Rosen Final Signing

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OPENING REMARKS

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So welcome to the final signing. Let me go over what were going to do today. We are going to go over your documents, if it meets with your satisfaction - we are going to sign the documents.

That is the end of the beginning.

Over the next 60 days go home and review it. If there's anything you wanted change, we will do that for free. We're going to go over all the major points today, but it's physically impossible to go through the whole thing today and for you to understand it.

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If the Client has an Irrevocable Trust state the following:

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Since you have an irrevocable trust we want to get your five-year clock ticking. We are going to sign it and have the document in full force and effect today. Anything you need to be changed just let me know. The 60 days is not a hard and fast rule -I'll give you 65 days. I just want you to read it once. I don't want you to call up 365 days from now and telling me or just getting around to reading this now.

I do this several times a week. If I'm going to fast I need you to say wait a minute stop. Go over that again. I didn't understand. Because I already know what's in the trust. It's important for you to understand it.

You know we never charge for phone calls and you know that every few years we want to see you. That meeting is free and it's half an hour long. That meaning is just make sure that you're keeping up with your funding.

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If the Client only has a Revocable Trust State the Following:

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Anything you need to be changed just let me know. The 60 days is not a hard and fast rule -I'll give you 65 days. I just want you to read it once. I don't want you to call up 365 days from now and telling me or just getting around to reading this now.

I do this several times a week. If I'm going to fast I need you to say wait a minute stop. Go over that again. I didn't understand. Because I already know what's in the trust. It's important for you to understand it.

You know we never charge for phone calls and you know that every few years we want to see you. That meeting is free and it's half an hour long. That meaning is just make sure that you're keeping up with your funding.

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Discussion about funding.

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We've prepared letters to your financial institutions under the name of the your trust for you -it makes it easier. We suggest you walk into the financial institution with your letter and your trust binder. It's about six hours worth of work.

The question is…what gets funded? The question really becomes what does not get funded. Virtually everything you own should be in the trust.

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Discussion about funding if the client has an Irrevocable Trust.

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The question is…what gets funded? The question really becomes what does not get funded. Virtually everything you own should be in the trust. The only thing that goes into the irrevocable trust is what? The house. Many people destroy their irrevocable trusts. They try to put too many assets in the irrevocable trust -they realize they need to take some of those assets out of the trust. And we can get it out, but it may trigger a new five-year clock ticking.

So I'll give you real sad story. I had a lady from Beverly Hills California, her son is a lawyer for the US treasury office. A very smart person. He was on the speakerphone, and she was with me five years ago. She wanted an irrevocable trust. He is the only child, my guess is he wanted her to have an irrevocable trust too. I told them I don't your mother is a candidate for the irrevocable trust because your mother has $800,000 in cash. They wanted the irrevocable Trust desperately. So we told them, look, once something goes into the irrevocable trust, it should not come out. Wiki and get the assets added the irrevocable trust. But really it's for emergency purposes only. So you will see we have a letter what you do with assets in the trust. So the son calls me up last year, and he says: my mother is going to be running out of money in May, and she wants to go to the Jewish home in Beverly Hills. So I said what do you mean? Is there something wrong with her? He responds: now there's nothing wrong, she's just running out of money. I asked him how did she run out of money -she had $800,000? He said well, we planned it, so that at the end of five years she wouldn't have any money left. So I said: why did you do that? He said: we want to protect all the money from government. I said: I can appreciate that, but how is your mother going to live without any money? He said: she is going into the nursing home. I asked: is there anything wrong with her health? He said: no, she's fine. I asked him, why would you want to take a healthy person and put them in a nursing home. He responds, we want to save all the money. I asked him: did you call me before you made this choice? He says: you told me this and you told me that. I said wait a minute, and I pulled out the letter, and I said do you have a copy of this let's go over. He calmed down and he said now what we do? I said our law firm doesn't do anything. You are going to have to take money out of that trust, and I have to let you know, it may start a new five-year clock ticking. And it may invalidate the trust. He was not happy. But you see, some people are so nerve up about paying 192 the nursing home that they make a mistake and they get overly zealous and may end up ruining a perfectly good trust.

So I tell people the only thing that should really go into the irrevocable trust is a house because you need some place to live. If you have $800,000 worth of cash, and the house, and we protect the house, if you go to a nursing home our law firm can still protect you from $500,000 without putting it in an irrevocable trust. But that means that $300,000 is going to be exposed. People don't like to hear that. But you can never say 100% anybody who tells you that you can, and they are wrong. If you can save your house you are doing very very well. Most people lose everything to the nursing home.

I want you to give me a call, if either of you sneeze the wrong way. If you get a bad diagnosis from the doctor I want to call. Anything that happens, I want to call we don't charge for phone calls and we mean it. The sooner we know the more we can protect.

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For clients with an Irrevocable Trust, what happens if they need a nursing home during the 5 year lookback.

