Welcome to Let's Talk Legacy, and we're excited today to have our guest David Edey. David Edey is a certified executor advisor and author based in Montreal, Canada, specializing in estate and legacy planning with over 35 years of experience. So welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. Really appreciate having this conversation, looking forward to it.
Absolutely. So let's dig right in here. Now your main goal is to make estate and legacy planning simple, but you say that you've learned firsthand the kind of mess that can happen with these pieces not being in place. So share that first hand experience with us, if you don't mind, and share what happened for you to make a statement like that.
Well, it all started for me when I was sitting on a cold courtroom bench. My heart was starting to sink because I was sitting listening to two lawyers and a judge determined the fate of my parents assets, assets that we didn't end up holding on to, and and that was because I lost both my parents to cancer within a year of each other, and I didn't know that losing them was going to be so difficult. It wasn't so much of the loss of both of them, but it was the staggering toll to
settle their estate. It took seven years, 10 court appearances and $50,000 of lawyers fees to settle their estate, and they had a will, and during that tough time, it ended up me having a life and health crisis, where it culminated in
me having triple bypass surgery. And it was during the turmoil the court cases and everything, that I came to the realization that in our family, we were so utterly unprepared, not only unprepared for losing my parents and the grief that goes with it, but it was also the inevitability of death and
having that conversation. So during COVID, I wrote the book, executor help how to settle an estate, pick an exec and avoid family fights, because I didn't want people to have to go through what I went through.
Wow. When that happened and you were on that bench and you decided, I'm going to make a difference here. What's your ultimate goal with that, is it to take an industry or something that's not there, that people don't know anything about? Is there a little bit of knowledge?
It's to get people to have the conversations. And that's what I'm about because, you know, it's probably the a dirty little secret in a lot of families. A lot of families will either avoid, they'll procrastinate, or they'll be apathetic and say, Well, I'm going to be dead. What difference will it make? Well, it will make a difference, because now what you're leaving behind is disorganization and
chaos in your family. And if that's what you you hope to leave behind, and that's how you want to be, that's a legacy that you want to leave behind is for things that you didn't do, then you're setting yourself, your family, up for failure, and not only for the the next generation, but for generations after that. Through my research and talking to people, is that I
see that there's three types of families. There's a family that's going to avoid talking about it, because if they they talk about they feel that death or something bad is going to happen, or there's a family that they're going to do something, but they're going to have a will, but they're not going anybody know about it. They're going to let the paperwork do all the talking. So there's going to be surprises, surprises in terms of, you know, how the estate is going to be. So
surprises that who's going to be the executor? All of a sudden they find out that, you know, I have a friend that she was asked to be an executor by her uncle, and didn't know that she was
going to be the executor. She got a phone call from a lawyer one day and say, Well, you're a you're the executor, and she knew the family history between her cousins, and she said, No, I don't want to be part of this, part of this mess, so that's where you laying the paperwork, doing the talking, and don't have those conversations, and then there's a family that's going to be prepared, but you're preparing the next generation.
You're having open conversations. You realize what could happen if we don't have open conversations.
I love it. Planning to you comes down to two big ideas, and I love this thought here, love and order. Why each of those?
Because everything that we're going to do is the biggest, is this, the greatest gift of love that you can give your family, that you're going to take the time to, you know, majority of Americans and Canadians is, you know, it's about 150 million Americans and 15 million Canadians don't have a will or an estate plan. If you could just take that first step to first get a will and then prepare your executor so that you don't, you know, leave any messes or chaos, and then have
the conversations with your family. You're leaving love and order. You're not leaving them to be, you know, lost, disorganized, because when you're gone, there's going to be an immense amount of grief, and they're not going to know where to go, where to start. And if you can just give them a little bit of a road map and prepare them for if something was to happen, to be prepared, it's going to make their lives a lot more easier, because they're going to be grieving the loss of
the individual view. So that's why I'm trying to make sure that. People leave a legacy of love and order.
What to you, David, is the difference between legacy and estate planning? Is there a difference between the two?
