Plan-Protect-Pass On! Wills, trusts, digital assets. Create your lasting legacy and impact!

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at W fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we will reach for a higher purpose in money and life, as well as a focus on health and wellness. Now, let's join your hosts, Vanita bel Anderson, as together we start with Asking Good Questions.

1:01 Hello, and welcome to the Ask Good Questions podcast. My name is Benita bell Anderson. I'm your host, and today I have a very special guest and I will invite him to the podcast stage right now. His name is Chris Johnson. Hi, Chris, Hey, how are you? I am great and you're coming at us from Texas, right. Hoson Hot, Texas Hot. I'm a Floridian and a Texan. I've spent about my first half of my life in Florida, second half so far in Texas. Cool. Well, Chris as an attorney and also an entrepreneur, and I'm going to let him just fill us in a little bit on his background.

1:52 Sure. So, I'm a business lawyer and entrepreneur and I own like really different three different segments of businesses. It's law firms, and then it's real estate and title, and then it's and then the third one be like financial services type things that that's kind of the. Sphere of what I do. Throughout my experience with my title company, which I've had now for it's been five, six seven years, something like that, I saw that the number one problem in closing a file or probate estate planning type issues, and I felt like there weren't enough people that understood probate or even had a will things like that. I felt like it was an underserved segment of the community where they were forced either like pull a form offline that they may not understand they could mess it up, or go to a boutique estate planning firm that just overcomplicated things and charged a bunch and the way that they operated business was a little archaic. And so I saw this need and I created Texas a state and probate lawyers.

3:09 And I think that's a lot of you know, what. We've talked about before, Budda, and what I'd like to talk about today is like wills and trusts and just different things like that maybe help some of your viewers. Well, we will thank you for that. We will start out with talking about wills and trusts and kind of get a handle on that, and then I want to turn to digital assets because you know, as a financial advisor, I'm always trying to get people get you will done, get your will done, and when I see it not done, then you know, it just causes all kinds of problems. And even with a will, there still is a lot of times, a lot of complexity that I've seen clients. Have to deal with.

3:51 So let's just start out with the whole idea of wills and trusts. What what's the big difference between a will and a trust? Okay, so I'll say what each is, and then maybe as i'm talking through that I'll talk about the differences. So what a will is, it's someone's wishes as to how they should have how they want their estate to be distributed upon their death. Okay, those wishes have to be implemented by a court and that and that's one of the biggest misunderstandings that people have. They're like, why have a will? So that's it? Just they died and you know, the stuff went.

4:41 Like we followed the will. No, the will is. Admitted, filed with a court and admit and admitted, and then the will allows someone called an executor to implement the wishes as set forth in the will, and then you close everything out. So the will makes probate, which you have to do regardless of whether there's a will or not. It makes it cheaper and more efficient. What I you know what I sometimes call it. I call it babysitting instructions. Okay, great, Yes, babysitting instructions are good. I like that. So that's that's what a will is and what a trust is. So that's a different set of instructions. And instead of wishes that the court's going to stamp and order on, maybe the executor is going to do some things.

5:37 The trust. The trust. It's a contract, okay, and one of the parties to this contract is the trustee. So the trustee is bound at a certain time. We can talk about when that happens to fulfill the wishes of this person right for the benefit of someone else. Like there's somewhereronments there. These things, and I'll talk about common misunderstandings. There's something. Part of the problem with the state planning is we have all these different terms for different things. So I don't really like the term living trust, and if some people use it's just because I think it has different meanings.

6:19 So I like to kind of how I learned it is there's really revocable. So that means the person setting it up can take it back during their lifetime. They can change it at anytime. That's revocable. Irrevocable is I can't take it back, okay, done. So key distinction when you can't take it back the trust actually forms. Now it's this separate thing that is separate from the person that that created it. And so because it's separate, it file its own taxes, and the tax rates kind of suck on airrevocable trusts, So that's something to consider. There is good asset protection once it's air vocable, and I'm kind of you know, it's redundant here, but obviously you can't change it, like you're stuck with it like forever, never can be changed. So a lot of people think about this revocable trust, which I think they sometimes called a living trust and it's floated on social media, is something that.

