Leisa Reed: 00:01

Hey, besties. My name is Lisa.

Tamara Kindred: 00:03

And my name is Tamara, and we're BFFs.

Leisa Reed: 00:06

Tamara and I met when we were about 12 years old growing up in good old Fairbanks, Alaska.

Tamara Kindred: 00:11

And we've been best friends forever since.

Leisa Reed: 00:13

That's right. And that's why we've decided to have some fun, friendly conversations with the bestest of best friends.

Tamara Kindred: 00:18

We'll talk about how we became best friends, our experiences together, and have other best friends on the show to share how they met. Who knows? You never

Leisa Reed: 00:27

know when you'll meet your next BFF.

Tamara Kindred: 00:30

Now, let's get into it, how I met my BFF.

Leisa Reed: 00:35

Welcome to another episode of How I Met My BFF. Hi, Tamara.

Tamara Kindred: 00:39

Hey, Lisa. How's it going?

Leisa Reed: 00:41

It's good. I miss you. I went to see you. So tonight, I'm having a breakfast and pajama party, but we're gonna do it in the afternoon.

Tamara Kindred: 00:58

Fun?

Leisa Reed: 00:59

Yeah. So one of my neighbors, we have I think I think you might know, we have the girls in the hood in our neighborhood, and it's like a group of us who gets together. And for each person's birthday, someone will host at the house, and then you get to decide, like, what kind of cake do you want or what what kind of experience you want. So she said, I want breakfast, and I wanna be in my pajamas. And I said, okay.

Leisa Reed: 01:21

So that is what we're doing tonight, which will be kind of fun. So I've got Bloody Marys and mimosas on deck and bacon. And then I think people are bringing, like, breakfast casseroles and who knows what? What quiche? I we've got surprisingly, we've got a lot of egg dishes considering the egg considering the egg prices right now, but that's but, you know, luckily, it's a small group of people, so we should be good.

Leisa Reed: 01:44

Well, that

Tamara Kindred: 01:44

sounds like fun.

Leisa Reed: 01:46

Yeah. And I know you are in a good position with your chickens because now you have eggs at home. Right?

Tamara Kindred: 01:52

Yeah. I mean, I I only am down to two hens, so I'm not, like, rolling in eggs.

Leisa Reed: 01:57

But Okay.

Tamara Kindred: 01:58

That's what it is. But yeah. Kinda funny. I don't I my con yeah. I I mean, eggs are, I guess, important, but it's been other bigger concerns lately.

Tamara Kindred: 02:09

So

Leisa Reed: 02:09

Obviously. Obviously, there's bigger concerns. Alright. Well, I'm excited because today we have a guest who is an expert in planning for your estate plan, which a lot of times we don't really think of. It's not one of those like, oh, yeah.

Leisa Reed: 02:26

I can't wait to do that. And yet we and we don't do it really more than once usually. So there's a lot of information that's gonna be helpful. I think Oscar's gonna share with us today that'll help. And then you're wondering, like, well, what does that have to do with best friendship?

Leisa Reed: 02:41

Well, Oscar, has this really unique take on it. Oftentimes, our best friends might be the ones who are there for us when the, you know, things go down and they might need to know the that important information. So, Oscar Vasquez, welcome to How I Met My BFF. And, we're excited that you're here today.

Oscar Vasquez: 03:05

Well, thank you so much for how having me on your platform and on your podcast. And, I just wanna say thank you for, helping me on my crusade to be able to bring awareness to to estate planning because many people, even your best friend, everybody needs it. 68% of Americans that own a home don't have an estate plan. And I'm coming to learn more and more that I speak to people that it's it's not just to protect your not just to protect your assets, but it's also to inform your loved ones or your best friends, your BFF. Right?

Tamara Kindred: 03:42

Mhmm.

Leisa Reed: 03:43

Yeah. And so just to give our besties that our listeners, just to give our besties an idea of what we're talking about, can you give a, like, real layman's terms, what's an estate plan and why should why would anyone care if they would have one or not?

