Toolbox Series: Candace Sandifer on Estate Planning for Business Owners

Estate planning may not be the first thing on your mind when launching a business, but it's a crucial step that shouldn't be overlooked. 

In this episode, we dive into the world of asset protection with estate planning attorney, Candace Sandifer. She outlines key measures entrepreneurs should implement to safeguard their business interests.

Candace stresses the importance of enlisting the help of attorneys who specialize in your industry and encourages open, honest discussions during the planning process. Whether you're a business owner or not, this episode offers essential insights into why it's critical to start estate planning sooner rather than later.

Tune in for practical advice that could prove invaluable in protecting your legacy and ensuring your wishes are carried out, no matter what the future holds.

About Candace:
Candace Sandifer is a Partner at the Houser Law Firm and manages the Southlake office.  Candace has practiced law since 2008 and began her career in Washington DC, as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Attorney General, and represented DC Public Schools in their General Counsel's office.  After moving back to Texas in 2011, Candace's practice shifted to a focus on estate planning, probate and business law.  She has been at the Houser Firm since 2019, and enjoys working with families across the state of Texas.  Candace is an avid reader of historical fiction and cookbooks and truly loves podcasts about economics.  She also loves to cook, garden, pretend she is Martha Stewart, and travel to the mountains of Colorado with her husband Collin, and her three children.   She has a dog named Sophie who is the most beautiful rescue Rhodesian Ridgeback who ever lived and a cutie black cat named Jack.

About Houser Firm:
The Houser Law Firm is a boutique estate planning firm with a commitment to innovative and sophisticated legal solutions to protect our clients' legacies of wealth. At the Houser Firm, “protecting legacies of wealth” is more than just a tagline to us. We recognize that our clients work incredibly hard to achieve their successes. We also understand how difficult it can be to place that hard-earned success in the hands of someone else. You deserve legal advocates who care about you and your family’s future as much as they do their own. With our experienced attorneys at your side, you can rest easy knowing that your legacy will endure.

To learn more, visit www.houserfirm.com

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If you or a founder you know would like to be a guest on In The Thick of It, email us at [e-mail]

Creators & Guests

Host

Scott Hollrah

Founder & CEO of Venn Technology

Guest

Candace Sandifer

Estate Planning Attorney at Houser Firm

What is In The Thick of It?

Join Scott Hollrah, founder of Venn Technology, as he takes you "In the Thick of It" with the real stories of founders who are actively navigating the challenges and triumphs of running their businesses. This podcast goes beyond the typical entrepreneurial success stories and delves into the messy, gritty, and sometimes chaotic world of building and growing a company. Get inspired, learn from the experiences of others, and gain insights into what it truly means to be in the thick of the entrepreneurial journey.

But if you were to die suddenly and unexpectedly

without any estate planning, that estate, which does not

seem overly complicated, right, would probably cost about $50,000

to resolve in probate court, if not more.

And that's because of your business interest, your

home, the fact that you have to do

a determination of heirship, the fact that you're

what's called under an intestate proceeding.

So you died without a will.

That means lack of intestate.

No testate document, no testate.

It becomes a real nightmare.

Welcome to In The Thick of It Toolbox,

the special series where inspiration meets implementation.

Here, we don't just share success stories.

We equip you with proven tools

and strategies from seasoned founders, turning

entrepreneurial dreams into actionable plans.

Prepare to be enabled and empowered on your journey.

You're not just listening to a podcast.

You're gaining access to an essential

toolbox for your business success.

Let's dive in with all the things you

need to do before starting a business.

The last thing you want to think about is

estate planning, but it has to be done.

Candace Sandifer, an estate planning

attorney, leads the conversation.

In today's episode, she walks through the essential

steps business owners should take to protect their

assets in the event of death.

Candace emphasizes the need to work with

industry specialized attorneys and the importance of

full transparency in your planning discussions.

It's never too early to start

estate planning before it's too late.

Business owners and non business owners listening will

take away valuable advice from today's episode.

Candice, thank you so much for making the drive over

and joining us in the studio for this Toolbox edition.

Awesome.

Thank you for having me.

So introduce yourself real quick. Sure.

I'm Candice Sandifer.

I'm a partner at the Houser Law Firm.

We are an estate wealth law, boutique law

firm based out of Dallas, and I am

the managing partner of the Southlake office.

Fantastic.

So how did you find yourself in this world?

So it was quite a journey to get here.

When I graduated from law school in 2007, I

actually was in the Washington, DC area, and so

I practiced after completing a clerkship in criminal court,

which was the felony criminal coordinating judge.

So he was actually a death penalty judge, and

I did get to do a very high profile

trial with him, which was very cool.

Had no desire to be a criminal prosecutor, though.

That's gotta be like, thankfully there are people out

there that exist that do that, but I couldn't

imagine going home at the end of the day

knowing how much evil exists in the world.

A very good friend of

mine, Elena Costanza, is incredible.

She's an incredible prosecutor for the

Fort Worth district attorney's office in

the special victim unit, basically.

And she's been on Dateline.

She's testified before Congress.

Her address is hidden from public view.

She has the mental ability to separate herself from

her work in a way that I admire because

we need people like that in the law. She's a hero.

I could never do it.

There's just no way.

So you chose a different route. I did.

And at first I went to work for the

office of the attorney General for the District of

Columbia because my goal was if I was gonna

go the criminal route, I wanted to help prosecute

white collar crime with the Department of Justice.

I really thought it was cool.

Kind of interesting that now I do work with

business owners, but I went through the OAG, through

what's called the honors program, and I got hired

to, initially, I was told, hop around the attorney

general's office in multiple divisions for two years.

And then at the end of that two year introductory term,

I could choose whatever division I wanted to work in.

It was such a cool program.

They did not honor any of that.

So I went to interview with Jim Sandmande.

He was the former director of the American Bar

association who had been hired by Michelle Re, who

was the then superintendent of DC public schools.

And at the time, she was really famous because

she was in this movie called waiting for Superman.

And it was sort of this documentary on how she

was going to completely shake up and had already shaken

up the DC public school system, which has always been

one of the lowest performing districts in the entire nation.

And, you know, it sits in

the shadow of our nation's capital.

It's very, very sad.

She was on the COVID of Time magazine with a broom.

It really offended a lot of the administrators

and teachers at DCPS, but that was. She didn't care.

I liked her personally.

Well, I interviewed with Jim.

He was her general counsel, and I interviewed basically

for an assistant general counsel job with him.

And once we left that interview,

he said, you're not hopping around.

I'm gonna keep you for a year.

And I was like, okay, so it was a baptism.

Trial by fire, whatever you wanna call it.

I, on my first day of work, went to hearing a.

On a case.

I was handed a case file.

They were like, good luck, and I won, which was

wild, but that's how many cases were coming through.

We were basically part of this massive hiring

push to bring in attorneys to help catch

them up under what was called the Blackman

Jones case, and it was under federal oversight.

And when I say it, I meant the district itself.

So I went from doing criminal, you know,

motions for drug possession charges to attending IEP

meetings for kids at DC public schools.

And because I was the youngest, I got, you

know, it's a little bit of hazing that happens.

I was in the southeast quadrant.