7:18 Would protect you. Revocable trusts, which you can change during your lifetime. Very often the incomes just passed through through to the grants or the person that created it who remembers still live, so during their life that incomes being imputed to them. It's not really a separate trust, so there's no asset protection. Revocable trusts are wonderful. Tools in states where the probate process is expensive and slow, and you want things to pass. Outside of probate. So the revocable trust, you designate this property and it goes in to the trust on death, and then the trustee will distribute it out themselves to the beneficiary rather than go through that stamp.

8:07 And you know the order process. Now to make just the kind of button button the loop on this. Even though someone has a revocable trust or another trust. Everyone always has a will. Anyway, and and that's just to kind of catch all the leftover stuff that we might have forgotten to include. Look, I'm guilty of it too. I mean I just went through a divorce last year, and so I was making a list of all my property. I have a revocable trust myself, and not everything was in that revocable trust. Not everything was titled properly. It's part of the reason I don't like these. The attorney, I know, because I'm busy. I don't have time for it.

8:51 I mean, what am I gonna do spend my weekends updating the titling of my accounts or are going to spend them hanging out with the kids and fishing, right, And. So part of the reason I try to. Stay away from really complicated things. Not that a revocable trust is terribly complicated, but it's probably more than. Most people need. But the reason unless you're like in a state that has horrible appropriate but Texas is pretty really easy actually, and I think Florida is relatively easy. It people just don't follow through with it. And then so you meet, you do it, you spend all this money, and then it just slowly all the protections kind. Of fade away. So you always need probably regular meetings with an advisor, you know, it's your financial advisor is actually a great tool for stuff like this.

9:41 I would love it, you know, financial advisors, more of them did it. They're not going to do the legal work, but they like checking in to make sure dated and titled correctly, and beneficients and all that stuff is immenseally important. Well how how how does the I mean? One of the ways that I have talked to people about this is saying, if a trust is owning the property, then the trust doesn't die where the person. When the person dies, then everything has to be distributed, but the trust goes on. And so sometimes that helps people understand why they can get something out of the trust. But why how does the trust help avoid the probate process?

10:29 So, as I described with the will, probate, a court process is the mechanism that something is transferred from one person. To the next upon death. Right trust is a triparth type contractual relationship. There's the grant or settler, that's the person that made it. Then there's the trustee, then there's the beneficiary. These are separate people and a three party agreement essentially, and the assets transfer through the contract. This is this is. Like a fundamental and I hope that's the easiest way to explain it, because this is a fundamental part of our country.

11:15 Maybe in other countries as well. I'm not sure. We can pretty much do whatever we want by contract. As long as it's not illegal or like against public policy or something. But the ability to do this and avoid the probate process is you know, this is one of the ways we can contractually do it. Just like you know, if you're going to file litigation, you can be in the core process, which is the default, or you can have an arbitration provision, which is you're agreeing to arbitrate this dispute outside it's really not too different from them. So it's court contract. That's how trust gets it out when you're. Dealing with the revocable trust and the way that the money flows.

11:59 Well, is there a cost difference between just setting up will or setting up a trust or in a kind of a companion to that would how many assets should you have before you start thinking about having a trust? Mhm, Okay. A lot of this is contingent on the state that you're in all right, blue bluer states, maybe states with a more difficult probate process. For those states that have maybe their own inheritance tax rules, you know, maybe there's some issue with transferring too much.

12:44 Money on death. For those states, the number is going to be lower. Let me just say that for my general rule of thumb when I'm talking to people in Texas is if you have a million, two million, maybe even three million dollars. That's that's the millionaire next door. They don't need an incredibly complicated estate plan. That's who Texas is. State and probate lawyers is for those and other people too. They're the ones that just need the basic estate planning documents. Our basic will has a like a pour over into a trust automatically created when there's a child at.