Estate Planning is more the technical thing, the I'd say the tax planning, the investments, making sure things are in order, making sure you're having the will a legacy where we're doing legacy planning, everything that I went through, and when I talk about my journey of loss, the one thing that's taught me about will be profound about a legacy is that we we're not going to remember for the money or the possessions that we leave, but rather, what we can do is instill in the people that
we love so much, is to have conversations that we dread, and have those conversations now. So I also like to say a legacy isn't what you leave people, but how you leave them. So again, you know, one of the things I like to do is I started is write a legacy letter. Wrote it to my son last Christmas, and now I just have a new granddaughter. I want to write letters, letters to her. So there's going to be something. It's not, yes, there's the material things in the possessions, but that's not
what we're going to remember. We're going to remember for the values, our thoughts and things that who we are, so that they can, we can instill something in them going forward, and that will always be in their memories, not just, you know, a collection of stuff or money, because that's going to fade away. How you leave the legacy of being remembered and the values that you you want to pass on to the next generation, that's what's important.
So there's a few key areas where you often find trouble and need to step in. So we'd like to address a few of those now, starting with preventing conflicts. Can you share a little bit about the importance of communication and some strategies and how to deal with inheritance and how to do the whole thing without conflict? Is that, is that even possible?
No, because I like to say now, if you know, you know more than 35 years in the industry, and we've seen stories, and I've come to the conclusion is that all families are messy. You know, we might think that, Oh, we're a great family, you know, we tell jokes, and we've got our favorite meals and that sort of stuff, and we laugh and joke and stuff like
that. All of that doesn't really matter. All it takes is a death in the family to change the projectory of how the family, you know, if it's a matriarch or a patriarch, you know, mom and dad are gone. They were always probably the guiding light, the beacon that held the family together. They're gone. And the turmoil, the the jealousy, all of that sort of stuff, starts to come out. Because you really don't know about somebody until
you have to share an inheritance with them. Believe me, I know those deep rooted family problems are always there, but they seem to bubble to the top, because when it becomes an estate, or there's money involved, so the only way that you can do that is to have open conversations. So you know what? I've decided that I've put even together my estate. I'm done
some things with my will. I'm, you know, if you whoever your executors, I have a separate conversation with them and prep them, but I would also let the family know this is what my wishes are. You may not like them, but this is what I want going forward, because I don't want any family feuds. Even though you do have those conversations, there's always going to be one covert narcissist in the family that's always going to be, you know, who's always been trouble.
There's always one sibling or a cousin who's going to speak up and make things difficult. And if you identify who those people are, and you've already had those open conversations, when something does happen, they can't come back and say, well, we should be doing this. We should be doing there's no ambiguity of what should be going on. So it's all about open, honest conversations. At least it's all out and open. It's not going to be secrecy, secrecy and surprises.
Do you have any suggestions on how a person brings it up?
Well the first thing is that you want to have, like, again, like I say at the holiday time, that's a lot of times when people get together. I like to sit down, sit with everybody. I just a couple of things I like to bring up. Now a lot of people, they might, you know, if you say I'm going to talk about my estate plan or will or some of that, they're like, Oh, are you sick? Are you? Is something? Are you dying? No, you just want to put them to rest. You want to put their mind at ease. Say, No,
I'm not. But again, there's still probably going to be some people, maybe some of the children. So I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear I don't know why you're bringing this up. It doesn't matter. You have to sit them down, let them understand. This is what's important. Spoiler alert, we're all going to die. So why not prepare for the inevitable at some point and prepare the family for, you know, what's going to happen in life? So I would again, start the
situations. You know, I recently met with a financial advisor or a state lawyer, and I'm putting my things together because I want things to be organized while I still have my faculties about me. And you know, you might explain decisions why you're doing them again. People may not like it, but it doesn't matter. It's your state. There's no law that you have to leave
somebody a certain percentage or they're entitled to any. Because that's the problem where beneficiaries start to have that feeling of entitlement, that they're entitled to something equal doesn't always mean fair in some people's eyes. So you want to try and quash those, those feelings, those thoughts, because people are going to conjure up in their mind what's in what they're entitled to if you're no longer here. So be open and have those open conversations and let people know where you stand.
Do you recommend those conversations are made without lawyers there or lawyers?