So these are the most, I would say, at risk

schools of not being able to perform under their IEP.

And I always thought it was funny because

it was always in some of these schools,

the football coach was the head of special

education, whatever, and that was interesting, but.

And many times he did a perfectly fine job.

They were hit with a

lot of really difficult circumstances.

And one of the things that I learned

was that people, unscrupulous people, will utilize many

ways to make a buck, including their own

children or grandchildren, or they'll be convinced to

do so through certain disability benefits by having

a child declared emotionally disturbed.

And what I would tell these parents is, you realize that

ed diagnosis that you just fought for heart so hard for

means he can never serve in the us military.

Like, things were not totally

explained to these parents.

And often in that kind of a situation, our kids were

fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner at school as early as 2004,

because that's just the state of those areas in DC.

And so it was a very interesting, it

was very eye opening experience for me.

I remember my very first day of work after I came home.

Colin was.

My husband was absolutely flabbergasted.

Cause I'm a talker.

I'll talk forever.

And I was silent.

It took me.

I needed like 3 hours to sort of decompress everything

I'd seen, what I'd been given to do, you know?

And it was in the course of a

year, I completed at least 110 judicial hearings.

And so it was wild. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

Sometimes they're 30 minutes and

sometimes they're three days.

And it's administrative law, which is a federal

administrative code practice, and then it's also under

the american with Disability Acts, and then the

idea, which is the individual with Disabilities Education

act, and that's under the ADA.

And so I got really highly technical and

specialized really fast, only to find out that

I was pregnant with my first son.

And I took a pretty, like normal maternity leave.

But in God's infinite wisdom, I got pregnant again.

So my boys are 15 months apart.

And at that time, I remember calling my boss and saying, I

don't think I can come back to the level of what I

knew the level of work I needed to be able to do

to do that job well and to be a litigator in DC,

and the fact that childcare downtown Washington, DC was going to take

two thirds of my salary, it just was.

So at that point, you were working for what?

I mean, it was much better for our family

for me to stay home, and I was really

excited that I was able to stay home.

So I took a break and moved to Texas.

I took the Texas bar exam in 2013.

Passed when I had two toddlers.

And I remember Colin and I passing each other like ships in

the night, because he would give me a high five as he

came in from work, and I would go to Panera and study

all night, you know, and that was pre video bar day.

So I literally listened to my lectures and wrote notes.

And then I was hired right after I passed

the bar to be his review lecture review editor.

Cause I scored pretty high, and

so that was really cool.

You were hired by one of the instructors?

Yeah, the owner of the bar course. Okay.

For the bar review course? Yeah.

I chose smaller bar review courses because, actually, I failed

the Texas bar exam the first time I took it.

In 2007, I came down from DC, big old hotshot.

Thought I could just take the big

bar recourse with everyone else and pass.

And it turns out there's a lot of Texas

law that's very, very different from DC and Maryland.

Different enough that I did not perform

well enough on the essays to pass.

And that was a huge, humbling moment for

me, because at that point, I was clerking.

And it's a big deal for your

judge if you don't pass your bar. It's like.

It's embarrassing for them.

And so I remember he called me into his

chambers, and he was this massive, beautiful courthouse.

The courthouse that I worked in. It's so cool.

Was built in 1689.

So pre american revolution.

Yeah, so cool.

In Prince George's County, Maryland.

And there's a section of it that's

still historic, and then it's been grown.

It's grown and grown and grown.

And, in fact, it's kind of famous because

I don't know if you ever listen to

the podcast serial about Adnan Syed. I've seen it.

It's very cool.

That case was in xhosa court of special appeals, which

was also housed in the courthouse that I worked in.

So it was great listening to it. Cause I could hear.

And it was in the area of

Maryland Colin and I lived in.

So it was very local for me.

Anyway, he called me into his chambers, and he was

like, you just need to take the Maryland bar, Candace.

He's like, just take the bar in the state in which

you are basically working and doing all of your law in.

And so after I failed the Texas bar in July,

I took the Maryland bar in February and passed.

And so that was interesting because I was taking

my bar exam course after work every night.

So it was, you know, 18 hours, days.

Golly, it's intense.

But I passed in Texas the second time.

So I'm a big proponent of smaller bar review courses.

I didn't do well in a massive class.

I didn't have an opportunity to ask questions.

And for me, learning is really sort of,

I learn in all kinds of ways.

It's, you know, I have to do it.

I have to act with it.

And just like, even now, the practice of

law, I have to physically write the thing,

you know, write the pleading, write the trust.

I don't create it from scratch every time.

That's insane.

But I do need to do it in order to know it, you know?

So there's a lot of.

It works for me.

This area of practice works for

me because it's very hands on.

So how did you make the jump into,

into the Hauser firm and this specific law?

So this is an interesting story. It's.

My mom is the reason.

So my parents had a new need for advanced

estate planning after my dad sold his company.

And so they went from a very typical will sort

of structure into more advanced trusts and things like that

for a lot of reasons at the time.

Anyway, they met with an attorney in

downtown Dallas with Winstead great law firm.

And my mom said that during the initial, like,

consultation, she said, we met with two attorneys.

She said there was obviously a male

partner, older male partner, and then there

was a younger female associate.

And she said the entire time she

kept thinking, Candace could be that associate.

Like, that's very your personality.

And she said, what's so interesting about estate

planning, too, is that with many, many times,

married couples seek the same counsel. Right.

And it is so good to have a division

of sort of like, who's going to talk to

the male, who's going to talk to the female?

And in older couples, too, this is

just the dynamic in so many relationships.

You know, the male handles everything and

the female just sort of sits. But.

And when it comes to estate planning, women

a lot of times really do feel empowered

to ask questions because the sad reality, or

the sad, I guess, trend is that men

pass away statistically five years before their spouses.

So most women know that there's a real

chance that they're going to be in charge

of everything potentially in the future.

And so when they sit down in front of this

lawyer, maybe not the business lawyer, maybe not another lawyer,

but if they sit down in front of this lawyer,

they have real questions about how it's going to work

because it feels really, really personal to them.

And so she was like, you, I

think, have the perfect personality for that.

And I was like, oh, that's interesting, because

when I came back, I didn't really know

what I was going to practice in.

I know I didn't want to

go back into special education law.

Texas also has obviously sped lawyers.

I could have easily transitioned into that, and

I just had no desire to do it.

So it was interesting.

So I actually started doing my own.

I started doing a bunch of CLE, and then

I started working with other estate planning attorneys.

What a cle.

Continuing legal education.

So it's like, you have to have

15 hours a year at a minimum.

And I had just passed, and so I started kind

of focusing my CLE on, like, basic wills practice.

What is the estates code?

You know, like, stuff like that. Very little.

And I started with, I mean, friends and family from

church, and I would do a very simple will for,

like, $200 for a couple and just say, I'm new.

You're getting this.

I don't keep your records for you.

I don't have the ability to do it.

But slowly from that, in 2014, after

Audrey was born, until 2019, five years

later, my practice sort of exploded.

And just that word of mouth. Word of mouth. Okay.

100% word of mouth. Yeah.

To the point where, I mean, I

don't know if you remember this. I'm sure you do.

But, like, I would have signings

at your office instead of.

Cause, Colin, it takes one weirdo, right?