13:26 Issue, and so that's fundamental right. You don't want and you can't have a ten year old inheriting money, so you set up just a little trust for that purpose. When we start getting between five and ten million dollars, now you're kind of talking revocable more. The revocable trust piece. If you have a business, now probates slow. So if there's if there's a situation where you want people to step in on day one and start opera reading something as though they're the owner, then you need to either need to give them the keys beforehand so they can open the door and let people in and continue running the business, or you need to set for it up in this revocable trust so you can set up someone to the trustee on day one has the authority to run the business. So for those people, this revocable trust mechanism.

14:24 Is important too. And within this number range right now, the exemption which we haven't talked about, what is it Benita thirteen million? Is it thirteen or something like that? Fifteen So it's fifteen million dollars that's per person. If you're married, you have you know, the carryover and all that. So it's like thirty Well Trump's president, now, I don't know. You don't want to bet on horses. Who knows what's going to happen. That's it's probably going to sunset lower, is my guess. So if you're in the range of ten million plus, now you get into I think should I create some kind of irrevocable trust.

15:09 What that means again, money can't change it, not mind anymore. Putting it in this trust. There's cost involved with that, administrative cost, tax returns, all that stuff. Do the costs do the benefits outweigh the cost. Now, if you have an estate. Fifty million plus, now you're substantially harmed by the death taxes, right because you're exemption fifteen or thirty. You're gonna pay with forty percent for the death taxes. So at that point, yeah, now we're looking at tools to get money out of your estate. Now give it to. An irrevocable trust before these limits. If they do go down in your charge to hefty tax on that. So a lot of this is just based on the needs of the client. So are you are you doing this to avoid probe? Are you doing this for asset protection?

16:07 Are you doing this for tax mitigation? These are all very legitimate conution. Yeah, that may apply more or. Less to some some people or others. How how are you you know you've talked several times about a trustee? How do you choose that person? You know? What do you what do you what are you thinking about? What should they consider when they're choosing a trustee? I have opinions. I think other people are going to have opinions too, and everyone's entitled to their opinions. I don't know if. There's really wrong answers here. I like corporate trustees. So other people hate corporate trustees. Why do I like corporate trustees?

16:52 I like corporate trustees because even if you have a family members trustee, they're going to hire or should And I'll say why. The should is they're going to hire a financial advisor to manage the assets of the trust. And here's the should. The should is, if you are an individual and you are managing those assets yourself as the trustee, you have opened yourself up to massive liability. But you're allowed to hire professionals. And once you hire the professional, all your only duty is I picked a competent professional.

17:33 They looked competent or whatever. If the professional screws up, the liabilities on them. So you're going to have a financial advisor anyway, So managing your assets, so why not why not just have it baked into the asset under management feed. Most of them do that, so then they provide the trustee services baked in with the fees you're already paying. The institutions don't change, I mean, I mean, yeah, institutions can disappear. But theoretically there's more consistency there with an institution than there is with an individual. I also would like to believe and I think it's true, And especially with financial institutions are heavily regulated, so you know, the chances of them using the fund for personal expenses or running off with things much lower than an individual.

18:23 You know, if you have. An individual who knows what they'll do, people tell themselves stories in their head all the time. You know, that trustee might be a family member and they felt like they should have gotten more under this trust or. They got skits. Maybe maybe it went to their kids and they're like, you know, resenting this the whole time, and so then they start buying things for themselves. It happens all the time. So corbate trustees a little harder if the assets are complicated. So if you own a business, trustee is not going to operate a bility. You have to find a specialized trustee to do that. There are some out there they're going to charge more appropriately in that case. I do like the person you can trust or the mentor or family member or things like that.

