Estate Professionals Mastermind - Probate and Senior Real Estate Podcast

Infinite banking, trusts in probate, CMAs vs. MAAs, and the #1 thing to include in your probate marketing letters

• Probate Mastery - Chad Corbett, Attorney John Fraker, and Certified Probate Experts • Episode 36

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Full show notes and resources: https://probatemastery.com/sub-to-deals-in-probate-real-estate-plus-optimizing-your-probate-marketing-strategy/ 

Watch with video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SYTqcdC9nQg
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In this episode:  Why yellow letters don't work like they used to and how to make your probate marketing letters better; How infinite banking concept can help you AND your clients build wealth; How to navigate probate cold calling with DNC numbers; Dealing with Cold Call Rejection; Why You Shouldn't scrub your leads; and how trusts can end up in probate court.

THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE: Probate Mastery’s top performers are challenged to look into infinite banking concept and how whole term life insurance, index life policies, and your real estate investment strategies can align to help you leverage and build wealth faster.

Time Stamps (YouTube links):
0:00 Infinite banking probate, whole life policies and index universal life policies for investment
3:05 Infinite banking and real estate investing: Building wealth in multiple ways
8:42 Probate Mailers: Logos, messaging, and should probate letters be handwritten?
12:42 Better than probate yellow letters: The #1 thing real estate marketing letters should have to increase engagement: The PS line
15:22 Probate marketing tips: Should I use a return address on real estate direct mail? Does it increase response rates?
16:34 Probate cold call rejection: If a personal representative is angry I called them, should I call other heirs?
20:13 CMA vs. MAA: Why I use a market absorption analysis to motivate seller leads
23:04 How to build equitable referral relationships in real estate with multiple vendors
25:56 Calling probate leads on the Do Not Call list (Probate DNC)
28:51 The downside of deduction: Why you shouldn't scrub your probate leads before speaking to them
30:02 Trusts in probate and other complex inherited real estate situations


Probate Certification Course: Probate Real Estate Training for Real Estate Agents, Investors, and Related Professionals 

Learn more at www.probatemastery.com

Welcome to the weekly probate mastery group coaching call. Kat, do you have anything that you'd like to start with not to play Shirley on the spot. She just introduced herself as having infinite banking as part of her skillset. I haven't heard you talk about that in a while and it's something I always loved hearing about. Did you say infinite banking or infinite thinking? Cause I'm cursed with both my news, infinite banking is buying real estate and putting all my equity lines against it, rather than a cat, rather than a cash out refi. And I've been infinite banking that way, using this easy debt that we have. What's your methodology, Shirley? I have Index universal life is my vehicle of choice in that space. Mainly because all the other riders and there's a lot of several new faces here. I chose index universal life, which is a whole life. they call it a rich man's Roth. It was a loophole left open. So it gives you all the benefits of a, of IRA with none of the real restrictions, but the bigger reason for me at 35 years old, helping so many families in this end of life transition, I realized you probably should have long-term care insurance, disability, chronic illness, terminal illness, and those are expensive when you have individual policies for each of those. So when I looked across the whole landscape of available insurance for the investment utility of it, as well as the actual benefit. An IUL or an index universal life policy was the one I chose. And just like with any other whole life policy, it has all the benefits of borrowing against it. Mine is indexed to the S and P 500 and then the index is every two months. So as the market rises, I'm not actually invested in equities, but I'm index to the equities markets. But there's a 0% floor. So I can't, if the market corrects I'll stop out at where my last index. And if the market goes up, there's no cap on it. It'll continue to rise. I don't usually mess around much with complex financial instruments, but there are hundreds and hundreds of them out there. And there are a few good ones, but that's what I use index universal life which will give you access to funds you. If you end up terminally ill or disabled, you can trigger the death benefit while you're alive and have bucket list money. Really neat tools. I have a question. How did you find the index universal life? Lots of kissing frogs to find the one that I trusted. So the one I originated with Minnesota life and they were not too long after that bought out by Securian SCC. You are, I am social security and financial has an IUL policy. As I said, there are hundreds of them out there that are really complex. A lot of them will have caps on them without floors, the opposite of what I have. So just be really careful. Ray Perkins is a contact that I have. It's all he does. I challenged a few professionals to bring me financial products that made sense. Most of them don't and most of the one I was like, wow, you found something so I can give you guys Ray Perkins. It'll be in the show notes and we'll post it with what's the call in the group. But Raymond Perkins is the one I would recommend to help navigate that world. Shirley tell us, are you're using yours for your real estate finance strategy? I'm a licensed