Just one person, male, female, doesn't matter,

to make you feel a little uncomfortable

that you're at your dining room table.

And Colin was like, it's time.

Like, you need to hang out a shingle.

You need your own office. You're just.

You're getting too big for this house kind of a thing.

And so I was like, well,

Audrey's going to start middle.

Not middle school, elementary school.

And she was in the little pre k four class.

And I had been watching suits a lot, and

so I got really inspired to apply for a

law firm job, and I found Bill Hauser's basically.

I don't know if it was on indeed or

something, but it was a very, like just sort

of blanket job posting for estate planning attorneys.

However, it was highly focused on high net worth

planning, which was terrifying to me at the time

because I had been doing very simple, non complex

planning and people had actually asked me if I

would be interested in helping, you know, clients with

trust and things like that.

And I would always say, you know, I'm not qualified.

I've never done that before.

I would need to work with another attorney.

I'm going to refer you out.

And I told Colin, I was like, this was interesting about

this law firm is it kind of gives me the chance

to grow and expand my practice and it looks great.

There's all these people on his website.

Looks like an awesome firm.

So I apply, but it took me about

three weeks to actually hit the apply button.

And in fact, I was so convinced that

I was just woefully unqualified for this job,

I didn't submit a cover letter. I didn't say anything.

I was like, boop. Go.

Well, he called me an hour after I submitted that

thing and called me in for an interview and was

like, we had a phone interview first and he, you

know, we talked through like, oh, I see you had

time in DC and you have some litigation background.

And I was like, yeah, you

know, long time ago, but yeah.

And he said, I think for someone like you

who's built their practice in your area, and because

he's a family man, so that's another thing that's

really amazing about being his partner.

He said, I don't think there's any reason

for me to haul you into Dallas.

He goes, when you come in for the second interview, bring

a couple office spaces that you might want to lease.

He goes, because you'll just need a conference room and

an office for you and make it look nice.

And he goes, you know, I trust you to find something.

And so on my second job interview, he and

I picked an office space for me to work

out of and then walked out, had the job. It's awesome.

Yeah, that is awesome.

You touched on a couple of things that

I think are really important, much like there

are specialties in the medical field.

Like if I had a broken bone,

I probably wouldn't go to a cardiologist.

There are lots and lots of specialties within law.

And so in the context of a business owner, what

are like the, I dont know, two, three, four different

types of law that they need to be mindful of.

And then from there, well, kind of

dive deep into what you do.

So I think you can have as a business

owner, all types of attorneys in your wheelhouse, right?

You should definitely have someone that you can bounce ideas

off of in terms of when you first form your

company, what type of structure do you want?

How do you want it to be taxed?

And this is going to be something that you're

going to probably bring your CPA in too.

So, because if they're going to be preparing

your personal returns, they're probably in the beginning

going to be preparing your business returns to,

you know, what type of structure makes the

most sense based on what you're doing.

And so, for example, if you're having like

a small medical consulting group and you're an

MD, you should probably be a PLLC, which

is a professional limited liability company.

Maybe that's for you as opposed to an LLC.

And why is that?

And what are the restrictions on transfer if

you pass away as a medical professional? Right.

So you need to speak to

a business attorney at that point.

And I know it is easy to go online and to

form your own doc like to form your own company.

However, there's some new rules that we'll talk about

in terms of reporting to the IR's, about entities

that you have and the beneficial owners that I

think any more moving forward in the year of

our Lord 2024, you really shouldn't be forming your

own organization unless you have some kind of background

in business law, because there's just a lot that

you should do as a probate attorney.

I also get a lot of cases of business owners

who've passed away, and the only formation document for their

company is a certificate of formation from 1981. Great.

There's no company agreement.

There's nothing discussing, like, what would

happen in the event of death.

No winding up of the business, sale

of assets, non sale of assets.

Like, it's just, it becomes a nightmare for

that person's widow who has never worked a

day in her life in that office.

And potentially you've got, I mean, larger companies, like,

not very large, but definitely larger companies that really

people have depended on for their livelihood.

And everything is stuck, you know, because the

individual who was the signer on all the

things, the owner of the account has died.

And so don't find your so easy to avoid

that situation with just the planning done beforehand.

And that's just on the business side, not even

your own will and trust or anything like that.

And then if you find yourself in an area

of business that you could potentially be sued, right,

which is kind of like every area of business,

unfortunately, in this day and age.

But certainly if you have a lot of people coming in

and out of an office space or if you are on

a high traffic area with people on your sidewalks all the

time, we like to say if you've got employees who drive

trucks for you, if you've got all that kind of stuff,

you should really look into having a really great business litigator

in your pocket because there's lots of lawyers that do business

sort of like I do formation documents, contract review, mergers and

acquisitions, things like that.

I help people buy businesses all the time.

I help people sell their business all

the time up to a certain degree.

But im not going to go to court over

a contract dispute because thats not something I do.

Thats just not an area I have a

whole lot of interest in right now.

But I definitely know a

lot of great business litigators.

So even if I was your lawyer in your

business for a while, any lawyer would do this.

If youre out of your depth, youre out of your depth.

You just refer out.

You may start with one lawyer and then end

up with a different one for a different issue.

You may also just like you start with a

certain CPA or maybe a bookkeeper, and then you

outgrow it and you got to have someone better

it just like your professionals will change over time.

And that's okay.

And most real professional people know that.

And just kind of tagging onto that.

We've worked with you for some things, and as

we've gotten into some more IP related things, we've

gone to people that are much more focused in

that area for, you know, drafting agreements.

And we've got other types of relationships

with other businesses and drafting partner agreements

for those kinds of things. It's so broad.

And you can in theory do all of these things,

but for a lot, you really do need to find

that expert in that particular, especially intellectual property.

Oh my goodness.

Or franchise attorneys.

If you want to create a franchise, you need

to be working with someone who is highly focused

in franchise law because it is so technical.

I say the same thing even on the estate planning

side when it comes to Medicaid and special needs planning

and planning for nursing homes and things like that.

I actually don't do that because in my area of practice,

we tend to trend towards the high net worth space.

So our clients are not going to be on Medicaid.

That's not something that they tend to think about.

So I refer out to Medicaid specialists all the time.

So there's a lot of things I think especially

to, don't be afraid to ask any professional advisor,

especially an attorney, during an initial consultation, you know,

do you practice in this area often?

Would you say this is, you know, 10% of your practice?

50, 80, 90?

Like, that's always a good question when you interview someone,

because, you know, if you're hiring, and this is, no,

nothing against family lawyers, but if you're hiring a divorce

attorney to do your will, but Wills is only 5%

of their practice, just know you're probably going to get

a very non complex document.

That might be all you need.

But if you've got multiple business interests, real estate

all over the country, you're not going to be

wanting to hire that attorney, because you've got things

that you really need a more specialized lawyer in.

I know somebody who is in the middle of a

divorce, and the attorney that they started with for their

divorce, come to find out several weeks in, after they

had really goofed some things up that were very problematic.

That's a whole other story.

Come to find out, this attorney

really didn't specialize in divorce.

And, you know, so that person has since moved on

and found somebody that this is what they do, and

they're, you know, they're really focused on it.