19:07 So those are just my thoughts. On it. I guess if you had a smaller estate to deal with, then maybe the family best friend type thing would make more sense, I will say. And I think this was more popular back in the day. I don't see this as much now and I always tell people not to do it. The attorney don't don't designate an attorney as a trustee is literally they are going to bill you for administrative functions, right, And that is just my opinion, just highway robbery. Yeah, well, before we turn to digital assets, how often do you think somebody should update Let's say that our listeners are, you know, they've they've had their will for a while. How often should someone update their will or their.

19:57 Trust anytime there's a life events? So I just know, I just noted that I had a divorced last year. I'm in the middle of updating all of mine, all of my stuff and adding some other strategies I haven't even discussed. If you have a you know, maybe a child, that's a life event, things like that. Otherwise, even if you feel like there's no life event change that's happened, I would say probably check in every. Like five years would be the worst thing in the world. Something like it's. Surprising how how things can change. Yeah. So okay, so there's there's been a lot that's happened lately in regards to digital assets. I think that as we came along with having social media accounts and passwords and all that, you know, it didn't used to be a thing. Well now it's a huge thing. And why is it important to plan for digital assets like email and social media and cloud storage and all those different things that didn't used to be part of our world but they're a big part of our world now.

21:15 Why. The biggest reason is you don't want everyone cursing you in the grave. I mean, look, getting into these accounts is a pain, right trying to deal with Facebook? If you want to get into that account, how do you even do that? Sending him a letter, sending the death certificate? You know, you get to remember. And I tell people that's about estate planning because they're always focused on the will, because they're always focused on the money. And I'm like, it's more than that. There's powers of attorney. There's things like that. There's the appointment of disposition of remains. I remember my grand grandmother kept pressing me to have my father moved up to their family plot in Georgetown, and I was.

21:59 Like, man, you know, I was kind of on the fence. And I literally went through all the papers and I literally found a designation appointment or remains. And my dad essentially said, I don't care what you do with me as long as I'm not up at the family burial life. I swear I was in there, And so I just sent that to my grandmother and she just let it go. So to me, that relieves stress intention I didn't have to get into a family fight over it because he made. His wishes clear. So just like that, with all this money stuff, people are going to be trying to get into your account. So they're going to do all this work, and it's this isn't the most They're sad that they lost to you. They're stressed out, they're having a plan funerals, Like, really, you want to make these people their part time job trying to find all these accounts and get into things.

22:46 So create I don't think this needs to be complicated either. It's one of these things that like it sounds scary and it sounds complicated, It's really simple. It's like, you know, what did you do when you had a car. Okay, you probably put the title somewhere and maybe the title was in an obvious place. If it wasn't, then you just kind of in your papers, you know, said you know it's here, or at least in a minimum let people know all the important stuffs in my safety deposit box. It's no different than that. It's just we have, you know, we have things that aren't as tangible, you know, we have ah, might be a hard wallet. I think some of the problems with crypto, and I know you mentioned that one is it's there are people that don't know how to use the technology.

23:38 So it's not just like here's the title that you know, everyone knows what to do. They sign them back, they do what they need to do. You know, they see a thumb drive in a in a safety deposit box. Maybe maybe there's even instructions, you know in the will, like you know, go to safety deposit box. You know present you know this you'll get in blah blah blah. Okay, what do you do with it? How do you plug it in? What's the pin to get into it? What's the passphrase? If you put in the pin too many incorrect times and you have to repopulate the drive. So there almost needs to be I know this sucks, but that we live in a more complicated world. So like businesses talk about SOPs all the time, like standard operating procedures, I would say, you know, people need like SOPs. They need a spreadsheet. They need a document that almost like lays out every account that they own.

24:30 If it's complicated to get in, how to get in, how to log into the bank account, all that stuff. And then there needs to be some way that people can't just open And this is I think the hardest part. You don't want them to open up an estate planning binder. Don't do binders anymore, but I remember when we did, and I always thought it was nice and special. But all minds scanned electronically, and we do most of our skin clients now too. Thing is they don't well you have to keep the original still. But other than that, you know, floods don't destroy digitals. Know I flooded during Hurricane Harvey and lost a lot of things, so pretty much everything is digital. How do you have in the estate plan the instructions on the treasure hunt to get to that spreadsheet? That really important thing I wouldn't put it in that estate planning binder, but I would note you know that go here for the key to this right, and then go to this you know where to go that to really keep those estate planning papers and a really secure and sensitive location because I don't want people opening them up and getting to the spreadsheet.