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Let's talk about if you get sick within the five-year look back period. What if you husband has to go to nursing home? The trust is designed to completely destroy the trust. Take everything out of it and give it the healthy wife. Qualify husband for nursing home. That might start a five-year clock ticking, the chances of you go both going to nursing home... it rarely if ever happens. Now I can guarantee that both of you will never go to a nursing home. But the chances of both of you going to a nursing home, it's highly unlikely. Most people pass away and 95 years old while asleep. But we can guarantee that. Think of the irrevocable trust as insurance we never have to use.

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Trust Administration Pamplet

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Let’s first look at the trust administration pamphlet. You don't have to read this. If you never met me and you went to a probate, and husband dies first everything was generally go to the wife. No probate involve, maybe a small probate depending on your assets. But when the wife dies, in order to get the assets to your children there would have to be a probate. It will take a minimum of a years time, and it will cost between 5 and 7% of the entire estate. The difference between the trust and a will, at the death of the first spouse the trust is set it up for the death of the second spouse.

So it goes something like this, and husband I'm going to have to use you as an example. After husband dies, it's going to be a difficult time. Wife would come in to our office, and bring a child with you, because it's not a pleasant time in your life and you need more ears to understand what has to happen next. Were going to need date of death values of all your assets - we need the date of death values whether or not you have a trust or will. The commonwealth of Massachusetts wants to ensure that your estate is under $1 million. If it's $1 million and a penny over, they want tax money. Upon the death of the first spouse, we figure out what the total estate is worth. If the estate is worth under $1 million -everything goes to you. If it's a very simple estate, the cost our law firm charges is half a percent of the entire estate. If you come to us and you have over $1 million and you have 13 different CDs, and five different Fidelity accounts, a Vanguard account, it can get up to 1%. That's a heck of a lot less than 5 to 7% the probate court charges. And trust administration is usually completed in 120 days.

Then we look at wife, after you pass away it will go to your kids. The day may come where we get a call from your children. I tell your children to bring the book into our office. We pull the file to see what we have done. In today's dollars, the cost to children would be about $400-$500. Generally, after 120 days your children will receive all the assets. Trust planning greatly reduces the time and cost.

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If the Client has an Irrevocable Trust:

Open The Portfolio

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We begin at the beginning. This is the REVOCABLE trust! You are going to hear me say two words over and over. Revocable and irrevocable. I know they're close. If you start to get mixed up or I sometimes say the wrong thing -catch me.

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If the Client only has a Revocable trust

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We begin at the beginning. This is the REVOCABLE trust!

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ARTICLE ONE – CREATION OF OUR TRUST
FLIP TO ARTICLE 1 Section 1 “Parties.”

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Article one simply creates the trust. That's all it does. Article 1 section 2 names the trust. So as you can see here it is _______ Family Revocable Living Trust dated __________.

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ARTICLE 1 Section 2 “Trust Name”

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Below here is the full legal name of the trust _______ and ______, Trustees, or their successors in trust, under the _______ FAMILY REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST, dated May 01, 2013, and any amendments thereto.

That is what's supposed to go on all of your bank accounts. All of bankers are going to hell you don't have enough room for that full name. They are lying to you. But they tell you they don't.

So you're just going to use the simple name: _______ Family Revocable Living Trust dated __________.

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Article 1 SECTION 4 “Family Members”

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You have [x number of children]. The names and birth dates are as follows: [names and birthdays].

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Article 1 SECTION 5 “Citizens of Trustors”

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Both of you are citizens of the United States.

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Article 1 is DONE!

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Article 1 is done. Article 1 simply created the trust.

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ARTICLE TWO – TRUST PROPERTY

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article 2 says what the trust can own. This is for the revocable trust. The revocable trust can own anything you say it can. There are certain things are not going to put in a their, for example, do you have an IRA?
So who is the beneficiary? Spouse.
Who is the backup?
Now it's going to be the trust. We have drafted your letters to send to them. Spouses first, trust second.
Any life insurance?
Spouse first, trust second. Let's say husband dies and wife says I don't want it. Wife can disclaim it and give it to the children. So there are planning options for you that we aren't going to know about until one of you passes away.

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ARTICLE THREE “TRUSTEES” (3-1)

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Article 3 sets up the position of trustee. So you can see for the revocable trust, husband-and-wife shall serve as the initial trustees. For any reason if one of you is unable or unwilling to serve, and the survivor spouse becomes the trustee. If the survivor of the two of you can no longer serve, then it's the first child if not the first child than the second child. Okay?

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ARTICLE THREE SECTION 8. SPECIAL CO-TRUSTEE (3-3)

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There's something called the special co-trustee. Attorney Rosen is named the special co-trustee. There are two functions of the special co-trustee. First, if your children have a dispute, I try to mediate the differences before it goes to court. Maybe one child doesn't like the amount you left them in your trust. If the child decides to take the case to court anyways, there is a “no contest clause” which states they get nothing. The other child gets 100%. So before they have a chance to shoot themselves in the foot they can get together and Attorney Rosen can mediate the differences. But Children usually get along. Generally speaking so we don't see a lot of fighting.
Your children will never hurt you the people that they're married to might.
Second, on your deathbed, if Congress changes the tax laws, I have the ability to re-write portions of your trust to take advantage of the tax laws. I then bring the trust to your death bed for you to sign the signature pages. That's all there is to article 3.