So don't want to believe her that anymore,

but find somebody that really focuses on the

area that you need help with. Right.

So let's do a deep dive.

If I'm a business owner, if I'm listening to this,

why do I need somebody that does estate planning? Like.

Yeah, talk to me about that. Sure.

So estate planning is one of the worst words used

to describe what I do, but it is exactly right.

But it's because of the perception of public people.

Estate conjures imagery of, like, a large

Downton Abbey kind of a thing.

And most people think, I don't have an estate.

Like, that's insane.

You know, I've got my house and my investment

accounts, and maybe I've got a small business.

You know, I don't need anything like that.

The common myth is my wife

will get anything, everything automatically anyway.

That's not true.

So there's.

I want to say that that is something

that I deal with all the time.

So let's say you're Joe Schmo,

you've got a landscaping business.

You own 100% of the interest in it.

That business generates a couple

million in revenue a year. You're doing really well.

Landscaping, you know, and around here, because you

got to fight for those contracts, I'm sure.

And you've got a wife and two kids.

This wife, however, is your second wife.

And so your two kids are from your first marriage.

And, you know, everything's fine. Hunky dory.

You've got some bank accounts, got

an old life insurance policy.

You haven't really checked on that

beneficiary designation in a long time.

But, you know, you got one of those worth a million

dollars because the kids were young when you bought it.

And then you've got your house, you know,

that's in you and your new wife's name. All right?

You bought it together. Okay?

You didn't sign any sort of prenup.

So there's no sort of what's

called a property agreement in Texas.

And you have no will. Nothing. Okay?

If you were, and it's so funny when we say

if you were to die, look, everybody will eventually die.

So it's not like when you die.

But if you were to die suddenly and

unexpectedly without any estate planning, that estate, which

does not seem overly complicated, right.

Would probably cost about $50,000 to resolve

in probate court, if not more.

And that's because of your business interest, your

home, the fact that you have to do

a determination of airship, the fact that you're

what's called in under an intestate proceeding.

So you've died without a will.

That means lack of intestate.

No test date document, no testament. Will and testament.

It's kind of all around the same word.

And the judge has to appoint what's called

an ad litem, and that's an attorney that

represents all the potential beneficiaries of an estate.

So the ad lib now has

to question your friends and family.

Did you possibly have any

other baby mamas running around?

Are there any other children that could potentially

be a product of any other union?

It's embarrassing, number one, especially for think

of your surviving widow, your kids.

Let's say you passed away, and

your kids are actually adults now.

Kids don't want your stepmom in that house anymore.

They want to sell it.

They want their money. Nope.

She gets to stay in there.

It's called a homestead, right?

Of a surviving spouse in

Texas, that's granted by constitution.

It becomes a real nightmare.

So now everybody hires a lawyer.

So now you've got the court appointed lawyer, the lawyer

for the spouse, who is probably going to apply to

be administrator of the estate, a lawyer for the kids,

and a lawyer for the ex wife, potentially, which she

really doesn't have standing, but she'll probably hire one sometimes,

you know, cause you never know.

But let's say the life insurance policy, you

never changed that beneficiary designation, and it's still

in the name of the ex wife.

What can the current wife do? Nothing.

Because your life insurance policy

is governed by your contract.

And so people tend to think

it's so much simpler, right?

I died and my wife was still living.

She should have gotten it all.

But the truth is, under the statute, she doesn't.

And so she has the right to live in the home.

But eventually, if she chooses to sell,

that's divided with your adult children.

You know, the proceeds of the

sale of that home, it's not.

It doesn't all go to your then wife.

The good news is that while that statute operates.

Well, let me say the bad news first thing.

The bad news is, is that

there's no discretion by a judge.

The judge can't be like, oh, wife, you were

so wonderful and doting and loving, and you cared

for this husband in his last illness.

And I, you know, we're just going to award you

100% of the proceeds of the sale of the house.

No, that's not how it works. Can't do it.

So it has to go according

to the statutory scheme, basically.

And whenever I have someone come in my office

and talk to me about, like, what would happen

if they died without a will or a widow.

My husband didn't have a will.

I have to show them the pie chart.

It's this infamous pie chart

from the Houston probate court.

Like, no, this is the pie.

You don't get all of it, unfortunately, because

your husband had children from a prior marriage.

The good news is you can choose to not ever

have that happen just by planning during your lifetime.

And so.

And a lot of the planning documents seem really scary.

But I think what we really try to do

at our firm is make it accessible to you,

like, help you understand what you're signing.

I think that's so important because so many people

kind of just, I don't know, they get in

front of the lawyer and they black out, and

they're like, I signed it, whatever.

Everything's gonna be fine. You know?

And I was like, no.

Oh, I'm happy to answer your

questions, you know, don't hesitate.

And I really try to go through my document

page by page with people and give them a

sense of what's going on, because all we could

have done, let's say, ideal situation for that business

owner with the lawn company and the life insurance

policy and the accounts and the house. So. All right.

If you're sitting in front of me and you say, I

think I need to get some estate planning done, you know,

I've got a business, all this kind of stuff.

Well, here's the thing.

If you have an LLC agreement and

everything was done right, and you've got.

You're 100% owner of it, we can transfer the interest

to your living trust, for example, and then allow your

wife as trustee to sell the company to, you know,

the CFO who wants to buy it from her. Awesome.

You know, we can do that.

We can negotiate that, because as not only executor

of the estate, but as trustee of, say, the

living trust that you might have created during your

lifetime, she's the power of sale, and she has

the power to acquire companies and sell companies because

we put that in her trustee powers.

She doesn't have that by statute in Texas.

So we would also basically create a trust agreement that says,

you know, in the event I pass away, I want all

my interests to go to my wife in our marital home.

But I would like certain specific gifts

to my kids, for example, of cash.

If I pass away first, you can make your

beneficiary designations, and, in fact, we go through this.

After you sign your trust, let's

walk through all your accounts.

Who are they payable on death to?

How are they held?

How should they be held?

That life insurance policy you had from 15

years ago, you should probably call your administrator

and see what your beneficiary designation is.

On that note, real quick, I read an article in

the last two or three days about a guy.

He was probably in his early

sixties, late fifties, early sixties.

Passed away somewhat unexpectedly.

Never married, no kids.

In 1989, he hand wrote on the beneficiary

designation form for his Procter and gamble company

life insurance policy, the name of his girlfriend

at the time, who as his beneficiary, 1989.

Literally handwritten on a piece of paper.

He leaves p and g years later, but

I guess the policy is still active.

They break up a year or two later.

She goes on, she's been married,

she's got kids of her own.

She's got a life of her own.

I think that there may have been a

more recent relationship that he was in.

Long story short, he's got two brothers, and

they're all trying to fight over this.

And this lady that he hadn't seen in 30 years

is going to get the money from the policy. Yeah. Yep.

Crazy.

Because that's what he designated as his beneficiary.

And so you have to update that. Yes.

Like, there is no question. There is no.

Just assuming, oh, it'll go to my brother's.

Cause we're not in a

relationship with this person anymore.

Yeah, you don't have to prove anything.

Like, I mean, maybe if he had written just my

wife and there wasn't one, but, you know, it's.

