The 2 Documents Everyone Should Have Before They Die

and families protect what matters most. She actually started her career I'm gonna say this wrong because I don't know, it just looks crazy. Yes, yeah, who, thank you Jesus. And she went to work for work at the General Tax Council for Discovery Communications, Yes, like Discovery Channel. She's kind of a big deal. She started her own law firm because you know, Flyinis in twenty fourteen, and she started legal Ease, get it like legal Ease like down Road for Entrepreneurs.

sweaty just thinking about that. But when you break it down into just like the simple things, the checklist of every the few things, the simple things everyone should have in place, it's not you know, it's not that intimidating, it's not that scary, and it's something that you can do and forget about until your day.

want to get it right. I've just been sort of intimidated for so long, and you know, I suffer from that young, invincible thing where I was in my twenties and now I'm hitting the threes and I I'm feeling a little bit more mortal every day, and I want to get my stuff together.

than that, yeah, I don't. I don't have any other My plan is quite honestly, to live forever. So I hope that. But what should we do? Please? Get us started? What's the if we don't have anything? If you are Mandy, right, not Tiffany, because I have a little something, if you were Mandy. What's the first thing?

you want to leave behind? I think a lot of of us think about how we want people to remember us, but we don't think about death, right, we don't want to think about that day that will die, but we think about how we would want to be remembered, like what footprint would we want to leave on this earth and what would we want people to say about us? And I think that if we think about estate planning

that way, then it's not so taboo. But that's definitely a problem and it's and it's one in the black community that is just so prevalent and it's debilitating, is actually hurting us, and it's it's interesting because I'm a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe that he is my Lord and savior. I believe that when I die, by his grace, I will go to Heaven. And so it's it's not something that I mean, yeah, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't want

to die in a horrible accident. But I'm okay with that, and most Christians say they are. But then still we just avoid this topic because it's like it's so negative. God forbid, don't talk about dying. But it's like it's the one thing that he promises us.

I like to say, I think it goes. It starts at planning for incapacity, and a lot of people, if they do get to the topic of a state planning, they never talk about incapacity. All they think about is like Tiffany who goes and gets the life insurance policy, right, but that life insurance policy is only paid out if you die? What happens if you're in a car accident? Okay, So first of all, in order for me to make my point, some bad things will have to happen.

power bill or your rent right. So a lot of people skip over that step of what happens if something happens to me? But I don't die, because a lot of stuff will happen automatically when you die, but a lot nothing happens if you're incapacitated. So the number one document that I say every single person should have single not single, married kids, not with the father or mother whatever, even children, even people who are over eighteen going to college.

Is what's called a power of attorney, when that document gives whoever you name, the authority to act on your behalf in your stead as if it were you. Now, you can have two types of power of attorney. You can have what's called a general durable power of attorney, or you could just have a general power of attorney. The durable power of attorney is a power of attorney

that takes effect the minute you sign it. So the minute you sign it, while you're still walking around and find this person has the authority to act on your behalf. Now you may wonder, well, if I'm okay, why would I do this? For example, Tiffany, you have a business partner, so you may give him a business power of attorney general. It would be a it would be a business not general, but it would be durable, so it would take effect the minute you sign it. He would be able to

make whatever decisions you specify in that document. So you could say he can't enter into contracts up to a million dollars up to five million. He can go and close bank accounts, but he can't sell the business. Right, so you would limit what he could do. But that power of attorney would take effect the minute you sign it, and then it would endure your incapacity. So if you became incapacitated, he would still have the power, and then it ends when you die or if you die. Okay,

So that's what a durable power of attorney is. A general power of attorney only takes effect when you're incapacitated. It's also called like a springing power of attorney. Now for people who are just you know, for non business people. You can have different types of power of attorney. You can have a real estate one, so you could give someone a very limited power of attorney so that they

could sign real estate documents on your behalf. So if you're buying a home and you're going to be traveling for work and you want someone else to sign all of your closing documents, you can give that person a real estate power of attorney. Now, the reason why you would want it to just be a real estate power of attorney is because that's the document that's giving somebody the permission or the authority to sign on your behalf.