practitioner I help people with setting it up. I'm up here in Canada though. We're just a team up here as well. So I'm trying to get all my wheels together. I've gone on gone off onto these all these little. Areas. And I thought I was going to do them individually, but then I found you and the more I just like, oh my gosh, I can bring that in. I can bring that in. I can bring that in. That's where I'm at right now. I found these the IVC with That I was sitting as a corporation. I wasn't, and I was looking at real estate investing through corporate funds and things like that, and just, did a wrong, some wrong things. As long as I've been in 20, 26 years, I've been in real estate, but still, the ins and outs are, you learn the hard way sometimes. There was some of that, and then I found concept, it really intrigued me. So I was like, okay, I got to go down that education and get that skill. And so I have a great group up here in Canada that's helping. There's lots of real estate investors that are using it. We personally don't use universal index. We put it on to the actual life insurance company. So then we don't have to worry about it. They centered their guarantees. There's dividends on top of that, there's, death benefit. It just helps overall for an investor with regards to capital gains. Probate lots of various things that people just aren't aware of. And then on top of that if investors are having, I don't know about in the states, but in Canada, all of a sudden the bank will say, oh you've got five doors. No, we're not loaning on another one. And it's very frustrating to investors. So it's just another way that they can compound and grow. All at the same time. So it's really having your money do two things at once. So, um, We don't use that that compounding as everybody knows the penny scenario and if you take it out a day 15, you're a lot less than If he didn't take it out on day 15 of what that 30 day of what that penny does. So that's the concept behind, it allows you to be able to have a collateral loan with your insurance company against it, it doesn't go on your credit check. So nobody even knows that you have that. And it's a nice way to be able to use your funds instead of having to refi all the time, which starts the clock all over again. So all you're doing is paying interest. I know you're using other people's money, but it's not always a clear cut on that. they don't ask why you want the money. What it's for. So when you've got these kind of secure things of, you know, investments that are opportunities that you want to take and the bank goes, Nope, we're not going to do that. But you still feel, deep in your heart that's an opportunity you want to take. Then there's no questions asked by the insurance company. So it's just another great tool to have it. And as you say, like I've been listening to you, Chad on some of your previous meetings there's just a lot of ways that we're not protecting ourselves. And it's just a win-win and you're able to use it when you're alive, and that it's still there for your family f I just think of anybody who's got more than five doors. Their capital gains, at least in Canada. Cause that we're taxed cause we got to pay for everything. It's astronomical. I'm starting to run those numbers even into probate. I didn't even think about that. I've gone through probate with my mom's estate. She was second to die. I've lost both my parents. So I've been through that and that's where I came in this as just I could help families. Maybe that's an, I wasn't even bringing in you know, my knowledge with regards to pre probate. And I think that's where I'm really starting to see where all my skills come into place there. Cause I've got my appraisal designation as well. But anyway, that's just my 2 cents worth. So I won't keep you longer. You've got a vertically integrated service right there in your office, so that's great. That's what we were striving for is provide as many options as you can, and be able to monetize as many of those as you can. I'm curious. It sounds like you're on the more advanced end of the insurance spectrum. Do you have captive insurance in case. Have you ever, do you have any experience with captive insurance company? I've never heard of captive. So in the states, and this is an old law on the books but insurance companies in the United States do not pay income tax on the first million and a half in revenue. If you own multiple entities, you can start your own captive insurance company and you can actually charge a company b would be the captive insurance company. It would charge company A. Typically a high premium and that money is income tax free. So it's a way to move capital between entities and then that captive insurance entity, just like any insurance company actually has a pool of premium capital that's used as investment capital. And as long as your earnings are under a million and a half it's tax-free, so you can grow the hell out of a small business by designated it as a captive insurance company. Now the one caveat I will give you, and there's plenty of, there are case laws, multiple case laws defending this, and validating it. However, the IRS does not like it. If you have less than a million dollars a year in revenue and in entity A and you're paying big premiums to entity B It can be dangerous. It can be an audit red flag and you will win in court. You will just be in court arguing your case. So it's your burden to defend yourself. As you move up the wealth scale, if you have three to $4 million a year in revenue though it's a tactic of billionaires. It's one of those progressive way to use insurance, but you can actually really maximize profitability and both entities by utilizing tools like captive insurance. So anyway, I