And this is another thing I know divorce

attorneys really struggle with sometimes is forcing, you

know, spouses to ensure that beneficiary designations have

been changed, because heaven forbid, you know, something

happens and it's gonna go all to the

ex wife, that doesn't make anyone happy.

So that.

I mean, just by executing some relatively.

And it sounds kind of out of,

like, control, like, oh, living trust.

I don't have that much.

But you've already avoided tens of thousands, tens

and tens of thousands of dollars in probate

costs for your family and all the heartache

of everyone fighting over everything when you're gone.

And so that is.

It's just.

I think, obviously, it's easy because

I do it all the time.

I understand for a lot of people, it's

really difficult to wrap your head around.

And, in fact, I was one of the worst practitioners

of my own advice, or takers of my own advice,

as most people in their own industry are.

I didn't complete my living trust until 2021.

Shoemaker's kids never has shoes, right? That's right.

So, all right.

Trust, living trust, revocable

trust, irrevocable trust.

Like, help me sort through some of these terms. Sure.

So, you know what always kills me, too, is

like, you know, it's like CNN, mad money, people

using these words like they're lawyers and stuff.

It's like, oh, stop.

A trust is basically a relationship which

doesn't really help explain anything at all,

except I'll tell you this.

A trust is a relationship

that's governed by an agreement. All right?

So that's why you have someone named a trustee, and

a trustee holds property in trust for the benefit of

someone, and that someone is called a beneficiary.

Okay, so a living revocable trust, which is

a really common tool we use in estate

planning for many clients, but not all.

So that's a myth.

I don't like trust factories.

We'll talk about that in a second.

That living revocable trust is simply a document

that can be changed, created during your lifetime.

That is an agreement to hold property

and trust for specific beneficiaries, and often

those beneficiaries while you're living, are you.

So you and your wife go in and say, I'm

interested in what I think a living trust is.

Can you explain it to me?

An attorney who practices in this area should be able

to very quickly, I mean, really in ten minutes.

Have you have a general idea of what

a trust agreement is and how it works.

If they can't explain it to you, run.

You know, now, not everyone has, like, a

teacher mentality and like, lots of lawyers, they're

great lawyers, but they're not brilliant client people.

But if you're working with an estate planning

attorney, you really want to be able to

know that they know what they're talking about

and that they can explain to you what

they're talking about, because it's very important.

You're giving up or not giving up, but you're

establishing real legal documents that have real consequences.

And so, you know, I've seen in my practice

trusts that were created a long time ago that

were probably perfectly fine at the time, that really

needed to be updated and never were.

And then, you know, you kind of get locked

into some things, or you go to the court

to judicially reform the trust at great expense.

So it's one of those things that if you are going

to hire someone to do something like that, I just.

Please do not, please do not go to

the, oh, come to our trust breakfast.

And, you know, you get a steak and

eggs dinner, and then you walk out of

here with a binder of a trust agreement.

I mean, generally those don't work well.

And in some places, you'll find that

attorneys aren't even drafting those documents.

In other states, you know, it's crazy.

Like, I've seen, I've gotten

some from Arizona, for example.

But I think in Arizona, paralegals

can write wills and trusts.

So it's one of those things, too,

when you move around as well.

Or if you start to really acquire a lot of

assets and a lot of different business interests, or maybe

you've got multiple homes, second homes, things like that.

You really gotta get a seasoned practitioner in there,

because what you may be in, revocable, if it's

revocable, we can walk you out of it and

get you in something that makes a lot more

sense and is a lot easier for your family.

And then irrevocable just means you can't change it.

So when the document is created and if

it's funded, it's in there, that's it. We're not.

You can't go back and say, I actually

want to change my successor trustee to Bob.

I don't want it to be Jim anymore,

for example, or, you know, the terms are

irrevocable is exactly what it sounds like.

So what you and you do that not to get

too deep into the weeds, but a lot of revocable

trust planning is done with tax implications in mind, because

under the internal Revenue code, they're really looking to ensure

that a gift has been completed.

Right, in order to get favorable tax treatment, either during

your lifetime or after your death, depending on the type

of trust planning you're doing at the time.

So there's reasons for them.

They sound scary.

You should be scared of them if

you don't know what you're doing.

Otherwise, they make a ton of sense.

We use them often in our practice.

Okay, talking about, hey, we drew this up

15 years ago and haven't changed anything.

I think that begs the question, like, how often should

you sit down and review what youve got, whether its

a will or a trust or something else?

Yeah, ill say we have an

aging population in America right now.

I think weve all talked about it, whether you call

it the silver wave or the aging boomers or whatever,

a lot of those individuals, if youre 70 years and

over, 65 even and over, you need to take a

look at your estate plan, no matter what.

Even if you've done it in the

past five years, just take a look.

Because the fact is every five years, you're

probably looking at significant changes in either health.

People pass away, your kids

may become married and divorced.

You know, maybe you've named an old spouse in planning.

I mean, that's really rare, but it happens.

Grandchildren being born.

Maybe you've got some other tax planning you

can do now for those grandkids that can

be contemplated in estate planning as well.

I think for a lot of people, it's a

really good idea as you get older and families

change to look at your estate planning.

And then the other thing, too is we

have a lot of people who are older

who are experiencing illnesses of diminishing capacity.

So they're being diagnosed with Alzheimer's,

ALS, Parkinson's, anytime you've got.

And this is, I hate to say it, but if

you had to have a really horrible conversation with your

doctor, unfortunately, the call next week needs to be to

your lawyer because, I mean, personally, in my life, you

know, I mean, my father in law passed away from

ALS almost, I mean, less than two years after his

initial diagnosis because he had a very aggressive, vulgar onset

form of the disease.

And so I remember thinking, we got to

get him in to change his documents.

Let's get him in, in a couple months.

And it was like, no, we got

to get him in a couple weeks.

And it was, I'm so grateful we did it because

their will had been drafted in 1991, you know, and

so we redid it and everything was fine.

But it's always faster than you think. And it's.

That is, I think, also part of the grieving process

for someone who's been diagnosed with an illness in that

way, it's hard to accept that it needs to be

done, but it has to be done, because once an

individual loses the capacity to make legal decisions, there's nothing

I can do as a lawyer to fix it.

Like, nothing.

There's going to be no reputable attorney on God's

green earth who's going to let you, quote, have

him sign the will from the hospital bed hours

before he dies, unless he has mental capacity, right?

Like the ability to understand who his kids

are, what the nature of his estate is.

There's all this stuff on the

mental capacity test, and I do.

I get phone calls like that. This is an emergency.

You get phone calls like, hey, can you

meet me at Baylor downtown and execute? Yes. Wow.

We got one two weeks ago, and it

was a potential client, I mean, in tears.

Feels so horrible for her.

I need to speak to an attorney right

now, and my paralegal, Emily, is amazing.

And she said, I need to know

what's the nature of your call?

And she said, my dad is in the hospital.

They think he's hours away from dying.

I got a will from the Internet.

I need an attorney to have him sign it.

And she said, is your father awake, able to speak?

She goes, oh, no.

He's been in a coma for six days.

Like, no, sorry.

You know, it is so.

I'm so sorry, but no, you

know, the time has passed, so.

And sometimes, obviously, there's emergency situations and

car crashes and things like that. You just.