If you want to bring that third party in and say, you know, let's have a family meeting. That's done a lot, a lot of high net worth individuals do have consistent family meetings. You know? Maybe they do it on vacations, they have a retreat or something, and they're teaching the generation what's coming next. It's just passed on from generation to generation. So, you know, you you might have a family meeting, you might have a lawyer or a financial advisor explain the
estate plan. But again, you need to be present for it, so that you can have those, you know, answer any questions and be open to listen to people's viewpoints, but at the end of the day, you have to have a plan in terms of what you want to accomplish in that family meeting.
So today people digital legacies are now much more of a thing. Can we discuss strategies of handling digital assets and ensuring their managed according to people's wishes?
Yeah. Well, that's an important part of estate planning. And legacy planning is digital estate your digital estate assets. A lot of people don't really think about it, but you know, for every one email address, there's at least 160 email addresses related to that email address. So you've got YouTube, your social media, your Netflix, Amazon, all of those
things. And people don't take any consideration that that's important, that there's a some sort of record of where it's going to be all kept, you know, to apprise your your your executor or some family member, because each social media company has its own protocol to shut things down. So like for Facebook, there's memorializing or you might shut down the account altogether. So each area you need to be concerned about.
So digital estate, your digital assets, are very important. And when I say digital assets, it's anything you've ever created or done online that's out there. And we spend so much time on the internet and online that we need to be cognizant of it, because if we're not, it also lends itself to for frauds and scams going forward.
Let's talk about the executor a little bit, the person who makes sure your wishes are fulfilled. What are some tips and insights on how to choose and prepare the right executor, or maybe some common misconceptions around what exactly an executor can and can do. And how do you deal with all that?
Well, first off, let me say it's the worst job that you could ask somebody to do for you, because nobody wants to be an executor. But on the other hand, you have to take in consideration, if you're the testator, someone's you know, the person who's writing the will, is that you realize that this is also a big favor, a big ask you're asking of somebody. Now, when people are asked to be executors, 99% of the time, they have no idea what's involved with the job, and they're taking
the job because they feel it's a sense of duty. They're honored by it, but they don't realize that they're looking at anywhere from 100 hours or 18 to 24 months to settle out of state. And a lot of the times, they're going to have to do that during working hours. And not only do they have to, you know, deal with the tax department and lawyers, they also have to deal with ungrateful beneficiaries. So and you've got that family drama in there because of the work that's involved. For an
executor, the beneficiary is not interested in that. They're only interested in their check. When am I going to get paid? And you know you've got as an executor, you have to make sure that go through probate the taxes are going to be paid because you as the executor, you're being legally held liable for the estate, because you're the you're seen as the
administrator, but the beneficiary doesn't see that. So one of the tips and strategies, I would say, is, first, if you're going to take on the job as an executor, you have to ask the testator, how are you going to prepare me for this job? You know, who is the lawyer, who is your financial advisor, who's your accountant? Have you got that in place? So if something was to happen, I know where to contact them, where's the will going to be kept? Where are your digital assets going to be kept?
And then also the beneficiaries. As the executor, I would say, keep them informed, so that you send them off, maybe an email, or have a zoom call every two weeks or so and say, hey, just to keep you abreast of what's going on. You know what's going on in the estate? Because once you are there's radio silence from the executor. Beneficiaries start to think that you're up to
something, you're stealing, you're doing something. And it doesn't take much running for a beneficiary to want to haul you into court, which means takes you away from your not only your work, but also takes time. Away from settling, helping to settle the estate, which also that money is going to have to come from somewhere. Where's that going to come from the estate?