25:42 You're right now, So Chris, I have a binder. I still have a binder. But maybe I'm old enough that that's why I have a binder. But I have a letter of instruction at the front of the will, and with that is like passwords to get into some of the digital things. Also have all of that on you know, on on on the cloud. So yeah, both is good. Both is good, you know, and you have to have the original the will to So. How do you what counts as as a digital asset? And what do you think often gets overlooked?

26:24 Lord, Well, I guess anything of value that you know that that isn't physical really is digital. What what gets overlooked? Beneficiary designations get overlooked. That should be simple, and so what is a beneficiary designation? By the way, Okay, remember we talked about court and contract. Okay, Well, beneficiary designations contracts just kind of like that, so it doesn't go into appropriate interesting. So you there are different things where you can pass contractually, so your life insurance, the bank accounts, the four oh one K, those kinds of things you can.

27:10 Literally if everything's set up correctly. Then they can pass over, pass passed down. You know, really simply you need to make sure there's a right. I don't know the rules in all the states. Some states automatically revoke a beneficiary that is your spouse once a divorce happens. I wouldn't assume that's true in every state. It would be interesting to find out. But but either way, if you know you got divorce, better damn make sure that you change that. You can even do in Texas to transfer on death deed. I do this for clients sometimes, you know, when they have a smaller estate is I will organize their estate in such a way where they essentially don't have to approbate anything, so they're not doing a revocable trust. We're just doing beneficiary designations, transfer on death deeed. All that stuff passes outside approbate. So that's number one on the digital assets. What gets overlooked.

28:09 Other than that. With digital assets. I mean, I don't think crypto gets overlooked as much, honestly. But while talking about crypto, how did how does somebody you know, someone passes away? How does how does somebody access a crypto wallet? That's what I was saying about the instructions that gets so. They need to have the instructions. You got to have the instructions because because people don't necessarily know how to use it, and that's what I was thinking. That's where I could see someone not thinking through this, and that's where I have seen it. They just they figured it out. They know how to use the wallets, all this coin base and all these different hard wallets and online wallets and all that. But that's like Chinese to other people that have to go in and try to figure this out.

28:57 So the instructions are super important. I do think people will take. People are very proud of their crypto. That's why I think they're not overlooking overlooking it completely because. They're very proud of their bitcoin stuff. They want to make sure that it gets to them somehow. At least that they told people about it. So, so what do you think are all the things that should be included in a digital asset probably, I mean probably the biggest thing would be, you know, first and foremost, you should be able to get into that person's email, and like me, I've got I've got several different email accounts for different purposes. So that's a lot of what I've done is like a spreadsheet. I know.

29:46 So then and then what happens when the when they. Ask you to reset your password and you reset your password. It's pretty crazy. All this stuff that we have. The spreadsheet is good. I would almost say this or she would identify all the email accounts and then they just need to log into my computer and when they log in and use the password, then they have access to my key chain. Now the key chain. Updates digitally all the time and as always current. I could totally see a spreadsheet with passwords over a ten year period, none of those passwords are going to be correct anymore, right. Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean I'm thinking I've got probably at least one that I need to update on that list that's with that stuff. So now you're making me have some tasks that I need to update. So are there any tools or platforms that you recommend for managing digital assets or digital legacy planning.