So it would be included with all of the closing documents, and it would be public, So you wouldn't want like your general power of attorney to be a public document. So you could create a real estate one. You could create one for your business. You could create one for if you have five businesses, you could create one for each business. You could create a tax power of attorney so that somebody has the ability to talk to the

Irs or your state tax department on your behalf. You can carve it out as much as you want, or you can make it as broad as you want, but everybody needs to have that document.

If you live in one of those states, you could go and download one of those, Like if you just wanted to cover your basis right now, you could go and download one of those. And most of the time what those states will have are different types of powers like the ones I just described, and then you can just check whichever one you're giving to that person. So I would do that before I would ever go to

Legal Zoom and Rocket Lawyer. The reason I say not to go to those places, it's because what they're basically doing is just giving you a really generic document. A lot of the laws are updated in these states, a lot of the laws are updated with the different institutions that you could use power of attorneys with, and a lot of those companies don't really give you instructions on what is in the document and how to use it and how to effectuate the document, meaning like how to

sign it to make sure is an actual document. So I would definitely not recommend using any of those programs for any estate planning documents, and a lot of core have actually started to not accept those documents because they're not being prepared by lawyers. It literally is just a document system that you go in, you put your state, and it generates a certain amount of text. So you would be way better off using the one that your state prepared because they had lawyers who were barred in

that state prepare it. The other option is to go to a lawyer. Power of attorneys generally will cost you about two fifty three four hundred dollars. I mean four hundred would be the high end for a power of attorney. Generally, they're about I think two fifty.

as your power and then don't tell them. Discuss with them because surprise, right, Yeah, Like, so discuss with them what you would want in certain situations, what your goals are for certain things. So, for example, if you're making someone a power of attorney for a home I mean for a home purchase, you would obviously talk to them about You're like, hey, I'm going off to wherever for

them or deal with my house issue. You would obviously give them some boundaries, but ultimately you would just have to trust that person and trust that they would do what you would want, especially for the durable one, because

you would be incapacitated. And this document gives them the ability to act on your behalf, and anything that they sign would be binding unless they acted beyond the scope of the document, or they defraud you know, somehow they did something fraudulent, But other than that, you would be you would be held responsible for anything that that person signed on your behalf, So it would have to be someone who you trust. It may not necessarily be a

family member. It could be a friend. And that's the other thing that I tell people to really consider all the time, or a lot of times, especially for single people, because most of us are with our friends and people who are in our age group right more than we are with our family. But if something happens to you, your friend would probably know I don't know, I mean,

depending on how close you are to your family. But your friend would probably know which bank you bank with, They would know who your who your landlord is, or you know places you frequent and and things you order you know, like places you order from, like your Netflix account, or you know all of those things. Your friends would

probably know that better than your parents would. But if you don't have a power of attorney and something happens to you, your parents can't just you know, Let's say your wallet is in your apartment and your bank card is in there, and for some reason, your PIN number is there with it. Your parents can't just go to your bank account and take out money to pay your landlord. That would be fraudulent. They would not have permission to

do that. So in order for your parents to get any access or any of your next of ken, your brother, or whoever to get access to any of your assets, they would have to file a petition in court. That's called a conservative a conservatorship petition. In order to do that, they're going to have to hire a lawyer. Whenever a lawyer has to file a document in court. We've gone now from the two point fifty or even the five hundred for the POA to at least three or four

thousand dollars. And then we're dealing with the court. So it's not like they're going to be like, oh, this person needs to pay Mand's you know, Mandid's mom needs to pay her rent. Let's get her in here right away. It doesn't happen that way. The court has a docket, right, so you just fit in wherever you can. The probably the quickest emergency hearing you could get would be like a Friday or something. Right, and then in order for you to become a conservator of anybody's money or assets,

you have to get what's called a bond. It's like insurance, because they don't want somebody for the person who is incapacitated to come back and sue either you or the court, it would be a mess. So you're basically getting insurance to be able to manage this person's funny, Well, the court doesn't offer that, so you have to go to a special company made just for this to buy this conservative conservatorship insurance, and they have their own requirements. Sometimes

they require that you get a lawyer. So even if you're trying to do this by yourself, which sometimes you know a lot of courts will have these forms online and you're like, Okay, I'm going to try to do this myself. Once you get to that stage, they may require that you hire a lawyer because they figure your chances of not screwing this up or way less if you have a lawyer who's guiding you through the process.