don't know if you have those in Canada. Our insurance companies are fully regulated by the grand Poobah. So then your voice. Yeah. I'm in Ontario. Yeah. Yeah. Are you in the GTA? Just west of it. Yeah. I'm between Toronto and London. Okay. It's snow. That's all I can say. Stanley's ain't got a hand up Stanley, go ahead. You can unmute yourself. Hey, what's going on, Chad? How are you? Can you hear me better? I know Noah, you had difficulty hearing me during the last weeks call. Yeah, it was very in and out. It would go have peaks and valleys. You sound good? Yeah. I think it's my network, but hopefully it cooperates this time. Yeah. What can we help you with today? Okay. I took heed to a lot of the things that you told me last time. In regards to, automating the marketing and I created a role-play group would mean another. Yeah. Say that again. Have you had your first maybe. So how are you feeling about your your role playing? So he is experienced and I told him I'm a novice, he just challenged me right away. He threw out a scenario and we just role-played it. And he was impressed that I actually That just comes from me listening to a lot of the things that you had to say and just really taking a mental note. Awesome, man. I'm glad you're jumping in with both feet participating in the community. That's awesome. And I'm glad that you found the community member that's willing to step up and help you. Absolutely. And I just give him a thanks to you for everything that you created. Yeah. Thank you for being here and being part of it, bro. Yeah. I have a question. Okay. I remember oftentimes when you reach out to family, you would S you would just present yourself as Chad. You would not add any title to your name whatsoever until you figure out how you'll be able to help these families. And when marketing and sending direct mail, do you recommend adding a company logo? Do you recommend adding any titles? How would you go about that? Are you licensed? No, but I am working I'm going to have to work towards it. I know you beat up a lot of people about that. That's right. So until then you don't really have compliance to meet. When you have your license, you'll need to make sure if there's any offer of brokerage, any mention of a brokerage even if it can be construed as that, you do need to have your minimum compliance information that he or she or state recommended or demands. And what I would do is put that in number eight font and the footer, like I would just make a vertical line and then have my brokerage name, address, phone number. And in Virginia, we didn't, we don't require a state license number. I think California does. I was compliant. So my team was Corbett real estate, like when that was at the top of the letter, it made it seem like this was just a real estate conversation. If you have a brand that something like Stanley transition.com where it's more relevant to their emotional state and their situation, then the brand can make your letter even more impactful. But if it's like ABC real estate investing or, we buy houses, cash, LLC. That's not the kind of brand you want at the top of a letter when you're just trying to make the right first impression. I helped a gentleman early in this part of my career we created, and it was in Ohio, the transition team and that became his brand. So we had logos and that with him, like we proudly branded the transition team as the author of the letter. And, Jeff was the founder of that. But if it's just ABC real estate, a lot of times you can switch people off before they even get to the copy. The logo will kill you because if it just looks like a typical brokerage offer, they've already gotten, they've already seen that. So any, anytime you have questions in this space, get in that empathetic state, what are they going through? What are their struggles? What is the day to day? What are they thinking about and how can I differentiate myself by making a different and better first impression. When it comes to the words you use, the logos you use, the calls to action, the PS line, consider all of those things. what, What you end up with is a letter or a marketing campaign that's authentic to who you are and what you're offering, rather than thinking a template and throwing your logo on it and firing it out the door. If you do that extra work, if you do that mindset work and really think about, okay, where would they be? What are they thinking about? What might be valuable to them at this time? And then take those letter templates and customize them to really fit your specific offer that you've come up with. Awesome. Handwritten font do you think they should be all handwritten. I know it's going to take more time. I've tried a little bit of everything. And honestly, like when I first started marketing, as an investor I bought into the yellow letter. I know that was, I don't know, 14 years ago. I don't know, a decade ago. And I did every letter. Like I had a designer make a template where I could buy yellow paper and I actually printed out as it would print the lines like yellow legal paper. And I captured my handwriting and had that in a font. And it took a bunch of efforts. What I found that other people were doing that. And it didn't have that big of an impact where I had the biggest shift and response rate was when I just. Typed up the letters and focused on, the copywriting, getting

the components of the letters:

