Growth & Grace

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This is a KU NB studios original program.

Wesley Knight 0:05
The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Even better than that was the last time, baby

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we back and we back and we back and we back.

Leaha Crawford 0:43
Angry, hey, hey, hey, good morning Las Vegas. Yes, we are still in March Madness, even though it's April. I don't know if y'all saw the game last week between UConn and Duke. I can tell you that like I told my son I was going for UConn and he was going for Duke. And all the whole game, he was sending me text messages because we weren't together. Well, you know, Duke winning, yeah, you know, they have 19 points, Mom, you sure you got UConn, and then that last shot happened. So I, like, I told I was, like, I was UConn. I just, I like, UConn, but going into this Final Four, I like Arizona. I really like Arizona. I wish Julian was here. I miss him, Julian, I miss you. I miss you. Hope to see you soon. Hope you feel better.

Leaha Crawford 1:32
But March Madness, you know, and on the women's side, South Carolina. Pam, do you are you watching the basketball games? Not really. No, I'm not. I am. I I love sports. I love sports. And you should come in here doing football season, because every week is something well, my Eagles fan, so every week, well, today y'all, we are going to talk about something I believe is very important, but it's a topic that we don't like to talk about. You know, we're going to talk about wills, estates, trust. We have one of my faves on here, attorney, Pamela Jones. And first, her story is amazing. So Pam, first, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. And first of all, tell us a little bit more about you. I know you've been on several times before, but for someone that doesn't know, who is Pamela Jones, wow, who

Pamela Jones 2:16
am I? Who are you? Right? I am an attorney, and I have practiced for about 20 years now, and I didn't go to law school till I was 40 years old, and I am licensed in both Nevada and California. Let's see. I'm a dog mom and I my my father has passed, but my mom is doing great. We just had a bout of treatments for her, but she's doing great. And so a lot of time, my time is spent with her, and my sister's here in town, so So that's the core of our family and but, but a lot of my time and direction is about running the business and helping people talk about difficult subjects. Talk about

Leaha Crawford 3:06
difficult subjects. Why do you think the subject is so difficult

Pamela Jones 3:11
this it brings up a lot of emotion, and particularly when we want to talk with our children, the children want to avoid the subject, because they never want to think about the parent passing, and so they I get a lot of children saying, you know, you're going to be fine. I don't want to talk about it, everything's going to be fine. And so it's just difficult to face our own mortality and and our loved ones mortality, because we don't want to be without them and and so especially if someone is ill or getting older, we want all of our focus to be on taking care of them, as opposed to taking care of the eventuality.

Leaha Crawford 3:49
Okay? Because it's going to happen.

Pamela Jones 3:51
Absolutely guaranteed,

Leaha Crawford 3:52
yes, 100% guaranteed for all to have, for all of us is going to happen. How do you start the conversation? Because that might be the harbor. How do you even start the conversation?

Pamela Jones 4:03
Well, I usually, when people come in to talk to me, I ask them to tell me about their family and and whoever their family is that doesn't have to be children. It doesn't have to be traditional family, you know. Can be a group of friends, it can be the people at their church. It can be, you know, and what's important to them. Because when you're planning for your for your own demise, then it, that's what's important. It's, it's, it's what, where you've taken your life, what you've contributed to and what you want your legacy to be. So, so it all centers on what's, what's important to you and and then, of course, talking to them about how, whether or not they're going to talk with their families about what they're doing and, and it's different for every situation, different for every

Leaha Crawford 4:50
situation, but you have to start the conversation,

Pamela Jones 4:52
yes, sure, yeah. You have to start

Leaha Crawford 4:55
the conversation, yes. And once you start it is the paperwork complicated? Because it could be, you know. I paperwork. I don't want to do paperwork. Paperwork is complicated.

Pamela Jones 5:03
Yeah, I try to make that as painless as possible for the clients, and I try to get most of the information. They do have to provide a lot of information to me, but then we generate the paperwork, particularly the funding process. So if you're establishing a revocable trust, for example, the funding process means putting stuff in the trust, and transferring your home into the trust, transferring your bank accounts into the trust. And so we take a care, we take care of a lot of that for the client. They do have to to do some things on their own, and so it is a bit of work, but we try to make it as as as painless as possible.