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Article 3 is done

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That's all there is to article 3.

So, we just went of Article 1, 2, and 3. Article 1 created the trust. Article 2 funded the trust. Article 3 manages the trust.

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ARTICLE FOUR “LIFETIME RIGHTS OF TRUSTORS” (4-1)

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Now, what rights to you have in your trust now that you established the trust?
Under trust law there are only two types of property. It's either income or principle. So your checking account -the money in the checking account is principle. The interest that you earn is income. If you own stocks with stocks themselves are principle, if they gave a dividend that would be income. You have the absolute right to income and principal. So in the revocable trust doesn't matter where you put it in, you can always take it out. And you want to put as much of your assets in the trust as possible.

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ARTICLE FOUR, SECTION 3. RIGHT TO AMEND OR REVOKE THE TRUST (4-2)

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You have the right to amend or revoke the trust at any time.

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Discussion about funding

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What bank do you use?

So let’s use Citizens. So you have account number 001 at Citizens, and it’s in the name of Mr. and Mrs. [______] OK. Follow me so far? You’re still going to have account 001 at Citizens. The only thing is now it’s going to say Mr. and Mrs. ________ as trustee of the Vickers Living Trust. So as far as routing numbers go, for direct deposit and all that sort of stuff, nothing changes.

And we don’t have to notify Social Security or the IRS that you created a living trust.

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ARTICLE FOUR, SECTION 6. GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE AND MEDICAID PLANNING (4-4)

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Government assistance and Medicaid planning. Someone needs the ability to do Medicaid planning for you. I say someone, because chances are you would take care of her as long as you possibly could. She would take care of you as long as the survivor -- there’s going to be no one to take care of. Now, I know your kids are promising that they’re going to take care of you. I know that. But if they cannot, someone’s going to have to do Medicaid planning for you, and they need the authority to do it.

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ARTICLE FIVE, SECTION 3. “CREATION, ADMINISTRATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE TRUST UPON AND AFTER DEATH OF DECEASED TRUSTOR”

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Article 5, what happens when the first one of you passes away. First off, all expenses, debts, claims, and taxes that are individually owed have to be paid, so light bill for the house, heat bill for the house, you don’t worry about that. But let’s say you suffer a midlife crisis and go out and buy a shiny red Corvette, and you pay for it with that 0% financing that GM offers, 60 months, and you drive it home, and you say, “Honey, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I’ve always wanted a Corvette, and I went out and I got one, and I financed the whole thing. I’m so happy I could die,” and you do!

Or maybe your wife kills you for spending all that money on a car!

You have to pay off that Corvette now. Now, you could sell the Corvette to pay it off, but individual debts -- not joint debts, individual debts -- have to be paid off.

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ARTICLE FIVE, SECTION 3. “CREATION, ADMINISTRATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE TRUST UPON AND AFTER DEATH OF DECEASED TRUSTOR”

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Section 3 talks about the creation of the administrative trust. Which is what we refer to as the time period when things are getting settled after the first spouse passes away. This article also talks about the payment of expenses, debts, taxes due. It also specifies that if there gifts that need to be made at that time: so for example if you decided that your child to receive your engagement ring then you could specify that, in the appropriate page of the book here, that those gifts could go immediately to your child even though your spouse is still living.

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ARTICLE SIX. “SPECIFIC DISTRIBUTIONS OF TRUST ESTATE”

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If the client has specific distributions discuss here.

Article 6 is where we actually put in your request for specific gifts that aren't personal items, like journals, or photos, or silver or paintings -- things like that. This is where you might want to give a gift to charity of thousand dollars. You may not be doing that today -- but down the road as you acquire more wealth -- you may choose to do that. Right now article 6 is just saying to distribute all of our personal things in accordance with our written instrument. The written instrument in your portfolio is called a Legacy planning letter.

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FLIP TO LEGACY PLAN

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Let me show that to you while we're talking about it. Here under the Legacy planning tab you each have your own page where you can specify personal items and who is going to get them. So this is the “written instrument” that article 6 is referring to and if you haven't specified anything like that then just distribute everything in accordance with articles.

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ARTICLE SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE, AND TEN

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article 7, 8, and 9 are the most technical articles in the trust. If you're going to read this from cover to cover, you'll probably fall sleep or get stumped at this point. I'm going to really summarize it. At the time the first of you to pass away, there is a strategy for repositioning assets that will allow the surviving spouse to shelter a portion of the estate by positioning those assets in a revocable trust. We refer to it as a credit shelter trust. So, if at the time the first spouse died this was a $2 million estate, husband were to let you die first, if you don't mind, we are going to position his half of the estate which is $1 million worth of assets into the family trust which we also refer to as the “B trust.” So, husbands assets get sheltered there, and they're available there to wife as the surviving spouse. But when wife passes away, the IRS is not going to calculate into the taxable estate husbands share of the money. That was the amount that husband was allowed to pass, by law, to whomever he chose - death tax free. Instead of husband giving it away when he died, he chose to have it positioned in this revocable trust or B trust. That B trust remains there for wife’s benefit.