a non-threatening introduction a call to action and the last paragraph, sign your name. P PS line is honestly, the biggest reason you send a letter is the PS. And that's where in mind, it's BS. If you're not ready to talk to anyone just yet be sure to check us out at and then send them to wherever they can learn the most about your website, Facebook group, whenever you'd like to use there. But for the ones that aren't ready to PS, and most of them won't be on the very first touch. The PS line is a really great way, an unthreatening way to introduce them to something. Now an idea we discussed last week was building community focused Facebook group, where you could have the top vendors or team members come in and actually explain their service, what they do, how that's valuable to families. That's a good thing to use in the PS five PS, if you're not ready to talk to anyone just yet be sure to show up on Wednesday night at eight a probate Facebook group, and just give them the exact name of it just say, go to Facebook, search this name and request to join. We'll let you in. But that's a really good PS call to action. Is, you're not asking them to do anything other than come and get value. So focus more on really honing your offer, like if you want to experiment, experiment with the opening paragraph and the closing PS. Are the two things that really I could measure a difference in response rate more off of those two parts of a letter than anything else I changed. I did this meticulously through my first 12,000 pieces of mail, and then I just started to shoot from the hip and try things. And the letters that are there I've, that's, those are the mad they have the magic components. They were the ones that worked. Definitely personalize them to your own, to your own service, your own kind of culture, because most other words is written by some damn West Virginia hillbilly. Oh man. Have you ever been to all the devil's bath? No, that's actually in Virginia, that's closer to my other house and Roanoke and down in Southwestern, Virginia, but I still have not gone. Wow. It looks like a really cool spot. And one final question I have from Chad, all the leaves does include a return address. It's up to you. So that's one thing that I did ultimately take off of my letters because without a return address and a greeting card envelope there, the likelihood of it being opened is much greater. In my opinion. So I'm the taking the return addresses off and pretty much always maintained like a 2% response rate with like within the week that I actually mailed the letters. Now over time, you would get people that called you cause they got your letter six months ago, but I can pretty much always count on a hundred letters out, two calls in within five business days of sending it. I appreciate that Chad. Is there anything that I can do to help? I'm not here just to take, I definitely want to give it as well. Keep showing up, man. There's always somebody that you can help. You get, you've got community members helping you and helping you beat a learning curve, just be here and do that for the next guy. All right. Sounds good. Thanks for your time. And keep asking questions. Keep raising your hand and sharing your experience with us. Everybody here needs encouragement from time to time. So come back and tell us all your success stories what's working. What's not all right. Definitely will. Yeah. Thank you. Richard is up. Just a real quickly. So cause this line of of calling is totally different than you're dealing with a bunch of family members really peculiar when in my case, I just sometimes don't want to handle this. So if you get like a shutdown from the actual representative or the executor, if you get a shutdown from that, You're supposed to still continue calling the family members, the heirs? Probably not because even if you're successful there, you're going to have to earn your way back in with that person. So just start there and earn your way back in, unless that person if I got shut down hard by the executor, but I had his wife's number and I built rapport with her and it was going well, the handoff is going to make more likely than not his ego is going to make his marriage contentious when she tries to hand it off. What you mean? That y'all hung up on last Wednesday and I don't ever want to add more stress to the situation. So if I knew that I had a good number for him, even if it didn't end on a good note, I would still call him again before I tried to call close family members who would eventually have to hand me off to him anyways. Okay. Got it. Thanks for that. The thing is what I would say Richard is, and this is I'm pretty tough on myself. Like the way I built my sales language was being very self-critical, but you should always know why that person was what you said or how you say. Or if you were even responsible, but try to understand every time you're rejected. Do you do your best to understand exactly what happened there? Was it your fault or were they just having a bad day? Did you say something that, that you overstepped your bounds and say something that triggered them or, are they just an unreasonable person? Okay. It's, there's a million different answers or scenarios, but understanding like just really paying close attention to what you said, what you got in response. That's what helped me really build you know, the ability to have these as fluid conversations, even though they're pretty sensitive situations. When you do have one of those hard rejections, ask yourself the question, honestly, like what the hell? Where did I lose control of that and go back and think about what you said and where you lost control. Did you have rapport and did you. Or did you never get there? And just that being self-critical without beating yourself up, just saying, Hey, where'd you lose that one? Can really help you identify where you're tripping up. Yeah, I believe it has to do with my clarity. My, my initial pitch is not super clear because I give people telling me, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. I got a few of them