Leaha Crawford 5:40
Okay, so funding the trust, that's okay.

Pamela Jones 5:42
So that's huge. It's important because the trust won't work like it's supposed to, unless, unless that task is taken care of. Okay? And what

Leaha Crawford 5:50
does that look like? So is it changing the names on the accounts to include the

Pamela Jones 5:54
trust or right? So it's just simply how to take titles. So instead of taking title as Pam, I'm going to be taking title as Pam as trustee of Pam's trust. And just because of that, if something happens to me, because it's a role and not an individual, somebody takes the hat off of me as trustee, and they put it on themselves as trustee, and then they can manage that asset without having to go through the court, and so it's so if the process is just changing title and and to do that, we do a deed for the house. We'll transfer title from the individual to the trustee of the trust. And for bank accounts, we'll write a letter to the bank explaining exactly what's happening, what kind of a trust it is how to take title and and then there's going to be some interaction between the client and and the bank to make sure, because they'll need to confirm their identity. They'll need to make sure that's what they're doing, etc, that's what they want to do. So so there will be a meeting with the client and the bank. That's that's the homework,

Leaha Crawford 6:59
that's the that's the homework. So basically, and, but you'll help them walk step by step through the process, because I'm sure it's a lot. It is a lot,

Pamela Jones 7:09
and sometimes the bank wants you to fill out their form instead of, you know, a letter

Leaha Crawford 7:14
starts it right, the right starts

Pamela Jones 7:15
it, yeah. And we'll help the client

Leaha Crawford 7:17
with that too. Okay, all right. And as a CPA, I'm looking to because it is if then the then you're not earning the income, the trust is earning the income. Well, that's necessary. That's true. It depends on what

Pamela Jones 7:30
type of a trust it is. So with a revocable trust, meaning you can change it, do whatever you want to. It's it's going to use your social security number. Okay, okay. So, so really, you're there's no different, nothing different with your taxes. Still gonna file a

Leaha Crawford 7:44
1040 yep, I always ask, and I'm thank you for being an expert on that, because looking into it, you want to make sure that you're giving people the right advice, because people will look, go to tick tock and and all the other things, just to verify that what you're saying is true. Because I just look at the income just needs to be claimed by somebody, right? Whatever. Some so houses, what if you have a mortgage still on the house?

Pamela Jones 8:08
Right? And that's fine, so we can still transfer the property into the trust. We don't even have to tell the lender, because the lender cannot call the loan if it's your personal residence, if it's a single family residence, single family homes with four or more, four or less units, right? We don't have to do we don't have to. The lender can't do anything so, so you don't even, you don't have to notify the lender about about the transfer. And nothing should change on the loan.

Leaha Crawford 8:37
Nothing should change on a loan. The loan should be consistent, right? Okay, so having this conversation, I I'm coming in, I contact the office. You give me this paperwork. I am overwhelmed. You don't hear from me for six months, right? Because I'm sure that happens absolutely, because it's a lot. It is, it's a lot. I mean, I'm probably paid you and everything, and then I just sat in it because I'm making and they're not hard questions, right?

Pamela Jones 9:05
Well, actually, you know, sometimes it is very hard for people. So where I get the deer in the headlights look is when I ask them and what happens if your children die before you then where do you want your stuff? What I

Leaha Crawford 9:19
mean that is a thought provoking question, but not like it's a hard question. It's just, might be it's thought provoking, yes, but it's okay. So, so what do? Oh, my

Pamela Jones 9:30
God, yes. It takes a lot of emotional, very emotional, lot of soul searching for individuals. You know, I have people who they keep changing their mind. They can't figure out what they want to do, and so they don't want to finalize everything until they've come to some sort of solid decision for themselves. And that's okay. They can take the time to do that.

Leaha Crawford 9:53
But can I change the revocable trust? If I change my mind,

Pamela Jones 9:56
you absolutely can. Yes, you can change it anytime you want to. Just. Not every day, right?

Leaha Crawford 10:01
Right? Not every day, right?