So Articles 7, 8, 9, and 10 are the tax savings articles. If you don’t have a taxable estate, they just stay in there in case of an emergency.

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ARTICLE ELEVEN “DISTRIBUTION TO BENEFICIARIES”

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Article 11, this is where the estate distributes to the beneficiaries. So, both of you have died, there are two trusts sitting there funded with assets. The trust says to take any assets there in any of those sub trusts and make an equal share for each of your living children. And if by chance you had a child that passed away, and they were survived by their own children, than those grandchildren of yours would take equally the shares that would have gone to your deceased child. And if it happens when the child passed away with no children of their own, then all the assets would go to the surviving child.

I'm not sure how much you remember from the seminar, but the trust is written to make sure that the trustee knows how much to distribute to the benefit of your children. That might vary over their lifetime. That might happen over the best of circumstances -- when you are 100 years old, your children are competent adults then that's going to affect how their inheritance comes out of their trust to your children. We have language that we use, just as standard procedure, for all of our clients where the inheritance passes on to the beneficiaries and trust is there as a firewall around their inheritance because the language in their trust says that: their inheritance is going to be held in trust and taken care of by the trustee and whatever the trustee decides is what is going to be used for the beneficiaries benefit.

Now, they can take it if they need it, but if they don’t take it and your Child gets divorced, it’s not part of the marital asset, so it should not be susceptible to divorce proceedings. On the other hand, if your child takes it, puts it into the joint marital checking account, and three weeks later he has divorce papers served on him, half of that’s going to go his x-spouse. So we tell the kids at the death of the second spouse, leave everything in the trust. You can pick at it if you need it, but if you take it it’s susceptible to creditors in the divorce. Now, your Child may have his own bills. Your child may have kids that he’s paying off college loans and all that sort of stuff. If he’s going to take it and immediately pay off his debt, well, then that’s what it’s there for, really. So it’s going to be up to them at the death of the second one of you now what they want to do. We’ll just advise them of their options. All right?

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ARTICLE TWELVE, “LACK OF DESIGNATED BENEFICIARIES”

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this is unfortunately the provision that applies if you and the children take a cruise and the ship sinks. If you are all gone, we need to know who to give the state to. You can give it to charity, you can give it to specific friends or family members, but this is the default which says we give: half of the state to wife's living relatives, so if your parents are alive that's who go to. Same with yours husband. If everyone in your family is passed away that it could go to a distant cousin and you may never have known. In other cases some people choose to give to specific charities.

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ARTICLES THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN, AND FIFTEEN

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Articles 13, 14, and 15 have virtually nothing to do with you.

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Article Thirteen

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The only article that does is the first paragraph of Article 13. Article 13 says you don’t need your permission to act and you don’t need his permission to act. So you can come home tomorrow and there could be different people living in the house, and she has every right to do that. You could come home tomorrow and there could be different people living in your house, and you have... Why do we need that unlimited power?

Because if husband has to go into a nursing home, the first thing they’re going to do is put a lien on that house and try and take it away from you, if it’s within the five-year period. If it’s not within the five-year period, the irrevocable trust will take care of it. Follow me?

That’s why we want her to have the ability to take it out of the trust, take your name off it, and give it to herself, and then apply for Medicaid. Now you don’t have any real estate for them to lien. Follow me?

The most important thing to remember is if you think you might need to go into a nursing home, even if they tell you it’s for rehab, give us a call.

If you have any surgery, give me a call. Check in with me. Let me know how it went.

It’s people who break hips -- when you’re 80 years old, 90 years old, you break a hip, an infection sets in, they can’t get it right, they put you in rehab, you can’t walk, the person can’t take care of you, you’re in the nursing home.

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ARTICLE FOURTEEN “POWERS OF OUR TRUSTEE”

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a time will come when you're not trustees, so all of this language and the powers in this case are returning to whoever is acting as trustees.

Now, there are 21 pages here of powers. The purpose is to make sure that you can invest and acquire and do everything for yourselves that you have been able to do up until now just in your own names.

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ARTICLE 15 – OTHER TRUST PROVISIONS

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Article 15: this is the final chapter so to speak. This is the final article of your trust and I like to encourage clients to read it first because there is a lot going on in this article. It does define words, it does explain some of the things you'll be reading in the documents.

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Legal Document Completed

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So that’s the whole revocable trust. Any questions?

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Irrevocable Trust Legal Document

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Here comes the irrevocable trust. Here’s the irrevocable trust letter. Irrevocable trusts, especially with just the house in it, are exceedingly simple to work with. You really don’t have to worry about anything. No new taxpayer identification numbers. You use your Social Security Number. It is drafted as a Grantor Trust. That means even though you put the house into an irrevocable trust, at the death of the last one of you will be a step up in basis to the fair market value as to the date of death. Once the assets are transferred into the irrevocable trust, you will no longer have access to the principal of the trust, OK? You will get the income. So if you put any money in there, which I’m recommending you don’t, you will be able to get the income, the interest that it earns. Where people get into trouble is they say, “I need a little bit more money this week,” so they take a little bit of principal, and next thing you know it’s a problem. We don’t recommend that you put any cash in the trust.