There's nothing you can do.

But anytime I say diminished capacity.

So those are the really sad reasons.

Other reasons to look at your estate

planning is you've recently got married.

You probably want to go ahead and execute a

last will and testament, even if you're in your

twenties, especially if you guys bought a house recently.

I know that's kind of a harder american dream

to achieve these days, but you'd be surprised.

Kids are still buying houses.

You have a change in your marital situation.

If you've been divorced, your divorce attorney will tell

you you have to redo your estate planning.

If you have kiddos, if you just had

kids, you need to go ahead and get

that guardianship designation for them, because heaven forbid

something happens to the both of you.

It's really, really important for, you know, you don't

want the court deciding where your kids are going,

the nightmares that they get put in foster care.

Highly, highly rare, but it can happen.

And so you really.

If all you have to do is designate

who you want to be their legal guardian.

And it's such an easy document.

It's just not an easy decision. Right.

And so, so many people get hamstrung on the

idea of, like, I have no idea who I

would trust to take care of my kids.

And I always say, if you can find someone and

talk to them about it, it's so much better than

having no one and letting someone else pick or, you

know, going down in the family line.

And now your great aunt Mildred from Midland is

coming out, and she's taking care of the kids.

Again, highly unlikely.

But there's this.

Did you ever see Lemony

Snicket series of unfortunate events? I didn't know.

Okay.

The entire premise of that show is that

the Baudelaires experience a series of unfortunate events.

And the event that kicks it off is their

parents both die in a fire in their house.

And the will states that they are going

to go live to their closest living relative.

And the banker decides what that means because

they're very, very wealthy family, and he wants

to kind of still control the purse strings

involved in their trust that's established for them.

So instead of the closest

living relative, meaning by bloodline. Right.

Like, so their aunt, who is young and vibrant

and would love to take care of them.

Instead of that, they go live with Count

Olaf, who is their closest because he's around

the corner in a different mansion, living relative.

And that's the literal start of the series of

unfortunate events, is living with their uncle, Count Olaf.

So I think there's another takeaway there.

Make sure you really trust your trustee.

Yeah, for sure.

I always, you know, never be an estate planning mom.

Watching your kids watch that on Netflix.

Cause I'm like, no, that's not how that would work.

What?

It's like, why is the banker making that call?

And my kids are like, mom, quiet. Just. It's just show.

Just go with it.

Yeah, yeah, but that's so.

And there's all kinds of stuff

we talk about in drafting.

Be very specific, you know, intentional, just

like you would in your decision making.

Make sure your documents are, too.

So every five years, at a minimum, every

time you've got a big change in status.

If you do have a spouse pass away,

you need to change your estate planning, too.

If you can, it's a good idea to do it.

And then, of course, divorce and then acquisition

or, I mean, yeah, acquisition of a lot

of assets all of a sudden.

And if you inherit a lot of money, you

need to look at your estate plan now because

you have more assets than you used to.

And how did you inherit your money? Was it in trust?

Is it outright? Did you get land?

Did you get a house?

Like, it's always good to sit down with

an estate planning attorney after those things happen.

See how you want to go. Okay.

One thing that may be implied or it may be kind of

woven into this, but like, oh, gosh, what do you call it?

Like a medical power of attorney.

Things like DNR, things like that.

Maybe talk a little bit about that. Yeah.

So anytime that we do an estate plan for people,

I really don't like breaking it out into individual documents

because I think if you're going to be in here

making the hard decisions about what happens after you die,

you might as well make all the decisions about what

you may need to use during your lifetime.

So I call these your

sort of ancillary living documents. Right.

A medical power of attorney is a designation of

an individual to make decisions on your behalf.

When you cannot make or communicate your

decisions on your own, most spouses are

going to, you know, appoint each other.

I highly recommend you do not

appoint your kids to serve together.

I always say, pick, Elaine, pick one.

Because what can happen is if you have multiple agents

serving and brother wants to consent to mom's surgery, but

sister doesn't, all that does is delay care.

And so you really want to find the person

who's going to really do what you would do. So.

And talk to your kids about it.

What do you want done?

That's why we also execute with a medical

power of attorney, what's called an advance directive.

And in Texas, those are commonly

called living wills, but they don't.

A will deals with property. Right.

But the living will is really the idea of, if

I was diagnosed with a terminal condition and I can't

make or communicate my decisions, what do I want to.

To have happen to me?

And knowing that in that situation, you're probably hooked

up to machines that are keeping you alive.

So discontinuing care and only doing whatever is

necessary to keep you comfortable is going to

result in the termination of your life.

Like, you just need to know that it's effectively

electing hospice when you might not have done it,

you might be doing it a little bit earlier. Right?

And I have.

It's unfortunate, but I do have

really real personal experience with it.

I lost my father and my father in

law within eight months of each other. We both.

We did it together.

My husband and I, we did hospice together.

It was a very different experience from

one to the other with our families.

And so one of the things that, you know,

unfortunately now I have experience in is counseling people.

Every situation is different, but having an

advance directive and knowing with certainty.

For example, my father had had a massive stroke.

He never would have wanted to live in an acute care

hospital for the rest of his life on a feeding tube. No.

You know, so that made that decision

as horrible and hard as it was.

I have a lot of peace about it because I

know that that's what he wanted with, you know, my

mom and I have never, and brother have never second

guessed that because he told us, you know, and it

was in all of his documents.

So that is one.

It's a hard one to think about and go through.

People, sometimes they don't sign them.

Believe it or not, in my

signings, I always say, you don't.

You don't have to commit to this today.

I would really like you to, if you can, but

as long as you've got an agent, just know that

your agent has the final call at that point.

So then we do a durable power of attorney,

which is an appointment of an agent to serve

on your behalf for all financial decision making.

It's like the word escape me.

So there's a list of types of things that they can do.

You can pick and choose, or you can give them

global planning and know, too, that, like, if you have

different types of assets and you've got a situation, maybe

even as husband and wife, where maybe you travel a

lot and you're out of the country quite a bit,

but you want your wife to be able to close

on real estate deals for you.

There's powers of attorney that we can sign that

are very specific for that and allow title companies

to feel comfortable that you've truly and any more.

Now with Docusign all over the world,

it's less, but they're helpful, they're important.

So talking to an estate planning attorney, too, about,

hey, I know, I understand this is sort of

like the blanket document, but I'm actually in Europe

half the year, and I want to make sure

my wife really can sign for me.

And they'll walk you through what you need to do.

For that.

And then we always do burial

instructions, like, so it's really in.

In Texas, and this is kind of a really interesting area

of the law, and, in fact, was one of the things

that became sort of interesting to watch during the pandemic.

You have to appoint an agent for a disposition

of your remains in Texas, if, for example, let's

say, by statute, your surviving spouse should be the

person the funeral home deals with.

But let's say family doesn't agree

with what the spouse does.

So in 2020, and it might have been

2021 when we were still in Zoom court.

Judge Allen in probate court number one in Tarrant county

had a really interesting case that she live casted about

a nigerian family that the husband had very quickly, very

quickly buried his wife after she passed away.

And I think it was from COVID

in a local cemetery in Tarrant county.