Sometimes they do a credit check. Sometimes they require that the person seeking the bond be a US citizen, not even a resident, a US citizen. Sometimes they bar people

who have criminal records. So I've I've had estates where no one in the estate, no relative, could qualify to be a personal representative, so they literally could not probate the estate either because they couldn't hire a lawyer, or they somebody was a felon, or somebody was a non citizen, and it's crazy, right, What you need to do is to just get a POA. POA waives all of that stuff.

you know, whatever, like you should. Everybody should just have this document, especially if you're in a state that I did one for you. There's no reason to have to not have it.

leaving all this money? Who am I going to leave it to? And so I think that the number one thing that people say to me when I say everybody should have an estate plan is but I don't own anything. What am I going to leave behind? And I always say, you have a life, don't you go get life insurance? Ensure your life? Because what people don't, when people don't

really think about is think about the enrichment. And I know this is going to say, doun a little bit crass, but think about the enrichment that you bring to people's lives, most of us, right, and then like think about that just disappearing and how you can make up for that. And when I talk about the enrichment, yes, we all

you know, we have people who love us. We love people, but like for a lot of us who probably make more the most money in our family, or who went to college and got that job, like, imagine how much money we would contribute to our community over our entire lives and then for that to just be gone and then there's no replacement for it. That's how I look at it. And I think that people should use life insurance as a way to create a legacy for our community.

And when I say our community, I mean the Black community, because say it well, because one we are way behind when it comes to generational wealth. I mean I've talked about this on my podcast. There was a study that came out last year in February that basically said that the college adult, the white college adult, has seven point two times more income access to income than the college

adult who was black. Seven point they both went to college, but the white person has seven point two times more income. And then another statistic was that a single parent white home, a white single parent home, has two point two times more income than a two parent black home. Because white people have had a head start on building generational wealth.

And when you look back to like the nineteen seventies, and the reason for this is when you look back to the nineteen seventies and white people had a chance to buy homes for really low mortgages, they were able to get really low interest rates, whereas black people weren't even able to like buy homes period. And you take that one home, just at one home, they didn't leave millions of dollars. You just take that one home and you leave it free and clear to the next generation.

And I always tell people like, imagine if you could go two years without paying rent, Like how much money you would save just by not having to pay rent. And so this wealth has compounded year after year. And what this study was saying is that the only way we can make up this gap. Going to college not going to help. Being in a two parent home not

going to help all these things. Being more educated, it's not going to close the wealth gap because black people aren't passing wealth down, Like, the only way the next generation gets better is if they have something to start with. So it's like starting from zero every single year. It's like every year you build up your business and then January first comes around and there's like two of you. It's like business person number one, business person number two.

You build up your business all year, January one comes around, they take everything away from you and they leave this other person with their business and they say and they say start over, And you're like wondering, how come I can't ever catch up to this person. You could make millions of dollars, you still would be behind.

thousand dollars. You know. I was talking to somebody the other day and they're like, for every aunt or uncle or relative I've ever lost, if I got five thousan dollars, I would be pretty well loft.

And I used the word uncle loosely, because I have no idea if he was related to us or not. Just everyone's in the uncle. That's just how you say mister or missus. So I was like how, and my dad said his grandfather thought of him, And I said how. He's like, do you see on his land that he has all of these palm trees? And palm oil is a very expensive oil and very desired oil in Africa, And it takes one hundred years from my understanding for a palm tree after planting too much sure to reap

palm seeds that make palm oil. One hundred years. He said, someone thought of him before he was born and planted palm oil trees, knowing that they would never in their lifetime benefit from planting these treet That's why most people don't do it. So they planted these and this man now has you know, acres of palm oil trees and he this is what he lives off. Was because it's such an expense. And I remember that hitting me like

that's that was life insurance. His grandfather bought life insurance for his future grandson, and as a result, he's wealthy, and so will his kids and his kids' kids and his kids kids.