You will not be able to change the beneficiaries or the distribution schemes in your irrevocable trust. If you want to make changes to your beneficiaries or the distribution schemes you will have to create a new irrevocable trust. We’ll have to defund your existing trust and fund a new one. This will require a new 5-year waiting period. Our office recommends that you choose your beneficiary and/or the distribution schemes carefully. Under today’s law, there’s a five-year look back. So if either of you need to enter a nursing home within the five-year look back, please contact this office immediately. If the law changes, we will notify you via mail. Considerations when real estate is transferred into the trust: the first thing you need to do is contact your homeowners insurance and have the trust added on to your homeowners insurance policy as an additional insured.

All your trustees need to sign this document, it will not be effective until this is signed. Mail it in a flat envelope, not three-fold.

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Irrevocable Trust Continued

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So here’s the irrevocable trust. Now, you’ll notice that it’s similar to the revocable trust, OK? Only here, instead of the [Insert Name] revocable trust, it says the[Insert Name] irrevocable trust. You’re never going to have to worry about the name of this trust, because the only thing you’re going to put in it is the house, and we’ve already -- we’re going to do that for you. You still have the same two children, and they’re still born on the same day. The trust can own anything you say it can, but we recommend you only put the real estate in there. Now, Article 3, notice that you are not the trustees. Our initial trustee will be [child's name]. If for any reason [child] were unwilling or unable to serve then [alternate child] would serve. OK? So that’s why [child] has to sign. Here’s where the big difference comes in. You only have the right to income. You don’t have the right to principal. Now, what does that mean to you? It doesn’t mean anything, because your house is going to be the only thing in there. And what does it mean if somebody puts money in there? It means they can only get the interest the money earns. They can’t take the money back out. But now it says here, “At any time or times during our lives, our trustee” -- and who’s that?

So, “Our trustee may pay or apply for the benefit of a group of main beneficiaries, consisting of our children and/or their issue, so much of the principal of our trust as our trustee and our trustee’s discretion deems proper. Our trustee under no circumstances shall distribute principal from our trust to either of us during our lifetimes.” So let’s say you sell the house. Never thought you would sell the house. What’s the house worth? Take a guess.

You sell the house, because you don’t want to do the driveway anymore. You’re now 85 years old. You sell the house for $300,000. Check is going to come in the name of who? The Trust with your child as trustee.

So if you say, “Well, you know what? Let’s just take this money, and we’ll put it in our checking account until we open up an account in the name of the irrevocable trust,” You will trigger by accident a new 5-year lookback. Now, I’m not a real estate attorney, but when you go to put the house on the market, give me a call, because we’ll walk you through it.

Yeah, here’s what you’d do: you have to sell the house up here, $300,000. You buy a house in Virginia for $200,000. You have $100,000 left. Where does that money go?

You have to open up a bank account in the name of the irrevocable trust. And who would have to open that bank account? [Child].

Now, if you need the money, if you’re broke, you sell the house, $200,000 condo, you buy it in the name of the trust, you got $100,000 and you need that money -- not you want; you need it to live -- at that point in time, first of all give me a call, but do we can’t... I mean, you need the money. So how do you get it? Call your child. Say, “Child, I need you to write a check out of that account to your brother or to your oldest child.”

“I need you to write out a check to your brother for $100,000.”

OK. Take the check, write it to your brother don’t mail it to brother, because brother is going to get a check for $100,000 and think, “I just hit the lottery.” (laughter) You call up Brother and you say, “Brother, I need you to meet me at my attorney’s office,”, “sign the back of that check and give it to me.” Now, has the trust just given you principal out? No! Trust gave it to whom? Brother.

Is Brother under any legal obligation to give it to you? No. That’s why we sit him in our office and don’t let him out until he does. (laughter) OK, because, look, there are -- I could tell you stories about families that are torn apart by money, so we make it very simple. If she mails it to him, you may as well kiss it goodbye. I’m sure he’s a great kid, don’t get me wrong, but we always say don’t do that. Either mail it to my office and then you guys come in, or mail it to you and you bring it in with you, have Brother come down and sign the back of the check, and then he leaves. That’s all he does. He doesn’t take it home and deposit it in his account. He doesn’t do that.

So we sell the house, we have an extra $100,000. It goes into your revocable trust savings account.

Right. So let’s say that happened, and there was a transfer out of the trust for $100,000. Now what if we need a nursing home? Massachusetts takes a look and says, “Hey, you transferred $100,000 out of that trust. We’re not going to give you a nursing home.” Well, who has the 100,000 bucks? Now you’ve cured the penalty, and you have nursing home eligibility. OK, so all I’m asking you to do is call me so we’re walking through it.

That still applies. Any transfer to or from an irrevocable trust causes a penalty period. Now, in five years that may not be the case, because that case may have been litigated. We don’t know. The case may have been litigated and the State may have lost. I don’t know, but that’s the way it is today.