Oscar Vasquez: 03:59

Yeah. I'll I'll break it down really easy. It's basically, it's an estate plan is a plan for when you're no longer here, after you pass away. And I'll give you an example. This we don't think about these things because we only think about what's gonna happen right now or tomorrow, but we don't think about what happens without us.

Oscar Vasquez: 04:23

So an estate plan, a k a, is it comes with a bunch of what's called end of life documents. Documents when things that are on the unexpected comes that we need, and it's documents that it is. But in a nutshell, an an an ACE estate plan, also known as a living trust, protects your assets from the government deciding on who gets your things when you die. Like, the royalties on your books, your digital assets, your home, your things of value that we accumulate because everything has mon everything has some type of value whether emotional or monetary. And an estate plan protects that because if you don't if you meet the threshold, the government gets involved and they make a decision on what happens to your things.

Oscar Vasquez: 05:20

And an estate plan prevents it.

Leisa Reed: 05:22

And so and and I'm happens to be some you know, have a a better than the average American understanding of this, and I think Tamara might too. But I know when I first learned about it, there was a lot of questions that I had. And so a person might go, well, well, I have a will. That's enough. Right?

Leisa Reed: 05:41

So what do you how do you combat that, Oscar? Like, what important How

Oscar Vasquez: 05:46

I explain the will versus a trust is in in the simplest form is a will is usually a two page document. If you pay an attorney five hundred dollars, it'll maybe be five pages. And, basically, what the will says is I love you. I leave you everything. And it's a will is mostly used to give the judge influence on what to decide on what happens to your things.

Oscar Vasquez: 06:10

You still have to go to probate. A living trust is the only document that prevents you from going to probate. Now one thing

Leisa Reed: 06:20

that Hold on. What's just before they're for our besties again, what's a probate? Like, why would you not wanna go the to probate? What what does that mean?

Oscar Vasquez: 06:29

And I was gonna that was what I was gonna say. So I want you guys to everybody, wherever you are in the country, if you're on your phone, Google this. What is the threshold to avoid? What's the threshold of net worth I need to have to go to probate? K?

Oscar Vasquez: 06:46

What's the threshold? So I'll give you an example. California is a hundred and $84.05. If you have a hundred and $84,000, 5 a hundred and $84,500, you and, you know, and $1 more, then the court gets involved. In tech in in Utah, it's a hundred.

Oscar Vasquez: 07:05

In in, in Arizona, it's a hundred. Colorado is 60,000. In Indiana, it's $50,000. So that means if you generate revenue, from a book, a business, or something other than if you have a retirement account, it can go to probate where

Leisa Reed: 07:25

the court can A home.

Oscar Vasquez: 07:26

Well, a % of homeowners exceed that threshold. So that's the first thing that you want. Do I do I succeed that threshold? If you do, then you're gonna go to probate. And that what I call the government plan.

Oscar Vasquez: 07:41

Because the government already has a plan for us, but what they don't what they don't tell what they don't educate us on is that you have the right as a citizen to create a living trust and have your own plan, and you get to choose if you want the things that you have to decide on what happens to your things.

Leisa Reed: 08:02

Okay. So let's let's just but also keeping it real super real here. This probate plan is not a great plan. Right? Like, it is not what you want.

Leisa Reed: 08:14

And from, like, the horror stories that I've heard is, like, you're you if your stuff is in probate, that means, they take, like, the let's let's just say your house is a value of $600,000. I live in Southern California too, so that's like a one bedroom apartment.

Oscar Vasquez: 08:30

That's a whole home in the

Leisa Reed: 08:32

South. Yeah. But, and they want they take that whole value, like, so you might not have $600,000 in the bank, but you have a home worth $600,000. They're gonna say, well, then that goes into probate and you owe taxes on that money even though you don't actually have that money. Isn't is that is that am I interpreting it correctly?

Oscar Vasquez: 08:54

Yeah. But it gets worse.

Leisa Reed: 08:56

Okay. Yeah. That's why I think it's Well,

Oscar Vasquez: 08:58

like, well, figure this out. Let's say your your best friend has a condo in Santa Monica, California as an example. And I say this because I had I had a client. She didn't have any kids, single mother, great, very successful. She had a condo.