Pamela Jones 10:03
Yeah, there's depends on, you know, every attorney does things differently. I don't charge you any kind of maintenance fees. Sometimes attorneys charge maintenance fees and they'll, they'll do an amendment, you know, as part of that, or, you know, a limited number every few years or something. But I don't charge any maintenance fees, so if you do come back to amend it, I'll charge you something

Leaha Crawford 10:27
to amend it later, to amend it later, right? So I guess it's good, really, to think

Pamela Jones 10:30
it through. It's good to think it through and and the whole one of the purposes of the process is to give you peace of mind, knowing what you want to have happen, but you gotta

Pamela Jones 10:43
go through all this emotion. It gets a peace of mind.

Leaha Crawford 10:44
Okay? You do, yeah, all right.

Leaha Crawford 10:46
So you got to go through the emotion to get Okay, yeah. All right. All right. So I know you said that you have some classes. I mean, just you have some information sessions coming up, and you do them at the libraries.

Pamela Jones 10:57
I do, yeah, about once a quarter I try to get out to one of the libraries and do some estate planning classes, you know, basic questions like, what's the difference between a will and a trust, you know? And how does it help avoid probate? And so I've got some on May 3 and may 5, Tuesday and Thursday, they'll be at the Summerlin library this time, and there'll be one one clock, one at three o'clock in the afternoon, one at five o'clock. So there'll be four total and and it's free, and we'll give you a bottle of water and a little something to eat,

Leaha Crawford 11:31
something to eat too. Okay, so what's the contact information for them? Do they have to sign up or just show up?

Pamela Jones 11:38
It'd be great if you could sign up so we know how many. And the phone number is area code, 702-370-6102,

Leaha Crawford 11:51
say that one more time, 702-370-6102, and at the Summerlin library, three and five, right? All right. So let's talk about it, though. Let's give them the education. So what, what is the difference between a will and a trust?

Pamela Jones 12:08
A will is very basic, and there are statutory wills in Nevada, so you can even download something, and basically you're just saying, When I die, here's who I want in charge. I'm naming an executor. That person's going to be in charge of, you know, pulling together my assets, filing my last income tax return.

Leaha Crawford 12:27
Say that again. Say that no, because I think that that's a step that a lot of people miss. Yes, you have to file that last tax return. A lot of

Pamela Jones 12:36
people just present. Yes, they forget about it. Or presume somehow it goes away?

Leaha Crawford 12:40
It doesn't go away. No, no, it doesn't

Pamela Jones 12:43
go away. Yeah, so it's very important to file a last income tax return, and the estate could have its own income tax return if, starting as a date of death, that estate is earning enough money to to file its own return. So so people have to keep that in mind and but going back to the will, the will is strictly to say, here's who's in charge, and here's where my stuff goes, and because it's just a declaration of what you want, and the all of the property is still in your name, if the type, if the property is in your name at your death, the court is the only one who can transfer title to somebody else according to your will, and so the will has to be probated, so you have to petition the court, yep, and go through probate. That's the reason living living trusts are so popular, because we can avoid that whole court process if we change title from those assets, from ourselves as an individual, to ourselves as trustee, and therefore the new trustee can come in without ever having to go to court, without

Leaha Crawford 13:46
ever having to go to court. I love it. All right, you are listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford, and I have attorney Pamela Jones in here. And thought it was time to have this hard conversation. Well, I like to do it, like twice a year with you. So like to do it because we got to do it. Yes, we have to do it. And because I know I hear a lot Well, Lee, I don't have anything, and I'm like, but you do, yeah. So when do clients normally come to you? When would you prefer them come right? Well, there's

Pamela Jones 14:21
a couple of phases of life that it's a good it's a good time to check in and get some documents in place. If you get married and start having children, then we want to have at least a simple will, which, because the will is the document in which you name who nominate a guardian to take over your children, to care for your children once you've passed away.

Leaha Crawford 14:40
And let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. So, good time you have children. Yes, who do you want to take care of your children? Right? So that's 20. I mean, that's 20, okay?