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Documents for Medicaid Application

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Here’s the next important thing: documents required for Medicaid application. I hope neither one of you ever have to go into a nursing home, but if you do, better you should have this all gathered up and waiting and never need it than come to me and say, “I need you to gather it up for me,” -- we charge $300 an hour to gather things, because what most people do is they put it off, and then somebody has a stroke, and you’re not going to run around like a madman gathering this documentation. You’re going to spend time with your husband in the hospital. You’re going to pay me to run around like a madman gathering this documentation. I’m going to bill you for it.

We want you to collect five years’ worth of your checking account statements at home. never throw anything out. Just go through the list. grab a separate box or a separate file cabinet, and you want five years’ worth of documentation on everything. Financial advisors: anybody that’s close to you that wants to talk to me, I can’t talk to them without your written permission.

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TRUST PROPERTY TAB

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After you put your property into the trust, after you get the letters back from us and you understand them, and you go to the different institutions and you change the accounts over, then you’re going to list them here.

This is not a legal page. This is just the page for after both of you are gone so your kids know where you had everything, so they know where to go.

Schedule B discusses separate property of the husband

Schedule C discusses separate property of wife.

We've prepared a quit claim deed for your home into the trust and this will get signed today and it is effective as of today. And we send it over to the County recorder. This document should come back to you in 4 to 6 weeks.

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TRUST PROPERY TAB: General Assignment of Property

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The general assignment of property sort of throws a blanket over all the property that you can't claim title to: for example your furniture, your jewelry, your collectibles. This document states that your intention is that you're signing all these things to your trust because those assets can add up to a high dollar value. The ideas is that you want all those things to bypass probate and you want to be sure that they're given away according to the terms of your trust.

You have an assignment of bank accounts. This document is in the portfolio to state what your intention is, but the follow-through is that you actually go to the bank and get the proper paper work filled out to get those accounts into the trust name. We are assisting you in this process by giving you a letter. It's not something we can do for you. Our office can help you get the deed to your house signed and recorded, and your IRA beneficiary change forms, and a letter of instructions to give to the bank. However, you'll ultimately have to have the bank’s paperwork signed and oftentimes they want you there to sign the paperwork.

We know you will not get your bank accounts transferred overnight, so if the ship sank tomorrow, things would be covered.

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TRUST PROPERTY TAB: Assignment and Nominee Agreement

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The nominee agreement is a document that states some of your assets are held inside the trust and some of your assets are not. For example, an IRA is not to be owned by the trust, it's owned by the individual. The IRA is not going to be listed on the schedule A because it's not part of your estate.

Annuities are also in that category. So there are certain things that don't get owned by the trust but other things could be held by the trust name. The assets held in the trust name are things like CDs, brokerage accounts, real estate, mineral rights, royalties, there are a whole array of stuff that people own. Back to the assignment and nominee document: it states that if something isn't clear at the time you died whether something is the trust assets are not, that it would be considered trust asset.

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POUR OVER WILL TAB

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In addition to the trust, you have a pour over Will. A pour over Will is kind of a Nick name. The document itself is called a last will and testament. These are special because they work hand-in-hand with a living trust. The only beneficiaries listed in your last will are going to be your spouse and if not the spouse -then the trust. Hopefully, the pour over will, won’t come in to play because you will be diligent by putting your assets in the trust name. This will very simply identifies who you are, who you are married to, who your children are, and their birth dates, who's in charge when you die.

Again, a will forces you into probate in Massachusetts Superior Court when you pass away, we are going to assume there won't be a probate needed. Therefore hopefully this document will not be needed for any purpose. Each of you have a last will and testament.

When we sign here today, I will have you read quickly through it. I will have to declare that it is you last will and testament and you have asked us to witness it for you. Okay?

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PROPERTY AGREEMENT TAB

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the property agreement: this document is designed to make it clear that whatever you two have up to this point held as joint tenants you want it to be deemed joint property. Joint property feature is important because it gives a full step up and the cost basis to your surviving spouse on any type of asset that has a cost basis. For example, your home is a cost basis, your stock has a cost basis. For tax benefits: you wanted deemed to be joint property. This document makes that clear.

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FUNDING INSTRUCTIONS TAB

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funding instructions gives you general information about how real estate is moved into the trust, how the trust is funded with a trust deed, or account at the bank. It explains that the deed is what transfers the real estate. For bank accounts, you need to physically go into the bank.

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CERTIFICATE OF TRUST TAB

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Certificate of trust is the summary that we recommend you use when you go to the bank to change over it that counts to the trust name. This is the one document that will have a blue ink signature page as opposed to a photocopy.

At a glance it is telling you that husband-and-wife have established trust. It states your physical address. Then you are the trustees. This may satisfy the institution, but every bank is different. Some banks have you fill out a certificate of trust forms. Some banks want a copy of the first page of the trust along with the last page of the trust. Some banks want all the trust these powers as well. Essentially, it's about finding out what your bank wants from you.

The certificate of trust is always available for escrow, lenders, for banks, whoever needs verification that this trust really does exist.