Don't ask why, Pross, but you know the one with Lauren Hill and her mom didn't want her to sing and her mom kept telling her how it's a dead and job. And you know, obviously this girl, Lauren Hill has this amazing, beautiful voice, and you know, I kept

thinking about it. I don't know if it's because this podcast was coming up, but I was like, here, we have a girl who has this amazing voice, and her mom is stifling her because she wants her to go and get a job, because she wants her to be able to support her own self, because she knows as her mom, she can't do it. And it's like how

many dreams? How many? Like my greatest accomplishment would be if my son, who's three years old, could be a teacher, making a fifty thousand dollars salary and still be able to afford a deep a house you know where we live, which is Western Virginia, which is you know, average five hundred thousand dollars. So for him to be making a fifty thousand dollars sala and still be able to easily afford a five hundred thousand dollars house, that will never

be me. I have to be the one going out there and making that much money because no one left it for me. But I don't want him to be in that position. I don't want his kids like this house that I own. He one day it's going to have it free and clear, and his kids or him or whoever will have a place to say and not have to pay rent. Like that's how I see it, because I've been around people who are in those positions and I see how easy their life is, and it's like,

I want my kid's life to be easy. So when you think about life insurance, if you don't if you don't have actual savings that you can leave on, get a life insurance policy and think about who in your community, whether that's your immediate family, your extended family, or your actual community, and one of the things I always talk about, and I think this is something you mentioned before, tiffany where you're like, even if you don't want to be

a millionaire, make the million, keep your one hundred thousand dollars and give the nine hundred thousand dollars away, and you're going to give it to some organization that all the other benefactors or patriarchs or whoever they're called, the people who give money benefactors are not going to think about maybe there's a homeless shelter in your neighborhood that is not going to be left in the will of

you know, some super rich person. Right, maybe you could leave fifty thousand dollars to them to keep them running. And the reason you know about them is because it's in your community. Maybe someone you know who you went to school with, or someone in your family had to use that shelter at some point. I mean, like look

at Prince right, the Purple One. Yes, he died with a three million dollar estate, and a lot of people are like, oh, you know, you're trying to say that black people don't have money, and no, I'm just saying we don't think about estate planning, and like when you think about someone like him, who fought so hard during his life to protect his music, his image, and to own it. He provided for nothing nothing. So his sister, who it looks like is going to inherit his estate,

could literally sell it. She could sell it to justin Timberlake, which would be like the greatest tragedy ever. Right, but he could no, I mean like and Prince would be turning over in his grave. And then look at all of the other programs or our organizations that he donated money to. They're not gonna get any of that money he could have if he made a will. He could have put in his will. I want my entire estate to go to the Boys and Girls Club in Paisley, wherever he lived.

you know what I mean. So I think people like you said, Mandy, like we need to stop thinking one is not benefiting us, but we should start really thinking about, like, how can we pass this down and make life easier because black people now are making more money than we've ever made in history. We are more educated than we've ever been educated in history. But none of that is going to close the wealth gap if we don't pass this money down and you cannot take it with you

when you go. Rather, they say you never a U haul following a hearse right.

have to manage it. And because you're going to have to keep going back to court, there going to be a lot of fees, there's a lot of delay because you're on the court's time. So the best way to do that is to create a will and then pour over all of your assets from your estate into a trust. And the trust so when you hear trust fund, that's where it comes from. The trust is an agreement between you,

who creates it, and the trustee. So you would appoint a trustee to manage the trust, and the trust is a private document, so the will would still go to the court. But all I would say is, you know, you have to say your name, have to say where you live, you have to you know, put some other boilerplate language in there about your debts, and you have to name a personal representative or executor or administrator depending

on what state you're in. And then you would say, I leave all of my assets to the trustee of the art Steel Trust, and that would be the end of your will. You would sign it and then that would be it okay, and then all of your disposition, I leave one hundred thousand dollars to the Boys and Girls Club, I leave you know, a million dollars to plan parenthood. I leave x amount to the Literature Academy. I leave Baby Brown Ambition podcast. All of that would