Pamela Jones 14:51
It's so important. Because you know, at the same time, you may not someone may not jump into your mind immediately about who you would want, but you may think, well. I never want this person to care for my children. And you can actually put that in your will as well. Okay, yeah, correct, because the court needs to know. Because if something happens to you, somebody is going to have to petition the court to be appointed as guardian of your children, and the court's going to absolutely look to your will to to find out and and a separate you can do a separate document that says, that says, here's the person I, I want to nominate to be my the guardian of my children.

Leaha Crawford 15:27
Okay, so that's the, that's the, okay, that's one, one reason. How about getting married

Pamela Jones 15:33
when you get married? Well, absolutely. And I think we've talked about this before.

Leaha Crawford 15:36
We have talked about this before, because you use me as an example, because I said I didn't need a pre Nup. And you looked at me like I was crazy. I said no, because I'm one of those people. And you're like, No, if you think about

Pamela Jones 15:47
it, it's, it's, you know, it is so important for the two, two of you, to sit down. It's an important conversation to have anyway, because a lot of people make presumptions and and they get married and they find out their spouse had different presumptions. So we need to, we need to clarify everything and get it on paper, and it's so much smoother and clearer because, because problems come from lack of clarity and and lack of direction and yeah, and having a prenup is, is, is a great way. Now it truly if they're each 20 years old and they have no property whatsoever, maybe not, right? There's, there's no reason for but at

Leaha Crawford 16:27
50, you've got some stuff, so yes, you probably need to really have a conversation yeah about what's his, what's yours, and then what's

Pamela Jones 16:35
yeah together, absolutely, because, yeah, a lot of us have multiple marriages, and you know,

Leaha Crawford 16:41
I was going to bring that up because I was, because I've had situations now where the husband never took the first wife off of the documents, yes, so he transitions Yeah, and the new wife thinks and right, because the first wife was never taken off of the documents, right?

Pamela Jones 17:05
Yes, no, and, and, well, yeah, and so at the death of a spouse, is another time to come in and and figure out, you know, particularly if there's consideration of remarriage, you know, cleaning all that up, cleaning up all your beneficiary designations, cleaning up, if you think

Leaha Crawford 17:25
about it, it's a lot.

Pamela Jones 17:26
It is a lot. And people often have old 401, K's they, you know, yes, for years. And it names, you know, a former friend, maybe because at the time, they didn't have kids, they weren't married. So it is important to go back and check those. I say every three, three to four years, it's important to go back.

Leaha Crawford 17:44
So what happens? So if you do that, and now you have the trust, can you make the trust the beneficiary of all the

Pamela Jones 17:52
Sure, yes, yeah, you know, you've got life insurance. You can make the trust the beneficiary. Trust can even be an owner of the policy. And if you've got 401, K or an IRA, you can name the trust as a beneficiary. And you know, hopefully it's a see through trust, we'd have to look at the terms of the trust. But can it? Can just, essentially, it's a placeholder to pass it through to whoever the named beneficiaries are in your trust. So if you have three kids, one of them dies. So the Trust says, okay, the only the surviving kids are the only beneficiaries. So then they can, then we can pass it through the trust. They can either each take it as an inherited IRA, or if the trust provides, then we can hold on to it and make distributions to them. Depends on on what you want.

Leaha Crawford 18:36
Yeah, say that again, depends on what you want? Yes, depends on what you want. Yeah, and you can have some little, a little bit of control, even though, because, because these are your assets

Pamela Jones 18:49
that you're transferring absolutely and, and that's just it, and that's what causes people so much grief trying to make those decisions, is because, what do I want? You know, what do I want, right? And how do I want this to all play out? And like, I

Leaha Crawford 19:03
get mad at the child today, I'm not giving you nothing, but I got to go back and change all the documents

Pamela Jones 19:07
when I say that, right? Oh, yeah. I have people, especially as they get older, they've, they've changed it 15 times.

Leaha Crawford 19:15
Might be one of those people, right, right,

Pamela Jones 19:17
right, yeah, but yeah. And it's important to play out all the scenarios with all the different types of assets, you know, oh, I've got the IRA. Here's how that's going to play out. Maybe that'll go directly, you know, to my spouse, but I've got kids from a prior marriage, and I'm going to have, you know, these accounts. I want to go the kids from a prior marriage. So you look at, you look at it as a whole, whole pie and pieces of the pie. But then you also have to look at each individual asset and how it's actually going to be distributed so that, so that you can have some reality to what you're thinking.