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LIFE INSURANCE TAB

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This is one of your homework sections. This isn't just for your benefit it is also for the benefit of your successor trustees. The more information that can be contained in this one location the easier your trustee’s life will be. This section contains your life insurance information or any annuities you might have. In addition to just listing out the information, you might want to put a copy of the policy face page. Or the annuity contract. Anything that would make it easier for that person to know what you own, who to contact, or what to expect.

I can't tell you how many clients never fill out these pages. More don't fill these pages up then do.

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LOCATION LIST TAB

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The location list is an organizational tool to help your successor trustee know where to find your important documents. In addition, we also have places where we keep important documents, like a file cabinet at home, or a safe deposit box at the bank. You identify where those additional locations are - and then simply go through your list of all your important places of where your document is located. You can modify this document - it is not a legal document.

Key advisors to be contacted at your death. You might want to list our firm, you might have a clergymen, your employer, financial advisor accountants.

Certainly you probably have more than six or eight to be contacted. Make as many copies of this document as you like.

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PROPERTY POWER OF ATTORNEY TAB

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I just want to point out to you that on the tab we say “property power of attorney” and on the introduction page we say the property power of attorney, but on this document here we say General Durable Power of Attorney. It's all the same though.

Property power of attorney is a very important document if you're alive but incapacitated. This document makes sure that your spouse or successor trustee gives authority and power to that representative to handle your non-trust transactions. Non-trust transactions include: signing your tax returns, that can be dealing with your credit card company, dealing with administrator of your IRA. They could also be the person taking care of your spiritual needs, or your pets, the things we don't think about too much. Property power of attorney is very important document, but when you die it's void.

The document in your portfolio is called a hybrid version of a property of attorney. It gives immediate power of attorney for each other today. For anyone else, you would have to be deemed incapacitated by two doctors in writing before your named person could take over. When the power of attorney is needed, you need the original or it's got to be certified by an attorney as a true and correct copy. Please take good care of your property power of attorney document.

There is one document for each of you.

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HEALTH CARE DOCUMENTS TAB

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The healthcare document section is where there is a copy of the advanced health care directive also known as a “health-care power of attorney.” This is the document where you name who you want to be your healthcare agent. The person who will make your decisions for you - because you cannot. For example if you're in a coma, if you were too sick.

You will have the opportunity to indicate whether or not you want to get kept alive on life support or not. If you are in a constant vegetative state, or an irreversible incurable condition like cancer. You get to make that choice today.

Keep in mind that the document is going to reflect what your wishes are.

If you chose a, you don't want life prolonged an example is if your in a coma and nobody thinks you will ever come out of that coma. Or the risks or burdens of treatment outweigh the benefits.

The alternative choices is choice b, you do want life prolong under those conditions. So the definitions are a little loose it, but you are reflecting your wishes.

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HEALTH CARE DOCUMENTS TAB HUSBAND

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So I'd like you have make that choice today and this is your document - husband. I'm going to have you choose first husband.

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HEALTH CARE DOCUMENTS TAB HUSBAND: TAKE OUT ORIGINALS FROM PLASTIC FOLDER

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I have the originals because I want to make sure you mark the originals the same way you mark them in the legacy wealth planning portfolio. Okay -- you value life and you want to make sure that nobody quickly pulls the plug! (laughter)

You'll notice this document has several blank lines or you have been given the okay to be given additional wishes or desires. You might have personal experiences which you know under the circumstances “don't about pulling the plug.” I'm resilient I'm tough I don't want morphine. Let me suffer in pain.

I would encourage you to go back and fill this out in greater detail as homework.

An option you have is whether or not you want to be an organ donor. By way of instruction, you can give any organ for any purpose. You can give specific organs you can, You can limit the organ donations to just transplant therapy. If you don't cross off research or education you could end up becoming a cadaver. We have medical doctors as clients, and they don’t want to be medical cadavers. (laughter)

So -- it's totally up to you, you don't have to make this choice today if you don't want to. But I find that when clients don't, they generally don't come back to it.

So we will get this signed and witnessed today.

I will just mention take time to put in the name of your doctors. Where it's readily available to anybody acting as your agent. If your going to write anything in this book, make sure to write it on the original and send us a copy.

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AUTHORIZATION TO DISCLOSE HEALTH INFORMATION

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The next document you have in this section is called authorization to disclose health information. We commonly refer to it as HIPPA. In 2003, federal law says that nobody could have access to any of your private medical information unless you specifically authorize it. This document will work with any hospital and nursing home, any medical facility to make sure that of the people you have named as healthcare agent. We encourage you to give it, to your healthcare agent.

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AUTHORIZATION TO DISCLOSE HEALTH INFORMATION: TURN TO WIFE’S DOCUMENT

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Okay wife – it’s your turn. Check the box of whether or not you want choice A or choice B. and I will mark the original document as well. And you don't want to be kept alive! If your husband survives you, he may choose to keep you alive if he thinks you're going to come through a coma or sickness. Wife is trusting your judgment as well.