be in your trust. Now, in the trust, you can leave outright gifts, meaning once the trustee goes through all of your debts and gathers and inventory of all of your assets, they would give that one hundred thousand dollars to whoever you named, or so that would be an outright gift. You give them their money and they go, or the trustee could put some conditions on the distribution. Now that's the one that you're normally going to do for your family or for younger children, because you don't

want to leave them that money outright. Now. If you have minor children, you definitely want to consider how you want to leave the money to them if you draft your will when they're still minors. Now, if you don't leave a will, if you don't have a will and you have minor children and you die without a will, what's going to happen is the court is going to appoint someone to take care of that child's money, but

only until the child reaches the age of majority. Which in most states is eighteen and I think probably only

one maybe Connecticut it's twenty one. So if you don't plan properly, so if you don't leave a will at all, and you have all this money in life insurance, right, that life insurance policy won't pay the money to the child because children can't hold legal title to property meaning money, So they won't pay any of that out until someone goes to court and gets a court order and takes it to the life insurance company, and then they will pay that money. So now we have the same problem again.

In order for that person to get the conservatorship over the child's money, they have to file a petition. They have to get a bond. In order for them to get the bond, the bond company has its own requirements, which are all the requirements that I repeated to you earlier. I've also seen situations where parent leaves money to child in a life insurance policy. Either they name the child

directly and the child is a minor or. They don't leave any beneficiary on the life insurance but the child is their only kin, so all of it goes to the child and it is not paid out. The child might be eight to nine years old. It's not paid out until the child turns eighteen because no one could qualify to be the conservator of that money. It's crazy, and you just think about how different that child's life could be if they had that money. So now you're

going to hold the life insurance policy. The life surance company is going to hold on to this money for eight nine years. Who knows what they're putting it in. They have some fiduciary duty, but it could be a million dollars or whatever. And you have your eighteen year old child inheriting this money when they're all this money when they're eighteen. So there's more than just one step, right. So it's great to get life insurance, but make sure you plan for that life insurance so that it does

go from generation to generation. You can set your trust up where your child can have access to those funds for their life, and then when they die, you know their children can have access to it. You don't have to always give all of your gifts outright. You could put in there that a nonprofit can get five thousand dollars a year every year for as long as this trust is keeps going. There's money in the trust so you don't have to give it outright to organization and.

When they turn eighteen, they'll just be waiting like a dog with whatever foaming at the mouth. And when they're thirty five and then they're gonna blow it anyway, So we talk about the plan. Then I draft the documents. I draft the power of Attorney, I draft the will, I draft the trust. There are two separate documents, and then there's some other little documents that go along with it.

And I put on the bottom of my wills prepared by the law offices of Arnett Steel, so that if anybody finds that will hold a hold on.

the first thing I tell people. Gather all your assets, right, because you know these days with all you financial people out there telling these people to open six different bank accounts, it can get I mean, I have a list, yes.

when it comes to the will and the trust. You're a personal representative, that is the person who is going to carry out your wishes as it pertains to the will. So the will is going to be presented to the court. If you hear the term probate, that's the probate court, the will court, they will do whatever they need to do. But if you have what's called a poor overwill where you're also using a trust, there's not really anything for them to do in probate court. But that person technically

is called the personal representative. Okay, And then you want to select a trustee. The trustee is the person who's going to manage the trust. Now, you generally have two options when it comes to selecting a trustee. You can select an individual and that can be someone you know or a family member or a friend, or you could select a company. Now they're pros and cons of each right, because if you select an individual, you can tell that

person all about what you want. You can kind of make side agreements and be like, Okay, I'm gonna put this in the trust, but really, you know, depending on how you know the person or whatever. But the drawback to that is that person is maybe a family member, so they they may feel a little you know, soft toward whoever is asking for the money, you know. And then the other option is you can use a company like Fidelity or Chase or Prudential, all of these retirement

company you know, retirement bank accounts companies out there. They usually will have a trust management a department, or you may have local ones like the New Jersey Trust Company. They're much smaller, but all they do is trust management. So if you choose them, you know they're going to follow your trust document to a t because they don't want to be sued, right So, so either way, you need to speak to that person beforehand in order to