Oscar Vasquez: 09:13

It was worth $800,000. Her bestie calls me and says, hey, Oscar. You know, Cheryl passed, but you know what? I'm it's her estate's going. She left the will, and the attorney just called and says we have to go to probate.

Oscar Vasquez: 09:27

It's gonna cost it's it's gonna cost $50,000 to go to probate. But the attorney says that I can pay her pay him after I get access to the title of the house. I could pay them when I sell the house. But you know what? Sheryl wanted me to keep the house.

Oscar Vasquez: 09:44

Mhmm. And now I'm gonna be forced to sell it. So that's the first thing is whether your kids or your bestie gets told that they have to sell the asset that you that you intended for them. Right? Because here's the thing.

Oscar Vasquez: 09:59

You you can only take with you what you came to this earth with, which is your soul. Right? You can't take anything else with you. So somebody's gonna end up with it, whether it be your bestie, your kids, or your loved ones, or a charity. Mhmm.

Oscar Vasquez: 10:14

So one, the first thing that happens is that, one, you have to pay the attorney fees, which could be up to 8%. Okay? So think about that. A million dollar house is $80,000 that gets lost in the probate, first thing. Second thing that happens in probate is that it gets published.

Oscar Vasquez: 10:33

It says, Oscar died and he left all these assets. If you think he owes you money, come forward. If you think you're a beneficiary of his, come forward. And then the judge hears you out. And then the judge decides.

Oscar Vasquez: 10:50

The then after it gets published, then the court decides. The court decides on what happens to your stuff. Who gets it? Now if there you see, I've always seen the judge go to blood blood relatives first, then then caregivers or or very close friends. Right?

Oscar Vasquez: 11:12

And then if not, it goes to the state or it gets goes to a charity or something of of of something that claims it. I've never seen understood. So then the the third thing that happens is the court decides on what happens to your stuff, your royalties, your books, your house, your your digital assets, everything. Then the next thing that happens is if you don't go to it, then you have and I say possible tax implications, but it's probably if you live in California, you're gonna have them because we are a tax happy state. But you have there's tax complications that happen.

Oscar Vasquez: 11:51

One, that may happen. Because we don't know everybody's tax situation, but more likely, you're gonna pay taxes on them, which is inheritance tax, capital gains tax, anything else if there's a big gain. And then the the the fourth and final thing or the final thing is that once the case gets settled, it can take anywhere from twelve to twenty four months for the assets to get distributed and settled. So and I go like, wow. That's the plan the government has for us?

Oscar Vasquez: 12:22

And when I when I was diving deep, I would ask, like, why? And it's all because we wanna protect the government wants to protect to make sure that your assets go to the right people. Right? So and then but let me guess. But they want but they want us to pay for no.

Oscar Vasquez: 12:37

No. The court don't charge you. The attorneys charge. So then they said, well, everybody's entitled to make a living. So in California, there was a major lawsuit about twelve years ago.

Oscar Vasquez: 12:47

Now they cap it. They cap the amount attorney can charge. I don't know any attorney that charges the minimum. Right? They always charge and and the and the cap is up to 8%.

Oscar Vasquez: 12:59

It can be up to I think it's up like, on a on a average house, I think I did the after they do this weird formula, I think it on on, on $500,000, it was gonna be, like, $36,000 or something like that, including court costs and all that. So that's an expensive and so you have two choices. One, you decide or you avoid probate, get a living trust, or two, go with the plan that the government has provided for us.

Leisa Reed: 13:27

Yeah. And so, thanks for explaining all that. And, yeah, it that's what I could basically like, probate is something you don't want. You don't want your family, your friends, your kids, your spouse to have to go through that it because it just it's not a great plan. Thanks for

Oscar Vasquez: 13:42

Yeah.

Leisa Reed: 13:42

Clarifying all that. And then, Tamara, did you wanna chime in with anything? Or Oh. Because I do a lot of talking.

Tamara Kindred: 13:48

Unfortunately, I've been through different scenarios where everything was left in a will. And, needless to say, some of those situations, even though it's been over five years plus, probate still is not closed. So that's, you know, that's a very awful place to be in. So yeah, I definitely highly recommend a living trust.