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DONATION OF ORGANS

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Okay organ donation -- how do you feel about that? You're not an organ donor either. Okay you don't want anybody harvesting the organs after you die. The stories we hear are crazy sometimes. Other than getting these documents signed we have them marked appropriately.

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OTHER DOCUMENTS TAB

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under our other documents tab, we encourage clients to copy all these documents that apply to you. Some of us have passports ALL of us have birth certificates. By putting a copy of them here, it keeps everything in one central location to make the job easier for the person handling things for you.

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INVOICE

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This section we show the invoice we have prepared for you. This shows the total fee of __________. it includes a courtesy discount of $200 for attending the seminar. We received your initial payment of _______. And the balance there will be____________. so, I'll take payment at the end of our meeting today. Either check or credit card.

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CHECKLIST:

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This discusses your homework

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DEATH OR DISABILITIES TAB

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This tab, discusses the actions that need to be taken upon one's death or incapacity. Again, this is not intended to replace a consultation with our office. The easiest thing to do when there is a death is to come in and meet with us. We can explain what needs taking care of. What is imminent, and what needs to really happen here.

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LEGACY PLAN

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Under the legacy plan tab, this is where you can place any kind of special letter or directions to your family. This is good to talk about what I expected to do, this is who I want you to handle fights between siblings, this is how I want you to invest your money, some clients get very detailed with it. You can leave a letter to your children and your successor trustee should you choose.

We haven't talked about burial or funeral instructions. Some people want to be cremated. Some people want to be buried in Italy. Others don't want an open casket. Others offer songs and what the music or prayers for the eulogy.

This legacy plan plays at your genealogy. It also has you answer questions about your childhood, your education, things that would be interesting to your children and your grandchildren down the road. Some people use this as the motivation to write a biography about their life before they pass on. They pass on not just your facts about your life, but your wisdom morals your life lessons.

So that concludes the explanation of the portfolio. Do you have any questions?

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MOVE PORTFOLIO BINDER AND TAKE OUT FUNDING DOCUMENTS:

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I'm going to set this aside for now. I want to go over the funding documents now. I want to point out to you the stack that you will be signing - the signature pages of all documents. I want to point out your will and health care powers of attorney need to be witnessed. So this is different than “notarize” which I will take care of. I do the notarization and then we bring in another person who will act as a second witness.

This is simply an instructional page that relates to your deed. It's just something to refer back to and just explains that it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the deed to come back. Please watch for it. When you get the original deed back, keep it with the original documents, in the deed that you currently have giving title to the property, give it to the set as well. You want a paper trail.

This funding letter is for the bank that you have established a living trust and the formal title of the trust. I recommend you go into the bank in person because it will make it easier for you. Everything will be just done on the spot there and there isn’t wasted time going back-and-forth with forms. If the bank is out of state, then start by sending a letter of instructions. The letter says that “I've attached a copy of the certificate of trust.” So there is a letter for each of your institutions that you can use. Some people take the letter when they go in and person so they don't need to explain what they want done.

Now each of you have life insurance policies with your employers. These policies I'm assuming you have your spouse as your primary beneficiary. You may not have named any contingent beneficiaries. We are recommending that on each of those policies that the trust be named as the primary beneficiary. It still benefits the surviving spouse the exact same way when the first spouse dies. This is a letter of instructions to the insurance company to change the beneficiary on the insurance policy to the name of the living trust. It goes on to say in the letter if you have other forms please send me. The reality is you most likely need to change the beneficiary form from your employer. You might as well go ahead and get those forms. Sometimes you can get them online or you can call your agent.

Also it is the beneficiary change forms for your IRA. You named the trust the contingent beneficiary. You would submit this to the administrator of your IRA. If that's just handled by your work, then work with them.

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PULL OUT SIGNING DOCUMENTS

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We are ready to start signing everything. I will need you to take out your drivers license for the notary journal I will bring in a witness to help us witnessed the two documents. When we're done with that I will take everything to go make the photocopies for our law firm as well as the photocopies that need to go in your book.

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PAYMENT

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How would you like to take care of the balance of the payment?

Okay so you survived the explanation. Congratulations. We are ready to sign the documents we talked about and I've explained to you.

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SIGNATURE PAGE OF TRUST

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let's start with the signature page of the trust itself. You have each one place to sign please don't sign anywhere below the state of Massachusetts because that's where I need to do my part. Take the page and turn it over once were finished signing. At the top of each page it will tell you which document you are signing.

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DEED FOR THE HOME

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This is the deed for the home. This doesn't change property taxes, it doesn't change anything. Rest assured your loan wont be called by your bank or anything.

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GENERAL ASSIGNMENT

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Then the general assignment just to show your bank.

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GO MAKE COPIES

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I've put everything where it's supposed to go and packaged up all the originals in that clear plastic envelope. Your funding documents and letters are on the top top of the clear plastic envelope. Additional I what you know that it's been a pleasure to work here with you today. We are a phone call or letter or an e-mail away if you need a follow-up meeting. Expect to hear from us for a quick hello and we will be here for your estate planning needs. And don't forget about those friends and family!