name them as a trustee. And then if you have children, you want to name the guardian of your children, and you want to name the guardian of your children property, your children's property. Now, the guardian of the child is the person who's going to take care of the kids, you know they're well being, and the guardian of the miner's property is the person who's going to be in charge of the money. It can be the same person,

it could be a different person. The court is no matter who you name, the court is always going to have a hearing to make sure that whoever you name is fit because, as you know, when it comes to children, the court is always charged with acting in the best interests of the child, So they want to make sure that the person who you've named is fit to actually take care of this child. And maybe you did it when your child was first born and that person was

like your best friend and they live next door. But ten years later, your child's now ten years old, that person could be living in a different state. You know, so the court is always going to have to to see. But the most important thing about your will is remember the bond I was talking about. You can waive that in your will. So you can put in your will

that you don't want anybody, any of your representatives. You don't want them to be required to get a bond, and then they won't have to get it, so you skip that whole step, so then they can be a personal representative. Wow, I know so much exactly.

keep it. I tell people, don't put in your safety posit box, because if you're the only one who has access to the safety posit box and you die, then nobody can go and get it because even if you're giving that person permission to it, and the will, the will's is the safety posit box. Yeah, so tell your family that you have a will. I don't. I don't. I don't think I'm of the opinion that people shouldn't hide that. They should say I went to a lawyer,

I prepared the will a will. Here's the lawyer's name. If that person is your executor or your trustee, let them know, I mean, talk to them beforehand, but then let them know I named you as trustee, you know, so that way people aren't like, does she have a will? Does she not have a will? Know she had to have a will, you know, or at least you're letting people know at some point you went and got a will, because then that could inform other decisions and you know, help solve a lot of problems.

you want to be your trustee? Just to get people thinking, because again, you know, just I don't want to say just pick somebody, but this is not It doesn't mean you're gonna die. I always tell my clients, actually, now that you've done this, you're gonna live forever.

She's doing some estate planning and preparing for retirement, and we're sitting down with financial advisor that I was helping her interview and she he was telling her, you need a will, you know do you have? She said, I have one? And I told her I was like, Mommy, you know about that will?

And if you have any major life events. So if you get married, the law takes care of a lot of that for married people. But if you get a divorce, you definitely want to change your estate plan if your spouse was included in there. If you have a child, you would want to update it so that you would include that child. If you I don't know, if you have like a major, major, major increase in your income, yeah,

then you would want to do it. But buying, let's say you put your home that you currently own in a trust and then you sell the trust, I mean sell the home. You don't need to update it for that. The trust will only include property that actually exists at the time that you die, So selling property that you put in the trust moving to another state, unless that

state's law is really really wacky, then I would. And there are only a few that I can think of, Like, for example, in Louisiana, you can't disinherit your children, meaning you have to leave your children something if you live and if you are domiciled in the state of Louisiana when you die. That is not the case for any other state. In any other state, you can leave your children completely out of your will, So that's the only

time you would have to update your will. But if you move to another state, that state would would still be would still use that will because they states give each other what's called the full faith and credit. They have to accept legal documents from other states. So like the same reason, if you get married in New Jersey and you move to wherever, you're still married, okay, okayeah, so moving selling property, no major life changes, yeah or every I would say six to seven.

So I have the same life insurance policy paying about the same rate for the same amount that they were offering.

her course starts this month in April. It's three weeks, so every Thursday she's going to be diving deep and you're gonna get some corresponding documents alongside of it. So if you are an Academy member, and if you're not, you can join us if you go to join lr dot com. I know, I don't talk about it much here because we're all about BA here, but certainly you

can come on over. Academy's less than ten bucks a month, and I do that on purpose because I really want us to have access to the tools that we typically are left out of. So I keep it really low cost. But I get like the best people out there, and art is amazing, Like, no, you are for really, they're already super excited. I went live in the because the

Academy has their own private Facebook group. I want live today. Yo. It's so I just love, like, I just love helping brown women because it's like I always feel like I'm like a kid on Sunday morning in church doing my solo.

a friend, Mandy, what are you doing? You're offully quiet today.