The family from Nigeria flew to Texas, disputed that,

and said, like, he shouldn't have done it.

That's against their religious beliefs.

There was no reason. And I.

You're gonna have to not quote me on the reasoning

of why this even went to trial, because normally I

would say, you know, he had the power.

But they exhumed her body.

The family was successful.

Her body was exhumed and flown back

to Nigeria to be with her family.

Yeah, it was a fascinating case.

I don't remember why I started watching it one

day and I wasn't able to finish it.

But I remember thinking, I always kind of,

like, tongue in cheek, say, you don't want

to stop a fight at the funeral home.

You know, sign this document.

You're here for all the other stuff.

Make sure your family knows you

want to be cremated or not.

Make sure your family knows that. Yes.

You know, mom is a widow, and she really wants

Sally, her oldest daughter, to make the final call and

to sign the transfer over to the funeral home.

That's all real documentation that you have to

take care of when a loved one dies. It's real.

And the funeral home has to have a reliable instrument

to say, okay, you said she could do this.

You agree to cremation, fine.

Because there are fights on the

funeral home, as you can imagine.

These are things that, like, none

of us want to think about. Right.

But how much worse is it if your family

is having to make these decisions after the fact?

And, you know, what are you putting them through?

What are you signing them up for if

you don't have it all buttoned up right. And it's.

It is relatively simple to do so.

I know we talked a little bit about, like,

living trusts and things, but for a lot of

people, too, especially elderly people who may have had

stuff, and maybe not anymore, and maybe they've just

got their little old house they bought and I

grapevine in 1967 or whatever, and that's it.

That can be that.

We've got so many tools in our tool belt to

ensure that even maybe, grandma's estate doesn't need a probate.

There's deed work we can do.

There's all kinds of stuff that we can

do to ensure that it's relatively simple.

So when granny passes away, the family

really can just focus on remembering her.

And the legal stuff is relatively simple to

wrap up, and she doesn't need overdem.

The top planning.

I think sometimes there's a desire or there's a tendency

for people to think they have to over plan.

And I just want you to plan, and we'll

walk you through what plan makes sense for you.

And it's not all one size fits all,

not hardly at all, because families are different

and situations are different, and you never know. Right?

And so I always say there's two things

that will make this entire process successful.

One, come in and sign everything.

Step one, you know, I love the ones that meet

with me and then takes seven, eight months to sign.

It's like, get in here, please.

Second of all, get it done. Don't delay.

You started the process.

You paid, like, what is happening?

And then, number two, you have to not lie.

And I think it's funny because people would say,

oh, my gosh, who lies to their lawyer? Lots of people.

Really?

It's really strange.

Don't withhold things from me.

You know, if I ask you, do

you have a condo in Rosemary beach?

And you say, no.

And I'm joking around and saying, okay, do

you have any other condos on the beach? And you say, no.

And then I say, anything else?

And you also say, no.

Then you come into your signing and

say, oh, I own an apartment complex.

It's a fourplex.

It's in Fort Worth, but it's not on the beach.

I'm gonna kill you.

You know, like, don't do that to me, man.

So I've learned, too.

Yeah, we send really intense,

like, asset inventory things.

Some people fill them out, some don't.

I've had people look me in the eye and

say, I'm not comfortable sharing that with you.

So I will say, I'm your estate planning attorney.

I can only plan for what you tell me about.

Please understand that if you do

not disclose an asset to me.

I cannot plan for it. And that's it.

Like, that's all I can do.

You know, older engineers don't.

Sometimes it takes them a while.

I gotta, like, get in.

There's some trust building that goes on.

It takes a while, which is why it's always funny

to me, because sometimes those types of personalities come in

and they think, I'm going to give you this list,

and I want my will in a week.

It's like, no, nice try.

We're not going to do that.

We're going to talk through quite a bit.

I hate to break it to you.

And so I love what I do.

I mean, I think it's really fun.

That's bizarre, but true.

And I think the more advanced kind of stuff,

the more exciting and different and interesting it gets.

I mean, I've now been with Hauser for five years,

and the lawyer I am today is so different than

the lawyer I was five years ago, which is amazing.

And he's been such a great mentor and

partner, and we work really well together.

He is board certified in estate planning and probate law and

has been for, I want to say, almost 20 years.

I'm working towards board certification, obviously only

five years in this area of practice.

I'm still building my resume towards

that, but that is the goal.

And I think as we transition in, a lot of things

that are changing in this area of practice, starting from last

year, and then the threats of change from build back better

in 2021, and we're going into an election year.

So you're going to hear all kinds

of stuff about estate planning and federal

estate tax exemptions and stuff like that.

As that happens, you're going to find that there's going

to be a lot of lawyers who potentially say, oh,

they can do estate planning or, oh, they can handle

your probate, and there's going to be a lot, a

lot of clients that don't fit those lawyers, and that's

not to trash other lawyers.

I think there's a lot of things that I

wouldn't be able to do for people either.

But you're going to really want, especially estates

that are over the exemption limit, you're going

to need a board certified attorney.

And in fact, I think quite a bit now, a

lot of our referrals that come from the big banks

and the big financial institutions to bill is because he's

board certified, they won't refer to anyone else.

It doesn't matter how friendly or kind or great you

are or how long you've been friends with this person.

If they're worth $150 million, they need

a board certified estate planning attorney.

They just do.

You need the big guns.

And so what is neat about that is that

I get exposed to clients like that and I

get to work on those files with him.

And that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah.

So taxes is always a fun topic.

And I think that with a lot of

these things that we've talked about, there are

tax implications upon, you know, death.

But are there things, are there ways that

people can structure things for their business?

Can a business owner structure things in such a way

that down the road, if they were to sell their

business, are there things that they can do to make

that a more advantageous thing for them and their family?

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's planning that can be done prior to sale.

If you're even remotely contemplating selling in

the future and you've got a situation

where you're going to make a lot.

And, I mean, you know, a lot is different

to everyone, I guess, but, you know, tens of

millions of dollars, and that does happen.

You really need to speak to a board certified

estate planning attorney because they're going to walk you

things like grant or retained annuity, trust planning, and

allowing you to maybe defer some of those capital

gains while you take an annuity.

And then you eventually, potentially, you're going

to get the rest of your money.

It's an interesting way to structure things that allows

business owners to sort of take the heat off

that capital gains hit from that business interest, you

know, which probably when you started your company, your

basis was zero, wasn't worth anything.

Now there's planning also, too, that you can

be doing with a business attorney with that

in mind, like your general counsel.

Or maybe you're talking to your estate planning attorney

of stuff that can be done while your business

is growing tax wise, that's tax advantageous.

And then, of course, there's always things that can

be done to, that allow whatever, maybe you get

to be put into certain types of irrevocable trusts

that allow that money to grow estate tax free.

And so there's, I mean, without getting way too

into the weeds for it because it's pretty complicated.

But there are things that you would do in that

case, you're trading, you're going to hit the capital gains

hit, but you don't get the federal estate tax hit,

which is at this point, I mean, I believe 40%,

but has been proposed to be as high as 45

and 50% of what your estate is worth.

The value over the limit, that's a better deal. Right.

Because maybe you're potentially paying 38% versus 50.

Right.

So someone's going to walk you through all of that.