telling me we're all done. We'll finish. It's either I believe it or not. It's true. So about 25% of your list are going to they'll understand what probate is that they've been through it before they're proactive this time, because they have experienced on it for grandma or not for their sister or something like that. So in my experience about a quarter of the list, truly doesn't need your help. Another quarter is going to fumble through it and do it on their own no matter. They're going to, they're just that hard headed. Another quarter will go find somebody they know to help them. A realtor they've known in the past or an investor will they'll respond to that offer. And then that last quarter is, the ones that, that we will ultimately help, that will reach over. So don't feel bad when you uncover the ones that don't need your help. Not everybody's going to, even our top performers now that are in seven and eight figures of revenue are making, we're, we're looking at five, six, 7% conversion rates. So at best you got a 93% failure rate. If you run on the top of the industry, So don't let those concern you too much because we can't help everybody, but we're really focused on who is that two to 6% that we can reach this month. Just one more question. So if you get shut down because I know I'm good, don't call me no more. Would you recommend just showing up at the house? Not the same day, but just knocking on the door. If you're ever going to reenter a contentious conversation, do it with value. Depending on how much information you were able to gather before you got shut down, you may know exactly something very specific that's relevant to their situation that you can bring in. If you don't have that information, something that's valuable to almost every family and probate is if they ha if there is real estate in the estate and you have the tools and the market knowledge to do it, offer them a a CMA or I like a market absorption analysis because it is a little more confusing. It is, it's a 360 view. It looks at all, inventory types of expired pending active. It looks it at all, all inventory, not just sold inventory. The other reason I really liked the market absorption analysis is unless you really understand real estate analytics, it's confusing. Like it's a little overwhelming, so you almost need me to translate it. So I don't put it in a really concise, easy to understand report. I'll put it in a kinda a bit of an intimidating document where they're like what, what does this even mean? What are all these numbers? Oh, I'm glad you called back. Let me walk you through it. And I can make it very concise and very unthreatening and easy to understand. But without me, it's not a very useful tool, but that elicits the response. So that's why I really liked the M the market absorption analysis better than a CMS. Almost, every family would find value in that. So I would just recommend drop by and drop it in a mailbox. If it was a really contentious hangup, like they said, don't you ever call my family again? But you think they were just having a bad day they're raw, something you can do is just drop by the subject property and just drop it in the mailbox and say, we spoke it didn't end on a great note. I do want to respect your privacy. So I thought I would leave this here. So when you check the mail, there's some way that I could help you, even though you told me you didn't need it. And 50% of those, there'll be in a different mood that day. They go there and pick up the mail. Okay. Yeah, you'll get some response off of those, but I would do something indirect and a little, not in their face. Don't put yourself in a position where they feel like they have to reject you even harder, do something softly, like something subtle like that, that, that actually is valuable. And a number of them will call you back and I've gotten apologies. People will call back, listen, I hung up on you back in April. And we just, we hadn't even started all this and now we're just damn confused or lost on it. So I'm sorry that I did that. Can you please? And of course, I smile and move forward and help them. So you never know who is going to need your help in a couple of months. But don't push too hard on them. This is not a list to really aggressively pursue. You'll just end up screwing up your reputation, but there's things where you can add value subtly by doing things like that. And that's a good way to reenter the conversations. So Michael had a question here. So Mike said, as I assemble my vendor team, one benefit to me will be referrals. They send me, I would like to send referrals with them also, but if my team is too big, I don't know how I can keep them all. Supplied with leads. How can I manage an equitable referral partner relationship with all. Get busy, man. like, I hear a lot of people are concerned about this. It's not as problematic as you're thinking it's going to be. How many times have you ever gotten a referral? And you're like that son of a hasn't sent me one of those for three months. Usually your responses. That's really great. I love referrals. Let me call them immediately. And that's what's happening on the other hand, like you're building a team of people that trust you and believe in the offer that you're presenting to the community. If they're judgemental and don't appreciate it, your referrals, you pick the wrong one. Go replace them. But I don't think it's something you need to worry about if you're working with the right people. And if they are attracted to the offer that you're presenting with the community that are probably altruistic people, they're not like, keeping score and they don't view themselves as a shark or a line and business. Attorney. This is where it's most complicated because