Leaha Crawford 19:47
Have some reality to what you are thinking, right?

Pamela Jones 19:51
For example, the IRAs, whatever they take out of there, it's going to be taxed. And so

Leaha Crawford 19:57
if it depends on what type that does, it depend on what type. Right?

Pamela Jones 20:00
Or, well, I mean, if it's, if it's a tax deferred vehicle, and they have the tax of,

Leaha Crawford 20:04
okay, so right, if it's taxable to the individual, then it's taxable to you, right? But if it's not taxable to the individual, right, then it's not taxable to you. Got it That's right, just the interest, okay, got it, right, yeah, so, yeah, okay, you just need to have a team. Okay, yes, it sounds like you need to have a team involved. All right, so I set this up. I can change it. I can amend it, preferably not emotionally right, not emotionally right, okay, but Summerlin library on May 3 through May 3 and fifth at three and 5pm I like it may three and five at three and five, right, right, three and five at three and five. All right. Contact information is again, 70237061021,

Pamela Jones 20:50
more time, 702-370-6102,

Leaha Crawford 20:55
all right. And you are listening to growth of grace. I am Leah Crawford, and we have Pamela Jones in here, and we are talking, I mean, we're having this conversation, yeah, about this difficult topic, and how to start to break down those barriers so that, I mean, you don't leave your loved ones trying to figure it out, right? Because that can become a very long, drawn out process, yes, trying to

Pamela Jones 21:16
figure it out Absolutely.

Leaha Crawford 21:19
And it's a love letter.

Pamela Jones 21:20
It is. It really is. It's a gift.

Leaha Crawford 21:23
It's a gift, right? And I'm showing you that I love you, because this is what Now, what if I want to trust to go on, I actually don't want them to pull all the money out. I only want them to be able to pull out 35% sure. I want to know them leave the money in there, yeah. And because I want to be able to do different things with the trust in my absence. Is that possible? Sure you can.

Pamela Jones 21:43
You can have it, leave it in the trust, and you, you, you name a trustee who's going to be in charge of all that, and so someone's going to be in charge of doling it out certain times over the children's or whoever's lifetimes. And any restrictions on it, you can incentivize say, Well, okay, if you graduate from college, then you get enough money for a down payment on a house or, you know, you can, you can do whatever you want to, keeping in mind that circumstances always change. I, you know, I it's very difficult to project predict what's going to happen in the future. Yes, for the lives of the people you leave behind, and so you want to give guidance without being too restrictive, because you always, you always have to understand that may not work out, and you don't want them to have to go to court or come to some agreement, you know, between everybody just to make a slight change.

Leaha Crawford 22:38
How about 51% though, make 51% agree? I don't know, because the only thing I mean because I because you hear about these trusts that have been that mean they these trust, these people have been transitioned a long time ago, right? And the trust still basically support the family.

Pamela Jones 22:55
Yes, oh yeah. There are so many different types of trusts, and certainly you can allow in your revocable trust, for it to continue on through time. But you know, there are charitable trusts. There are your, you know, all sorts of irrevocable trusts. There you and and you, you know you can set it up to go from generation to generation. So, for example, you know, to skip a generation. Yeah, my child can take out whatever they want to during their lifetime, but every but really the beneficiary is the grandchild. It's going to drop down to the grandchildren.

Leaha Crawford 23:27
I started reading about that. I was like, Oh, wow, yeah, that's the skip generation. Okay, I'm gonna skip you because you, because I don't, I don't believe you make good decisions.

Pamela Jones 23:34
So we and, well, yeah, and it mean, and it's not really that, because that you still want your child to benefit from, from the trust, the

Leaha Crawford 23:41
ones I read, didn't they? I mean, well, that's, no, it was, it was interesting. It was, I mean, it was, it was interesting because the scenario was the child just wasn't and they were like, I'm going, Yeah, we're gonna skip, we'll give you $1 Sure. And we're gonna skip to the next,

Pamela Jones 23:57
oh, you can always do because you, because it's whatever you want. You can leave it back to wherever you want, whatever you want, yep, and, and some, and sometimes the children are so well off

Leaha Crawford 24:09
they don't need, I mean, they're doing their own thing. And you, I mean, it's just sitting there, just accumulating, right?