Oscar Vasquez: 14:18

Yeah. I always tell people, in a nutshell, a living trust protects the two things that are closest to our hour. One is our loved ones. Right? And that can be your bestie.

Oscar Vasquez: 14:31

Because I know my bestie, I mean, I I he's my ride or die, man. I mean, we grew up together. I've been we grew up together since we went we went to kindergarten school. Until this time, even though we went on different paths, we still always reconnect at least once a month. Because, you know, you never can forget that the child and all the memories that you have.

Oscar Vasquez: 14:53

It's just it's it's re re recommunicating about it is reliving it. And reliving it is just like living it again, I think. You know? But I think it's so it's two things. The two things that it protects is closest to your heart is your loved ones and your besties or your loved ones.

Oscar Vasquez: 15:10

And the second thing is your money. Right? Because we all work for to be able to be able to enjoy the time that money gives us and what's gonna happen to it. So having a living trust protects you from going to probate, but protects more importantly. The the and it's funny that Tamara said, you know, it's been five years.

Oscar Vasquez: 15:31

I've been doing, estate planning workshops throughout Southern California, and I had a lady last night that said her estate plan, it's been eight years. And their father left six properties. And they've already spent $300,000 in in court fees because of all the people that have all the scammers that have come forward that wanna get 20,000, 5 thousand, 6 thousand, or that all these false claims that they're fighting off for the principle of it, but it's been almost eight years. Imagine that. You get published.

Oscar Vasquez: 16:09

I mean, Southern California is a breeding ground for scammers, man. I mean, you know, they they're like, where do I go get $510,000? Oh, go file a claim on an estate plan. They got money. Right?

Oscar Vasquez: 16:20

I mean, I just think they got greedy. They're paying they're asking for too much. He said the average claim is, like, 20,000. I said, wouldn't it be smarter if they just said 3,000? And then you could just, like, give they would get pay people would probably pay that instead of paying the attorney to fight it.

Oscar Vasquez: 16:37

Right?

Leisa Reed: 16:37

But So even having an estate plan doesn't protect you from that?

Oscar Vasquez: 16:41

Well, yes. When you have a living trust, it's private. Nobody knows.

Leisa Reed: 16:45

Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Got

Oscar Vasquez: 16:46

it. So when you go to probate, it becomes public. So you got you got you got the

Leisa Reed: 16:52

Everyone in your pie. Their Yeah. Their fingers in your pie.

Oscar Vasquez: 16:55

Yeah. And so then you got that. So in the state plan is, one, it's private. Two, it has unlimited it has, the limitation to a living trust is limited to the two the imagination of the instructions you wanna give your loved ones. Think about that.

Oscar Vasquez: 17:16

That's the limitations. There's some teachers that have been I work a lot with educators and sheriffs and and police in the LAPD. And when we're doing their estate plan, they come up with some very creative and I was like, wow. That's a great idea. I'm gonna have to use that.

Oscar Vasquez: 17:32

But so I'll give you a a layman's term of what a living trust is and as simple as terms as possible. A living trust is be is a contract. And the reason why it's called the contract because the courts involved and if somebody violates it, the courts enforce it. That's the first thing. It's a contract between you and your loved ones, and it's usually the parents and the kids or the or the bestie.

Oscar Vasquez: 18:00

Right? If if you if you only have because sometimes our loved ones are our besties. Right? They're our ride or dies. That goes in and goes in and it does it.

Oscar Vasquez: 18:11

Now every state, in order for it to be has every state has legal provisions that enforces the living trust. And the only thing that is different between all living trust are the two things, the instructions, one, and two, the assets they put into the living trust. Right? So you can give special instructions and unlimited instructions in there, but they all have to have the provisions. Now warning to all.

Oscar Vasquez: 18:43

Warning to all. Not all living trust are created equal. The the to have maximum protection, your average living trust should have, in the state of California or throughout the state, should have a minimum of about a 20 pages. This is how you'd like how do we know if it covers everything? I said, listen.

Oscar Vasquez: 19:03

If it has every legal provision in it, then you the more provisions you have, the more protected you are. Right? One. Two, if it has less, it's there. So that's in layman's terms, it's a legal contract between you and your beneficiaries or your loved ones.