30:51 I don't really know of any. I'd love to hear from you if you know of any. I just try to keep things simple and whatever works with people. So that's the key chain. If they want to excel spreadsheet, you know, if there's a word document or something like that. No, I don't really recommend that, is you know, people are you'd have to unless I don't know something. I mean, you would have to charge for that if you had a product. None of our clients I don't know, would want to pay ten to or something like that. Yeah. Well, what I did for my stuff, I've taught cybersecurity classes in the past, and for my financial accounts, I created a special weird email address that is for just those financial things, and then regularly change the password. But you know what I found. You know what I was just going to mention, there's at least two instances that I can think of where somebody has died and then you know how you get the Facebook things that say wish so and so a happy yeah, and it's been like two years ago that they passed away, and so somebody is obviously not going in and yeah, yeah, that deceased person's account.

32:12 Yeah, or turning it into a memorial page, which is pretty nice. Yeah, yeah, Well, do you have any idea how Facebook and Instagram? Do you know how they handle deceased person's accounts? Do they just? I need I need to find out more. Honestly, it's just not something that I think the clients are just typically doing themselves. I'd ask one. I got to ask one of my appropriate attorneys. It's kind of a follow up thing. I just don't hundred percent know. My guess is, if there's a process where if you send them a death certificate there they'll you know, get you. In if you send them a cord order. That's pretty much how everything works, right, If you send a cord order, people.

32:56 Will follow it, right, right, that would be that would be so hard. A new client I signed up today and our husband of forty years got with someone else and he filed a divorced paper himself, fraudulently, you know, just fake paper. So so then this the wife, the real wife, had to get it overturned. Now we're dealing with a situation where this guy just died, and so they're trying to get his body. My client's trying to get the body and the funeral home doesn't want to.

33:37 Deal with this at all. I don't know who this guy's married to. This lady says one thing, this lady says the other, and he's like, I need a court order. That's pretty much what every institution is going to lean on when you have some kind of dispute because they don't want to get sued. Right. Yeah, I have a friend and I'll tell me if I'm on the right track with this. I'm just thinking, like, you know, like I told you, I've got my binder and all that that is, you know, physical, but I also have everything online, and so like if I'm like, if I'm just using, for instance, Google Drive, I'm thinking, if all those important things are documents on Google Drive, then hopefully wouldn't you think that if they could just get into my computer and just go to Google Drive, then hopefully everything would open up and voila would be there.

34:33 Yeah. I love that. That's great. I guess where my mind went on that. And am I perfect on this? No, I'm going to admit right now I'm not. But but as I'm updating everything now, maybe I'll do this. I would kind of create a little bit of a rabbit trail. Like I would say in my state plan, maybe in instructions, I would say, go to this document on my computer. The password is this. And then I would encrypt that file with the password. So at least if someone from the outside like gets in or they hack your computer, now they don't have this file that literally has all your passwords and everything else, right.

35:17 Hmm, yeah, No matter how you put it, there's a lot you know. So if somebody hasn't done anything, where do they start, Chris. Contact an attorney like us, you know. Tex it's one of those online legal zoom Chris. They can't. They absolutely can. They can do whatever they want. They can. They can write on a piece of paper and maybe or maybe not a. Holographic will is valid in that state. It's relatively inexpensive to do an estate plan. It's not just the forms.

35:57 So you know, you could pull forms, you use chat, GPT and all that, but it's like, are you using the correct forms and doing it in the correct way? You know. I could also, you know, try to fix my AC unit by watching YouTube videos. You know. But then it's the knowledge that kind of comes with it that makes a lot of the difference. Is it's there, and. That's why I believe everyone is entitled to they should be to have, you know, real attorney client relationship in the process of creating in a state plan. And I think it just feels good too, you know. It feels good working with an actual professional and actual advisor guiding you through it, making sure things are okay, and maybe it'll kind of force some of this. I think the biggest thing is people just put this off and this is not fun.

36:48 They don't want to they don't want to deal with it. No, we don't want to deal with our mortality. First of all, that's kind of morbid or planning or death essentially, or the things that happen afterwards. But then again, it's just not fun compiling this and working on stuff. So sometimes you can just go out and hire someone. Well, at least you paid the money. You know, you better do the work, just get it done, knock it out of the way. They'll kind of push you, coach you up a little bit on getting it done and there you go. So yeah, I would say talk to a lawyer. You can also talk to your financial advisor is another you know, good resource, and they can they'll talk to you about all these things and kind of what they what they think you should do, and they probably refer you to a lawyer at that point.