Pamela Jones 24:14
Okay? But if the parents have so so or if the people who are doing the trust have so much money, there's also a benefit to skipping that generation for for estate tax purposes, okay? Because we, we want it to drop down, because that maybe the child already has 15 million, and we don't want to give them another 10. And so we'll, we'll drop it down to the grandchildren, so the grandkid, because there's five of them, and, you know, it'll

Leaha Crawford 24:39
spread it out, spread it out across the five got it. So it's a whole lot. It's just strategy, yeah, and being able to think forward and having people around you that are also thinking strategy

Pamela Jones 24:48
absolutely like you said, it's a team. So we're, we're not only looking at estate tax, we're looking at income tax. How? Yeah, how is this going to affect the children, for example, you know, will affect their income tax if they. Had a $10 million IRA, and they have to take it out, you know, within 10 years.

Leaha Crawford 25:04
Yeah, yeah. But that's a good problem to have. Yeah, exactly. That's not a bad problem. I had to pick a problem. I'll take that one that's right. I'll take that one that's a problem. That's an amazing problem. Somebody loved you, you're right, right, you know. But I just, I hope that they also taught you the lessons of what to do with money, right, so that you know it can continue on, yes and create the general because we talk about generational wealth all the time, yes, the topic, but not how to do it. And I guess this is one way to do it, yes

Pamela Jones 25:39
and absolutely and yeah. And yeah. And you were talking about that just a little earlier. You know, once you, once the family, gets to a certain wealth point, it does seem to just continue to grow.

Leaha Crawford 25:48
It does mostly, yeah, it does. It does. It's just getting there. Yeah, it's just getting there exactly again, May 3 and may 5, three to five at 702370610, 702-370-6102, again, 702-370-6102.

Leaha Crawford 26:08
May 3 and fifth, three and five. At Summerlin library, you get to interact with Pam. She's such a peaceful spirit and so easy to work with,

Leaha Crawford 26:22
and she can help you. I mean, just walk through those fears, right? You know, because it's never too late. Because if I did one today, what if I found it with you today and I died tomorrow? Is it still act? Is it still good? Yes, if you signed, if I signed, correct? Yes. So it's never

Pamela Jones 26:36
too late. It's never too late.

Leaha Crawford 26:38
No, okay, too late is after you pass away. Yes, yes,

Pamela Jones 26:43
or, or, or, you can no longer sign because you don't have the capacity,

Leaha Crawford 26:46
capacity, yeah. So something to think about. You want to do it while you're in I guess you're, I don't want to say right mind, but I guess you're, I mean, while you're mentally able to Yes,

Pamela Jones 26:56
and because a dementia is such an exploding problem. Yes, that, you know, we one of the things I provide now is a dementia directive, because if it runs in your family, it it would behoove you to think ahead and make these decisions at each stage of dementia. So what, what do I want? If it's early stages, do I want to stay at you know? Yes, I absolutely want to stay at home. Yes. What kind of medications do I want to receive, you know? And what about middle stage and what about late stage? Because it's, it's very different, and if your family has lived with this, you understand those stages. And now you can make the call early on about what you want at each stage. All right,

Leaha Crawford 27:40
and see Pam, we didn't even get to talk about talk about the children that turned 18 and still in, still in high school, and we are out of time, so I have to bring you back again. I gotta bring you back again, right? Because that's another concern to talk about. You know, when you have the trust that I mean children, when they turn 18 and just the, you know, they're an adult, right? But they may still be in high school. We'll talk about that next. Maybe somebody can come and ask you that at the maybe I'll come and ask you that. There you go. I'll do that. All right. You have been listening to growth and grace. I am. Leah Crawford, Pam,

Pamela Jones 28:15
thank you for coming. Thank you so much.

Leaha Crawford 28:16
I so appreciate it. And March Madness, y'all. I don't know if y'all are watching, but University of Arizona is going to play Michigan today. That's the game I'm looking at peace and blessings. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai