklace to somebody or i want to leave something that's tangible to a certain person if you have wishes if you want to be cremated versus buried or perhaps you want a memorial service those are things you can put in your will that are really great because again it's your own wishes and with a will you can change it you can you can change it while you're living i should say you change it while you're living and still you know assuming you're of good good sound mind you can make your changes on your will so that's really what the world does and the will though compared to a trust has a lot less advantages i would say when it comes to asset protection specifically with a will you can name the beneficiaries you know you say leaving this to this person leaving this to this person but when we look at the grand scheme of things there's a lot more advantages to a trust so really a trust there's just different types and the goal of a trust is that basically it protects more of what you have and it actually allows for real estate specifically to be named you can actually name a beneficiary automatically so in real estate in general any home that you have there is no automatic beneficiary now i know what you're thinking you're probably thinking okay but i'm my you know mother's daughter or my son's dad i should have rights to that we're not disputing that you have rights but we're talking about transfers and so transfers of a property to a beneficiary is never automatic just as a matter of fact but a trust actually allows you to add the beneficiary to to your trust and that actually allows you to transfer the real estate how you wish so those are kind of some of the advantages another thing we'll talk about a lot is when it comes to a trust a trust actually helps avoid what's called probate one of the biggest myths that we hear all the time is that trusts what what's the point why do i need it well usually usually in illinois if you're worth over a hundred thousand that means really anything that you have when it comes to property checking accounts and depending on your life insurance you could be worth more than that amount and so typically if that's the case a trust is recommended because again it can avoid what's called probate probate is a court that supervises over someone's estate to make sure that creditors are paid that the heirs get what is owed to them and that it puts someone in charge so if somebody does not have a estate plan in general you end up in probate if you have a will and your worth over a certain amount you might end up in probate right so that's really the difference trust typically if they're done correctly and professionally help you because you don't end up in probate and what i mean you i really mean your family because they'd be the ones going to probate for you another thing that's different about a trust that's different than a will is that it's completely private so wills usually become something that is public record people can look that up because it gets filed with the court so typically it's not private the trust is completely different it's very private no one can see it unless you're sharing it with everybody but no one's gonna see your trust just nilly willy so the good thing about that is it keeps your private information personal and no one is gonna you know be able to see it there's also a lot of customization you can do with trust i mean you can really make provisions for a lot of different things for example people will make provisions for mental illness people will make provisions to say i want my grandchildren or my son to have x amount of money by the age of 25 or 30 or whatever the case may be you can really stipulate and customize the whole thing depending on what your goals are so that's what's kind of nice about creating a trust that has a little bit more protection in the long run because we think about everything we think about the fact that there could be more money that you acquire over time and so a trust has a lot more protections than a will does because the will only does so much and the will and the trust usually equally both give peace of mind but when we're thinking about asset planning especially during your recession where you're concerned about your your job you're concerned about your home you're concerned about the funds that you have available those are the things that you don't necessarily want to leave astray which is why having a trust and discussing with an estate planning attorney is always a good idea because it kind of will help you figure out what is it that you need especially given the assets that you have so that's kind of some of the major differences another thing that you could consider a difference that a lot of people don't think about is when we talk about trust versus wills you can think about a will being a little more simplified version watered-down version of a truss it's still equally effective but a trust also can be used unlike a will that's usually used when you've passed the trust used is it's not just when you've passed you can also stipulate if you become incapacitated meaning you have an accident and you can't make your decisions a trust allows what you say a revocable trust allows you to name somebody to actually take over your affairs while you can make your own decisions so that's one of the things that really sticks out in my mind when i think about trusts that are very different than a will there's also a revocable trust that exists these are depending on your needs these are appropriate for when someone is looking for a trust where you can not make any changes and really entails some permanent in information and wishes in there so that they cannot go back and change it later so that's the difference between irrevocable trusts versus a revocable one where you can really change it during your lifetime whereas irrevocable you can't so there's different forms of trust and again depending on what you want there's different things so that's kind of the difference and you know we could go on and on about some of the differences between them but it's good to be informed it's good to understand really the difference as to why one is preferred other than the other now of course there are people that given what you have currently you don't need a trust maybe a trust doesn't make sense for you maybe we just do a will but the point is is that there are differences for both and it's good to know the difference so that