Oscar Vasquez: 19:20

That's it.

Leisa Reed: 19:22

Yeah. Thanks for sharing all that. And, I mean, I have I have one. I've actually I'm on my second one because I had one with my first husband. And then, you know, now our daughter's 18.

Leisa Reed: 19:32

I'm remarried. He has been, in remarried and such and had different situations. And so went with my current husband. We have one, and now my daughter's over 18. So, yeah, we've shifted and changed, and we we were together for a while, but, we didn't own property.

Leisa Reed: 19:51

So it was kinda like, well, you know, it's not as important. But once we started once we owned property, that was like, okay. We gotta, like, make sure this is dialed in.

Oscar Vasquez: 20:02

It's protected. Right? And I think here's the thing. Right? It's not for everybody.

Oscar Vasquez: 20:08

Like, I'm I'm a tell you. If I had to limit it down on who has to have one, I would limit it to two sections. One, if you meet the threshold in your state and net worth, that means your business that means your business, your income, your net worth. Right? And that's your digital assets.

Oscar Vasquez: 20:26

Those people, if you do it, you have to have it. Two, if you have a family member or somebody that has special needs and they're going to be a beneficiary. A special needs trust is so important because it protects the loved ones that have the special needs. So those are the two people that have it. And now if you're in a diff if you're in a in the LGBT community, you're gonna need it too because you know what?

Oscar Vasquez: 20:56

Your spouse, your partner, those rights could change if they if you don't have the right legal documents to protect that your partner, then that's what you're gonna need those on there. And those are probably the three people or the three categories you say. These are the one you and other than that, you can think about it and maybe get one if you haven't. But if you hit those three things, you're gonna have you you you're gonna need to protect your family or your loved ones, right, more importantly than anything else. Because the money's secondary, but but the loved ones is what's gonna happen to them.

Leisa Reed: 21:32

Yeah. Yeah. You wanna make it it's already hard enough that you've passed away. You don't wanna make it more stressful on the per on your on your people.

Oscar Vasquez: 21:41

Yeah.

Leisa Reed: 21:42

The more clear it can be. Go ahead, Tamara.

Tamara Kindred: 21:44

So, Oscar, how do we set up a living trust? And I'm asking this. I mean, I I know, but just in general because I have witnessed it's kind of a a interesting situation because a lot of times, you know, you have to go through a lawyer to set up a living trust. However, most lawyers push you to do a will to stay in probate because in the long run, that's how they make more money. So what what what's the steps to set up a living trust?

Oscar Vasquez: 22:16

I'm gonna define there's three ways on how you can create a living trust. K? You know, my my lawyers that I work with and my CPA, they I'm I'm one of those people that challenges everything. And they're like, why do you always tell I said, because I'm like Ronald Reagan. I believe everybody, but I wanna verify it.

Oscar Vasquez: 22:37

Right? I believe everybody. But so there's three ways on how to get it. One is the gold standard, and that's the done done for you, and that is a using an attorney. Now here's the things that you have to understand.

Oscar Vasquez: 22:51

The advertisement that they advertise is not always the price because they use that to just keep increasing it. Because imagine this, you're gonna say, would you pay 8,000 today if you know you're gonna pay 8 your kids are gonna pay or your loved ones gonna pay 80,000 to go to court. Absolutely. So they always get you to come in at the lowest price and then they come in, one. Second thing, an attorney will then charge you what's called a restatement.

Oscar Vasquez: 23:18

A restatement means the changes that you do to your to your living trust. Now when you when you when you're hiring one, you need to know these things before you do it. And that way, you can put that on your agreement, what your restatements cost will be for the lifetime. Because this is why most people that created living trust don't go back to the attorney because they charge $8,000, and then they wanna change, and now it's 4,000. And they're like, well, you know what?

Oscar Vasquez: 23:46

I'll just leave it the way it is. Right? Not do that change, one. Two, they don't have a complete comprehensive well, now most attorneys now are starting to give you a complete trust and doing it for one flat fee. Lot of them are still using the sales the old car sales game, and they keep going up.