What about the person who has no idea who you know works in, in a different industry altogether, who knows not, who's not good with finances, or, you know, legal or who to talk to, you know? And that's a majority of us, most people, they don't take the time to think about, okay, what? How can I prepare my executor? How can I make it easier on them? You know, have a list of, you know, the executor, the insurance agent. There's so many people that are going to come involved. You got to deal
with a real estate agent. In my book, I say there's probably your baseline of a team that you need is the lawyer, the accountant and the financial advisor, but there's probably going to be maybe even 16 more professionals that you're gonna have to deal with. You're gonna have to deal with someone. Maybe it's gonna have to, you know, do an estate sale. You're gonna
have to do, we deal with a real estate agent there. You know, there's so many people that you're gonna have to deal with, and they're all you're responsible for, orchestrating all this. Now you're over here on the left hand side, orchestrating everything, and you've got the benefit for She's over here on the right hand side. All they're interested in is, when am I getting my money? But you've got all this other these other balls that you have to be juggling, like you're in
Cirque du Soleil. So you need to figure out, how am I going to get what I've got to get done? But also, how do I keep them abreast of what's going on so you can get through it with, you know, some sort of semblance of peace of mind that you at least can go to sleep at night.
So being that we're a national insurance agency with hundreds of Agents around the country, we deal every day with people making that decision on buying a term policy or an index Universal Life or or a final expense policy to cover some of these expenses, and you're right there in the thick of it. Why is it important and critical that people have these things in place? How does a person go about looking for insurance and finding the right insurance for them, in your opinion?
It would come down to the individual that you're dealing with, and what kind of report do are they taking the time to understand your needs, taking a look at your situation from 40,000 feet up, and looking down, seeing the the problems 10 steps ahead of you that you don't even think about with the right insurance in place, that's going to also that's Another part of that gift of love that you are making sure that your
family is going to be taken care of. So, you know, you want to talk to an agent that's going to take the time to truly understand what your needs are, but also ask you questions that you hadn't, don't even think about related to your personal situation. I mean, you can, anybody can go buy insurance off
the street, and you know that's that's off the rack. But if you have a true professional that's going to take the time to understand your needs and what makes sense for your family, so you don't leave them disorganized in chaos, then you need to have a made to measure, plan, to make sure that the dollars are being spent properly, that you again, prepare your family for the future. So you leave a legacy, and not a legacy and a mess.
Absolutely, I've seen too many people call me and say they didn't want to put their children through the mess that their sister put their kids through, or their husband put them through. And it's interesting to me, because it surprises me, and I'm not sure what the numbers are in Canada, but in in America, over 100 million people don't have any life insurance that are eligible for it, and another 100 million don't have enough. It blows my mind, because that is part of
the leaving a legacy, part of the estate planning. It's part of of everything. And if you do it right these days, so if you, especially if you do it while you're still healthy. That I wanted to talk about that a little bit. There's so many programs out there, especially in the index universal life, in the annuity space, that are no risk, only have an upside with
living benefits. I think people look at life insurance and they don't pay as much attention to it as they should, but it is such a big part of that whole planning.
Absolutely. But you see it comes back to, I mean, the numbers, I don't know the numbers in Canada, but it'll be the same thing what you said there in the US, that either they don't have life insurance or they don't have enough it comes back to they don't have a will, or they haven't properly addressed the problem of estate planning and a will. And it comes back down to what I had said before, people want to
avoid they're going to procrastinate. Oh, I've got plenty of time, but you don't know what's going to happen in life. So why wait? Why take for chance in terms of your life insurance coverage and making sure that your estate plan and your estate is in order, your affairs are in order? Or there's the people that do have the conversations with you, and you know your agents is that I need to make sure that if something was to happen, I'm going to make sure that my family isn't left
disorganizing chaos. It's a choice. It's a choice that people have to make. Again, spoiler alert, we're all going to die. So how do you want to be remembered? You You want to just leave a legacy, or you want to leave a mess?
Yeah, I'm loving hearing what you're saying, David, that's all about accountability and responsibility for your life.
That's the love and order that I'm talking about. I should also mention one thing, for a lot of people, they see the messes that people have, you know, in other families, and there's damaging family fights because of it. And a lot of people are also opting for having banks or trust companies or as corporate trustees. So they bring in a third person to be the executive, and they take the burden away from the family.
That's also becoming very popular. But you also, I would add, if you do go that route, it's going to be a little bit more costly. But you have to make the decisions in terms of, don't think about the cost it. Think about what is, what is the return on investment in terms of my family going forward? What's the return on investment if I choose somebody to spend those 100 hours to be my executor? So either way, do something, you have to make a decision what you're going to do.