you can understand why we would recommend one or another depending on your situation another question that we've gotten is who is the best person to designate as the executor of a trust you know this is a great question and i love this question because i think the answer is it depends on the person who is coming to see us now when you're thinking about your trust and you're thinking about who is the they call success or trustee or the person in charge executor when you think about who you would pick you would pick someone who's responsible who's trustworthy somebody that is able to follow instructions and not stray away from what they're supposed to do there's a lot of responsibility that comes with the trusts executors or successor trustees these people have to keep accounting sometimes of some of the things that they've been doing they have to really follow the instructions that were left to them i mean there are a lot of things that could come up along the way and it's not a one-day job right it's not a seasonal job it could go on for as long as it's needed to make sure that the trust is carried out and the terms are filled in the way that they're supposed to be so i always say the best person is someone that you trust with your money with your wishes perhaps it could be somebody that has proven themselves trustworthy in the past right in your life we all have those people you definitely don't want to pick someone that isn't really good with managing instructions or perhaps gets overwhelmed by things too easily because it could be quite overwhelming and so it's a hard thing to do and everybody has different different experiences when we go through this process but almost always you know you know who would be in charge of me you would at the at the rate of you actually picking somebody you have already thought through okay can this person handle this job so that's really what i think about that you also may want to think about you know family members versus friends or friends versus family members think about the age of the person right is this person likely to you know outlive you now not that we are going to talk about you know age on here i'm just saying think about that because sometimes you may not want to pick someone that's a lot older than you because they may not outlive you right so there's ways to stipulate the certain things we can also do more than one person like if this person isn't alive i picked this other person so there are other things we could do just so you know another question that we got is can i include non-family members as beneficiaries of a trust the answer is yes you heard me say it earlier that you are able to customize pretty much everything that you want into a trust within a reason right there are certain things that make it more complicated but i don't want to touch on those today but let's just say as a general matter yes you can definitely include non-family members we have a lot of people that come in that are naming family friends that name their best friend who happens to be someone that is like a sister brother to them we also have people and their significant others that they're not family members but they are their significant other so we have that so yeah you can customize as much as you want it doesn't mean you can't if that's the whole point of wanting to go in that direction so that you can actually customize so another question we get is when someone passes away and their will is read why aren't the assets transferred then well that's a really good question i mean it's kind of a we need a little more facts i think with that question but usually when a person passes away at least in illinois and they have a will the will has to get filed with the county first and it's not like an automatic thing that you just start distributing left and right i mean usually there is a process so it really just depends i mean a lot of times let's pretend with that question the person has a will doesn't need to go to probate because their assets are not of a certain amount and everything's okay usually it's straightforward you know the assets will get distributed with due time but if we're talking about someone that has a will and like you said or like i was asked earlier about the differences between the will and the trust if the person has a will but perhaps that isn't sufficient to cover according to illinois law all of their assets and distribute their assets according to the law of the state then we might have to go to probate which really answers that question why can't we distribute things it might be because there is a formal process that has to take place and a judge has to get involved with distributing assets and putting the person in charge so there's a bigger picture to that so that's a really good question although like i said the facts of that could really change the outcome so when we think about when we think about is someone going to need to distribute this right away or not you would hope that it could be distributed right away but it really depends on the facts we have to look at the estate plan what kind of estate plan did the person haven't have in place is there an estate plan that's valid is there a distribution that people are not in agreement with you know we don't talk too much about that but there's plenty of people that will object to someone's estate plan especially if it's not in their favor so there are things that exist that we can't control but those are reasons that something wouldn't get distributed right away so it's a very very good question one that i think is hard to address without more facts but like i always say if you are looking for specifically something in your scenario something going on in your life feel free to call us for a free consultation because i can kind of dive in in more detail in your specific scenario by having you call the number or texting the number below so another question that we get is one of the questions actually i think i get a lot more often than i than i hope is that people will say what is the difference between working with the lawyer to do this paperwork or doing the paperwork online i love this question as well because i have people that come with things that they have done online and almost always i will tell you that there is always something missing in the estate plan and when i say missing it could be a document that really would help someone really achieve what they're trying to say