Oscar Vasquez: 24:06

So that's the first way. The second way and the second way is is to be able to get it online and do it yourself. But here's an interesting statistic. When we started the state.prep, we we did a lot of research and we said we wanna differentiate ourselves. Because 95% of the people that start on a state plan online on the do it yourself, the legal zones, and all the other websites on do it yourself, 95% don't complete it because there's complicated because they don't take into effect the, the thing that I call the human element of delay.

Oscar Vasquez: 24:46

Like, what if this happens, what do you want to have happen? Well, what are my options? Right? And then they they they get stuck and they say, you know, I'll do it tomorrow. And tomorrow never arrives because tomorrow will be today and tomorrow will never be here.

Oscar Vasquez: 25:02

Right? So they have that delay. That's why they finished that. So what we did and your third option is to find a company like Estate dot prep. We do three calls.

Oscar Vasquez: 25:12

We walk you through the entire process. We are a software company that makes estate planning affordable to the masses. And we have we have payment plans. We you name it. You got it.

Oscar Vasquez: 25:26

We make it super easy, but we get you on there. We get you protected as soon as possible. What what we do different than everybody else is two things, and we pride ourselves on that. One is that we we meet with you at least three to four times, three to four times with the software so you don't have no learning curve about how to use the software. Start with this section and then start with this section.

Oscar Vasquez: 25:50

And then when it comes to this section, we're gonna get on another call because these are the trust provisions that you wanna know. And I'll give you one of the biggest trust provisions that most people go like, I need to think about that. We didn't discuss it. And the one trust provision that people think about is when you die, do you want your partner or spouse to make changes to the beneficiary? Well, I can tell you.

Oscar Vasquez: 26:15

If you're married and you're a young couple, the wife always says no. Because the day I die, this guy's already gonna be picking somebody out. He's gonna get married, and the wife's not gonna like my kid. They're gonna just hit her head hurt my kid. No.

Oscar Vasquez: 26:29

The husband is just like, whatever, man. I I mean, she ain't gonna die. Right? But that's what I've seen happen. That's the one provision that I always say, listen.

Oscar Vasquez: 26:37

You guys need to think about that. That's the first one. The second the second one is what happens that is a human delay. The second one is what happens to your assets if your beneficiary, your loved one, your BFF, or anybody like that passes before you? Where do you want those assets to go?

Oscar Vasquez: 26:58

And they're like, why didn't think about that? Well, that's something that is is a possible thing that can happen. So do you want it to go to your kids, your grandkids? Or and I say this because the majority of the people that plan is for their kids. Right?

Oscar Vasquez: 27:13

And but now we're starting to see a lot more single success, successful people starting to plan for this because they're saying, man, I'm there's more people accumulating assets. Right? There are more people becoming homeowner. So then they say, well, or do you want it to go to your son-in-law or your daughter-in-law? Like, no.

Oscar Vasquez: 27:31

I want it to go to my grandkids. Or if they have no grandkids, I want it to be divided amongst the other kids. But a lot that's a one question that people get stuck at. We always say, hey. That's why we do this on a on a on a several different calls.

Oscar Vasquez: 27:46

Write that down. That's a homework. That's called like a a prayer, a higher power, whatever your religious beliefs are, and what makes you feel better. Those are the things you really need to think about. Then that's so that's the element that we bring to the table by being able, one, not to have a learning curve on the software, one.

Oscar Vasquez: 28:07

And two, we bring hundreds and hundreds of estate planning experience on how people have created them. Because sometimes we get in I mean, you know, I could tell you there's there's probably one of the the most creative that I thought was creative from a was a teacher in North Hollywood. She had one son. He lived back east, but, she said he has he's a recovering alcoholic and and opioid user. And one of the provisions that she put is that the house to be sold, but he were to get payments, but he needed to take a drug test every month before he got there.

Oscar Vasquez: 28:47

And I said and I I I my first thought was like, man, you wanna control them? And she said and she goes, what are you thinking? And and I said, well, honestly, miss Gerald, I it's kinda like control even from the thing. She goes, no. He's my son, and he's going to stay sober whether I'm dead or alive, and he's not gonna use drugs with my money.

Oscar Vasquez: 29:09

And I'm like, wow. Committed. Right? I mean, it was one of those things. And then and then I went back and I go, you know, that's a whole different level of love to think of that kind of instruction.

Oscar Vasquez: 29:23

Right? So I share that with you. I don't wanna I don't mean to go too too far into that, but those are the three sections on how you can do it by using estate planning. You could do it. Some of us say, hey.

Oscar Vasquez: 29:35

You know what? And it if you do all the answers and you could do it, if you sat down on the software, you could do it, like, in thirty five, forty five minutes. But it doesn't take that. I haven't seen anybody. Not even the people that are the mostly prepared do it in one sitting and knock it out.

Oscar Vasquez: 29:51

It I haven't seen it. But, you know, there's always a first.

Leisa Reed: 29:55

What what's what's is it a flat fee?

Oscar Vasquez: 29:59

Yes. What we do is we have a special we have a special gift offer for your listeners. For the first ten listeners, they could they can come in and they can get a onetime fee for life. They can get unlimited updates. I mean, you get if you're in your thirties or forties or you can get for the first ten listeners, you get $1,000 off, which means you get you can use the code you could use the code my b f f, and you will at checkout@ estate Prep, you use the checkout, my b f f, and the first ten listeners will save $1,000 off of the lifetime value.

Oscar Vasquez: 30:40

Now Wow. For a year, there's no updates because everything has been updated every year. Now you everybody knows laws change. But if you let's say three years from now, you wanna make a change, you pay $1.29 to for because we share the cost of the attorney cost for every state to be able to update the trust, the law provisions. Because a living trust cannot be amended.

Oscar Vasquez: 31:07

It goes January of twenty twenty, the trust was created by Oscar and Delia Vasquez. In February of twenty twenty five, he decided to add his grandchildren, and this is the trust that he did. And then it went in this. The older the younger you are when you start your trust, the bigger your trust will become because of all the chain. You can't change it to the document.

Oscar Vasquez: 31:31

You have to amend it and add it. So there's a there's a long list. There's a long of all the changes and things that get on there. Now you don't always like I'll give you an example. A lady said, hey.

Oscar Vasquez: 31:43

I'm a I bought a house. I add it. I said, you don't need to pay a provision. Don't don't let the attorney charge you for that. You don't need it.

Oscar Vasquez: 31:49

Because you can as a revocable trust, you can add and delete things, and they call them funding letters. With our software, you get unlimited funding letters for the rest of your life. You can go in there and you print it. Boom. Wanna print the letter?

Oscar Vasquez: 32:05

It's done. It normally cost it normally cost $500. Attorney's charge for a funding letter of $500. Had a lady, had nine properties in Winnetka. And she wanted to do the living trust because she goes, you know what?

Oscar Vasquez: 32:20

I'm gonna get long health long term care, and I was told that Medicare can attach my houses. I said, yeah. She goes, but I was told that Medicare won't attach it if they're in the trust. And I wanna give these to nine different shelters, but I don't wanna give it to them until I die. And I said, okay.

Oscar Vasquez: 32:36

We can do that. Because Medicare that's another thing about living trust, but I'll go back into the the benefits of that. The the the the the living trust has what's called funding because there's three things. If anything you take away, know this. One, it avoid it's gonna avoid probate, but it needs three things.

Oscar Vasquez: 32:58

If you have a living trust, know this. 95% of attorneys give you a nine page document that goes in your trust and says this is what you need to do next. Nobody reads it. But it I mean, I've had people come to the workshop, say, here's my trust. Is it correct?

Oscar Vasquez: 33:16

And I said, well, did you ever read this section? She goes, no. Why? What's it say? It says, you need to fund your trust.

Oscar Vasquez: 33:22

It doesn't protect nothing if nothing's there. Like, if you have a YouTube channel, you need to put it into the trust that it owns it. So I always tell people this, a trust, in a nutshell, when it comes to assets, it's you own nothing but control everything in a nutshell. And if the trust needs three things, one, it needs to be signed in front of an notary. Two, it needs to be signed in front of two witnesses.