Low basis.

Assets being transferred into those types of irrevocable trusts

are great because they can continue to grow.

And there's really high level

planning that's done with that.

There's property agreements, partition agreements that

are executed between husband and wife.

There's gifting that's done.

There's 709s that need to be filed.

If you're doing something like that, all very

advanced planning that you really need to be

working with an attorney who knows what they're

doing prior to the sale of your business.

And when I say prior, like, ideally you

have come to a lawyer twelve months before.

If you come running into our office and

say, I close in six days on the

sale of my business, that ship has sailed.

Now, can we do planning afterwards?

Yes, of course.

But you're going to close on that business in six days.

You know, and that has happened to Bill.

I had a guy come in and I'm selling

my company for $200 million in six days.

What can you do for me? Not much.

So it's one of the.

I think everybody told him, go see

Bill, go see Bill, go see Bill.

And he finally listened, and it was just.

It was a tough one.

I mean, it's.

Now, did we end up helping him with estate planning?

I think so. Right.

And there's stuff that you can do later, but

sometimes you pay taxes when you make money, oftentimes,

in fact, almost every time you do.

But there are things that we can

absolutely do to kind of help.

And so the federal estate tax is going to

be on the horizon, in fact, very, very soon,

at the end of next year, 2025.

So the current federal estate tax exemption

is the highest it's ever been.

So it's 13.61 million per person.

Around 26 per couple is the amount of money, millions

of dollars that you are allowed to give away during

your lifetime and at your death is state tax free.

So the way the federal estate tax works is

that if you are worth more for, let's just

do an individual, you're worth, and I'm going to

keep it 13, not 13.61, because math is. Math is math.

Yeah.

So let's say you're worth $20 million and you pass away

in 2024, and the estate tax exemption is $13 million.

What's taxed the $7 million over the 13 is what's

the taxable amount, and it is taxed at a rate

of 40%, which means that your family writes a check

to the United States government for 40% of $7 million.

And that's the tax you pay.

The owner of the Yankees died the one

year there was no federal estate tax exemption.

And so we say that that was

the best estate plan in the world.

It's a pretty crazy story.

However, there's been lots and lots of warning about

this, and I think people are finally going to

take us seriously next year after the election is

over, if there isn't any sort of massive omnibus

bill or action done in the first hundred days

of office, which is classic for presidents to do.

Regarding the estate tax exemption, I think

that bill is going to sunset.

This is my personal opinion.

I have no way of knowing, but I don't

foresee Congress all of a sudden getting together and

completely agreeing to keep that exemption so high.

Number one, we.

Our economy needs the money, and

this is low hanging fruit.

Most people don't plan, and you'd be surprised at

the number of very wealthy people who don't plan.

I mean, there's the famous ones, right?

Jimi Hendrix, his probate case is still

open because it's still earning income.

You are kidding me. No. Uh uh.

All is music.

Aretha Franklin, distrusted lawyers, has a special needs kid

and never signed a will, refused to, and I

think her estate at this point has paid something

like $10 million in legal fees.

So, you know, what a shame.

And then, I mean, Michael Jackson had issues with

his will, you know, so that is all.

Those things are crazy, but it really does happen.

So you can plan for the federal estate tax fall.

What's it going to fall to?

Pre tax cuts and jobs act levels.

So it's going to say pre TCGA levels, which

adjusted for inflation as of January 1, 2026, is

going to be $7 million per person.

Still a very high estate tax exemption.

Most people will not have that kind of money

when they die, but lots of people will.

And so, especially, I think, in this area of DFW, we

tend to have a lot of affluent areas around us.

Like Westlake is down the street, right?

You've got Highland park, you know,

across the county line and stuff.

There are a lot of people who, this time

next year, if they haven't planned for the estate

tax exemption falling, they're going to panic.

And they should, because it's a lot

of planning that needs to be done.

And there's things involved with estate planning that

at that level, that involve valuations, that you

have to obtain transfer of title of things.

You have to file for certain types

of entities with the secretary of state.

And I'm going to tell you, there's going

to be delays with all of it.

The secretary of state will get backed up,

valuation companies will get backed up, and.

No, you know, it's always so funny.

It's like nobody's going to listen to

me until it's October of 2025.

So if you can, if you're even remotely looking

at a taxable estate as a business owner, congratulations.

But let's plan for it, because we want

to make sure that we can create a

plan that basically lifts dollars out of your

taxable estate and preserves it for your family.

Because you didn't work for all of this to

go fund, you know, the next aircraft carrier, you

worked for it to stay with your family.

And I always like to say, and this

is just me, because that's how I think

you were taxed on it during your lifetime.

You pay taxes every year, right?

You probably were taxed on this money

multiple times, if you think about it.

And now you're going to get

taxed even when you're gone.

Like, let's not do that. Yeah. All right.

So kind of bringing it home.

I've got three major takeaways.

Number one, don't wait.

You need to go take care of this now.

Even if you're young, even if you're in good

health, you need to take care of this now.

The second thing is find an

attorney that actually specializes in this.

Don't trust the person that spends their

day filing real estate lawsuits or.

Yeah, your buddy from college who went to

law school probably shouldn't be writing your will

unless he's an estate planning attorney. Right.

And then the third was, don't

withhold information from your attorney.

Give them everything.

They can't help you when they don't know about it.

Right.

And we have no, that, we can't put it anywhere.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, we have a duty of confidentiality.

And so there's really, if you can't trust

us, you know, who can you trust?

Which is kind of wild to hear people

talk about lawyers and all the lawyers jokes.

But, you know, you're estate planning attorney, and I

would like to think that for a lot of

my clients, we are, we're very trusted family friends.

At the end of all of this, and especially

when we've been through a state administrations or, you

know, certain probates and things like that, you hug

each other outside the courthouse we get Christmas cards.

We send Christmas cards.

You know, I don't want to be like, at

your family reunion, but, you know, think of me

if something changes kind of a thing.

And I want to make you feel comfortable enough

to say, I should probably call Candace about that.

Or I wonder what Candace thinks about

my brother saying x about this.

Or, you know, like, I just, that's totally fine.

And then I would say, too, the final thing I

would say, if you have a kiddo who's going off

to college, you want to go ahead and get some

estate planning done for even them as well.

They are now generally legal age majority.

They're adults.

You want to go ahead and have a durable power of

attorney, a medical power attorney, and a living will signed.

Highly unlikely something's going to happen.

But if something does, you want to have

the legal document that appoints you as their

parent to also be their agent.

And the doors will open up for you so much faster.

So, you know, if they're in a car accident

and you need to see them, I mean, it's

just good to have all those documents for you.

And that would be the last thing I would say

because it's summer and people are thinking about that.

What are the things I need to do

for my kid going off to college? Absolutely.

Go to the container store.

But you probably want to pick up

a power of attorney package, too.

Well, we'll wrap on that again, don't wait.

Find somebody that is qualified and get it

done as much as you don't want to.

So, Candace, thank you so much. Absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

That was Candace Sandifer, estate

planning attorney at Houser Firm.

To learn more, visit houserfirm.com.

that's H O U S E R firm.com.

if you or a founder you know, would like

to be a guest on In The Thick of It,

email us at intro at Founderstory us.