Hello, and welcome back to the Estate Planning Podcast. Today I have us joined by our guest Hal Coleman. Hal is a longtime friend of the Rhodes Law Firm team and he is going to tell us a little bit about his estate planning journey, and how we can help others like you moving forward. Hal thank you for joining us.

Oh, you’re welcome. I’m excited. Excited to be here to talk about the estate planning process.

So when we talk about the estate planning process, what we’re really talking about is the importance of having an estate plan. And correct me, you and your family, have an estate plan?

Well, we do now. You know, we, my wife and I, have been married for 48 years. And we have a couple of grown kids, we have grandkids. And when we first got married, and I guess my son was born after three years, we just thought we needed a Will. We wanted to do everything that you’re supposed to do.

If I can interrupt you real quick, why was it that you thought you needed a Will?

Somebody told me I needed one.

So when you’re looking to get a Will, what were the important things you guys were looking to accomplish with that Will?

Well basically just if something happened to us, where did our stuff go? We wanted our stuff. You know, it was a simple Will. It was if I died everything went to my wife, if she died, everything went to me and if we both died at all went between our two kids, divided equally.

So this is about three years after your first child was born. Yeah.

My second child was born by then I guess. We decide later. But yeah, tell us much. When we went to get an estate plan about two years, three years ago, finally. Actual I’m a Rotarian. And we had somebody speak at our rotary club about estate planning. And, you know, we now we own a home, we own stocks, we own jewelry, we own a lot of stuff. And so it made me realize we need more than just that simple. We’ll know my marks on I said, you know, if something happened to mama, you’re going to quit your job move North Carolina and live where you’re at.

Because that Will hadn’t been looked at guardianship kids for minors, presumably,

Since they were toddlers. And here they are in their 40s.

And they were going to have to go live with the aunt and so when when y’all looked at this, again, you know, life’s changed, your children are much older, you have a lot more stuff. So what were y’all looking to do when you’re realizing you needed an updated estate plan?

Well, to make sure that things from a simple standpoint, to make sure that everybody got what we wanted them to have, and that the government got the least amount that they could constantly get, and that that we were hit with the least amount of taxes that we’d be hit with and that it didn’t get hung up in probate or in the courts forever. And a lot of it is on my mind.

I had an employee one time who was he went to work for me when he was about 18 years old. And right after that this, his parents were divorced. And his father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. An inoperable brain tumor. So they left and went on this trip, they had hunted and fished together all you know since he was a little kid. So they went on this trip out west. Just one last trip together father and son came home and that next year his father passed away. And his father didn’t even have a Will. So his father’s camping equipment, his father’s guns, the all the stuff that were the keepsakes and stuff, they’d use fishing equipment and everything. Oh, the stepmother gave all that stuff to her kids. And he didn’t get he didn’t get anything of his father’s he got to see that a lot.

And that kind of hit me hard. I’m thinking golly, that’s what a bad thing. So I was thinking that you know, the importance of having stuff designated. And then when we have a financial guy, you know who manages our retirement our money and He said, You know, you really need to get an estate plan if you hadn’t had a Will done in a long time. And then when I heard the guy speak at Rotary and I thought, okay, we better go do this. And then I found out well, it’s a lot more complicated than I thought it was.

It is it is a lot more complicated. But also at the same time, I would like to say that it’s probably making things easier. Yes, it’s more work on the front end. But we’re making things easier on your heirs, whether that be your spouse or your children down the line as well, because at least we have some sort of plan in place. You know, your friend that you mentioned, his dad had no plan in place. I don’t think his dad’s intent was that the step-mom gave everything to her children. But because there was no plan in place, that’s what happened. So yes, estate planning can be doing more work on the front end. But it’s also you know, saving that grief and that heartache down the line, because at least we have a plan to implement.

Yeah, and when I said it was more complicated than I thought it was, it turned out to be a whole lot more important and a whole lot more necessary than I thought it was to I’m thinking holy smokes. If something happened to us, and we didn’t have this, you know, who knows? What would happen?

What would have happened at that point? Yeah. So the estate plan you put in place you and your wife put in place, you know, when your children were young, versus the estate plan y’all put in place a couple of years ago, are probably dramatically different. The kids are older, your circumstances in life have changed. So the importance of ensuring that you review this periodically, I think is a good lesson to learn from that. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Because, you know, we, we had a, for instance, my daughter was named as our Will, my wife, brother was named as the executor of our estate in the beginning. And since he had been deceased for about 10 years, that was another reason now we have nobody named as executor or now my daughter is, but what if she were to be deceased before us, so we have a second choice and a third choice, and you just, you got to have a plan eight. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but a plan A plan B, a Plan C.

As many plans as that’s what I typically tell clients when they’re coming to us, and they’re thinking of, who do we name in these executive roles, you can give me as many names as you want, because the less likely we have to, you know, amend this on the on very quickly in the future. It’s important that you know, you review your estate plan periodically, for the very reason you just mentioned, if there’s been family changes with someone passing away, or you know, the children getting older, no longer needing guardianship, it’s important that you put a pair of eyes on this every couple of years.

Yeah, and I can’t imagine somebody passing away and their heirs, maybe there’s a lot of land, maybe there’s millions of dollars in the estate. But something causes it to get into the court systems and it can’t be probated, or it can’t be resolved. And you have people, I’ve got that going on with a friend of mine right now who they own property worth millions of dollars. And when his father passed away, there are some distant relatives somewhere that is named in there as an heir to get $100,000 or something trivial amount compared to this state. But they their attorney located this person and paid him their money, but this person won’t sign some document that has to be signed to they can’t do anything. Because this person is presented complications. Yeah, who explained to me how it worked or not, but it’s like there’s one person that they’ve never even met in their life is holding up the liquidation of this multi million dollar estate. And everybody is like, we’d like to have our money.

Right? We’d like to get this wrapped up. And you know, it’s not always the distant relatives either. We we’ve seen time and time again, where it could be one of the children. I just, you know, got through a probate in South Carolina that we’ve been closing for three years over a piece of land that the children were arguing between themselves about who’s should inherit, even though mom and dad had a Will that explicitly says who’s to i