you want to continue building relationships with new attorneys, but you want to nurture those relationships that you've already gotten. You may just be transparent about it and say, listen, you're a great attorney and I know a few of others. So I'm going to do a round robin Or I'm going to interview the families and I will actually choose what attorney I think is the best fit based on personality or culture or geographic location. And you can justify. You know the referrals and be like, Hey Mike, I just sent one of these to your competitor because he's in a different zip code. That was way closer to the family. But you're in the next lot. But I've actually never had a vendor even say, Hey man, I'm getting their referrals from you lately. If they're just grateful when they do get them. So that's my advice. Let's see. Stanley, you might want to look in the chat. You've got some folks wanting to be in your role play group. Yeah. Bill gross. As I saw your comment, please jump in and share your advice with Richard. Yeah. The question always is you take responsibility for what happened. It doesn't mean you're at fault or she had punished, but whenever he hangs up on you, it's a negative experience. You should ask yourself the question, what could I have done differently that would have got the result that I wanted. And doesn't mean you beat yourself up. It doesn't mean you're wrong. It just means, like you said, had I, if I had better rapport earlier, the conversation would've gone differently. Of course. Some people are impossible, you can't win them all, but you always want to improve when a preferred game, every phone call thank you, bill. Hey, Chad, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm just curious though. That's why I sent you the question there. I, online, I just signed up for ATL information, but I've noticed several executives, administrators that they marked in red, they're on the do not call list and I'm scratching my head thinking. Okay. I should respect that. But then the other half of my brain says being out of state, they need our help more than anything, but I'm concerned about. Getting myself into trouble. Definitely right about of state more than anyone typically, they moved away a long time ago. They don't really have fresh time section. A lot of times folks will prioritize their list by calling the out of town executors first, because they're most likely to need help. And it's really easy to find, property preservation or, there's a million reasons like putting up no trespassing signs is a really good way to have an excuse to go by and check out the house. As far as DNC, are you, you're brokerage and investment? I'll be approaching this originally here, Chad, as a real estate broker. Yeah. As a broker there, there's more liability. Here's the deal. And the time from 2013, until 2020, when I was all with all the leads we had over 7 million phone calls that, that went out that were tracked, I'm aware of one. Inbound phone call from an an FCC attorney in Southern New York. That called one of our prospectors and said, listen, we had a complaint that you call it a family on, do not call, can you please not do that? They didn't even issue a written complaint. It was just, it was a warning phone call. So that's the most severe consequences I've seen in my. Now I have seen much more severe consequences on TCPA, where if you're texting without explicit written consent I've seen people Pence and I haven't been punched on text marketing, but with DNC, I will say that we've had literally thousands of people that made their own decision. They made sure they assess their own risk, but the majority of people that have. Watch do this. They call them and we have had opinions from attorneys who are saying, it's not a solicitation, it's an offer of service. Therefore it doesn't violate it. I think if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. But I think your risk is, there's no great risk. And if you ever do call someone that says, listen I'm on DNC. How the hell did you get this number? Sorry, my assistant pulled it from somewhere. I'll make sure we remove it from our list and you'll probably never get someone who's going to pursue you over that. And if the FCC ever does, if they don't see a pattern where you've called that person more than months, they enforce from the top down. They're looking for big carriers and robo dialers and call centers that are every day violating. So I don't see that's a long answer, but I don't see a whole lot of personal liability for you, but it's your assets to protect. So you got to make your own decisions. I appreciate that one out of 7 million, hopefully I wouldn't be the second out of that group, but I'll give it a try. And if I have any resistance, I will let you guys know I'm in the Southern California. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I don't get to concerned when people are calling DNC. If you're texting without actual opt-in, that's when I'd get really concerned, because there are plenty of attorneys running our businesses on that now, and they're not looking for litigation. They're just looking for a quick shakedown settlement. All right. Who else? So geo I see your hand up. How are you? Hey, good. Thank you. Just a quick scenario. I I like to get information on my calls and I've been on these calls before and I've been told, just make the call. Don't try to get all the background information, read into any of the leads. I made a call. I looked at my CRM and was a it was in a trust and I was about to not make the calls. And why would I make the call if it's in a trust, but ended up making the call and to my surprise, got into the conversation and it was the husband of the wife, the executor. And he basically