Oscar Vasquez: 33:50

So it's it's signed by you by beyond reasonable doubt. Every time you do major changes, that needs to happen. And the third thing, you need to put assets into the trust. 95% of attorneys don't do funding because it takes long. Now we help you with funding because, one, we are we are real estate agents.

Oscar Vasquez: 34:12

One, so we always wanna meet owners. So we always say, hey. We do this extra stuff. We'll walk you through it. But we're gonna one, we're gonna help you.

Oscar Vasquez: 34:20

If you know anybody that wants to buy or sell, we use us. Two, We help people with their financial retirement plans. And then by us helping you fund them and getting them in there, one, we're protecting them. And two, we if we find there's so many people in the world that have a lazy or lazy or nonperforming $4.00 1 k money. And so if we find that money, we could wake it up, give it an injection of love or a pill to get out of work, and then we do that.

Oscar Vasquez: 34:50

So that's the I I don't want anybody to think, oh, it's an extra service. No. We don't charge for that. But the benefits we get by helping you because you guys ever hear, you give more than you get. Right?

Oscar Vasquez: 35:02

And then you expect you always get an abundance. So the abundance is that we that we get is by helping people protect their assets, funding them in there. So it's really important. If you have a trust, plea open it up. Do yourself a favor.

Oscar Vasquez: 35:17

Read it. If there is funding instructions letters, 99.9% of the time, it's not protecting anything. That means the money that you have is not protecting your asset. Think about that.

Leisa Reed: 35:29

Great tips. Wow. Okay. So hopefully Sorry.

Oscar Vasquez: 35:32

I I went off. I'm a little passionate

Leisa Reed: 35:35

about what

Oscar Vasquez: 35:35

I do.

Leisa Reed: 35:35

So I'm That's okay. I get it. No. And you're fighting the good fight for people. And, so I I mean, I've learned a lot, and I I hope that this episode inspires someone to go like, oh, yeah.

Leisa Reed: 35:48

I've been meaning to do that. I gotta do that. So, in case, our besties didn't catch that website, it's estatedocprep, meaning doclikedocument,d0c.

Oscar Vasquez: 36:00

That's right.

Leisa Reed: 36:00

Estatedocprep.com, and you can use the code my b f f to save a thousand dollars, which is awesome, for the first ten people. And then there's a free gift as well if you're just like, okay. I need a little bit more information, And, Oscar was kind enough to share this with me. It's, a free comprehensive estate guide, and it's at and this is all gonna be in our note show notes too, but estatedocprep.com/guide. And then there's this other cool thing, and I know we gotta wrap it up here, but, you have a a 247 client assist AI phone number for audience questions, which, I mean, that's pretty cutting edge, very impressive.

Leisa Reed: 36:45

So I'm gonna give that phone number out. So you're basically I'm imagining you get you can call it up and ask an AI representative to say, like, okay. Here's my question. How do I do this? What do I do that?

Leisa Reed: 36:56

How what does this mean? And and the AI person will be super patient with you. So that phone number is (805) 909-4689. So that's (805) 909-4689, and it will be in the show notes as well.

Oscar Vasquez: 37:15

Great. Thank you so much.

Leisa Reed: 37:17

Yeah. Alright. Right. Wow. Wow.

Leisa Reed: 37:19

What a unique episode we had today and very educational. Thank you, Oscar Vasquez. You're amazing.

Oscar Vasquez: 37:26

Thank you for having me.

Leisa Reed: 37:28

Bye. Hey, bestie. Thanks for listening. If you like this episode, be sure to hit that subscribe button to get notified of new episodes and check out cool bestie gift ideas at howImetmybff.com.

Tamara Kindred: 37:45

That's right. And, also, leave us a review. Those reviews help us out a lot and are one of the best ways to support us.

Leisa Reed: 37:51

Yes. And if you have a fun story about how you met your BFF, send us an email at info@howImetmybff.com. We would love to hear about it.

Tamara Kindred: 38:00

Definitely. And, hey, maybe we'll

Leisa Reed: 38:02

have you on our next episode. That would be awesome. Until next time.

Tamara Kindred: 38:07

Love you, BFFs.