37:34 Right. Yeah, I've done that several times, telling people, you know, and I've had people say, well, who should I go to? You know, you beating me over the head with getting my will done? Who should I go to? And so then I'll give them three or four names and have them figure it out. And a lot of times I'll have to keep after them, have you done that? Oh, I haven't done that yet, And I'm like, you need to get it done. Especially and there's like there's a couple of families that I can think of that had to get a special needs trust because they had a child that was never going to leave the home. Yeah. Then there's complexity that you know goes through the roof. Yeah.

38:16 Yeah, yeah, those are harder. We have some Medicaid planning trusts, all that kind of stuff. There's some complicated things out there, but like I said, most people just need a basic estate plan. Yeah, and I think absolutely everyone should have a basic estate plan. And that follow up. That's part of the reason that I created Texas to state and probate loads. It drove me crazy when I talked to a client and they were like, yeah, I'm ready, and then I'm like, okay, fill out this a page form, which is the traditional way of doing it, and that lists everything that the attorney needs to create this effect. It's a very if you do it, it's a really good process. The problem is people don't want to fill out this long form.

39:01 Yeah, so what I've. Done in Texas same I've literally it's like legal zoom in the sense that you have all the information in front of you, you have the options, you have the pricing. It's never more than the pricing, and the intake process is streamlined. You fill out a short form, then you have a call, and then on the call you gather all the information you need and then they don't have to fill out this a page form which never gets done. I think that's the biggest roadblock. So I try to remove a lot of these roadblocks. So people will just get it done. Because a lot of times they won't. They won't really know where stuff is, and it's like, well that's a problem.

39:42 If you don't know where it is, then that helps the person who's your executor. Right, could you imagine, Yeah, they'll definitely be cursing you in the grave at that point. Yeah. Well, my brother was a good example. My brother was a Vietnam vet who had a lot of issues and he had a heart attack and died st and I had been after him and after him and after him to get a will done. He never did it, so and it was on me to make all these in the moment decisions. And so I was warning my brother at the same time I was cursing him because he hadn't done a thing, and so but I had to tell you that he was a marine, and so I have to tell you that the VA was wonderful to work with, that's all. They were very, very helpful. But it would have really helped to at least have a will.

40:32 And you know, because here I was having to make decisions for him, and I was like, I'm not sure what he, you know, wants with this or that. So well, especially if you you know, it sounds like you didn't have siblings that were fighting over stuff, especially yeah things. Oh gosh, then it gets really good. Executor is one of the worst jobs in the world. So you have to do all this stuff. You have potential liability, and you don't get paid for it. So it's not like it's a fun job. It's just a job that has to get done. It's a very important job. So yeah, if you can like have a will and have clear instructions and make it easy for that person, it's great. Yeah. Yeah, well I am we are just about at a time. It's amazing how the time flies. And just to let you know, I have a thing on the podcast website that it's called ask Good Questions podcast dot com.

41:29 There's a bonus downloads and so I always have like an information sheet for guests. So I'll have an information sheet where people can find the information on you if we have anyone that wants to reach out to you. It's great, wonderful. So any closing words, what do you think? I don't have any closing words. It's a love fifty. I said, let's get lunch. That's a close. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here today, and I am really hoping that we have spurred some people along to get this done if they've been putting it off.

42:11 You're very welcome. It's been a pleasure of being here today with you. Thank you, Anita, Thanks so much, Chris, and thank you so much. For joining us on the Ask Good Questions podcast. Today's episode is over, but we did Ask Good Questions again, didn't We don't miss out as we broadcast live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at w fourcy dot com. Joined Banita Bell Anderson next week for more conversations with experts on finances, retirement, behavioral finance issues, health and wellness. And more. Until then, remember to ask good questions.