said they can't find the original trust. And so it's a scenario where, I got a chance to talk to them and he really needs my help. So I just a comment that I'm taking to heart. Now don't try to read too much into the detail of the list and just make the call and try to be of service yeah, thank you for sharing that. Most people would probably think that's a mistake and there's no way I'm going to call that. There's no way that trust is on probate, but as you get to know John Fraker who's here today. You'll hear some stories about improperly funded trusts and a lot of times trust. weren't structured, you know, they, they didn't finish. They started and didn't finish correctly and they're a probate is still necessary. John, what advice would you have that you might be able to help him? If a trust agreement cannot be found and was not recorded, what options they really have? Honestly I'd check with an attorney in your jurisdiction for. There's a couple of different angles, right? So again, in California, the probate code gives any probate court jurisdiction over all living trusts, regardless of anything. So whether the asset is in probate or whether it's in the trust. Regardless of that, the court still has jurisdiction over it, depending on which way you go. I had one that was fascinating. Gentlemen died like in the 19, late 1950s, if you can believe it in another state. And he basically gave his wife a lifetime right. Of occupancy in their house, all the right to the money. When she died, it went to their kid died before the wife. And so like it didn't have a clean and easy remote contingency clause, which says, if everybody have named is dead, it goes to this person now a whole bunch of the stuff and the trust is self-defeating. So we had to go to court with that trust and petition for instructions, how the judge jealous, who gets this money. And it was crazy because that was like, three, four generations ago. And the people that were named in it were like, most of them were long gone. It's not uncommon at all that a trust winds up in probate court. It happens all the time. Either. You're going there for instructions. If there's an asset that people think is supposed to be in trust. But it's not, and you can't find any deed with the houses. The house is basically the estate's more or less intestate, which means no will no trust. I have one of those right now where we ran, sacked everything that the person had looking for a copy of a trust, but all we had was family rumors people meaning to get around to it. And that's the most, that's the most common thing in the probate system. People are meant to get around to it. So people were crystal clear on what was supposed to happen, but if you don't have the trust and you have no way of finding it after doing a thorough, exhaustive search, you just got to go assuming there was none. So it depends on, that family's unique situation. But ultimately the course, the path ahead is gonna have to be an attorney in that jurisdiction that helps you, helps guide them through. The interesting thing about this particular scenario is the is there a two, there are four heirs to the estate and two of them are for a better term unemployed. And they're not allowing access to the home, basically they're buying time and it's a real tough situation for them to try to work together, to get resolution describing my whole career. Man, every state as the family were gone, the family passenger, the free loader, the free ride, man, I like we could do five of these our long seminars and I can just go story after story and I wouldn't even get through half of them. Just the nuts stuff that happened. You have one guy like harass the realtor, tried to block his car. And man, it was funny. It was even funnier because that estate came to me, from a friend of mine, who's a realtor. This is before I was licensed and he didn't get the listing. And that two years later ran into him. I'm like, that's the best thing that ever happened to you and your family, man. Here's no amount of money that was worth dealing with. Bad crazy family. You should have run, not walk away from that family. So good luck to you. So geo, do you know if they are currently working with an attorney or are they. Just made a arbitrary call based on an ad. Uh, The attorneys based on what my discussions with them, they, he seems to be very hands-off to the situation. And I've asked, what guidance has he provided? And they've stated. They're trying to get access to the the deceased computer and that's a big, and supposedly the trust was set up 15 years ago. But again, no document, no. And it's also on a reverse. So it's just a mess basically. And they cannot get access to documents, so they don't know where things are at because the daughter that's preventing entry or access to any of the paperwork or the information. I'm just going to try to help him pertinent fact I don't think there's a reverse mortgage company in the country that would write a reverse mortgage to a trust. Maybe I'm wrong, but banks don't like trust like that. So I would question, is there a trust or they just think mom and dad did that because they were talking about it 15 years. There may not even be one as far as how you can help them. Have you built a relationship with a good estate planning and probate attorney? I guess you could say, have I've talked to John a couple of times. I'm trying to get rid of problems, man. Honestly, I, yeah, like I mentioned, probably what I mentioned last time is job one. You got, if the house is titled in a trust for if it's titled in that decedent's name, that's like threshold number one, right? If the house says living trust, then you got. You have to deal with the trust. It can't be ignored. If the house just