You Pay More When You Don't Have A Plan

Now, I've been just... glued to YouTube for the last couple of days watching the Lindsay Clancy trial out in Massachusetts.

I don't know if anybody's been following that case, but it's a really, really sad case of a mom who allegedly admitted actually to killing her three children, suffering from postpartum, tried to kill herself.

And there's a lot of layers to uncover in that case, but we can relate that case to end of life planning when it comes to who is going to make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated.

So I am going to touch on that case a little bit later in the show.

But before we begin, what is end of life planning? Why is it important for us to have a plan And what is this plan that the state of California has? And if they have a plan, why would I need to go to an attorney to create a plan for me? So I'm going to uncover all the dark secrets of what the state has in mind for you.

And I think that after I explain what that plan is that the state has, you're going to want to take action and create your own plan.

Now, 70 percent of Americans do not have an end of life plan.

70 percent, which means that they are relying on the state that they reside to take over their assets and distribute according to state law.

Now, why is this plan not ideal? Because it involves probate court.

Probate court is the court that administers your estate when you do not have an end of life plan.

Now, why we don't want to go through this process, there's many reasons, but the number one reason that should alarm you and should get you moving is into creating an end-of-life plan immediately is the expense that's associated with this probate court.

Now, there is a misunderstanding that when I say if you don't have a plan, the state has one for you, this is not a free plan.

So I want to make that very clear.

You end up paying more when you are not prepared.

This probate process will require your family to hire a probate attorney.

Probate attorneys are very different than other attorneys in the sense that they are able to charge statutory fees and extraordinary fees when they take a probate case.

So what does that mean? There are certain percentages that are set in stone of how much a probate attorney can take from a probate case.

So for the first $100,000 of the value of the estate, they take 4%.

Next $100,000, they take 3%.

Next $800,000, they take 2%.

And on the next $9 million, they can take 1%.

On top of the statutory fees, they are able to charge extraordinary fees at an hourly rate for any work that they do that involves litigation, tax work, selling property.

This will result in tripling expected costs when your family has to go through this process.

Now, I am not exaggerating when I say that probate attorneys can make six figures on just one case, depending on the value of the estate.

And that's high six figures on just one case.