in the trust sometimes it can be as simple as not being valid whatever they got online maybe works in california or new york no offense to my friends out there but it doesn't work here you know so you're sort of blindly putting all your eggs in one basket if you will with doing it online not knowing if it actually works and that really is the difference when you meet with a lawyer they get to see everything that you have face-to-face interaction that really allows us to dive in and have multiple points of communication with you about your specific scenario and some of the things you'd want to do and really recommend big picture everything from accounts to your real estate to your family planning to maybe things that you want to leave with someone else to ensure no one else has has gets those assets i mean asset protection i think is one of the the biggest values that we offer as attorneys that an online system will not give you and there's no way because it's just an online system they won't be able to say okay this is what we usually do and this is how it plays out in real time and i think that's those are the things that you don't have the advantage of when you go online and i will tell you no amount of research either will kind of explain how things happen in real time because a lot of this it's not just the lawyer and yourself i mean when we look at estate plans there's financial advisors involved there's banks involved there is life insurance companies there are so many other factors that come in so those are the values that we offer we offer that as part of our retention really is that we make sure that when you retain us we are actually providing full service not just by the way here's your will have a good day we really give you a bigger picture of this is what you want to do these are the instructions you want to follow even after you create an estate plan so that's really the difference between going with a lawyer and going with something online so just something to think about because i know a lot of people will ask me that question and by the way if you're watching this and you're thinking oh i went online or i've been thinking about it or whatever we are more than happy to review and kind of talk through what you already have in place especially if you've got it online i welcome the challenge because i like to see what it is that you have because otherwise i can't tell you if it's a good plan or a bad plan or maybe it's not even going to work type of plan so don't feel bad if you've done that and and hey if you want to go for it well i just told you the differences so that's up to you it's your assets right another thing is that costs when we think about costs a lot of questions is how much does it cost to work with an estate planning lawyer and the cost is always a big range because there is no only a fixed price for this it really depends on what you need it could be as simple as 500 for a will because that's all you need if you need additional documents it could be a little bit more trusts really depending on who you go to and what the expertise level is it could range it can really range in price and so i think free consultations is what we offer i think that's a great way to kind of understand what's included in our pricing and like i said price doesn't always it shouldn't always be the determining factor you definitely want to go to someone that does this often not just you know an off season and actually does this year around those are the types of things you want to think about because cost can really reflect in the quality of what work that you're getting and i think a lot of attorneys will agree with that so just something to keep in mind when you're considering costs one of the questions that i always get and i love to answer this one because we are still doing virtual we're still in a coveted world if you want to call it that although i really don't know but when we when we talk about appointments we don't just offer in person we do virtual well if you want to go in person you can you can wear your mask if you want if you don't you can be in your pajamas and hang out at home you know being able to do virtual appointments to me is really exciting because we are able to service people that may also not be able to get to our office physically we've had plenty of clients that have offered you know to come in if they're able to or they can't and keep in mind we do have a new office location the address is below so if you want to come by for an appointment we welcome you if you're not able to we can definitely do it virtual so we have definitely different options there are free consultation and if you want to contact me we do speak english and spanish so consultations are offered in both languages which really is important so that we can really make sure our services are being provided to not just one sector of the population we are a bilingual law firm so hopefully if that is something you're interested in we can do the consultation in spanish or spanglish for those of you that speak both i know some people speak both so happy to do it that way too if you want to contact me you can text me or call me at the number below and we'll set up a consultation for you for free and yeah i just think that this is recession planning is just so interesting because there's a lot going on so i'm welcoming everyone that's watching this to make a consultation to discuss or check to see what do you have in place is it up to date does it account for some of the things that are happening in our economy and some of the assets you may have acquired over time since you've made your first estate plan or maybe you never did it so just something to think about so like i said i always thank you guys any time that i have these pink mic legal confessions because you're always watching and paying attention to what's going on so i want to thank you all for your excellent questions and i invite you to meet me here for the next episode of peak by globe confessions which is at tuesday at 1 o'clock same time same place and as always please share these recordings with your loved ones even if they're you know not interested or i don't have time for that everyone has time for a little video you know so try to be informed and educate yourself so that we can make sure to be doing our best work for you and if you need anything you can always let us know so thank you so much again for your time and be well take care