says person name or whatever, you're just going a different route. That's step one, figure out how the real estate is titled. Step two on the reverse mortgage thing, you have to find out if that's real and you have to get the paperwork on that. I personally just went through a probate that we're doing, where there was a reverse mortgage on a house in San Jose that. We actually sold it for a flat million. And the lady had a reverse mortgage. I think it was like 200 grand and they tried to foreclose on it. And that was like the most, what's the word, least professional company I've ever dealt with. A be straight up, lied to me. They lied to the executor, whole bunch of garbage, all they were trying to deal with steal the property. If there's a reverse mortgage, you have a ticking time. And depending on the company that you're dealing with, they will either try to wait you out and try to foreclose on it. Or maybe they will give you something in writing saying we're willing to work. As far as the attorney, not doing their job, you, anybody has a right to fire their lawyer. If they're not doing the right thing, so if you have a situation where there's like a lit fuse or reverse mortgage situation, that's creeping up to the deadline. When they're going to, when they have other statutory right to foreclose, then the attorney needs to recognize that's a loss to the state. That's a loss to the executor or the trustee that comes out of there. So the attorney, needs to act with some quickness, go into the court, getting at a minimum, either letters, a special administration, if it's hasn't been opened yet, or some sort of court support for getting in the property, getting access to the paperwork. And finding out how to go from there. It's one thing. If people, it's a complex situation, people are trying to get their arms around. Again, that's why you need to figure out at the reverse mortgage situation is real. If it is, and there is one and there's been X number of months since the person died and they don't really have the option of figuring things out at a slow pace, they got to act with some level of quickness. And the courts in California specifically are just a train wreck right now, right? Santa Clara county, where I operate, it'd be a closing hearing on a probate six months. After I filed a petition. I'm like, I'm supposed to sit around for six months and you can't find anywhere on your calendar in the next half year to get this case closed. Nope. We don't have staff. With the backlog in the courts with how jumbled that is, the attorney needs to act with a quickness. If there is a reverse mortgage, but that's, my advice, number one, Find out how that real estate is title. If it says trust it can't be ignored. And step to figure out if that reverse mortgage situation is real and how long ago the person died versus how long they're going to give it. And that's what happened in our situation. It took us, it was an intestate case. It took months to get the case open, to find anyone who could do it. There was nobody named and there was no direct relatives or heirs, kids or grandkids who would step up. So there's a whole bunch of that just to get the case open and all that time. The reverse mortgage company is, oh, settle this paper here. Oh, we lost your paperwork. Start all over. They lied to me on a Friday. They're like, oh, sending this paperwork, we'll consider it. And then on Monday they're like, oh, we already rejected it. I'm like well, I hadn't sent you the paperwork out of. The requests you pre rejected me. And why you wasting my time asking me to send you paperwork, right? It's a real shady company, obviously. They're, trying to steal the house. So for us, that was an easy fix. We sold the property because they had three months before they can touch it. And we got a cash buyer in there and it was gone and told them to take a hike. You got to figure it out on the reverse mortgage thing. A if the, if there was one, if it's real, when it's due and then, you got to call the attorney directly and be like, Hey man, you gotta lit fuse here. What are you gonna do about it? What's your solution? Like in their face, if they're not, and I mentioned this before you have every client has the right to fire their lawyer and get somebody else. If they're not doing. Yeah, great advice, John, that was my approach to this would be, I would either contact the title company and get 'em, get a title search, or I would actually go down to a preliminary myself while I was down there. I would talk to the probate clerk and be like, Hey who do you think is the most respectable estate planning and probate attorney? Who do you see in and out of here doing good work and try to get a shortcut lineup as replacement. My, I would get in my truck and go straight to his office. Once I knew if there was a legitimate reverse mortgage and if it was in the name of the decedent or the trust, and I would approach him with that challenge face to face we both understand what fiduciary means. When the hell are you going to start being. Because we have a short fuse and we need to take action on this. Otherwise you're risking, this estate and if he pushes back rather than ego response and gets defensive, just go hire the other guy. That would be my approach on. Cause I have a hard stop. I'd love to keep going the day. We've got a great turnout, but I do have a hard stop at four o'clock. I do need to run. Thank you guys for being here. Bill gross, John Fraker, good to see you guys again. Nice to collaborate. All you guys like it's so cool to me that you like, you guys are putting the other role play groups, helping each other, mentoring each other. Thanks for being part of this community and for being here today and we'll talk to you soon.