Do you have any success stories that are on the tip of your tongue? You you putting this plan in place? And my god, I'm so the story touches my heart. Is there anything on in your mind right now that you can think of?
A friend of mine when I was we're going through their estate plan and getting things organized. She started to tell me about when her her dad passed away. She was nine years old. He passed away without a will, so her mother was already gone. Her dad passed away without a will, and he was still going through his dad, so which would be his her grandfather, he had no will. So we had two generations of no wills, and the father was still starting through his father's estate.
Then he passes away, but the point she remembers and why she was doing what she was doing to get her estate plan in order for her and her family, because she's a successful business owner, she remembers in the funeral home parking lot her brother. She remembers her aunt taking her and another and taking her brother, because there was no estate plan in
place. There was no what's going to happen to the kids. And she remembers, even though she's become successful, and it stayed with her, she remembers, over the years, having to her her aunt, having to petition the court to get you know, because the court takes over in terms of the dispensing of money to the to the kids, so her mom, her aunt, would always have to go to court to get extras for her, for her school and everything like that. And that stayed with her, and that's why she didn't want
to have that problem for her kids going forward. And so, you know, put together an estate plan so that she's organized as a business owner. She's also got a succession plan in place, and she's organized, and that's, that's one of them that it sticks out to me in terms of, she remembers distinctly being separated from her brother at in the parking lot her funeral of her father.
that's just, that's a great story. So what does word legacy mean to you in general?
Again, I said it before. It's not about money or possessions. It's about having the tough conversations, the ones that we dread, with the people that we love, and having those conversations now don't wait. Think about what kind of legacy that you want to leave behind.
What legacy Do you want to leave through your work and business you serve, as opposed to a legacy you just want to leave as a human being?
As a work, it's just to get more people to have the conversation. I was on the phone this morning with a client at 78 years old, and I keep talking to him, and he had a copy of my book. I had this conversation about two hours ago, and I said, I said, George. I said, where are we at with the will? He says, I don't have one. I said, we had he goes. I know we brought up you brought up the conversation. So we I set goals
for him. I says, I'm going to follow up with you and I'm going to make the appointment for you with the notary so that you get this stuff in place. I said, you have no will. You've got sizable assets. And I said, What would happen to you? Forget the dying part supposed to become incapacitated. You can't speak for yourself. What's going to happen? Dead silence on the phone. So it's my mission through, you know, having conversations with you and people like you is that people
realize that they need to do something. Don't keep thinking, Oh, I've got, I've got another five years, or I don't need to think about that. You know, I don't need the life insurance. I don't need all those things I need. You need to take accountability and do things now I hear people saying, you know, once we get go through the exercise and they've got things in place, they feel a burden off of their shoulders. They feel better.
You do, you do. Now you've got a podcast of your own as well. Tell us about where people can have a listen.
It's called Executor Help, and I just have conversations like we're having here. It's all stories about life, Death and legacy. I've had some amazing conversations, and it's amazing since I launched the podcast the week the book came out in 2021 I met some interesting people. They all have the same sort of thought that we need to be organized. We need to. Have conversations. You know, I've had widows talking
about the grief of losing their parents. I had hospice nurse talk about what it's like, you know, when they're there with with families and people at the end. And I also have people talking about life, what makes living to 100 what's that, what's that could be like, and what you need to do. So again, it's all stories about life, Death and legacy.
That's awesome. If someone wants to get in touch with you to hear more about what you do and your services. How can they reach you?
Just go to Davidedey.com I've got on there. There's plenty of stuff. You can take the legacy readiness quiz. See where you where you stand. You can get a chapter of a chapter on my book, so you can get it digitally, or for your listening pleasure, you can have me read the book to you the first chapter. And I've also got the 50 questions that executors
need answered plenty of there's videos on there. There's a free checklist of resources of what you need to be an executor, or if you're a testator, you want to put that checklist in with your will so the executor knows exactly what needs to be done. There's a version for the US listeners, and there's a version for Canadian listeners.
And if you're looking David up, it's David Edey, E, D, E, y.com, and I thank you so much for joining our podcast.
Thank you.